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Warming Bad
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***Science Debate***
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Warming Real – Generic
Warming real - consensus
Brooks 12 - Staff writer, KQED news (Jon, staff writer, KQED news, citing Craig Miller, environmental scientist, 5/3/12,
"Is Climate Change Real? For the Thousandth Time, Yes," KQED News, http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/05/03/isclimate-change-real-for-the-thousandth-time-yes/)
BROOKS: So what are the organizations that say climate change is real ? MILLER: Virtually ever major, credible scientific
organization in the world. It’s not just the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Organizations like the National Academy
of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And that's
echoed in most countries around the world. All of the most credible, most prestigious scientific organizations accept the
fundamental findings of the IPCC. The last comprehensive report from the IPCC, based on research, came out in 2007. And at that time, they
said in this report, which is known as AR-4, that there is "very high confidence" that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has
been one of warming. Scientists are very careful, unusually careful, about how they put things. But then they say "very likely," or "very high
confidence," they’re talking 90%. BROOKS: So it’s not 100%? MILLER: In the realm of science; there’s virtually never 100% certainty about
anything. You know, as someone once pointed out, gravity is a theory. BROOKS: Gravity is testable, though... Virtually every major credible
scientific organization in the world says climate change is real. MILLER: You're right. You can’t drop a couple of balls off of the Leaning
Tower of Pisa to prove climate change. That’s why we have to rely on mathematical models to try to figure out where this is all going. And that's difficult.
But it’s not impossible, as some people like to paint it. You know, the people doing the models are not inept. Over the past nearly four years, Climate
Watch has interviewed a lot of scientists, attended conferences, read academic papers. To me, as what you might call an informed observer, the vast
preponderance of scientific evidence supports this notion that the Earth is warming and that human activity is a significant cause. BROOKS: Are there
legitimate debunkers of this proposition? MILLER: Certainly there are legitimate scientists on the other side of the question. If you take, for
example, a guy by the name of John Christy from the University of Alabama, who is very strongly identified with climate change skeptics. That doesn’t
mean that his work is invalidated. He came out recently with a study that basically refuted the idea that there’s been an observable shrinkage in the snow
pack of the Sierra Nevada. And we talked to other scientists who do believe in anthropogenic or human-induced global warming and do believe that the
Sierra snow pack is going to be shrinking, who thought that this study was sound. But that’s one study in a sea of studies. And you have look at the
preponderance of the evidence and not at any one particular study, not any particular year, not even any particular ten years,
because even a 10-year trend does not necessarily constitute climate change. BROOKS: What are some of the metrics scientists have looked at to come
to the conclusion that human-caused climate change is real? MILLER: They study temperature records. There have been tidal gauges in place for
a long time, looking at sea-level rise, and also augmented now by satellite data that measure with greater accuracy the rate of the rise. They’ve looked
at things like ice cores from Greenland and elsewhere which gives us sort of a reverse chronological story of what the climate has done. And you can
actually pull one of those ice cores and see the amount of C02 that was in the atmosphere at the time. And what they've found is what looks to be a
pretty convincing relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the behavior of the Earth’s climate.
BROOKS: But there are some who refute that evidence? MILLER: Absolutely. We’ll get people frequently commenting on our blog who will say the sea
level is not rising and that there’s been no warming for the past ten years. As I already pointed out, ten years of anything does not constitute a
definitive pattern; it’s just too short a time span. It’s this idea of cherry-picking data, which both sides accuse the other of doing. You
have to look at the Earth’s climate over time as a really big, complicated jigsaw puzzle. And clearly there are pieces missing. And
there are pieces sitting off to the side that aren’t missing, but we don’t quite know how they fit into the puzzle yet. But still, you see
enough of the picture to know what’s going on. The science has yielded at least -- as Stanford's Chris Field of the IPCC puts it -- a blurry
picture of the future. And the blurry picture is enough to know the general direction we’re heading, even without knowing all of the specifics. BROOKS:
Are there former critics who now acknowledge the reality of climate change? MILLER: Richard Muller would be a good example of that. He’s the
physicist over at UC Berkeley who was identified with the skeptic camp for a long time. He wasn’t buying a lot of climate change theory. He
launched a temperature-data audit because he wasn’t convinced that the temperature data being used by the IPCC and NOAA and others was
accurate, that there were fundamental issues – they were getting bad data, garbage in, garbage out.
Warming now-Laundry list
Venkataramanan and smitha ‘11(Department of Economics, D.G. Vaishnav College, Chennai, India Indian
Journal of Science “Causes and effects of global warming p.226-229 March 2011
http://www.indjst.org/archive/vol.4.issue.3/mar11-pages159-265.pdf KG)
Increasing global temperatures are causing a broad range of changes. Sea levels are rising due to thermal expansion of the ocean, in
addition to melting of land ice. Amounts and patterns of precipitation are changing. The total annual power of hurricanes
has already increased markedly since 1975 because their average intensity and average duration have increased (in
addition, there has been a high correlation of hurricane power with tropical sea-surface temperature). Changes in temperature
and precipitation patterns increase the frequency, duration, and intensity of other extreme weather events, such as floods,
droughts, heat waves, and tornadoes. Other effects of global warming include higher or lower agricultural yields, further
glacial retreat, reduced summer stream flows, species extinctions. As a further effect of global warming, diseases like
malaria are returning into areas where they have been extinguished earlier. Although global warming is affecting the number and
magnitude of these events, it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming
is expected to continue past then because carbon dioxide (chemical symbol CO2) has an estimated atmospheric lifetime of
50 to 200 years.
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Warming extremely high and increasing—current action is key to solving
Malcolm, University of Toronto, 2k (Jay Malcolm 9/2000 http://wwf.panda.org/?2143/SpeedKills-Rates-of-Climate-Change-are-Threatening PB)
Boston, US: Global
warming represents a rapidly worsening threat to the world's wildlife and natural habitat . The increase of
global temperatures seen in the late 20th century was unprecedented in the last 1,000 years. Professor Tom Crowley of Texas
A&M University predicts that in the 21st century "the warming will reach truly extraordinary levels" surpassing anything in the last
400,000 years.¶ New research by the conservation organization WWF indicates that the speed with which global warming occurs is critically
important for wildlife, and that the accelerating rates of warming we can expect in the coming decades are likely to put large numbers of species at risk.¶
Species in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere, where the warming will be greatest, may have to migrate. Plants may need to move 10 times
faster than they did at the end of the last ice-age. Very few plant species can move at rates faster than one kilometer per year, and yet this is what will be
required in many parts of the world.¶ The worst affected countries are likely to be Canada and Russia, where the computer models suggest that, on
average, migration rates in excess of one kilometer per year will be required in a third or more of terrestrial habitats. High migration rates will
particularly threaten rare, isolated or slow-moving species but will favour weeds and pests that can move, reproduce or adapt fast. The kudzu vine and
Japanese honeysuckle are examples of nuisance plants in the US that will likely benefit from global warming.¶ Conditions today make it far harder for
species to move to new habitat than it was thousands of years ago. The last time the climate warmed anywhere near as fast as it is predicted to do this
century, was 13,000 years ago when sabre-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths still roamed the earth and humans had just begun to populate the
Americas.¶ At that time the whole of human society probably numbered in the tens of millions and all were hunter gatherers. Farming and cities did not
yet exist. Now, the human population has swelled to six billion and vast swathes of habitat across the globe have been lost to
urban development and agriculture. Any plant or animal that needs to move must contend with roads, cities and farms.¶ The WWF study shows
that human barriers to climate-induced migration will have the worst impact along the northern edges of developed zones in central and northwestern
Russia, Finland and central Canada.¶ Large-scale range shifts will have a major effect on biodiversity if species are unable to move to find suitable
conditions. For example, Mexico has the highest diversity of reptiles in the world because of its ancient, isolated desert habitats. However, several
species, including the threatened desert tortoise may not be able to keep pace with the warming climate. In Africa, the nyala is vulnerable to expected
habitat change in Malawi's Lengwe National Park, and scientists have predicted that South Africa's red lark could lose its entire remaining habitat.¶
Reports of ecosystem changes due to recent global warming are already coming in from many parts of the world. Costa Rica's golden toad may be extinct
because of its inability to adapt to climate changes; birds such as the great tit in Scotland and the Mexican jay in Arizona are beginning to breed earlier in
the year; butterflies are shifting their ranges northwards throughout Europe; alpine plants are moving to higher altitudes in Austria; and mammals in
many parts of the Arctic - including polar bears, walrus and caribou - are beginning to feel the impacts of reduced sea ice and warming tundra habitat.¶ A
doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere has the potential to eventually destroy at least a third of the world's existing terrestrial
habitats, with no certainty that they will be replaced by equally diverse or productive ecosystems, or that similar ecosystems will establish elsewhere.
Unfortunately, some projections for global greenhouse gas emissions suggest that CO2 will not only double from pre-industrial levels during the 21st
Century but may in fact triple if action is not taken to rein in the inefficient use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil for energy
production.¶ Amongst the countries likely to lose 45 per cent or more of current habitat are Russia, Canada, Kyrgyzstan,
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Uruguay, Bhutan and Mongolia. Bhutan and Mongolia in particular are havens for
extraordinary wildlife riches to which climate change represents an alarming new threat. ¶ Local species loss may be as high as 20
per cent in the most vulnerable arctic and mountain ecosystems. Fragmented habitats in highly sensitive regions including northern Canada, parts of
eastern Siberia, Russia's Taimyr Peninsula, northern Alaska, northern Scandinavia, the Tibetan plateau, and southeastern Australia may be most at risk.¶
Individual mountain species that may be under threat from global warming in isolated mountain habitats include the rare Gelada baboon of Ethiopia,
the Andean spectacled bear, central America's resplendent quetzal, the mountain pygmy possum of Australia and the monarch butterfly at its Mexican
wintering grounds. Many coastal and island species will be at risk from the combined threat of warming oceans, sea-level rise and range shifts, all of
which can add significantly to existing human pressures.¶ As can be seen from these examples, and the growing body of science, an alarm is sounding.
The rate of global warming may be a critical determinant in the future of the global biodiversity and we cannot afford to
wait to reduce greenhouse gases. Urgent action is necessary to prevent the rate of change reaching a level that will be
catastrophic for nature and which may bring about irreversible losses of our world's natural treasures .¶
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Warming Real – Anthropogenic
Warming is real and anthropogenic
C2ES 11 (Center for Climate and Energy Solutions - successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change,
and recently named the world’s top environmental think tank, "Science FAQs," http://www.c2es.org/globalwarming-basics/faq_s/glance_faq_science.cfm)
A more detailed, state-of-the-art attribution of various climate trends is possible using optimal fingerprinting approaches
that match individual forcings (for example, greenhouse gases, solar intensity or airborne particles) to observed climate
change patterns using global climate models. This technique has detected human-induced trends in a wide variety of
climate variables including land surface warming, vertical warming of the oceans, loss of Arctic sea ice cover, and changes
in precipitation patterns at different latitudes on the Earth. Observations of global land and ocean surface warming and
warming of all continents except Antarctica show that no combination of forcings that excludes manmade greenhouse
gases can explain the warming trend of the past half-century (see figure). Top How do we know greenhouse gases are
increasing because of human activity? Some greenhouse gases (GHG), such as industrial halocarbons, are only made by
humans, and thus their presence in the atmosphere can only be explained by human activity. For naturally occurring
GHG, several independent lines of evidence make it crystal clear that they are increasing because of human activities:
First, CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide concentrations were stable for thousands of years. Suddenly, they began to rise like
a rocket around 200 years ago, about the time that humans began to engage in very large-scale agriculture and industry
(see figure). Second, scientists and economists have developed estimates of all the natural and human GHG sources. When
they add them up, only the human contributions are increasing. In fact, the amount of human-made GHG in the budget
are more than enough to explain the rise in concentrations, which means that natural processes are absorbing the excess
amount, keeping GHG concentrations from rising even more. For CO2, the most important human-produced GHG,
scientists can tell from chemical measurements of the atmosphere that the additional CO2 is from:
combustion (i.e. burning fossil fuels) because the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is decreasing in direct proportion to
the rise in CO2; a prehistoric (fossil) source because the amount of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere has been
decreasing over the past century; from plants (i.e. ancient trees that became coal and oil) rather than a geological source
(i.e. volcanoes). Together, all of these independent lines of evidence leave no doubt that GHG concentrations are
increasing because of human activities.
Global Warming is real and anthropogenic – multiple warrants.
Romm 10 (Jon, Editor of Climate Progress, Senior Fellow at the American Progress, former Acting Assistant
Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, “Disputing the “consensus” on global warming,”
http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/16/scientific-consensus-on-global-warming-climate-science/,)WZ
A good example of how the ‘consensus’ process confuses people — especially the anti-science crowd, which gloms onto any
apparent disagreement among scientists as evidence against the ‘consensus’ — can be found in two Dot Earth posts on
“Andrew A. Lacis, the NASA climatologist whose 2005 critique of the United Nations climate panel was embraced by
bloggers seeking to cast doubt on human-driven climate change” (Part I and Part II). Lacis had commented on the Fourth
Assessment, “There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary.” WattsUpWithThat got all hot cool and
bothered, writing, “Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic.” After pointing out the IPCC authors’ response,
“Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature,” WattsUp wrote,
“Simply Astonishing. This is a consensus?” Then Lacis explained exactly what he meant on DotEarth: Human-induced
warming of the climate system is established fact…. My earlier criticism had been that the IPCC AR4 report was
equivocating in not stating clearly and forcefully enough that human-induced warming of the climate system is established
fact, and not something to be labeled as “very likely” at the 90 percent probability level. And The bottom line is that CO2 is
absolutely, positively, and without question, the single most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. It acts very
much like a control knob that determines the overall strength of the Earth’s greenhouse effect. Failure to control
atmospheric CO2 is a bad way to run a business, and a surefire ticket to climatic disaster. Doh! He thought the IPCC
‘consensus’ was some watered down, least-common denominator piece of wishy-washiness that understates our scientific
understanding, which it is. And that brings me to my Salon piece, which I excerpt below: The more I write about global
warming, the more I realize I share some things in common with the doubters and deniers who populate the blogosphere
and the conservative movement. Like them, I am dubious about the process used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) to write its reports. Like them, I am skeptical of the so-called consensus on climate science as
reflected in the IPCC reports. Like them, I disagree with people who say “the science is settled.” But that’s where the
agreement ends. The science isn’t settled — it’s unsettling, and getting more so every year as the scientific community
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learns more about the catastrophic consequences of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. The big difference I have with
the doubters is they believe the IPCC reports seriously overstate the impact of human emissions on the climate, whereas
the actual observed climate data clearly show the reports dramatically understate the impact. But I do think the scientific
community, the progressive community, environmentalists and media are making a serious mistake by using the word
“consensus” to describe the shared understanding scientists have about the ever-worsening impacts that human-caused
greenhouse gas emissions are having on this planet. When scientists and others say there is a consensus, many if not most
people probably hear “consensus of opinion,” which can — and often is — dismissed out of hand. I’ve met lots of people
like CNBC anchor Joe Kernen, who simply can’t believe that “as old as the planet is” that “puny, gnawing little humans”
could possibly change the climate in “70 years.” Well, Joe, it is more like 250 years, but yes, most of the damage to date
was done in the last 70 years, and yes, as counterintuitive as it may seem, puny little humans are doing it, and it’s going to
get much, much worse unless we act soon. Consensus of opinion is irrelevant to science because reality is often
counterintuitive — just try studying quantum mechanics. Fortunately Kernen wasn’t around when scientists were warning
that puny little humans were destroying the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Otherwise we might never have banned
chlorofluorocarbons in time. Consensus of opinion is also dismissed as groupthink. In a December article ignorantly titled
“The Science of Gore’s Nobel: What If Everyone Believes in Global Warmism Only Because Everyone Believes in Global
Warmism?” Holman W. Jenkins Jr. of the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: What if the heads being counted to
certify an alleged consensus” arrived at their positions by counting heads?It may seem strange that scientists would
participate in such a phenomenon. It shouldn’t. Scientists are human; they do not wait for proof. Many devote their
professional lives to seeking evidence for hypotheses, especially well-funded hypotheses, they’ve chosen to believe. Less
surprising is the readiness of many prominent journalists to embrace the role of enforcer of an orthodoxy simply because
it is the orthodoxy. For them, a consensus apparently suffices as proof of itself. How sad that the WSJ and CNBC have so
little conception of what science really is, especially since scientific advances drive so much of the economy. If that’s what
Jenkins thinks science is, one would assume he is equally skeptical of flossing, antibiotics and even boarding an airplane.
(Note to WSJ: One reason science works is that a lot of scientists devote their whole lives to overturning whatever is the
current hypothesis — if it can be overturned. That’s how you become famous and remembered by history, like Copernicus,
Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein.) In fact, science doesn’t work by consensus of opinion. Science is in many respects
the exact opposite of decision by consensus. General opinion at one point might have been that the sun goes around the
Earth, or that time was an absolute quantity, but scientific theory supported by observations overturned that flawed
worldview. One of the most serious results of the overuse of the term “consensus” in the public discussion of global
warming is that it creates a simple strategy for doubters to confuse the public, the press and politicians: Simply come up
with as long a list as you can of scientists who dispute the theory. After all, such disagreement is prima facie proof that no
consensus of opinion exists. So we end up with the absurd but pointless spectacle of the leading denier in the U.S. Senate,
James Inhofe, R-Okla., who recently put out a list of more than 400 names of supposedly “prominent scientists” who
supposedly “recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called ‘consensus’ on man-made global
warming.” As it turned out, the list is both padded and laughable, containing the opinions of TV weathermen, economists,
a bunch of non-prominent scientists who aren’t climate experts, and, perhaps surprisingly, even a number of people who
actually believe in the consensus. But in any case, nothing could be more irrelevant to climate science than the opinion of
people on the list such as Weather Channel founder John Coleman or famed inventor Ray Kurzweil (who actually does
“think global warming is real”). Or, for that matter, my opinion — even though I researched a Ph.D. thesis at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography on physical oceanography in the Greenland Sea. What matters is scientific findings — data,
not opinions. The IPCC relies on the peer-reviewed scientific literature for its conclusions, which must meet the rigorous
requirements of the scientific method and which are inevitably scrutinized by others seeking to disprove that work. That is
why I cite and link to as much research as is possible, hundreds of studies in the case of this article. Opinions are
irrelevant. A good example of how scientific evidence drives our understanding concerns how we know that humans are
the dominant cause of global warming. This is, of course, the deniers’ favorite topic. Since it is increasingly obvious that
the climate is changing and the planet is warming, the remaining deniers have coalesced to defend their Alamo — that
human emissions aren’t the cause of recent climate change and therefore that reducing those emissions is pointless. Last
year, longtime Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn wrote, “There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic
production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world’s present warming trend. The greenhouse
fearmongers rely entirely on unverified, crudely oversimplified computer models to finger mankind’s sinful contribution.”
In fact, the evidence is amazingly strong. Moreover, if the relatively complex climate models are oversimplified in any
respect, it is by omitting amplifying feedbacks and other factors that suggest human-caused climate change will be worse
than is widely realized. The IPCC concluded last year: “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely (>90 percent) caused most
of the observed global warming over the last 50 years. This conclusion takes into account … the possibility that the
response to solar forcing could be underestimated by climate models.” Scientists have come to understand that “forcings”
(natural and human-made) explain most of the changes in our climate and temperature both in recent decades and over
the past millions of years. The primary human-made forcings are the heat-trapping greenhouse gases we generate,
particularly carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas. The natural forcings include fluctuations in the
intensity of sunlight (which can increase or decrease warming), and major volcanoes that inject huge volumes of gases and
aerosol particles into the stratosphere (which tend to block sunlight and cause cooling)…. Over and over again, scientists
have demonstrated that observed changes in the climate in recent decades can only be explained by taking into account
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the observed combination of human and natural forcings. Natural forcings alone just don’t explain what is happening to
this planet. For instance, in April 2005, one of the nation’s top climate scientists, NASA’s James Hansen, led a team of
scientists that made “precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years,” which revealed that
the Earth is absorbing far more heat than it is emitting to space, confirming what earlier computer models had shown
about warming. Hansen called this energy imbalance the “smoking gun” of climate change, and said, “ There can no
longer be genuine doubt that human-made gases are the dominant cause of observed
warming .” Another 2005 study, led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, compared actual ocean temperature
data from the surface down to hundreds of meters (in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans) with climate models and
concluded: A warming signal has penetrated into the world’s oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a
vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and
volcanic forcing, but is well simulated by two anthropogenically [human-caused] forced climate models. We conclude that
it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences. Such studies are also done for
many other observations: land-based temperature rise, atmospheric temperature rise, sea level rise, arctic ice melt, inland
glacier melt, Greeland and Antarctic ice sheet melt, expansion of the tropics (desertification) and changes in precipitation.
Studies compare every testable prediction from climate change theory and models (and suggested by paleoclimate
research) to actual observations.
How many studies? Well, the IPCC’s definitive treatment of the subject,
“Understanding and Attributing Climate Change,” has 11 full pages of references, some 500 peer-reviewed studies. This is
not a consensus of opinion. It is what scientific research and actual observations reveal. And the science behind human
attribution has gotten much stronger in the past 2 years (see a recent literature review by the Met Office here). That brings
us to another problem with the word “consensus.” It can mean “unanimity” or “the judgment arrived at by most of those
concerned.” Many, if not most, people hear the second meaning: “consensus” as majority opinion. The scientific consensus
most people are familiar with is the IPCC’s “Summary for Policymakers” reports. But those aren’t a majority opinion.
Government representatives participate in a line-by-line review and revision of these summaries. So China, Saudi Arabia
and that hotbed of denialism — the Bush administration — get to veto anything they don’t like. The deniers call this
“politicized science,” suggesting the process turns the IPCC summaries into some sort of unscientific exaggeration. In fact,
the reverse is true. The net result is unanimous agreement on a conservative or watered-down document. You could argue
that rather than majority rules, this is “minority rules.” Last April, in an article titled “Conservative Climate,” Scientific
American noted that objections by Saudi Arabia and China led the IPCC to remove a sentence stating that the impact of
human greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth’s recent warming is five times greater than that of the sun. In fact, lead
author Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in England said, “The difference is really a factor of 10.” Then I discuss the
evidence we had even back in 2008 that the IPCC was underestimating key climate impacts, a point I update here. The
bottom line is that recent observations and research make clear the planet almost certainly faces a greater and more
imminent threat than is laid out in the IPCC reports. That’s why climate scientists are so desperate. That’s why they keep
begging for immediate action. And that’s why the “consensus on global warming” is a phrase that should be forever retired
from the climate debate. The leading scientific organizations in this country and around the world, including all the major
national academies of science, aren’t buying into some sort of consensus of opinion. They have analyzed the science and
observations and expressed their understanding of climate science and the likely impacts we face on our current emissions
path — an understanding that has grown increasingly dire in recent years (see “An illustrated guide to the latest climate
science” and “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water“).
Warming is real and human caused – an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence
Rahmstorf 8 (Stefan, Professor at the Postdam Institute for Climate Research, "Anthropogenic Climate
Change: Revisiting the Facts,"
http://www.pikpotsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf) WZ
This paper discussed the evidence for the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the effect of CO2
on climate, finding that this anthropogenic increase is proven beyond reasonable doubt and that a mass of evidence points
to a CO2 effect on climate of 3°C ± 1.5°C global warming for a doubling of concentration. (This is the classic IPCC range;
my personal assessment is that, in the light of new studies since the IPCC Third Assessment Report, the uncertainty range
can now be narrowed somewhat to 3°C ± 1°C.) This is based on consistent results from theory, models, and data analysis,
and, even in the absence of any computer models, the same result would still hold based on physics and on data from
climate history alone. Considering the plethora of consistent evidence, the chance that these conclusions are wrong has to
be considered minute. If the preceding is accepted, then it follows logically and incontrovertibly that a further increase in
CO2 concentration will lead to further warming. The magnitude of our emissions depends on human behavior, but the
climatic response to various emissions scenarios can be computed from the information presented here. The result is the
famous range of future global temperature scenarios shown in figure 3-6.50 Two additional steps are involved in these
computations: the consideration of anthropogenic forcings other than CO2 (for example, other greenhouse gases and
aerosols) and the computation of concentrations from the emissions. Other gases are not discussed here, although they are
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important to get quantitatively accurate results. CO2 is the largest and most important forcing. Concerning
concentrations, the scenarios shown basically assume that ocean and biosphere take up a similar share of our emitted CO2
as in the past. This could turn out to be an optimistic assumption; some models indicate the possibility of a positive
feedback, with the biosphere turning into a carbon source rather than a sink under growing climatic stress.51 It is clear
that even in the more optimistic of the shown (non-mitigation) scenarios, global temperature would rise by 2–3°C above
its preindustrial level by the end of this century. Even for a paleoclimatologist like myself, this is an extraordinarily high
temperature, which is very likely unprecedented in at least the past 100,000 years. As far as the data show, we would have
to go back about 3 million years, to the Pliocene, for comparable temperatures. The rate of this warming (which is
important for the ability of ecosystems to cope) is also highly unusual and unprecedented probably for an even longer
time. The last major global warming trend occurred when the last great Ice Age ended between 15,000 and 10,000 years
ago: this was a warming of about 5°C over 5,000 years, that is, a rate of only 0.1°C per century.52 The expected magnitude
and rate of planetary warming is highly likely to come with major risks and impacts in terms of sea level rise (Pliocene sea
level was 25–35 meters higher than now due to smaller Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets), extreme events (for example,
hurricane activity is expected to increase in a warmer climate), and ecosystem loss.53 The second part of this paper
examined the evidence for the current warming of the planet and discussed what is known about its causes. This part
showed that global warming is already a measured and well-established fact, not a theory. Many different lines of evidence
consistently show that most of the observed warming of the past fifty years was caused by human activity. Above all, this
warming is exactly what would be expected given the anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases, and no viable alternative
explanation for this warming has been proposed in the scientific literature. Taken together, the very strong evidence,
accumulated from thousands of independent studies, has over the past decades convinced virtually every climatologist
around the world (many of whom were initially quite skeptical, including myself) that anthropogenic global warming is a
reality with which we need to deal.
Warming is anthropogenic
Wood ‘10 – Duncan Wood is Full Professor, Director of the Program in International Relations (Duncan,
“Environment, Development and Growth: U.S.-Mexico Cooperation in Renewable Energies“, 7/1/2013,
http://www.statealliancepartnership.org/resources_files/USMexico_Cooperation_Renewable_Energies.pdf
JJ)
The urgency of finding alternatives to fossil fuels has been confirmed in recent years by mounting scientific evidence that we are undergoing a
noticeable anthropogenic shift in the world’s weather and temperature. Not only are a range of indicators showing that the
planet is warming, but the retreat of the polar ice caps, the melting of glaciers, and most importantly in the short term
extreme weather conditions and increased incidence of natural disasters have highlighted the consequences of
maintaining the status quo in our patterns of energy consumption and industrial development . It is estimated that we have
experienced a 1 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures over the past 100 years and that by the end of the current century global temperatures may
have risen by as much 7 or 8 degrees. Even with the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that is contemplated by the most
ambitious mitigation strategies, global temperatures may raise by as much as 6%. This would have a dramatic and disastrous impact
on both developed and developing nations and will threaten the existence of both humans and animal and plant species. Though the connection between
man‐made greenhouse gases and global warming was denied for many years by industry and governments alike, it has now been accepted that
something must be done to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Given that 86% of all global
energy comes from fossil fuels, and that these fossil fuels produce 27,000,000,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually, finding alternative sources of energy
is a crucial component of climate change mitigation strategies.
Laundry list of indicators prove warming anthropogenic
Shulman 10 (Seth Shulman, citing Benjamin Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute
for Meteorology, Last updated: 7/15/10, "Global Warming Science and Impacts: Climate Fingerprinter," Union of
Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/climate-scientistbenjamin-santer.html)
The key insight of the research is straightforward: the factors that might account for global warming—what climate
scientists call "forcings"—operate in different ways. For instance, Santer explains, if the earth's warming were caused by an
increase in the sun's energy output, "you would expect to see warming from the top of the atmospheric column straight
down to the surface." But if massive volcanic eruptions, say, were a significant factor, their influence would show up with a distinctly different
profile. When such eruptions occur, the dust they produce can reach upper portions of Earth's atmosphere, and remain there for several years. Because
volcanic dust absorbs incoming sunlight, preventing it from penetrating to the earth's surface, the data would show cooling in the troposphere (the
atmospheric layer closest to the surface) and heating in the stratosphere (the layer above the troposphere). But, Santer points out, those two
profiles are "not at all what the data show." His research, now replicated by many others, instead documents a telltale
warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere—the precise fingerprint that scientists since the 1960s had
predicted would occur from the intensified "greenhouse effect" as increasing amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide
from fossil-fuel emissions built up in the atmosphere. Because of his groundbreaking work, Santer was selected as the
lead author on a chapter of the 1995 report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That year, for
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the first time, the report said that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." That measured statement has, of
course, been dramatically strengthened in the latest IPCC report, which concludes that there is a greater than 90 percent likelihood that human activities
have been the main cause of warming since the middle of the twentieth century. Santer's cutting-edge research led to widespread acclaim from his
colleagues and earned him many accolades, including a MacArthur "genius grant," but his high-profile role in the 1995 IPCC report made him a target of
those trying to stir up controversy and confuse the public about global warming. For instance, after the 1995 report was issued, an industry–funded
group led an effort to discredit Santer personally by spuriously claiming that he had altered the IPCC's findings. He had not. "Nothing in my university
training prepared me for what I faced in the aftermath of that report," Santer says of the vicious personal attacks by fossil-fuel interests. "You are
prepared as a scientist to defend your research. But I was not prepared to defend my personal integrity. I never imagined I'd have to do that." Fifteen
years later, the evidence that human activity is causing global warming is stronger than ever and accepted by the
overwhelming majority of scientists. Our understanding of climate fingerprinting has also become far more sophisticated
and now shows human causation in the measured changes in ocean temperatures, Arctic sea ice, precipitation,
atmospheric moisture, and many other aspects of climate change. Some of Santer's more recent work, for instance,
addresses changes in the height of the tropopause—the boundary between the troposphere, the more turbulent lower
layer, and the more stable stratosphere above. (Between 5 and 10 miles above the earth's surface, a marker of the
tropopause can be seen in the flat, anvil-like top of a thundercloud.) Measurements over the course of several recent
decades have shown that the tropopause has risen markedly. By studying tropopause changes in computer climate models,
and comparing model output with observations, Santer was able to show that both the warming of the lower atmosphere and cooling of the
stratosphere led to a rise in the height of the tropopause—and that the observed rise in the tropopause matched the fingerprint of an increase in heattrapping gases. "Nobody had looked at it before," Santer says, "but the data showed clearly that natural causes alone simply could not provide a
convincing explanation for the observed change." All the climate fingerprinting research to date, Santer explains, has arrived at the same conclusion,
namely that "natural causes cannot provide a convincing explanation for the particular patterns of climate change we see."
That, he says, is why scientists "have come to have such confidence in our understanding of what is happening—not
because of the claims of any one individual, but because of the breadth of scientific work and reproducibility of the
results."
Warming is anthropogenic - even if there are alt causes, human emissions are the
biggest factor
Fitzpatrick 6 (Melanie Fitzpatrick, Earth and Space Sciences and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of
Washington, 5/11/06, "Human Fingerprints," Union of Concerned Scientists,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-warming-human.html)\
Background: Driving the Climate ("Forcing") Climate is influenced by many factors, both natural and human. [7] Things that increase temperature, such
as increases in heat-trapping emissions from cars and power plants or an increase in the amount of radiation the sun emits, are examples of "positive"
forcings or drivers. Volcanic events and some types of human-made pollution, both of which inject sunlight-reflecting aerosols into the atmosphere,
lower temperature and are examples of "negative" forcings or drivers. Natural climate drivers include the sun's energy output, aerosols
from volcanic activity, and changes in snow and ice cover. Human climate drivers include heat-trapping emissions from
cars and power plants, aerosols from pollution, and soot particles. Much as the Air Force develops computer programs to
simulate aircraft flight under different conditions, climate scientists develop computer programs to simulate global
climate changes under different conditions. These programs use our knowledge of physical, chemical, and biological
processes that occur within Earth's atmosphere and oceans and on its land surfaces. Mathematical models allow scientists
to simulate the behavior of complex systems such as climate and explore how these systems respond to natural and human
factors. Fingerprint 1: The Ocean Layers Warm The world's oceans have absorbed about 20 times as much heat as the
atmosphere over the past half-century, leading to higher temperatures not only in surface waters but also in water 1,500
feet below the surface. [8,9] The measured increases in water temperature lie well outside the bounds of natural climate variation. Fingerprint 2:
The Atmosphere Shifts Recent research shows that human activities have lifted the boundary of Earth's lower atmosphere. Known as the troposphere
(from the Greek tropos, which means "turning"), this lowest layer of the atmosphere contains Earth's weather. The stable layer above is called the
stratosphere. The boundary that separates the two layers, the tropopause, is as high as nine miles above the equator and as low as five miles above the
poles. In an astounding development, a 2003 study showed that this tropopause has shifted upward over the last two decades by more than 900 feet. [10]
The rising tropopause marks another human fingerprint on Earth's climate. In their search for clues, scientists compared two natural drivers of climate
(solar changes and volcanic aerosols) and three human drivers of climate (heat-trapping emissions, aerosol pollution, and ozone depletion), altering
these one at a time in their sophisticated models. Changes in the sun during the twentieth century have warmed both the troposphere and stratosphere.
But human activities have increased heat-trapping emissions and decreased stratospheric ozone. This has led to the troposphere warming more because
the increase in heat-trapping emissions is trapping more of Earth's outgoing heat. The stratosphere has cooled more because there is less ozone to absorb
incoming sunlight to heat up the stratosphere. Both these effects combine to shift the boundary upward. Over the period 1979-1999, a study shows that
human-induced changes in heat-trapping emissions and ozone account for more than 80 percent of the rise in tropopause height. [10] This is yet another
example of how science detectives are quantifying the impact of human activities on climate. Fingerprint 3: The Surface Heats Up Measurements show
that global average temperature has risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years, with most of that happening in the last three decades. [1,2] By
comparing Earth's temperature over that last century with models comparing climate drivers, a study showed that, from 1950 to the present, most of the
warming was caused by heat-trapping emissions from human activities [3]. In fact, heat-trapping emissions are driving the climate about three times
more strongly now than they were in 1950. The spatial pattern of where this warming is occurring around the globe indicates
human-induced causes. Even accounting for the occasional short-lived cooling from volcanic events and
moderate levels of cooling from aerosol pollution as well as minor fluctuations in the sun's output in the last 30 years,
heat-trapping emissions far outweigh any other current climate driver. Once again, our scientific
fingerprinting identifies human activities as the main driver of our warming climate. Human Causes, Human Solutions
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AT: Bias
Scientists are unbiased and mostly agree that warming is real
Bowman 94+ (Robert M. Lt. Cl., President of the Institute for Space and Security Studies, “What About
Global Warming?”, http://www.rmbowman.com/ssn/warming.htm) KA
Naturally, if I didn’t think it was real, I wouldn’t be writing this paper. But the polluters and their mouthpieces (like Rush Limbaugh) claim it’s just a
bunch of hot air. Fred Palmer of the Western Fuels Association (a front for coal and other corporate interests), for example, says, "Known apocalyptic
global warming advocates, in their zeal to convince the world that the holocaust will be upon us unless we curtail our use of fossil fuels, compose
conclusions which ignore actual observations. ... Satellites, that measure the world’s temperature so accurately that they can detect when the moon is full,
find no warming whatsoever in their entire 18-year record." On the other hand, most of the world’s scientists, acting through the
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have reached consensus on the fact that Global Warming is real and is
already happening. Dan Becker of the Sierra Club (a moderate environmental group) says, "Assertions that satellite records show no global warming
are either misinformed or intentionally untrue. The reality is that the last 30 years have seen the warmest surface temperatures in
recorded history, and they have been documented not by alarmists, but by responsible, unbiased scientists from
NASA, NOAA, and countless universities and research institutions around the world. The average surface temperature of the first
seven years of the 1990’s is already higher than the average for the entire decade of the 1980’s (the 1980’s had previously been the warmest decade in
recorded history)." J. W. Anderson of Resources for the Future (a non-profit research group with environmental leanings) agrees that surface
temperatures have risen a full degree since reliable measurements began, and that recent decades are the warmest since at least 1400. (Little is known
about the earth’s climate before that time.)
Over two thousand scientists have now concluded that global warming is
already changing our climate. 1995 was the warmest year since humans began keeping accurate measurements of temperature. (Recent data
indicates that it won’t hold that distinction for long — 1997 has been even hotter.) Scientists are documenting the rapid melting of glaciers. Snow cover is
melting much earlier in the year. Ocean temperatures have warmed, sea levels have risen almost one foot, and the patterns of deep sea currents are
shifting. Average surface temperatures in Antarctica have risen two degrees Fahrenheit since 1950. In 1994, warming temperatures caused a 48 by 22
mile chunk to break off from the Larsen ice shelf, exposing rocks that had been encased in ice for over 20,000 years. Permafrost in Alaska is thawing,
threatening the oil pipeline, buckling highways, and causing other havoc. The ten hottest years in recorded history have all taken place since 1980! With
the Sierra Club, the Natural Resource Defense Council, and scientists around the world, ISSS believes that the evidence is indisputable. Global Warming
is real.
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AT: Idsos
Idsos are paid off
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007
(“Responding to Global Warming Skeptics—Prominent Skeptics Organizations”,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/skeptic-organizations.html)
Greening Earth Society The Greening Earth Society (GES) was founded on Earth Day 1998 by the Western Fuels Association to promote the view
that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 are good for humanity. GES and Western Fuels are essentially the same organization. Both used to be
located at the same office suite in Arlington, VA. Until December 2000, Fred Palmer chaired both institutions. The GES is now chaired by Bob
Norrgard, another long-term Western Fuels associate. The Western Fuels Assocation (WFA) is a cooperative of coal-dependent utilities in the
western states that works in part to discredit climate change science and to prevent regulations that might damage coal-related industries. Spin: CO2
emissions are good for the planet; coal is the best energy source we have. Affiliated Individuals: Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, David Wojick,
Sallie Baliunas, Sylvan Wittwer, John Daley, Sherwood Idso Funding: The Greening Earth Society receives its funding from the
Western Fuels Association, which in turn receives its funding from its coal and utility company members . Center for the
Study of Carbon Dioxide & Global Change The Center claims to "disseminate factual reports and sound commentary on new
developments in the world-wide scientific quest to determine the climactic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in
the air's CO2 content." The Center is led by two brothers, Craig and Keith Idso. Their father, Sherwood Idso, is affiliated
with the Greening Earth Society; the Center also shares a board member (Sylvan Wittwer) with GES. Both Idso
brothers have been on the Western Fuels payroll at one time or another. Spin: Increased levels of CO2 will help plants, and that's
good. Funding: The Center is extremely secretive of its funding sources, stating that it is their policy not to divulge it funders.
There is evidence for a strong connection to the Greening Earth Society (ergo Western Fuels Association). Affiliated
Individuals: Craig Idso, Keith Idso, Sylvan Wittwer
Idsos don’t have a peer review – they fill their work with meaningless jargon
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2000
(“Misinformation About Climate Science”, February, http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/archive/climate-misinformation.html)
In an attempt to bank on the credibility science generally enjoys and to fight off accusations of making unscientific,
biased claims, skeptics also pursue the idea "if you can't beat them, join them"—if only in appearance. EXAMPLE: The
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change This pseudo-scientific research center located in Tempe, AZ, who are also
involved with the Greening Earth Society. In a position paper on global warming [13], the two authors (the only listed staff of the Center) state,
"There is little doubt the air's CO2 concentration has risen significantly since the inception of the Industrial Revolution; and there are few who do not
attribute the CO2 increase to the increase in humanity's use of fossil fuels. There is also little doubt that the earth has warmed slightly over the same
period; but there is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2. Furthermore it is highly unlikely that
future increases in the air's CO2 content will produce any global warming; for there are numerous problems with the popular hypothesis that links
the two phenomena." The authors then go on to flesh out these "problems" with scientific jargon, criticizing unscientific
interpretations, and debunking claims never made by serious climate scientists. The "scientific" positions held by
Center staff are not subjected to peer-review, and the Center's Scientific Advisors are mostly retired scientists without
past or current research in climate-related sciences. It is not clear whether the CO2 Center is actually a separate entity from the
Greening Earth Society.
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AT: Adaption
Adaptation isn’t sufficient – reducing emissions key
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, recently named the world’s top environmental think
tank, 2011
(June 2011, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “Science FAQs,” http://www.c2es.org/globalwarming-basics/faq_s/glance_faq_science.cfm, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
However, different regions and sectors will differ in their ability to adapt. Natural ecosystems have inherent, but limited
capability to adapt to climate change, which is further impeded by other human impacts to the environment such as
development and habitat fragmentation. Even human societies, particularly developing countries, have limited resources
to respond to the challenge of climate change. Poor countries and poor populations within rich countries will be
disproportionately impacted by climate change because of their limited resources for adaptation.
Some climate related impacts are difficult to adapt to. For example, extreme weather events, such as storms and floods,
are not easily ameliorated by adaptation measures. By investing in the reduction of greenhouse gases, it will offset
necessary investments in adaptation in addition to protecting against those adverse effects of climate change for which
adaptation is particularly difficult. It isclear that responding to climate change requires both mitigation of greenhouse
gases and adaptation to unavoidable change.
Uncertainty and limitation on tech prevent short-term adaptation
Stern, head of the Government Economic Service and adviser to the Government on the
Economics of Climate Change and Development, 2006
(Nicholas, “Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change,” p.
413, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/media/C/2/Chapter_18_Understanding_the_Economics_of_Adaptation.pdf,
accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
An inherent difficulty for long-term adaptation decisions is uncertainty, due to limitations in our ¶ scientific knowledge of
a highly complex climate system and the likely impacts of perturbing it. Even as¶ scientific understanding improves, there
will always remain some residual uncertainty, as the size of¶ impacts also depend on global efforts to control greenhouse
gas emissions. Effective adaptation will¶ involve decisions that are robust to a range of plausible climate futures and are
flexible so they can be¶ modified relatively easily. But there will always be a cost to hedging bets in this way, compared to
the ¶ expert ‘optimal’ adaptation strategy that is revealed only with the benefit of hindsight. ¶ There are clear limits to
adaptation in natural ecosystems. Even small changes in climate may be ¶ disruptive for some ecosystems (e.g. coral reefs,
mangrove swamps) and will be exacerbated by ¶ existing stresses, such as pollution. Beyond certain thresholds, natural
systems may be unable to ¶ adapt at all, such as mountainous habitats where the species have nowhere to migrate. ¶ But
even for human society, there are technical limits to the ability to adapt to abrupt and large-scale ¶ climate change, such as
a rapid onset of monsoon failure in parts of South Asia. Sudden or severe ¶ impacts triggered by warming could test the
adaptive limits of human systems. Very high temperatures¶ alone could become lethal, while lack of water will undermine
people’s ability to survive in a particular ¶ area, such as regions that depend on glacier meltwater. Rising sea levels will
severely challenge the¶ survival of low-lying countries and regions such as the Maldives or the Pacific Islands, and could
result ¶ in the abandonment of some highly populated coastal regions, including several European cities.
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AT: But it’s cold
Distinction –It’s about global temperature averages – not regional isolated events –
cold conditions could also be an indicator for warming.
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, recently named the world’s top environmental think tank, 2011
(June 2011, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “Science FAQs,” http://www.c2es.org/globalwarming-basics/faq_s/glance_faq_science.cfm, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
Global warming is about changes in long-term averages and not about single events; it does not mean an end to cold
weather. Instead, it means that cold weather will become less frequent and hot weather more frequent when averaged over
decades. In fact, both of these trends have been observed over the past 50 years in the United States and globally. Even
with global warming, we will have cold winters; however, there will be fewer of them. It is also important to remember
that a cold winter for one location doesn’t mean a cold winter everywhere. In fact, many parts of the world, including the
Arctic and the tropics, had an unusually warm winter in 2010.¶ To create heavy snowfall the East Coast experienced during
the 2009 and 2010 winters, you need two things: moist air and cold air. In recent winters, the Gulf of Mexico and the
tropical Pacific have supplied lots of moist air, and that is the key to getting heavy precipitation. We also had more cold air
than usual that spilled out of the Arctic. Conditions were just right in the past two winters for these air masses to meet up
and create massive snowstorms. Snowfall occurs when warm, moist air is forced above the cold air and begins to
precipitate into the cold air, causing what would haven rain to freeze. Since climate change increases the moisture content
of the atmosphere, global warming can actually increase the risk of heavy snowfall.
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AT: China
China would model US action on climate change
Gardner, correspondent on energy and the environment, 2007
(Timothy, Oct. 2, Scribd, “Experts Say China Would Follow U.S. Lead On Climate,”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30958756/Warming-General, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
China would soon follow the U.S. lead if Washington agrees to tackle its emissions in the next few years because China's
government takes the threat of global warming more seriously than the United States does, a climate expert said on
Tuesday. "My impression is that the national government -- top level ministry officials -- in China regard the threats of
global warming to their country with a much higher level of seriousness than their counterparts do here in the United
States," said David Hawkins of the environmental group National Resources Defense¶ Council. Hawkins, head of the
group's climate center, spoke by telephone to the Reuters¶ Environment Summit in New York. If the United States agrees
to cut emissions deeply with a¶ baseline that gets tougher over time, it would spur U.S. manufacturers to buildlowemissions technologies like alternative energy and coal plants that store carbon dioxide underground. It could then
market those technologies to the world, forcing China to act."The biggest carrot is to have the U.S. to take a leadership
role," he said. "Then countries like China are going to say, 'What does the United States know that we don't know?' and
agree to their own cuts," said¶ Hawkins. Hawkins is based in Washington but visits China often, meeting with
government¶ ministers heading the country's science and technology, environmental protection, agriculture, and ¶
development reform agencies. He said they are very concerned about the possibility that global warming would lead to
drastic cuts in water for agriculture.
China reducing emissions now – Leader in many areas of renewable energy, multiple
pledges to reduce emissions, and committed officials prove
Coonan, reporter for the independent, 2010
(Clifford, Sep. 3, The Independent, “China's renewed effort to clean up its act,”
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/newenergyfuture/chinas-renewed-effort-to-clean-up-itsact-2068595.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
When it comes to environmental issues, China tends to generate negative headlines – its badly polluted skies, its dirty
rivers, and its melting glaciers are all images we associate with China’s remarkable economic rise. What is less well known
is that China is leading the world in adopting key green technologies to help to fuel the country’s economic boom. The
central government in Beijing has set a target of generating 15 per cent of all electricity from renewable sources by 2020,
and the effects of China going green will be felt all around the world.¶ There is a lot to do. China assumed the mantle of the
world’s largest carbon emitter from the United States in 2007, and its people are forced to live with the consequences of
rapid industrialisation, mostly driven by burning fossil fuels. Coal provides nearly 70 per cent of China’s energy needs, and
this is not likely to end any time soon, but what is crucial is the mix of how China supplies its energy. ¶ According to
REN21’s 2010 Renewables Global Status Report, China added 37GW of renewable power capacity, more than any other
country, to reach 226GW of total renewables capacity. Globally, nearly 80GW of renewable capacity was added, including
31GW of hydropower and 48GW of non-hydro capacity. China was the top market for windpower, doubling its windpower
capacity for the fifth year in a row. China added 13.8GW of windpower, representing more than one-third of the world
market – up from just a 2 per cent market share in 2004. China has nearly doubled its hydropower capacity during the
five years to 2009, adding 23GW in 2009 to end the year with 197GW. Moreover, more than 70 per cent of the world’s
solar hot-water heaters are in China, and they are the main source of hot water for many households.¶ In July, China’s
National Development and Reform Commission announced an alternative energy planning programme which would
invest 5,000 billion yuan (£470bn) between 2011 and 2020, creating 15 million jobs in the sector. The plan was
announced by Jiang Bing, the head of the National Energy Administration, who said the bureau envisages that, by 2015,
natural gas would account for 8.3 per cent of energy, with hydropower and nuclear power jumping from 7 per cent to 9 per
cent of primary energy consumption. Windpower, solar power and biomass would increase from less than 1 per cent now
to almost 2.6 per cent of the total.¶ There are other groundbreaking projects taking place. China installed the first major
offshore wind project outside of Europe last year, adding 63MW by year-end for a project that reached 102MW earlier this
year. Shi Pengfei of the China Hydropower Engineering consulting group believes China has the best and the newest wind
turbines. “By the end of 2009, China’s total capacity of windpower operations increased by 92.26 per cent compared with
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the same period of 2008,” Shi said.¶ Although China adopted some muscular negotiating tactics at the Copenhagen
summit on climate change, and some countries accuse Beijing of hijacking the talks, the smart money is on China’s efforts
to boost green technology and clean energy options. China has pledged to cut the intensity of carbon emissions per unit of
its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 by 40 to 45 per cent against 2005 levels. While this will not cut the overall
amount of emissions, it is a step in the right direction. “Post-Copenhagen, China needs to continue its domestic efforts to
improve green tech and sustainability, and I’m confident it will. China should also see a strong demand for it to play a
leadership role internationally,” said Yang Ailun, the head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace China. “China is
committed to developing clean energy because of all the domestic imperatives to do so. It’s good for energy security and
it’s good for economic development. Announcing a target was an effort to be seen as willing to do its fair share,” Yang
said.¶ The Chinese government is investing serious resources to stop pollution, and binding reduction targets have been
included in the central government’s 11th Five-Year Plan to control the discharges of key water pollutants, such as
chemical oxygen demand (COD) and sulphur dioxide. China’s Vice-Minister of Environmental Protection, Li Ganjie, said
in December if it achieves a reduction in these pollutants, this would result in a reduction of 250 million tons in CO2
emissions. Yang believes the main potential in clean energy lies in energy efficiency and clean energy technology. “One
area of particular interest is how to make more efficient cars – China is already a world leader in electric cars. Other areas
include wind energy, and solar energy, where China is already a top-three manufacturer. The solar market is mainly
manufacturing for export but growth is slowing, so it’s now crucial for the government to give support for the domestic
market,” he said.¶ Huang Min, the founder of the Himin Solar Energy Group in Dezhou, is on a quest to convince his fellow
Chinese of the need to go green. “China has already made a promise on emissions reduction. It shows China can behave
like a big country and it shows the Chinese government is committed. This promise is not only a challenge, but a huge
business opportunity. This pledge lifts China on to the global political and economic stage,” said Huang. When it comes to
issues of sustainability, China is too big to be ignored.
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AT: CO2 from oceans
Fossil fuels are the root cause of CO2 emissions – multiple indicators prove
Mackie, New Zealand chemical oceanographer, 2010
(Doug, June 26, Skeptical Science, “CO2 is Coming from the Ocean,”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-coming-from-ocean.htm, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
We can be confident the extra CO2 in the atmosphere has come from the oxidation of fossil fuels and not from outgassing
from the ocean or from soil/land sources by using two key observations.¶ Atmospheric oxygen is going down by the same
amount as atmospheric CO2 is going up. Oxygen is so abundant at about 21% (209,500 ppm) that we are in no danger of
running out; the change in oxygen simply shows that whatever the source of CO2 in the atmosphere, the carbon part of it
has come from the oxidation of reduced carbon compounds and the oxygen has come from oxygen gas in the atmosphere.
That is, the extra CO2 was not released in the form of CO2 from an unknown source but instead some reduced carbon
compound was burnt in the atmosphere to produce CO2. ¶ Most obviously, any alternative explanation for the source of
the CO2 in the atmosphere has to also come up with where the 30 billion tonnes of CO2 known to be released by fossil fuel
burning each year goes.¶ Atmospheric CO2 is currently increasing at about 2 ppmv per year (or 16 billion tonnes). That is,
only around half of the CO2 we release remains in the atmosphere. The pH decrease in the oceans corresponds to most of
the “missing” CO2, so we can also be confident that land use changes etc are not a major source/sink. Caveat: Land use
and biomass changes certainly soak up a lot of CO2, some it simply regrowth of forests etc, but the point is that the
increasing CO2 in the atmosphere clearly demonstrates that they do not soak up enough.
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AT: El Nino
El Nino can’t explain warming – your authors misfiltered data
Cook, Penn State Metereology Professor, Professor of Environmental Science at Auckland University, and Climatic
Researcher at University of East Anglia, 2010
(John, March 18, Skeptical Science, http://www.skepticalscience.com/peer-reviewed-response-tomclean-el-nino-paper.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
A paper published mid-2009 claimed a link between global warming and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
(McLean et al 2009). According to one of its authors, Bob Carter, the paper found that the "close relationship between
ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon
dioxide emissions". This result is in strong contrast with two decades of peer-reviewed research which find ENSO has little
influence on long-term trends. Why the discrepancy? A response has now been accepted for publication in the Journal of
Geophysical Research (Foster et al 2010) explaining why McLean 2009 differs from the body of peer-reviewed research.¶
First, let's examine how McLean et al arrived at their conclusion. They compared both weather balloon (RATPAC) and
satellite (UAH) measurements of tropospheric temperature to El Niño activity (SOI). To remove short-term noise, they
plotted a 12 month running average of Global Tropospheric Temperature Anomaly (GTTA, the light grey line) and the
Southern Oscillation Index (SOI, the black line).¶ The Southern Oscillation Index shows no long term trend while the
temperature record shows a long-term warming trend. Consequently, McLean et al found only a weak correlation between
temperature and SOI. Next, they applied another filter to the data by subtracting the 12 month running average from the
same average 1 year later. The comparison between the filtered data for El Nino and Temperature are as follows:¶ From
this close correlation, McLean et al argued that more than two thirds of interseasonal and long-term variability in
temperature changes can be explained by the Southern Oscillation Index. This result contradicts virtually every other
study into the connection between ENSO and temperature variability, particularly with regard to long-term warming
trends. Past analyses have found ENSO was responsible for 15 to 30% of interseasonal variability but little of the global
warming trend over the past half century (Jones 1989, Wigley 2000, Santer 2001, Trenberth 2002, Thompson 2008).
Why does McLean come to a different result? This question is examined in Comment on "Influence of the Southern
Oscillation on tropospheric temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (Foster et al 2010).¶ Foster et
al examine the filtering process that McLean et al applied to the temperature and ENSO data. This filtering has two steps they take 12-month moving averages then take the differences between those values which are 12 months apart. The first
step filters the high-frequency variation from the time series while the second step filters low-frequency variation. The
problem with the latter step is it removes any long-term trends from the original temperature data. The long-term
warming trend in the temperature record is where the disagreement between temperature and ENSO is greatest. ¶ Why do
McLean et al remove the long-term trend? They justify it by noting a lack of correlation between SOI and GTTA,
speculating that the derivative filter might remove noise caused by volcanoes or wind. However, taking the derivative of a
time series does not remove, or even reduce, short-term noise. It has the opposite effect, amplifying the noise while
removing longer-term changes.¶ To further illustrate how the filtering process increases the correlation between SOI and
temperature, the authors construct an artificial "temperature" time series as -0.02 times the SOI time series. They then
add white noise and a linear trend. This has the effect of creating a temperature time series with a long term warming
trend. The correlation between the raw artificial temperature series and the SOI series is very low (R2 = 0.0161). However,
when the McLean et al filters are applied to both time series, the correlation is now very high (R2 = 0.8295). This is
because the filtering removes low frequency elements such as the long term warming trend. ¶ Despite the extreme
distorting effect of their filter, McLean et al consistently refer to the correlations as between SOI and tropospheric
temperature. They draw no attention to the fact that the correlations are between heavily filtered time series. This failure
causes what is essentially a mistaken result to be misinterpreted as a direct relationship between important climate
variables.¶ Another interesting feature of McLean et al 2009 is a plot of unfiltered temperature data (GTTA) against the
Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) to illustrate the quality of the match between them. However the temperature signal is a
splice of weather balloon data (RATPAC-A) to the end of 1979 followed by satellite data (UAH TLT) since 1980. RATPACA data show a pronounced warming trend from 1960 to 2008 with the temperature line rising away from the SOI line.
This warming trend is obscured by substituting the weather balloon data with satellite data after 1980. It is especially
misleading because the mean values of RATPAC-A and UAH TLT data during their period of overlap differ by nearly 0.2
K. Splicing them together introduces an artificial 0.2-degree temperature drop at the boundary between the two.
Unfortunately, the splicing is obscured by the fact that the graph is split into different panels precisely at the splicing
boundary. This splicing + graph splitting technique is an effective way to "hide the incline" of the warming trend. ¶ It has
been well known for many years that ENSO is associated with significant variability in global temperatures on short
timescales of several years. However, this relationship cannot explain temperature trends on decadal and longer time
scales. McLean et al 2009 grossly overstates the influence of ENSO, primarily by filtering out any long-term trends.
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AT: Holocene warm period
The Holocene was only regional warming – natural causes can’t account for modern
climate change
NOAA, 2008
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Aug. 20, National Climatic Data Center, "MidHolocene Warm Period - About 6,000 Years Ago,"
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
Paleoclimatologists have long suspected that the "middle Holocene" or a period roughly from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago,
was warmer than the present day. Terms like the Alti-thermal or Hypsi-thermal or Climatic Optimum have all been used
to refer to this warm period that marked the middle of the current interglacial period. Today, however, we know that these
terms are obsolete and that the truth of the Holocene is more complicated than originally believed. ¶ What is most
remarkable about the mid-Holocene is that we now have a good understanding of both the global patterns of temperature
change during that period AND what caused them. It appears clear that changes in the Earth's orbit have operated slowly
over thousands and millions of years to change the amount of solar radiation reaching each latitudinal band of the Earth
during each month. These orbital changes can be easily calculated and predict that the northern hemisphere should have
been warmer than today during the mid-Holocene in the summer AND colder in the winter. The paleoclimatic data for the
mid-Holocene shows these expected changes, however, there is no evidence to show that the average annual midHolocene temperature was warmer than today's temperatures. We also now know from both data and "astronomical" (or
"Milankovitch") theory that the period of above modern summer temperatures did not occur at the same time around the
northern hemisphere, or in the southern hemisphere at all. ¶ In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was
generally warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the northern hemisphere. More over, we clearly know the
cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven "astronomical" climate forcing mechanism cannot
be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years.¶ For larger viewing version of the graph, please click here or on
graph. Graph courtesy of Kerwin et al., 1999, complete scientific reference located here.
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AT: Inevitable/too late to solve
Warming is not inevitable – significant cuts solve
Somerville, professor of Oceanography at UC San Diego and coordinating lead author in the 2007 Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2011
(Richard, Mar. 8, “Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations, CQ Congressional Testimony, Lexis, , CBC)
Thus, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are already at levels predicted to lead to global warming of between 2.0 and 2.4C.
The conclusion from both the IPCC and subsequent analyses is blunt and stark - immediate and dramatic emission
reductions of all greenhouse gases are urgently needed if the 2 deg C (or 3.6 deg F) limit is to be respected. This scientific
conclusion illustrates a key point, which is that it will be governments that will decide, by actions or inactions, what level
of climate change they regard as tolerable. This choice by governments may be affected by risk tolerance, priorities,
economics, and other considerations, but in the end it is a choice that humanity as a whole, acting through national
governments, will make. Science and scientists will not and should not make that choice. After governments have set a
tolerable limit of climate change, however, climate science can then provide valuable information about what steps will be
required to keep climate change within that limit.
Slowing the rate of climate change buys us time to adapt
Flavin, the former president of the Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization focused on natural
resource and environmental issues, Tunali, researcher for the Worldwatch Institute, 1996
(Christopher, Odil, June 1996, Worldwatch Institute, “Worldwatch Paper 130,” p. 43, CBC)
To assist policymakers, several recent studies have begun to explore the limits within which the energy economy will
have to stay if the world is to be protected from overly rapid climate change. They show that it is the rate of warming as
much as the absolute amount that will determine the scale of the human and ecological impact. While both people and
natural systems may be able to adapt to slow change, they could be devastated by more rapid shifts, which are more likely
to cause major disruptions.
Warming is not inevitable – even if temporarily over the tipping point, CO2
concentration can be brought back down.
Dyer, PhD in Middle Eastern history, MA in military history, and environmental author, 2008
(Gwynne, Jan. 1, “Climate Wars”, CBC)
There is no need to despair. The slow-feedback effects take a long time to work their way through the climate system, and
if we could manage to get the carbon dioxide concentration back down to a safe level before they have run their course,
they might be stopped in their tracks. As Hansen et al. put it in their paper: A point of no return can be avoided, even if
the tipping level [which puts us on course for an ice-free world] is temporarily exceeded. Ocean and ice-sheet inertia
permit overshoot, provided the [concentration of carbon dioxide] is returned below the tipping level before initiating irreversible dynamic change .... However, if overshoot is in place for centuries, the thermal perturbation will so penetrate the
ocean that recovery without dramatic effects, such as ice-sheet disintegration, becomes unlikely. The real, long-term
target is 350 parts per million or lower, if we want the Holocene to last into the indefinite future, but for the remainder of
this book I am going to revert to the 450 parts per million ceiling that has become common currency among most of those
who are involved in climate change issues. If we manage to stop the rise in the carbon dioxide concentration at or not far
beyond that figure, then we must immediately begin the equally urgent and arduous task of getting it back down to a much
lower level that is safe for the long term, but one step at a time will have to suffice. I suspect that few now alive will see the
day when we seriously start work on bringing the concentration back down to 350, so let us focus here on how to stop it
rising past 450.
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AT: Medieval Warm Period
Best data proves global temperature averages are higher now than the Medieval warm
period
NOAA, 2008
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Aug. 20, National Climatic Data Center, "The
Medieval Warm Period," http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html, accessed 7/12/13,
CBC)
Norse seafaring and colonization around the North Atlantic at the end of the 9th century indicated that regional North
Atlantic climate was warmer during medieval times than during the cooler "Little Ice Age" of the 15th - 19th centuries. As
paleoclimatic records have become more numerous, it has become apparent that "Medieval Warm Period" or "Medieval
Optimum" temperatures were warmer over the Northern Hemisphere than during the subsequent "Little Ice Age", and
also comparable to temperatures during the early 20th century. The regional patterns and the magnitude of this warmth
remain an area of active research because the data become sparse going back in time prior to the last four centuries. ¶ The
plot below, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), shows numerous
Northern Hemisphere paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions. The various studies differ in methodology, and in the
underlying paleoclimate proxy data utilized, but all reconstruct the same basic pattern of cool "Little Ice Age", warmer
"Medieval Warm Period", and still warmer late 20th and 21st century temperatures. ¶ In summary, it appears that the late
20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years. For a summary of the
latest available research on the nature of climate during the "Medieval Warm Period", please see Box 6.4 of the IPCC 2007
Palaeoclimate chapter. To learn more about the "Medieval Warm Period", please read this review published in Climatic
Change, written by M.K. Hughes and H.F. Diaz. (Click here for complete review reference). Discussion of the last 2,000
years, including the Medieval Warm Period, and regional patterns and uncertainties, appears in the National Research
Council Report titled "Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years", available from the National
Academy Press.
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AT: Natural Cycle
Warming is unprecedented – only human factors can account for climatic data in the
20th and 21st centuries
IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2011
(“Can the Warming of the 20th Century be Explained by Natural Variability?,”
https://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-9.2.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
It is very unlikely that the 20th-century warming can be explained by natural causes. The late 20th century has been
unusually warm. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the second half of the 20th century was likely the warmest 50year period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1300 years. This rapid warming is consistent with the scientific
understanding of how the climate should respond to a rapid increase in greenhouse gases like that which has occurred
over the past century, and the warming is inconsistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should
respond to natural external factors such as variability in solar output and volcanic activity. Climate models provide a
suitable tool to study the various influences on the Earth’s climate. When the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse
gases are included in the models, as well as natural external factors, the models produce good simulations of the warming
that has occurred over the past century. The models fail to reproduce the observed warming when run using only natural
factors. When human factors are included, the models also simulate a geographic pattern of temperature change around
the globe similar to that which has occurred in recent decades. This spatial pattern, which has features such as a greater
warming at high northern latitudes, differs from the most important patterns of natural climate variability that are
associated with internal climate processes, such as El Niño.¶ Variations in the Earth’s climate over time are caused by
natural internal processes, such as El Niño, as well as changes in external influences. These external influences can be
natural in origin, such as volcanic activity and variations in solar output, or caused by human activity, such as greenhouse
gas emissions, human-sourced aerosols, ozone depletion and land use change. The role of natural internal processes can
be estimated by studying observed variations in climate and by running climate models without changing any of the
external factors that affect climate. The effect of external influences can be estimated with models by changing these
factors, and by using physical understanding of the processes involved. The combined effects of natural internal variability
and natural external factors can also be estimated from climate information recorded in tree rings, ice cores and other
types of natural ‘thermometers’ prior to the industrial age.¶ The natural external factors that affect climate include volcanic
activity and variations in solar output. Explosive volcanic eruptions occasionally eject large amounts of dust and sulphate
aerosol high into the atmosphere, temporarily shielding the Earth and reflecting sunlight back to space. Solar output has
an 11-year cycle and may also have longer-term variations. Human activities over the last 100 years, particularly the
burning of fossil fuels, have caused a rapid¶ ¶ increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Before the industrial age, these gases had remained at near stable concentrations for thousands of years. Human activities
have also caused increased concentrations of fine reflective particles, or ‘aerosols’, in the atmosphere, particularly during
the 1950s and 1960s.¶ Although natural internal climate processes, such as El Niño, can cause variations in global mean
temperature for relatively short periods, analysis indicates that a large portion is due to external factors. Brief periods of
global cooling have followed major volcanic eruptions, such as Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. In the early part of the 20th century,
global average temperature rose, during which time greenhouse gas concentrations started to rise, solar output was
probably increasing and there was little volcanic activity. During the 1950s and 1960s, average global temperatures
levelled off, as increases in aerosols from fossil fuels and other sources cooled the planet. The eruption of Mt. Agung in
1963 also put large quantities of reflective dust into the upper atmosphere. The rapid warming observed since the 1970s
has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors.¶ Numerous
experiments have been conducted using climate models to determine the likely causes of the 20th-century climate change.
These experiments indicate that models cannot reproduce the rapid warming observed in recent decades when they only
take into account variations in solar output and volcanic activity. However, as shown in Figure 1, models are able to
simulate the observed 20th-century changes in temperature when they include all of the most important external factors,
including human influences from sources such as greenhouse gases and natural external factors. The model-estimated
responses to these external factors are detectable in the 20th-century climate globally and in each individual continent
except Antarctica, where there are insufficient observations. The human influence on climate very likely dominates over
all other causes of change in global average surface temperature during the past half century. ¶ An important source of
uncertainty arises from the incomplete knowledge of some external factors, such as human sourced aerosols. In addition,
the climate models themselves are imperfect. Nevertheless, all models simulate a pattern of response to greenhouse gas
increases from human activities that is similar to the observed pattern of change. This pattern includes more warming
over land than over the oceans. This pattern of change, which differs from the principal patterns of temperature change
associated with natural internal variability, such as El Niño, helps to distinguish the response to greenhouse gases from
that of natural external factors. Models and observations also both show warming in the lower part of the atmosphere (the
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troposphere) and cooling higher up in the stratosphere. This is another ‘fingerprint’ of change that reveals the effect of
human influence on the climate. If, for example, an increase in solar output had been responsible for the recent climate
warming, both the troposphere and the stratosphere would have warmed. In addition, differences in the timing of the
human and natural external influences help to distinguish the climate responses to these factors. Such considerations
increase confidence that human rather than natural factors were the dominant cause of the global warming observed over
the last 50 years.¶ Estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the last one to two millennia, based on natural
‘thermometers’ such as tree rings that vary in width or density as temperatures change, and historical weather records,
provide additional evidence¶ ¶ that the 20th-century warming cannot be explained by only natural internal variability and
natural external forcing factors. Confidence in these estimates is increased because prior to the industrial era, much of the
variation they show in Northern Hemisphere average temperatures can be explained by episodic cooling caused by large
volcanic eruptions and by changes in the Sun’s output. The remaining variation is generally consistent with the variability
simulated by climate models in the absence of natural and human-induced external factors. While there is uncertainty in
the estimates of past temperatures, they show that it is likely that the second half of the 20th century was the warmest 50year period in the last 1300 years. The estimated climate variability caused by natural factors is small compared to the
strong 20th-century warming.
CO2 concentrations indicate this cycle is not natural
IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2011
(“Is the Current Climate Change Unusual Compared to Earlier Changes in Earth’s History?,"
https://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-6.2.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
Climate has changed on all time scales throughout Earth’s history. Some aspects of the current climate change are not
unusual, but others are. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached a record high relative to more than the
past half-million years, and has done so at an exceptionally fast rate. Current global temperatures are warmer than they
have ever been during at least the past five centuries, probably even for more than a millennium. If warming continues
unabated, the resulting climate change within this century would be extremely unusual in geological terms. Another
unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin (see FAQ 6.1), whereas
most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities.¶ When comparing the current climate change
to earlier, natural ones, three distinctions must be made. First, it must be clear which variable is being compared: is it
greenhouse gas concentration or temperature (or some other climate parameter), and is it their absolute value or their rate
of change? Second, local changes must not be confused with global changes. Local climate changes are often much larger
than global ones, since local factors (e.g., changes in oceanic or atmospheric circulation) can shift the delivery of heat or
moisture from one place to another and local feedbacks operate (e.g., sea ice feedback). Large changes in global mean
temperature, in contrast, require some global forcing (such as a change in greenhouse gas concentration or solar activity).
Third, it is necessary to distinguish between time scales. Climate changes over millions of years can be much larger and
have different causes (e.g., continental drift) compared to climate changes on a centennial time scale. ¶ The main reason for
the current concern about climate change is the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration (and some other
greenhouse gases), which is very unusual for the Quaternary (about the last two million years). The concentration of CO2
is now known accurately for the past 650,000 years from antarctic ice cores. During this time, CO2 concentration varied
between a low of 180 ppm during cold glacial times and a high of 300 ppm during warm interglacials. Over the past
century, it rapidly increased well out of this range, and is now 379 ppm (see Chapter 2). For comparison, the
approximately 80-ppm rise in CO2 concentration at the end of the past ice ages generally took over 5,000 years. Higher
values than at present have only occurred many millions of years ago (see FAQ 6.1). ¶ Temperature is a more difficult
variable to reconstruct than CO2 (a globally well-mixed gas), as it does not have the same value all over the globe, so that a
single record (e.g., an ice core) is only of limited value. Local temperature fluctuations, even those over just a few decades,
can be several degrees celsius, which is larger than the global warming signal of the past century of about 0.7°C.¶ More
meaningful for global changes is an analysis of large-scale (global or hemispheric) averages, where much of the¶ ¶ local
variation averages out and variability is smaller. Sufficient coverage of instrumental records goes back only about 150
years. Further back in time, compilations of proxy data from tree rings, ice cores, etc., go back more than a thousand years
with decreasing spatial coverage for earlier periods (see Section 6.5). While there are differences among those
reconstructions and significant uncertainties remain, all published reconstructions find that temperatures were warm
during medieval times, cooled to low values in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and warmed rapidly after that. The
medieval level of warmth is uncertain, but may have been reached again in the mid-20th century, only to have likely been
exceeded since then. These conclusions are supported by climate modelling as well. Before 2,000 years ago, temperature
variations have not been systematically compiled into large-scale averages, but they do not provide evidence for warmerthan-present global annual mean temperatures going back through the Holocene (the last 11,600 years; see Section 6.4).
There are strong indications that a warmer climate, with greatly reduced global ice cover and higher sea level, prevailed
until around 3 million years ago. Hence, current warmth appears unusual in the context of the past millennia, but not
unusual on longer time scales for which changes in tectonic activity (which can drive natural, slow variations in
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greenhouse gas concentration) become relevant (see Box 6.1).¶ A different matter is the current rate of warming. Are more
rapid global climate changes recorded in proxy data? The largest temperature changes of the past million years are the
glacial cycles, during which the global mean temperature changed by 4°C to 7°C between ice ages and warm interglacial
periods (local changes were much larger, for example near the continental ice sheets). However, the data indicate that the
global warming at the end of an ice age was a gradual process taking about 5,000 years (see Section 6.3). It is thus clear
that the current rate of global climate change is much more rapid and very unusual in the context of past changes. The
much-discussed abrupt climate shifts during glacial times (see Section 6.3) are not counter-examples, since they were
probably due to changes in ocean heat transport, which would be unlikely to affect the global mean temperature. ¶ Further
back in time, beyond ice core data, the time resolution of sediment cores and other archives does not resolve changes as
rapid as the present warming. Hence, although large climate changes have occurred in the past, there is no evidence that
these took place at a faster rate than present warming. If projections of approximately 5°C warming in this century (the
upper end of the range) are realised, then the Earth will have experienced about the same amount of global mean warming
as it did at the end of the last ice age; there is no evidence that this rate of possible future global change was matched by
any comparable global temperature increase of the last 50 million years.
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AT: Sun Variance
Solar activity can’t account for the recent global warming trends – your evidence is
based on flawed data
Benestad, PHD in physics from Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics at Oxford University and Member of
European Meteorological Society, 2004
(Rasmus, Dec. 6, RealClimate, Recent Warming But No Trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays,"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/recent-warming-but-no-trend-in-galacticcosmic-rays/, accessed 7/13/12, CBC)
There is little evidence for a connection between solar activity (as inferred from trends in galactic cosmic rays) and recent
global warming. Since the paper by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991), there has been an enhanced controversy about
the role of solar activity for earth’s climate. Svensmark (1998) later proposed that changes in the inter-planetary magnetic
fields (IMF) resulting from variations on the sun can affect the climate through galactic cosmic rays (GCR) by modulating
earth’s cloud cover. Svensmark and others have also argued that recent global warming has been a result of solar activity
and reduced cloud cover. Damon and Laut have criticized their hypothesis and argue that the work by both FriisChristensen and Lassen and Svensmark contain serious flaws. For one thing, it is clear that the GCR does not contain any
clear and significant long-term trend (e.g. Fig. 1, but also in papers by Svensmark).¶ ¶ ¶ Svensmark’s failure to comment on
the lack of a clear and significant long-term downward GCR trend, and how changes in GCR can explain a global warming
without containing such a trend, is one major weakness of his argument that GCR is responsible for recent global
warming. This issue is discussed in detail in Benestad (2002). Moreover, the lack of trend in GCR is also consistent with
little long-term change in other solar proxies, such as sunspot number and the solar cycle length, since the 1960s, when
the most recent warming started.¶ ¶ The fact that there is little recent trend in the GCR and solar activity does not mean
that solar activity is unimportant for earth’s climate. There are a large number of recent peer-reviewed scientific
publications demonstrating how solar activity can affect our climate (Benestad, 2002), such as how changes in the UV
radiation following the solar activity affect the stratospheric ozone concentrations (1999) and how earth’s temperatures
respond to changes in the total solar irradiance (Meehl, 2003). Furthermore, the lack of trend in GCR does not falsify the
mechanism proposed by Svensmark, i.e. that GCR act as a trigger for cloud condensation nuclei and are related to the
amount of low clouds. As for this latter issue, the jury is still out.
Recent evidence proves that when the Sun’s activity increases, it tends to cool the Earth
ScienceDaily, 2010
(Oct. 7, ScienceDaily, “Decline in Sun’s Activity Does Not Always Mean That Earth Becomes Cooler,
Study Shows,” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006141558.htm, accessed 7/13/12,
CBC)
The Sun's activity has recently affected Earth's atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways, according to a new study
published in the journal Nature. The study, by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Colorado,
shows that a decline in the Sun's activity does not always mean that Earth becomes cooler. ¶ It is well established that the
Sun's activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year cycle and that as its activity wanes, the overall amount of radiation
reaching Earth decreases. This latest study looked at the Sun's activity over the period 2004-2007, when it was in a
declining part of its 11-year activity cycle.¶ Although the Sun's activity declined over this period, the new research shows
that it may have actually caused Earth to become warmer. Contrary to expectations, the amount of energy reaching Earth
at visible wavelengths increased rather than decreased as the Sun's activity declined, causing this warming effect.¶
Following this surprising finding, the researchers behind the study believe it is possible that the inverse is also true and
that in periods when the Sun's activity increases, it tends to cool, rather than warm, Earth. This is based on what is already
known about the relationship between the Sun's activity and its total energy output. ¶ Overall solar activity has been
increasing over the past century, so the researchers believe it is possible that during this period, the Sun has been
contributing a small cooling effect, rather than a small warming effect as had previously been thought.
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AT: Urban heat island effect
The urban heat island effect doesn’t affect temperature readings
Black, BBC environment correspondent, 2004
(Richard, Nov. 8, BBC, “Climate change skeptics ‘wrong’,”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4021197.stm, accessed 7/13/12, CBC)
A major argument used by sceptics of global warming is flawed, a UK Met Office study in Nature magazine says.¶ This
argument maintains that much recorded climate data is inherently unreliable because of where weather instruments are
situated.¶ Most are in or near cities, which produce their own heat; so the rapid warming measured over the last century
could be just a record of urbanisation. The Met Office believes its study shows this "urban heat island" idea is wrong.¶ ¶ ¶
The analysis has been done by Dr David Parker. He used data for the last 50 years to create two separate graphs. One plots
temperatures observed on calm nights, the other on windy nights.
Warming over oceans disprove narrow urban heat island theory
Revkin, senior editor of Discover, staff writer at the LA Times, and senior writer at Science Digest, 2007
(Andrew, Jan. 14, New York Times, “Connecting the Global Warming Dots,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/weekinreview/14basics.html?_r=0, accessed 7/13/13, CBC)
If thought of as a painting, the scientific picture of a growing and potentially calamitous human influence on the climate
has moved from being abstract a century ago to impressionistic 30 years ago to pointillist today. ¶ The impact of a buildup
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is now largely undisputed. Almost everyone in the field says the
consequences can essentially be reduced to a formula: More CO2 = warmer world = less ice = higher seas. (Throw in a lot
of climate shifts and acidifying oceans for good measure.)¶ But the prognosis — and the proof that people are driving much
of the warming — still lacks the sharpness and detail of a modern-day photograph, which makes it hard to get people to
change their behavior.¶ Indeed, the closer one gets to a particular pixel, be it hurricane strength, or the rate at which seas
could rise, the harder it is to be precise. So what is the basis for the ever-stronger scientific agreement on the planet’s
warming even in the face of blurry details?¶ As in a pointillist painting, the meaning emerges from the broadest view, from
the “balance of evidence,” as the scientific case is described in the periodic reports issued by an enormous international
network of experts: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, www.ipcc.ch. The main findings of the panel’s fourth
assessment since 1990 will be released in Paris on Feb. 2.¶ In the panel’s last report, issued in 2001, and in more recent
studies reviewed for the coming report, various trends provide clues that human activity, rather than natural phenomena,
probably caused most of the recent warming. A number of trends have been identified:¶The global average minimum
nighttime temperature has risen. (This is unlikely to be caused by some variability in the sun, for example, and appears
linked to the greenhouse gases that hold in heat radiating from the earth’s surface, even after the sun has gone down.)¶The
stratosphere, high above the earth’s surface, has cooled, which is an expected outcome of having more heat trapped by the
gases closer to the surface, in the troposphere. (Scientists say that variations in the sun’s output, for example, would
instead cause similar trends in the two atmospheric layers instead of opposite ones.) ¶There has been a parallel warming
trend over land and oceans. (In other words, the increase in the amount of heat-trapping asphalt cannot be the only
culprit.)¶ “There’s no urbanization going on on the ocean,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of
the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.¶ Another important finding comes from computer simulations of the
climate system. While the several dozen top models remain rough approximations, they have become progressively better
at replicating climate patterns, past and present.¶ In the models, the only way to replicate the remarkable warming, and
extraordinary Arctic warming, of recent decades is to add greenhouse gases as people have been doing, Dr. Lawrimore
said.¶ “Without the greenhouse gases,” he said, “you just don’t get what we’ve observed.”
The “Urban Heat Island Effect” is not relevant to warming trends
Muller, professor of physics at Berkely, 2011
(Richard, Mar. 31, “Climate Change Policy Issues,” CQ Congressional Testimony, Lexis, CBC)
Let me now address the problem of Poor Temperature Station Quality Many temperature stations in the U.S. are located
near buildings, in parking lots, or close to heat sources. Anthony Watts and his team has shown that most of the current
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stations in the US Historical Climatology Network would be ranked "poor" by NOAA's own standards, with error
uncertainties up to 5 degrees C. Did such poor station quality exaggerate the estimates of global warming? We've studied
this issue, and our preliminary answer is no. The Berkeley Earth analysis shows that over the past 50 years the poor
stations in the U.S. network do not show greater warming than do the good stations. Thus, although poor station quality
might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what
is important. Our key caveat is that our results are preliminary and have not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal.
We have begun that process of submitting a paper to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and we are
preparing several additional papers for publication elsewhere. NOAA has already published a similar conclusion - that
station quality bias did not affect estimates of global warming based on a smaller set of stations, and Anthony Anthony
Watts and his team have a paper submitted, which is in late stage peer review, using over 1000 stations, but it has not yet
been accepted for publication and I am not at liberty to discuss their conclusions and how they might differ. We have
looked only at average temperature changes, and additional data needs to be studied, to look at (for example) changes in
maximum and minimum temperatures. In fact, in our preliminary analysis the good stations report more warming in the
U.S. than the poor stations by 0.009 0.009 degrees per decade, opposite to what might be expected, but also consistent
with zero. We are currently checking these results and performing the calculation in several different ways. But we are
consistently finding that there is no enhancement of global warming trends due to the inclusion of the poorly ranked US
stations.
The “Urban Heat Island Effect” has zero influence on climate modeling – studies prove
Archer, professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, 2008
(David, Oct. 6, “The Long Thaw,” pg. 32, CBC)
One oft-discussed issue with regard to the reconstruction of average temperature is called the urban heat island effect.
Paved land is measurably warmer than vegetated land, no doubt about it, because vegetated land cools by evaporation.
The question is whether any warming in the computed average temperature could actually be the urban heat island effect
instead of global warming. Hot urban centers are part of the Earth, and they do contribute to the average temperature of
the Earth, but their warmth is not caused by rising CO2 concentration. The easiest solution is to throw out urban data, by
picking it out by hand, to leave the average temperature of the non-urban Earth. This is a subjective, imprecise task, but
replicate studies find that it makes little difference to the global average whether urban areas are excluded or not. It turns
out to be a non-issue. Independent, competing studies produce very similar-looking global average land temperature
records, regardless of how they deal with urban heat island effects (Figure 4). So unless someone comes up with believable
proof that the urban heat island is important, we'll not worry about it.
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AT: Volcanoes
Volcanoes are comparatively irrelevant to global warming – humans emit over a 100
times more CO2
Gerlach, geologist at the USGS, 2010
(Terry, June 30, Earth Magazine, “Voices: Volcanic versus anthropogenic carbon dioxide: The missing
science,” http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/371-7da-7-1e, accessed 7/13/13, CBC)
“Volcanoes add far more carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere than humans.” So says geologist Ian Plimer of the
University of Adelaide in his 2009 best seller “Heaven and Earth: Global Warming — the Missing Science.” With this
assertion, Plimer brings volcanic carbon dioxide degassing front and center in the climate change debate, reviving and
reinforcing this wildly mistaken notion.¶ Although discussions of volcanic carbon dioxide emissions make up less than 5
percent of “Heaven and Earth’s” text, the alleged predominance of volcanic over human carbon dioxide emissions is one of
its most publicized takeaway messages. And one that will reverberate in the media and blogosphere — no matter how
vociferously professionals who investigate volcanic carbon dioxide emissions bristle and huff about how appallingly at
odds Plimer’s claim is with our research findings.¶ The treatment of volcanic versus anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions in this book illustrates one of the pathways by which myths, misrepresentations and spurious information get
injected into the climate change debate. Like several climate skeptic publications, blogs and websites, “Heaven and Earth”
does not provide the published estimates of the present-day global carbon dioxide emission rate from volcanoes. These
estimates are, ironically, “the missing science” of a book professing to rectify supposed excesses of missing science — a
book that appears impressively authoritative by citing a mountain of scientific literature. ¶ Several studies containing these
estimates are among its 2,311 citations, but the estimates themselves are never divulged. Moreover, the book and other
purveyors of this myth never explain, nor cite sources that explain, how it is known that volcanoes wholly outdo humans in
adding carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere.¶ Published estimates based on research findings of the past 30 years
for present-day global emission rates of carbon dioxide from subaerial and submarine volcanoes range from about 150
million to 270 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with an average of about 200 million metric tons, ¶ These
global volcanic estimates are utterly dwarfed by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement production, gas
flaring and land use changes; these emissions accounted for some 36,300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2008,
according to an international study published in the December 2009 issue of Nature Geoscience. Even if you take the
highest estimate of volcanic carbon dioxide emissions, at 270 million metric tons per year, human-emitted carbon dioxide
levels are more than 130 times higher than volcanic emissions.¶ Occasionally, scaled-down versions of the myth surface —
for example, “Volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than the world’s cars and industries combined.” The truth is that
data from the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the International
Energy Agency indicate that light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, vans, wagons) contribute about 3,040 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, and industry adds another 6,100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The
combined output is about 35 times greater than estimates of global volcanic carbon dioxide output.¶ Another version of
the myth is the all-powerful but poorly understood volcanic source. For example, “Heaven and Earth” describes submarine
volcanoes as “poorly understood because of the lack of continuous observation and measurement,” yet “carbon dioxide
from tens of thousands of submarine hot springs associated with these submarine basalt volcanoes quietly dissolves in the
cold high-pressure deep ocean water.” Then, this statement: “One hot spring can release far more carbon dioxide than a
1,000-megawatt coal-fired power station yet they are neither seen nor measured.” If this is neither seen nor measured,
then how does Plimer know how much carbon dioxide a hot spring emits? No supporting evidence or references are
offered. In fact, there are measurements on the carbon dioxide flux of mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal fluids, but they do
not support the power station comparison.¶ According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average carbon
dioxide emission rate from coal-fired power generation in the United States is 1.02 metric tons per megawatt-hour. So,
1.02 metric tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, times 1,000 megawatts, times 24 hours per day, times 365 days per
year, equals 8,935,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Thus, one of these submarine hot springs allegedly
generates “far more” than 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — or far more than three times the annual
baseline output of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii! Just 12 of these hot springs would exceed carbon dioxide emission rate
estimates for the entire 65,000-kilometer-long mid-ocean ridge system.¶ To scale up volcanic carbon dioxide output to the
current anthropogenic level would require adding thousands of volcanoes to the 50 to 60 normally active volcanoes of the
subaerial landscape and more than a hundred additional mid-ocean ridge systems to the seafloor.¶ Global volcanic carbon
dioxide emission estimates contain uncertainties and are variable, but there is virtually no doubt that volcanism adds far
less carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere than humans.
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Volcanoes prove that climate models are accurate and that warming is anthropogenic
Science Daily, 2002
(Feb. 1, Science Daily, “Pinatubo Volcano Research Boosts Case For Human-Caused Global
Warming,” www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/02/020220075850.htm, accessed 7/13/13, CBC)
Feb. 21, 2002 — NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, NJ – Research into the worldwide climatic impact of the 1991 Mount
Pinatubo volcanic eruption during the 10 years since the eruption has strengthened the case for human causes of global
warming, a Rutgers scientist reports in a paper published in the February 14 issue of the international journal, Science. ¶
Share This: The Pinatubo research also has improved scientists' ability to forecast the impact of future volcanoes on
weather and climate, says the paper's author, Alan Robock of the university's Center for Environmental Prediction in the
Department of Environmental Sciences, Cook College.¶ According to Robock, the eruption on Luzon Island in the
Philippines on June 15, 1991 produced the largest volcanic cloud of the 20th century and caused changes in worldwide
climate and weather that were felt for years.¶ The changes wrought by Pinatubo's sulfuric acid cloud, which blocked a
large percentage of sunlight from reaching the earth, initially included cooler summers and warmer winters, an overall net
cooling at the earth's surface and altered winds and weather patterns, Robock said.¶ In certain areas such as the Middle
East, it produced a rare snowstorm in Jerusalem and led to the death of coral at the bottom of the Red Sea, he noted.¶ The
cloud also caused depletion of the ozone layer over Temperate Zone regions of the Northern Hemisphere where much of
the world's population resides, in addition to the regular ozone "hole" which appears in October over Antarctica, the
researcher said.¶ Most significant, the scientist said, Pinatubo helped validate computer-generated climate models that
demonstrate human-caused global warming.¶ Using computer modeling, said Robock, scientists have been able to account
for natural warming and cooling, as found in Arctic and Antarctic ice core samples and tree rings covering hundreds of
years up to the last century.¶ "If you plug in volcanic eruptions, El Niños, solar variations and other natural causes and try
to simulate past climate changes, you can do a pretty good job of modeling climate change until the end of the 19th
Century," the researcher said.¶ After that period, he said, natural causes alone don't account for the amount of warming,
about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit), that has taken place in the last century.¶ "But when you factor in
Pinatubo and other eruptions along with anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions," said the scientist, "it accounts for the
observed record of climate change for the past century, including the overall warming and episodic cooling, and validates
the climate models."
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Impacts
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Global Instability
Climate change will cause global instability
The Guardian 2007 [Climate Wars Threaten Billions, Common Dreams,
11/5/07,http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/05/5016/] Victor, 7-12-13, KB
A total of 46 nations and 2.7 billion people are now at high risk of being overwhelmed by armed conflict and war because
of climate change. A further 56 countries face political destabilization, affecting another 1.2 billion individuals. This stark
warning will be outlined by the peace group International Alert in a report, A Climate of Conflict, this week. Much of
Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises
seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Even Europe is at risk. 'Climate change will compound the
propensity for violent conflict, which in turn will leave communities poorer and less able to cope with the consequences of
climate change,' the report states. The worst threats involve nations lacking resources and stability to deal with global
warming, added the agency's secretary-general, Dan Smith. 'Holland will be affected by rising sea levels, but no one
expects war or strife,' he told The Observer. 'It has the resources and political structure to act effectively. But other
countries that suffer loss of land and water and be buffeted by increasingly fierce storms will have no effective government
to ensure corrective measures are taken. People will form defensive groups and battles will break out.' Consider Peru, said
Smith. Its fresh water comes mostly from glacier melt water. But by 2015 nearly all Peru's glaciers will have been removed
by global warming and its 27 million people will nearly all lack fresh water. If Peru took action now, it could offset the
impending crisis, he added. But the country has little experience of effective democracy, suffers occasional outbreaks of
insurgency, and has border disputes with Chile and Ecuador. The result is likely to be 'chaos, conflict and mass migration'.
A different situation affects Bangladesh. Here climate-linked migration is already triggering violent conflict, says
International Alert. Droughts in summer combined with worsening flooding in coastal zones, triggered by increasingly
severe cyclones, are destroying farmland. Millions have already migrated to India, causing increasingly serious conflicts
that are destined to worsen. In Africa, rivers such as the Niger and Monu are key freshwater resources passing through
many nations. As droughts worsen and more water is extracted from them conflicts will be inevitable. In Europe, most
countries are currently considered stable enough to cope with global warming, apart from the Balkans; wars have left
countries such as Serbia and Montenegro politically weakened. As temperatures rise and farmland is reduced, population
pressures will trigger violence that authorities will be unable to contain. Some nations on the risk map, such as Russia,
may cause surprise. 'Moscow's control of Russia as a whole will not be undermined by global warming,' said Smith. 'But
loss of farmland in some regions will lead to local rebellions like those already triggered in Chechnya.' Conflict triggered by
climate change is not a vague threat for coming years, he added. 'It is already upon us.'
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Warming Bad – Generic
Warming causes extinction - a preponderance of evidence proves it's real,
anthropogenic, and outweighs other threats
Deibel 7 (Terry, "Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic of American Statecraft," Conclusion: American
Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)
Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which,
though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon
which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three decades now,
and what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty. Indeed not one of more than 900
articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic
warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence
of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort
accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts “brutal droughts,
floods and violent storms across the planet over the next century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents,
wipe away huge portions of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in
Greenland are melting much faster than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade
ago”; “rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes”;
“NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with
1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million
illnesses each year” as disease spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due
to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who
lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of
the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the
atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are accelerating toward
400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts
about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant
global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above
show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass die
offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of
Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could
disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern
third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the
collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude
would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate
levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most
frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the
atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 510 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring everincreasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that
“humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earth’s
climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, “we’re
just going to burn everything up; we’re going to het the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there
were crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized
a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not
only destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of
nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form
terrorism and traditional military challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United
States, but potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet.
Warming causes biodiversity loss, storms, and agriculture
Weart 11 — (Spencer Weart, Director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics,
December 2011, The Discovery of Global Warming)
A large body of scientific studies, exhaustively reviewed, has produced a long list of possibilities. Nobody can say that any
of the items on the list are certain to happen. But the world's climate experts almost all agree that the impacts listed below
are more likely than not to happen. For some items, the probabilities range up to almost certain. The following are the
likely consequences of warming by a few degrees Celsius — that is, what we may expect if humanity manages to begin
restraining its emissions soon, so that greenhouse gases do not rise beyond twice the pre-industrial level. Without strong
action the doubling will come well before the end of this century, bringing the planet to temperatures not seen since the
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spread of agriculture. By 2007, many of the predicted changes were observed to be actually happening. For details see
reports referenced in this footnote: (22) * Most places will continue to get warmer, especially at night and in winter. The
temperature change will benefit some regions while harming others — for example, patterns of tourism will shift. The
warmer winters will improve health and agriculture in some areas, but globally, mortality will rise and food supplies will
be endangered due to more frequent and extreme summer heat waves and other effects. Regions not directly harmed will
suffer indirectly from higher food prices and a press of refugees from afflicted regions. * Sea levels will continue to rise for
many centuries. The last time the planet was 3°C warmer than now, the sea level was at least 6 meters (20 feet)
higher.(23) That submerged coastlines where many millions of people now live, including cities from New York to
Shanghai. The rise will probably be so gradual that later generations can simply abandon their parents' homes, but a
ruinously swift rise cannot be entirely ruled out. Meanwhile storm surges will cause emergencies. <=Sea rise & ice *
Weather patterns will keep changing toward an intensified water cycle with stronger floods and droughts. Most regions
now subject to droughts will probably get drier (because of warmth as well as less precipitation), and most wet regions will
get wetter. Extreme weather events will become more frequent and worse. In particular, storms with more intense rainfall
are liable to bring worse floods. Some places will get more snowstorms, but most mountain glaciers and winter snowpack
will shrink, jeopardizing important water supply systems. Each of these things has already begun to happen in some
regions.(24) Drought in the 2060s * Ecosystems will be stressed, although some managed agricultural and forestry
systems will benefit, at least in the early decades of warming. Uncounted valuable species, especially in the Arctic,
mountain areas, and tropical seas, must shift their ranges. Many that cannot will face extinction. A variety of pests and
tropical diseases are expected to spread to warmed regions. These problems have already been observed in numerous
places. * Increased carbon dioxide levels will affect biological systems independent of climate change. Some crops will be
fertilized, as will some invasive weeds (the balance of benefit vs. harm is uncertain). The oceans will continue to become
markedly more acidic, gravely endangering coral reefs, and probably harming fisheries and other marine life. <=Biosphere
* There will be significant unforeseen impacts. Most of these will probably be harmful, since human and natural systems
are well adapted to the present climate. The climate system and ecosystems are complex and only partly understood, so
there is a chance that the impacts will not be as bad as predicted. There is a similar chance of impacts grievously worse
than predicted. If the CO2 level keeps rising to well beyond twice the pre-industrial level along with a rise of other
greenhouse gases, as must inevitably happen if we do not take strong action soon, the results will certainly be worse.
Under a "business as usual" scenario, recent calculations give even odds that global temperature will rise 5°C or more by
the end of the century — causing a radical reorganization and impoverishment of many of the ecosystems that sustain our
civilization.(25) All this is projected to happen to people who are now alive. What of the more distant future? If emissions
continue to rise for a century — whether because we fail to rein them in, or because we set off an unstoppable feedback
loop in which the warming itself causes ever more greenhouse gases to be evaporated into the air — then the gases will
reach a level that the Earth has not seen since tens of millions of years ago. The consequences will take several centuries to
be fully realized, as the Earth settles into its new state. It is probable that, as in the distant geological eras with high CO2,
sea levels will be many tens of meters higher and the average global temperature will soar far above the present value: a
planet grossly unlike the one to which the human species is adapted.
Climate change leads to massive death and economic and agricultural loss
Reuters, international news agency, 12 (Reuters 9/6/12 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/climate-changedeaths_n_1915365.html PB)
LONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - More than 100 million people will die and the global economy will miss out on as much as
3.2 percent of its potential output annually by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by
20 governments said on Wednesday. As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on
the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and
livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA. It calculated that five million deaths occur
each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies, and that
toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue. More than 90 percent of
those deaths will occur in developing countries, said the report that calculated the human and economic impact of climate
change on 184 countries in 2010 and 2030. It was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20
developing countries threatened by climate change. "A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million
lives between now and the end of the next decade," the report said. It said the effects of climate change was already costing
the global economy a potential 1.6 percent of annual output or about $1.2 trillion a year, and this could double to 3.2
percent by 2030 if global temperatures are allowed to rise. COUNTING THE COST Responding to the report, Oxfam
International said the costs of political inaction on climate were "staggering". "The losses to agriculture and fisheries alone
could amount to more than $500 billion per year by 2030, heavily focussed in the poorest countries where millions
depend on these sectors to make a living," said executive director Jeremy Hobbs. British economist Nicholas Stern told
Reuters earlier this year investment equivalent to 2 percent of global GDP was needed to limit, prevent and adapt to
climate change. His report on the economics of climate change in 2006 said that without any action to tackle climate
change, the overall costs and risks of climate change would be equivalent to a cut in per-capita consumption of perhaps up
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to 20 percent. Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Almost 200
nations agreed in 2010 to limit the global average temperature rise to below 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) to avoid dangerous
impacts from climate change. But climate scientists have warned that the chance of limiting the rise to below 2C is getting
smaller as global greenhouse gas emissions rise due to burning fossil fuels. The world's poorest nations are the most
vulnerable as they face increased risk of drought, water shortages, crop failure, poverty and disease. On average, they
could see an 11 percent loss in GDP by 2030 due to climate change, DARA said. "One degree Celsius rise in temperature is
associated with 10 percent productivity loss in farming. For us, it means losing about 4 million metric tonnes of food grain,
amounting to about $2.5 billion. That is about 2 percent of our GDP," Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in
response to the report. "Adding up the damages to property and other losses, we are faced with a total loss of about 3-4
percent of GDP." Even the biggest and most rapidly developing economies will not escape unscathed. The United States
and China could see a 2.1 percent reduction in their potential GDPs by 2030, while India could experience a more than 5
percent loss of potential output.¶
Climate change leads to death and instability
Vidal, The guardian’s environment chief editor, 09 (John Vidal 2/29/2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/29/1 PB)
Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first
comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming.¶ It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods,
storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest
humanitarian challenge the world faces.¶ Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year
— more than all the present world aid. The report comes from former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's thinktank, the
Global Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost $600bn a year.¶ Civil unrest may also
increase because of weather-related events, the report says: "Four billion people are vulnerable now and 500m are now at
extreme risk. Weather-related disasters ... bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods. They pose a threat to social
and political stability".¶ If emissions are not brought under control, within 25 years, the report states: ¶ • 310m more people
will suffer adverse health consequences related to temperature increases¶ • 20m more people will fall into poverty¶ • 75m
extra people will be displaced by climate change.¶ Climate change is expected to have the most severe impact on water
supplies, it said. "Shortages in future are likely to threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic
development and damage ecosystems. It causes more violent swings between floods and droughts. Hundreds of millions of
people are expected to become water stressed by climate change by the 2030."¶ The study says it is impossible to be certain
who will be displaced by 2030, but that tens of millions of people "will be driven from their homelands by weather
disasters or gradual environmental degradation. The problem is most severe in Africa, Bangladesh, Egypt, coastal zones
and forest areas."¶ The study compares for the first time the number of people affected by climate change in rich and poor
countries. Nearly 98% of the people seriously affected, 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters and 90% of the
total economic losses are now borne by developing countries. The populations most at risk it says, are in sub-Saharan
Africa, the Middle East, south Asia and the small island states of the Pacific.¶ But of the 12 countries considered least at
risk, including Britain, all but one are industrially developed. Together they have made nearly $72bn available to adapt
themselves to climate change but have pledged only $400m to help poor countries. "This is less than one state in Germany
is spending on improving its flood defences," says the report.¶ The study comes as diplomats from 192 countries prepare to
meet in Bonn next week for UN climate change talks aimed at reaching a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions in December in Copenhagen. "The world is at a crossroads. We can no longer afford to ignore the human impact
of climate change. This is a call to the negotiators to come to the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated or to continue
to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale," said Kofi Annan, who launched
the report today in London.¶ Annan blamed politicans for the current impasse in the negotiations and widespread
ignorance in many countries. "Weak leadership, as evident today, is alarming. If leaders cannot assume responsibility they
will fail humanity. Agreement is in the interests of every human being."¶ Barabra Stocking, head of Oxfam said:
"Adaptation efforts need to be scaled up dramatically.The world's poorest are the hardest hit, but they have done the least
to cause it.¶ Nobel peace prizewinner Wangari Maathai, said: "Climate change is life or death. It is the new global
battlefield. It is being presented as if it is the problem of the developed world. But it's the developed world that has
precipitated global warming."¶ Calculations for the report are based on data provided by the World Bank, the World
Health organisation, the UN, the Potsdam Insitute For Climate Impact Research, and others, including leading insurance
companies and Oxfam. However, the authors accept that the estimates are uncertain and could be higher or lower. The
paper was reviewed by 10 of the world's leading experts incluing Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN's Intergovernmental
Panel On Climate Change, Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University and Margareta Wahlström, assistant UN secretary
general for disaster risk reduction.¶
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Warming causes famine, disease, and resource wars – impacts already happening
Lean 7 (Geoffrey Lean, Enviorment Editor for The Indepedant, news agency,
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/wars-of-the-world-how-global-warming-puts-60-nationsat-risk-442788.html)
Scores of countries face war for scarce land, food and water as global warming increases. This is the conclusion of the most
devastating report yet on the effects of climate change that scientists and governments prepare to issue this week. More
than 60 nations, mainly in the Third World, will have existing tensions hugely exacerbated by the struggle for ever-scarcer
resources. Others now at peace - including China, the United States and even parts of Europe - are expected to be plunged
into conflict. Even those not directly affected will be threatened by a flood of hundreds of millions of "environmental
refugees". The threat is worrying world leaders. The new UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, told a global warming
conference last month: "In coming decades, changes in the environment - and the resulting upheavals, from droughts to
inundated coastal areas - are likely to become a major driver of war and conflict." Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary,
has repeatedly called global warming "a security issue" and a Pentagon report concluded that abrupt climate change could
lead to "skirmishes, battles and even war due to resource constraints". The fears will be increased by the second report this
year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The result of six years' work by 2,500 of the world's top
scientists, it will be published on Good Friday. The first report, released two months ago, concluded that global warming
was now "unequivocal" and it was 90 per cent certain that human activities are to blame. The new one will be the first to
show for certain that its effects are already becoming evident around the world. Tomorrow, representatives of the world's
governments will meet in Brussels to start four days of negotiation on the ultimate text of the report, which they are likely
to tone down somewhat. But the final confidential draft presented to them by the scientists makes it clear that the
consequences of global warming are appearing far sooner and faster than expected. "Changes in climate are now affecting
biological and physical systems on every continent," it says. In 20 years, tens of millions more Latin Americans and
hundreds of millions more Africans will be short of water, and by 2050 one billion Asians could face water shortages. The
glaciers of the Himalayas, which feed the great rivers of the continent, are likely to melt away almost completely by 2035,
threatening the lives of 700 million people. Though harvests will initially increase in temperate countries - as the extra
warmth lengthens growing seasons - they could fall by 30 per cent in India, confronting 130 million people with
starvation, by the 2050s. By 2080, 100 million people could be flooded out of their homes every year as the sea rises to
cover their land, turning them into environmental refugees. And up to a third of the world's wild species could be "at high
risk of irreversible extinction" from even relatively moderate warming. International Alert, "an independent peacebuilding organisation", has complied a list of 61 countries that are already unstable or have recently suffered armed
conflict where existing tensions will be exacerbated by shortages of food and water and by the disease, storm flooding and
sea-level rise that will accompany global warming, or by the deforestation that helps to cause it. The list forms the basis of
the map on the opposite page. Four years ago the Pentagon report concluded: "As famine, disease and weather-related
disasters strike... many countries' needs will exceed their carrying capacity. This will create a sense of desperation, which
is likely to lead to offensive aggression." Many experts believe this has begun. Last year John Reid, the Home Secretary,
blamed global warming for helping to cause the genocide in Darfur. Water supplies are seen as a key cause of the ArabIsraeli conflicts. The Golan Heights are important because they control key springs and rivers and the Sea of Galilee, while
vital aquifers lie under the West Bank. John Ashton, the Government's climate change envoy, says that global warming
should be addressed "not as a long-term threat to our environment, but as an immediate threat to our security and
prosperity".
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Warming Bad – Africa War
Warming will push unstable African nations over the brink causing conflicts and wars
Stern, Head of the British Government Economic Service, Former Head Economist for the World Bank, I.G. Patel Chair
at the London School of Economics and Political Science, —2007 (Nicholas “The Economics of Climate Change: The
Stern Review”, The report of a team commissioned by the British Government to study the economics of climate change
led by Siobhan Peters, Head of G8 and International Climate Change Policy Unit, Cambridge University Press, p. 112-113
NMS)
Drought and other climate-related shocks may spark conflict and violence, as they have done already in many parts of Africa. The effects of climate
change - particularly when coupled with rapid population growth, and existing economic, political, ethnic or religious
tensions - could be a contributory factor in both national and cross-border conflicts in some developing countries. •Long-term
climate deterioration (such as rising temperatures and sea levels) will exacerbate the competition for resources and may contribute
to forced dislocation and migration that can generate destabilising pressures and tensions in neighbouring areas. •Increased
climate variability (such as periods of intense rain to prolonged dry periods) can result in adverse growth shocks and cause higher
risks of conflict as work opportunities are reduced, making recruitment into rebel groups much easier. Support for this relationship has been
provided by empirical work in Africa, using rainfall shocks as an instrument for growth shocks.99 Adverse climatic conditions already make
societies more prone to violence and conflict across the developing world, both internally and cross-border. Long periods of drought in the
1970s and 1980s in Sudan’s Northern Darfur State, for example, resulted in deep, widespread poverty and, along with many
other factors such as a breakdown in methods of coping with drought , has been identified by some studies as a contributor to the
current crisis there.100 Whilst climate change can contribute to the risk of conflict, however, it is very unlikely to be the single driving factor. Empirical
evidence shows that a changing and hostile climate has resulted in tension and conflict in some countries but not others. The risk of climate
change sparking conflict is far greater if other factors such as poor governance and political instability, ethnic tensions
and, in the case of declining water availability, high water interdependence are already present . In light of this, West Africa, the
Nile Basin and Central Asia have been identified as regions potentially at risk of future tension and conflict. Box 4.6 indicates areas vulnerable to future
tension and past conflicts where an adverse climate has played an important role. Future risks •West Africa: Whilst there is still much uncertainty
surrounding the future changes in rainfall in this part of the world, the region is already exposed to declining average annual rainfall
(ranging from 10% in the wet tropical zone to more than 30% in the Sahelian zone since the early 1970s) and falling discharge in major river
systems of between 40 to 60% on average. Changes of this magnitude already give some indication of the magnitude of risks in
the future given that we have only seen 0.7°C increase and 3°C or 4°C more could be on the way in the next 100 to 150 years. The implications of
this are amplified by both the high water interdependence in the region - 17 countries share 25 transboundary watercourses – and
plans by many of the countries to invest in large dams that will both increase water withdrawals and change natural water allocation patterns between
riparian countries.101 The region faces a serious risk of water-related conflict in the future if cooperative mechanisms are not
agreed. 102 •The Nile: Ten countries share the Nile. 103 While Egypt is water scarce and almost entirely dependent on water originating from the
upstream Nile basin countries, approximately 70% of the Nile’s waters flow from the Ethiopian highlands. Climate change threatens an increase
in competition for water in the region, compounded by rapid population growth that will increase demand for water . The
population of the ten Nile countries is projected to increase from 280 million in 2000 to 860 million by 2050. A recent study by Strzepek et al (2001)
found a propensity for lower Nile flows in 8 out of 8 climate scenarios, with impacts ranging from no change to a roughly 40% reduction in flows by 2025
to over 60% by 2050 in 3 of the flow scenarios. 104 Regional cooperation will be critical to avoid future climate-driven conflict and tension in the region.
Great power war
Glick ‘7 - Senior Middle East Fellow – Center for Security Policy (Caroline, “Condi’s African Holiday”, 12-12,
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/home.aspx?sid=56&categoryid=56&subcategoryid=90&newsid=11568)
The Horn of Africa is a dangerous and strategically vital place. Small wars, which rage continuously, can easily escalate
into big wars. Local conflicts have regional and global aspects. All of the conflicts in this tinderbox, which
controls shipping lanes from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea, can potentially give rise to regional, and
indeed global conflagrations between competing regional actors and global powers . The Horn of Africa includes
the states of Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Kenya.
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Warming Bad – Arctic War
Warming melts arctic ice that opens up new areas of conflict
Kramnik 4/19/12 — (Ilya Kramnik, writer for The Voice of Russia, “News Agency about
Russian Affair”, NATO, Russia stage Arctic war games
4/19/12, http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_19/72301024/)
As global warming is thawing permafrost around the Earth's poles, the Arctic is gradually emerging from under the eternal
ice as a new geopolitical arena, a focal point of interest and concern to the major world powers. The conflict of economic
interests is already on the horizon and won’t probably be resolved any soon, although military clashes remain an equally
hazy perspective. In the past, only scientist and journalists seemed to be concerned about the “opening up” of the Arctic.
Now, politicians and the military are also turning their gaze to this region, which rising temperatures have made more
accessible than ever. The global media and especially local agencies are bristling with threats of a new Cold War in the
Arctic, while major northern states are meeting to discuss regional security. One of such meetings was held by military
chiefs of all Arctic powers in Canada on April 12, 13. It was attended, among others, by Gen. Nikolai Makarov, Chief of
Russia’s Armed Forces General Staff. The meeting took place at a time when the icy region was buzzing with activity, with
both Russia and NATO engaged in war games beyond the Arctic Circle. In March, NATO wrapped up its Cold Response
maneuvers on the stretch from Sweden to Canada, with 16,300 troops engaged in this unprecedented military exercise.
The war game was only clouded by a crash, when a Norwegian C-130J plane rammed into the western slope of the Swedish
mountain, Kebnekaise, killing five servicemen. The Russian military kept apace, staging their own maneuvers. Its 200th
motor rifle brigade from Murmansk tested the T-80 tanks, which are believed to be best-suited for the Arctic climate, with
their gas turbine engines, which are much easier to start in the cold weather than the traditional diesel ones. The Russian
Northern Fleet, as well as Air Defense planes, choppers and marine aviation participated in the drills. The Air Forces also
trained in Russia’s northern reaches. On April 9-15, Russia staged Ladoga 2012 maneuvers at the Karelian Besovets air
base with 50 choppers and aircraft, which engaged and shot down over 150 air targets. In their war games, NATO and
Russia are both pursuing one and the same goal. As rising temperatures are freeing larger and larger areas of the Arctic
from its icy shackles, all regional key players are flexing their military muscle to score psychological points in the
information battlespace, the main arena of modern diplomatic conflicts. No one wants a “Hot War.” Even more so, the US,
the potential northern leader, is now focused on more pressing issues in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Pacific, where it is
engaged in a standoff with China. However, Arctic’s natural riches, territorial disputes and expanding shipping lanes have
rendered it a very lucrative region – and thus potentially a “hot” one. The situation around maritime traffic nodes has
never been simple. Such was the case with the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, or the Strait of Malacca. If the Arctic
emerges as another junction of sea lanes it will spawn conflicts among the world powers, depending on how determined
they will be to protect their national interests. Russia is one of such ambitious northern powers, currently planning on
boosting its Arctic infrastructure, for instance building twenty frontier posts to protect its polar reaches. Some of them will
be erected close to nine emergency and transport ministerial centers, set up to further the development of Russia’s
Northern Sea Route. The rest of the frontiers will be built on the islands. A satellite system called Arktika will allow for
their uninterrupted communication with the "mainland." These frontier posts, which are to be erected in the upcoming
years, will serve as Russia’s bulwark beyond the Arctic Circle and will be secured by its Northern Fleet, air forces and the
so-called “Arctic brigades,” specially trained to operate in the polar region. For now, Arctic conflicts are still a matter of
theoretical disputes and an inspiration for computer games designers. For instance, the recent game called Naval Warfare:
Arctic Circle tells a story about navies and air forces of Russia and NATO fighting for Arctic dominance. Today, major
world powers are too busy wrestling with global economic crisis to let this story out of its cyber realm. But no one knows
what the nearest future has in store for us.
Nuclear war
Staples 9 (Stephen, Rideau Institute, Danish Institute of International Studies, "Steps Toward an Arctic Nuclear
Weapon Free Zone," August)
The fact is, the Arctic is becoming an zone of increased military competition. Russian President Medvedev has announced
the creation of a special military force to defend Arctic claims. Russian General Vladimir Shamanov declared that Russian
troops would step up training for Arctic combat, and that Russia’s submarine fleet would increase its “operational radius.”
This week, two Russian attack submarines were spotted off the U.S. east coast for the first time in 15 years.6 In January,
on the eve of Obama’s inauguration, President Bush issued a National Security Presidential Directive on Arctic Regional
Policy. As Michael Hamel-Greene has pointed out, it affirmed as a priority to preserve U.S. military vessel and aircraft
mobility and transit throughout the Arctic, including the Northwest Passage, and foresaw greater capabilities to protect
U.S. borders in the Arctic. The Bush administration’s disastrous eight years in office, particularly its decision to withdraw
from the ABM treaty and deploy missile defence interceptors and a radar in Eastern Europe, has greatly contributed to the
instability we are seeing today. The Arctic has figured in this renewed interest in Cold War weapons systems, particularly
the upgrading of the Thule Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radar for ballistic missile defence. The Canadian
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government, as well, has put forward new military capabilities to protect Canadian sovereignty claims in the Arctic,
including proposed ice-capable ships, a northern military training base and a deep water port. Denmark last week released
an all-party defence position paper that suggests the country should create a dedicated Arctic military contingent that
draws on army, navy and air force assets with ship-based helicopters able to drop troops anywhere. Danish fighter planes
could be patrolling Greenlandic airspace. Last year, Norway chose to buy 48 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets, partly because of
their suitability for Arctic patrols. In March, that country held a major Arctic military practice involving 7,000 soldiers
from 13 countries in which a fictional country called Northland seized offshore oil rigs. The manoeuvres prompted a
protest from Russia – which objected again in June after Sweden held its largest northern military exercise since the end
of the Second World War. About 12,000 troops, 50 aircraft and several warships were involved. Jayantha Dhanapala,
President of Pugwash and former UN Under-Secretary for Disarmament Affairs, summarizes the situation bluntly. He
warns us that “From those in the international peace and security sector, deep concerns are being expressed over the fact
that two nuclear weapon states – the United States and the Russian Federation, which together own 95 per cent of the
nuclear weapons in the world – converge on the Arctic and have competing claims. These claims, together with those of
other allied NATO countries – Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway – could, if unresolved, lead to conflict escalating
into the threat or use of nuclear weapons.
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Warming Bad – Authoritarianism
Climate change leads to authoritarianism – studies prove
Fritsche 12 (Immo Fritsche, Institut für Psychologie, Lehrstuhl für Sozialpsychologie, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität
Jena, Germany, J. Christopher Cohrs, School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom, Thomas Kessler,
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, Judith Bauer, Institut für Psychologie, Abteilung Sozialpsychologie,
Universität Leipzig, Germany, journal published on 3/12, published online on 9/24/11, “Global warming is breeding social
conflict: The subtle impact of climate change threat on authoritarian tendencies,” Journal of Environmental Psychology,
Volume 32, Issue 1, pages 1-10, ScienceDirect)
Climate change can increase societies’ propensity to conflict by changes in socio-structural conditions (e.g., resource
scarcity, migration). We propose an additional, subtle, and general effect of climate change threat via increases in
authoritarian attitudes. Three studies in Germany and the UK support this suggestion. Reminding participants of the
adverse consequences climate change may have for their country increased the derogation of societal groups that may
threaten the collective (e.g., criminals) as well as general authoritarian attitudes. Salient climate change threats also led to
system justification and approval of system supporting groups (e.g., judges) in those people who were highly identified
with their nation. We discuss the implications of these findings for the explanation of authoritarian attitudes and the
question of how societies may cope with the subtle social psychological effects of climate change.
Climate change doubles risk of civil conflict
Schiermeier 11 — (Quirin Schiermeier, staff writer, published online on 8/24/11, “Climate cycles drive civil war,”
Nature, “International weekly journal of science,” accessed online,
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.501.html)
Previous studies have focused on the question of how anthropogenic climate change might increase conflict risk. A 2009
study2 by economist Marshall Burke at the University of California, Berkeley, and his co-workers found that the
probability of armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa was about 50% higher than normal in some unusually warm years
since 1981. But critics point to statistical problems — for instance when linking possibly random local temperature and
rainfall variations with outbreaks of civil war — that may have resulted in a false appearance of causality. To overcome this
problem, Solomon Hsiang, an economist currently at Princeton University in New Jersey, and his colleagues opted to look
at how historical changes in the global, rather than local, climate affect conflict risk1. Clear signal The team designed a
'quasi-experiment' for which they divided the world into regions strongly affected by the ENSO — the tropical parts of
South America, Africa and the Asia–Pacific region, including parts of Australia — and regions only weakly affected by it.
They then searched for a link between climate and armed conflicts that arose in the first group between 1950 and 2004. A
very clear signal appeared in the data. The team found that the risk of annual civil conflict doubles, from 3% to 6%, in
countries of the ENSO-affected, or 'teleconnected', group during El Niño years relative to La Niña years. In many cases,
conflicts that might have broken out anyway may have occurred earlier owing to the effects of El Niño, Hsiang suggests.
Climate change could link to one fifth of global civil conflicts
Schiermeier 11 — (Quirin Schiermeier, staff writer, published online on 8/24/11, “Climate cycles drive civil war,”
Nature, “International weekly journal of science,” accessed online,
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.501.html)
Civil conflicts have been by far the most common form of organized political violence in recent decades, Hsiang says.
Globally, one-fifth of the 240 or so civil conflicts since 1950 could be linked to the 4–7-year climate cycle originating in the
southern Pacific, the study concludes. The results were unaffected by any modification to the statistical set-up of the
analysis — such as excluding particularly crisis-prone African countries — which the team performed to confirm the
robustness of their findings.
Climate change impacts stability – doubles likelihood of civil war and may have caused
one fifth of global conflicts
Goodman 11 — interview conducted by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, “A Daily Independent Global News
Hour,” 8/29/11, “Global Warming & War: New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change and Conflict,” an interview with
Solomon Hsiang, lead author of a study linking civil wars with global climate change, and postdoctoral researcher at the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Democracy Now!)
We move to another issue around climate. A new study has found that war is associated with global climate. According to
the report, there are links between the climate phenomenon El Niño and outbreaks of violence in countries from southern
Sudan to Indonesia and Peru. In fact, the scientists find that El Niño, which brings hot and dry conditions to tropical
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nations, doubles the risk of civil war in up to 90 countries. The study was published online last week in the journal Nature.
El Niño may help account for a fifth of conflicts worldwide during the past 50 years.
Global warming is real, feedbacks cause rapid escalation, and it causes population
migrations fueling political instability and failed states, escalating to nuclear war and
extinction
Kaku , co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory. 11 Michio Kaku, He received a B.S. (summa cum
laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics class. (“Physics of the Future”
http://213.55.83.52/ebooks/physics/Physics%20of%20the%20Future.pdf PB)
By midcentury, the full impact of a fossil fuel economy should be in full swing: global warming. It is
now indisputable that the earth is heating up. Within the last century, the earth’s temperature rose
1.3° F, and the pace is accelerating. The signs are unmistakable everywhere we look: The thickness of
Arctic ice has decreased by an astonishing 50 percent in just the past fifty years. Much of this Arctic ice
is just below the freezing point, floating on water. Hence, it is acutely sensitive to small temperature variations
of the oceans, acting as a canary in a mineshaft, an early warning system. Today, parts of the northern
polar ice caps disappear during the summer months, and may disappear entirely during summer as
early as 2015. The polar ice cap may vanish permanently by the end of the century, disrupting the world’s weather by
altering the flow of ocean and air currents around the planet. Greenland’s ice shelves shrank by twenty-four
square miles in 2007. This figure jumped to seventy-one square miles in 2008. (If all the Greenland
ice were somehow to melt, sea levels would rise about twenty feet around the world.) Large chunks of
Antarctica’s ice, which have been stable for tens of thousands of years, are gradually breaking off. In 2000, a piece
the size of Connecticut broke off, containing 4,200 square miles of ice. In 2002, a piece of ice the size
of Rhode Island broke off the Thwaites Glacier. (If all Antarctica’s ice were to melt, sea levels would
rise about 180 feet around the world.) For every vertical foot that the ocean rises, the horizontal spread of the
ocean is about 100 feet. Already, sea levels have risen 8 inches in the past century, mainly caused by the expansion of
seawater as it heats up. According to the United Nations, sea levels could rise by 7 to 23 inches by 2100.
Some scientists have said that the UN report was too cautious in interpreting the data. According to
scientists at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, by 2100 sea levels could
rise by 3 to 6 feet. So gradually the map of the earth’s coastlines will change. Temperatures started to be
reliably recorded in the late 1700s; 1995, 2005, and 2010 ranked among the hottest years ever
recorded; 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade. Likewise, levels of carbon dioxide are rising dramatically. They
are at the highest levels in 100,000 years. As the earth heats up, tropical diseases are gradually migrating
northward. The recent spread of the West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes may be a harbinger of
things to come. UN officials are especially concerned about the spread of malaria northward. Usually,
the eggs of many harmful insects die every winter when the soil freezes. But with the shortening of the
winter season, it means the inexorable spread of dangerous insects northward. CARBONDIOXIDE—
GREENHOUSEGAS According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists
have concluded with 90 percent confidence that global warming is driven by human activity,
especially the production of carbon dioxide via the burning of oil and coal. Sunlight easily passes
through carbon dioxide. But as sunlight heats up the earth, it creates infrared radiation, which does
not pass back through carbon dioxide so easily. The energy from sunlight cannot escape back into
space and is trapped. We also see a somewhat similar effect in greenhouses or cars. The sunlight
warms the air, which is prevented from escaping by the glass. Ominously, the amount of carbon
dioxide generated has grown explosively, especially in the last century. Before the Industrial
Revolution, the carbon dioxide content of the air was 270 parts per million (ppm). Today, it has
soared to 387 ppm. (In 1900, the world consumed 150 million barrels of oil. In 2000, it jumped to 28
billion barrels, a 185-fold jump. In 2008, 9.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide were sent into the air from
fossil fuel burning and also deforestation, but only 5 billion tons were recycled into the oceans, soil,
and vegetation. The remainder will stay in the air for decades to come, heating up the earth.) VISIT
TO ICELAND The rise in temperature is not a fluke, as we can see by analyzing ice cores. By drilling
deep into the ancient ice of the Arctic, scientists have been able to extract air bubbles that are
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thousands of years old. By chemically analyzing the air in these bubbles, scientists can reconstruct the
temperature and carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere going back more than 600,000 years.
Soon, they will be able to determine the weather conditions going back a million years. I had a chance
to see this firsthand. I once gave a lecture in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and had the privilege of
visiting the University of Iceland, where ice cores are being analyzed. When your airplane lands in
Reykjavik, at first all you see is snow and jagged rock, resembling the bleak landscape of the moon.
Although barren and forbidding, the terrain makes the Arctic an ideal place to analyze the climate of
the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. When I visited their laboratory, which is kept at
freezing temperatures, I had to pass through thick refrigerator doors. Once inside, I could see racks
and racks containing long metal tubes, each about an inch and a half in diameter and about ten feet
long. Each hollow tube had been drilled deep into the ice of a glacier. As the tube penetrated the ice, it
captured samples from snows that had fallen thousands of years ago. When the tubes were removed, I
could carefully examine the icy contents of each. At first, all I could see was a long column of white
ice. But upon closer examination, I could see that the ice had stripes made of tiny bands of different
colors. Scientists have to use a variety of techniques to date them. Some of the ice layers contain
markers indicating important events, such as the soot emitted from a volcanic eruption. Since the
dates of these eruptions are known to great accuracy, one can use them to determine how old that
layer is. These ice cores were then cut in various slices so they could be examined. When I peered into
one slice under a microscope, I saw tiny, microscopic bubbles. I shuddered to realize that I was seeing
air bubbles that were deposited tens of thousands of years ago, even before the rise of human
civilization. The carbon dioxide content within each air bubble is easily measured. But calculating the
temperature of the air when the ice was first deposited is more difficult. (To do this, scientists analyze
the water in the bubble. Water molecules can contain different isotopes. As the temperature falls,
heavier water isotopes condense faster than ordinary water molecules. Hence, by measuring the
amount of the heavier isotopes, one can calculate the temperature at which the water molecule
condensed.) Finally, after painfully analyzing the contents of thousands of ice cores, these scientists
have come to some important conclusions. They found that temperature and carbon dioxide levels
have oscillated in parallel, like two roller coasters moving together, in synchronization over many
thousands of years. When one curve rises or falls, so does the other. Most important, they found a
sudden spike in temperature and carbon dioxide content happening just within the last century. This
is highly unusual, since most fluctuations occur slowly over millennia. This unusual spike is not part
of this natural heating process, scientists claim, but is a direct indicator of human activity. There are
other ways to show that this sudden spike is caused by human activity, and not natural cycles.
Computer simulations are now so advanced that we can simulate the temperature of the earth with
and without the presence of human activity. Without civilization producing carbon dioxide, we find a
relatively flat temperature curve. But with the addition of human activity, we can show that there
should be a sudden spike in both temperature and carbon dioxide. The predicted spike fits the actual
spike perfectly. Lastly, one can measure the amount of sunlight that lands on every square foot of the
earth’s surface. Scientists can also calculate the amount of heat that is reflected into outer space from
the earth. Normally, we expect these two amounts to be equal, with input equaling output. But in
reality, we find the net amount of energy that is currently heating the earth. Then if we calculate the
amount of energy being produced by human activity, we find a perfect match. Hence, human activity
is causing the current heating of the earth. Unfortunately, even if we were to suddenly stop producing
any carbon dioxide, the gas that has already been released into the atmosphere is enough to continue
global warming for decades to come. As a result, by midcentury, the situation could be dire. Scientists
have created pictures of what our coastal cities will look like at midcentury and beyond if sea levels
continue to rise. Coastal cities may disappear. Large parts of Manhattan may have to be evacuated,
with Wall Street underwater. Governments will have to decide which of their great cities and capitals
are worth saving and which are beyond hope. Some cities may be saved via a combination of
sophisticated dikes and water gates. Other cities may be deemed hopeless and allowed to vanish
under the ocean, creating mass migrations of people. Since most of the commercial and population
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centers of the world are next to the ocean, this could have a disastrous effect on the world economy.
Even if some cities can be salvaged, there is still the danger that large storms can send surges of water
into a city, paralyzing its infrastructure. For example, in 1992 a huge storm surge flooded Manhattan,
paralyzing the subway system and trains to New Jersey. With transportation flooded, the economy
grinds to a halt. FLOODING BANGLADESH AND VIETNAM A report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change isolated three hot spots for potential disaster: Bangladesh, the Mekong
Delta of Vietnam, and the Nile Delta in Egypt. The worst situation is that of Bangladesh, a country
regularly flooded by storms even without global warming. Most of the country is flat and at sea level.
Although it has made significant gains in the last few decades, it is still one of the poorest nations on
earth, with one of the highest population densities. (It has a population of 161 million, comparable to
that of Russia, but with 1/120 of the land area.) About 50 percent of the land area will be permanently
flooded if sea levels rise by three feet. Natural calamities occur there almost every year, but in
September 1998, the world witnessed in horror a preview of what may become commonplace. Massive
flooding submerged two-thirds of the nation, leaving 30 million people homeless almost overnight;
1,000 were killed, and 6,000 miles of roads were destroyed. This was one of the worst natural
disasters in modern history. Another country that would be devastated by a rise in sea level is
Vietnam, where the Mekong Delta is particularly vulnerable. By midcentury, this country of 87 million
people could face a collapse of its main food-growing area. Half the rice in Vietnam is grown in the
Mekong Delta, home to 17 million people, and much of it will be flooded permanently by rising sea
levels. According to the World Bank, 11 percent of the entire population would be displaced if sea
levels rise by three feet by midcentury. The Mekong Delta will also be flooded with salt water,
permanently destroying the fertile soil of the area. If millions are flooded out of their homes in
Vietnam, many will flock to Ho Chi Minh City seeking refuge. But one-fourth of the city will also be
underwater. In 2003 the Pentagon commissioned a study, done by the Global Business Network, that
showed that, in a worst-case scenario, chaos could spread around the world due to global warming. As
millions of refugees cross national borders, governments could lose all authority and collapse, so
countries could descend into the nightmare of looting, rioting, and chaos. In this desperate situation,
nations, when faced with the prospect of the influx of millions of desperate people, may resort to
nuclear weapons. “Envision Pakistan, India, and China—all armed with nuclear weapons—
skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land,” the report said.
Peter Schwartz, founder of the Global Business Network and a principal author of the Pentagon study,
confided to me the details of this scenario. He told me that the biggest hot spot would be the border
between India and Bangladesh. In a major crisis in Bangladesh, up to 160 million people could be
driven out of their homes, sparking one of the greatest migrations in human history. Tensions could
rapidly rise as borders collapse, local governments are paralyzed, and mass rioting breaks out.
Schwartz sees that nations may use nuclear weapons as a last resort. In a worst-case scenario, we
could have a greenhouse effect that feeds on itself. For example, the melting of the tundra in the
Arctic regions may release millions of tons of methane gas from rotting vegetation. Tundra covers
nearly 9 million square miles of land in the Northern Hemisphere, containing vegetation frozen since
the last Ice Age tens of thousands of years ago. This tundra contains more carbon dioxide and
methane than the atmosphere, and this poses an enormous threat to the world’s weather. Methane
gas, moreover, is a much deadlier greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It does not stay in the
atmosphere as long, but it causes much more damage than carbon dioxide. The release of so much
methane gas from the melting tundra could cause temperatures to rapidly rise, which will cause even
more methane gas to be released, causing a runaway cycle of global warming.
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Warming Bad – CCP Stability
Climate change threatens the stability of the CCP, which leads to massive protests
Inter Press Service 2007 (September 4, 2007 Inter Press News Service “ECONOMY-CHINA: Global Warming
Fuels Inflation.” http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39144 NMS)
Yet government officials now fear that the combined effects of climate change and inflation pressures could destabilise
public mood ahead of the 17th Communist Party Congress – a five-yearly meeting, designed to chart the party’s policy and
seal the legacy of its current leaders.¶ Drought is already affecting 22 of China’s 31 provinces. Meteorological experts say
that global warming would exacerbate things as a one-degree rise in temperature could aggravate ground water
evaporation by seven percent.¶ Zheng Guogan, head of the State Meteorological Administration forecasts global warming
will cut China’s annual grain harvest by up to 10 percent. That would mean about 50 million tonnes less grain in the
current tight supply situation and a potential for further inflation.¶ “Given the tightened food supply in the international
market, a decline in domestic grain production could lead to more price hikes,” Song Tingmin, vice-president of the China
National Association of Grain told the China Daily.¶ A surge in food prices saw China’s consumer price index (CPI) rise to a
10-year high of 5.6 percent in July, far above the government’s upper target of 3 percent for the whole year. Economists
say the August inflation rose even higher on the back of soaring pork costs.¶ The social dimensions of such leaps in
inflation are not lost on a government, which remembers that 1989 pro-democracy movement that saw thousands of
students, workers and intellectuals out in street protests was triggered by public anger over inflation.
Extinction
Renxing 5 (San, Contributor. Epoch Times. http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-4/30931.html)
Since the Party’s life is “above all else,” it would not be surprising if the CCP resorts to the use of biological, chemical, and
nuclear weapons in its attempt to postpone its life. The CCP, that disregards human life, would not hesitate to kill two
hundred million Americans, coupled with seven or eight hundred million Chinese, to achieve its ends. The “speech,” free
of all disguises, lets the public see the CCP for what it really is: with evil filling its every cell, the CCP intends to fight all of
mankind in its desperate attempt to cling to life. And that is the theme of the “speech.” The theme is murderous and
utterly evil. We did witness in China beggars who demanded money from people by threatening to stab themselves with
knives or prick their throats on long nails. But we have never, until now, seen a rogue who blackmails the world to die with
it by wielding biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Anyhow, the bloody confession affirmed the CCP’s bloodiness: a
monstrous murderer, who has killed 80 million Chinese people, now plans to hold one billion people hostage and gamble
with their lives.
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XT – CCP
Food shortages from warming will threaten the CCP and lead to violent protests and
draw in other major powers
Feffer and Bleicher, co-director of Institute for Foreign Policy’s Foreign Policy in Focus, and Professor of Law at
Georgetown 2008 (John and Samuel, May 8 2008, Foreign Policy in Focus “China: Superpower or Basket Case?”
http://fpif.org/china_superpower_or_basket_case/ NMS)
In light of these realities, the West is overly focused on the Chinese “emerging superpower” threat and giving far too little
attention to the real risks and foreign policy challenges that would flow from a serious breakdown in Chinese economic,
political, or social structures. A crisis might be triggered by any number of factors. A dramatic slowdown in the Chinese or
world economy could disrupt the lives of millions of factory workers. Serious rationing of water, food, or energy, whether
by dramatic price increases or some other mechanism, could be unacceptably painful for a large part of the population.
The loss of individual savings from a stock market or banking collapse could fuel popular discontent among the new urban
elite. Even with continuing economic progress, widening income disparities could generate increasingly serious opposition
in rural areas. A widespread farmers’ strike might cut off food to the urban centers, leaving them in a state of chaos.¶
Systemic crisis could then lead to an open challenge to the regime. Here are two scenarios to consider. In one, students,
factory workers, and peasants gather again in Tiananmen Square to protest economic conditions and perceived political
non-responsiveness. When urban professionals start to join them, the central government calls in the army. It begins a
brutal campaign of violently repressing demonstrators, arresting domestic and foreign media representatives, and purging
uncooperative members of the Party and civilian government, entirely disregarding the legal system. The demonstrations
do not stop, and various groups ask for outside help to protect foreign residents and foreign investment and to end the
wholesale disregard of human rights. Overseas Chinese and major U.S. banks and corporations with investments and
supply lines at stake argue that the situation is too dangerous to ignore.
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Warming Bad – Central Asian Stability
Global warming causes Central Asian instability due to a decrease in agricultural yields
and the economy
TR 2009 [Technical Reform, International Green Week, January 16, 2009 “Climate Change in Central Asia”
http://www.irthebest.com/globalwarming_climate_change_in_central_asia.html NMS]
Agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to the impacts of climate change not only in Central Asia but worldwide.
Despite the enormous progress of scientific knowledge and technological developments in recent decades, weather is still
the major factor in agricultural productivity. It is acknowledged that the impacts of climate change are highly location
specific. In Central Asia, water and agricultural sectors are likely to be the most sensitive to the negative effects of global
warming. The major factors related to climate change affecting agricultural productivity in Central Asia: increasing
temperature, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, changes of precipitation, surface water access and extreme weather
conditions. Temperature will rise in average- even if Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are stabilized at current levels and the water coverage as well as surface runoff will also alter in the region. However rising concentration of carbon in the
atmosphere could benefit certain crop yields (e.g. maize and sorghum), it can not compensate the negative impacts of
more intense droughts and floods. Central Asia significantly contributes to global warming by generating large volume of
GHG emissions, and agricultural sector is among the major contributors. Agriculture is a significant sector of the economy
in the Central Asian countries, with around 60% of the population living in rural areas, occupying more than 40% of the
total labor force, and agriculture accounting for approximately 25% of GDP on average. Kazakhstan is the only exception
with agriculture accounting for only 8% of GDP (but still around 33% of total employment). Currently the two most
significant crops in Central Asia are cotton and wheat. It is foreseen that due to global warming, agricultural productivity
in Central Asia might suffer severe losses because of high temperature, severe drought, flood conditions, and soil
degradation, which may endanger food security and agriculturally-based livelihood systems in the region. Climate change
poses serious threats to the region’s rural population, which can lead to accelerated rural-urban migration, increased
urban unemployment and consequently, social and political tensions.
Central Asia war would trigger WWIII with Russia
F. William Engdhal, Global Research Associate, 10/11/08, “The Caucasus —Washington Risks nuclear war by
miscalculation” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9790
So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane of danger. The next step will no longer be
just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. In 1914 it was the "Guns of August" that initiated the Great War. This time the
Guns of August 2008 could be the detonator of World War III and a nuclear holocaust of unspeakable horror. Nuclear
Primacy: the larger strategic danger Most in the West are unaware how dangerous the conflict over two tiny provinces in a
remote part of Eurasia has become. What is left out of most all media coverage is the strategic military security context of
the Caucasus dispute. Since the end of the Cold War in the beginning of the 1990’s NATO and most directly Washington
have systematically pursued what military strategists call Nuclear Primacy. Put simply, if one of two opposing nuclear
powers is able to first develop an operational anti-missile defense, even primitive, that can dramatically weaken a
potential counter-strike by the opposing side’s nuclear arsenal, the side with missile defense has "won" the nuclear war. As
mad as this sounds, it has been explicit Pentagon policy through the last three Presidents from father Bush in 1990, to
Clinton and most aggressively, George W. Bush. This is the issue where Russia has drawn a deep line in the sand,
understandably so. The forceful US effort to push Georgia as well as Ukraine into NATO would present Russia with the
spectre of NATO literally coming to its doorstep, a military threat that is aggressive in the extreme, and untenable for
Russian national security. This is what gives the seemingly obscure fight over two provinces the size of Luxemburg the
potential to become the 1914 Sarajevo trigger to a new nuclear war by miscalculation. The trigger for such a war is not
Georgia’s right to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Rather, it is US insistence on pushing NATO and its missile defense
right up to Russia’s door.
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Warming Bad – Disease
Warming causes disease spread
Adair 12 ( KIRSTEN ADAIR, CONTRIBUTING REPORTER for Daily Yale News, Wednesday, April 11, 2012,
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/apr/11/global-warming-may-intensify-disease/)
There may be more to fear from global warming than environmental changes. According to several leading climate
scientists and public health researchers, global warming will lead to higher incidence and more intense versions of disease.
The direct or indirect effects of global warming might intensify the prevalence of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, dengue and
Lyme disease, they said, but the threat of increased health risks is likely to futher motivate the public to combat global
warming. “The environmental changes wrought by global warming will undoubtedly result in major ecologic changes that
will alter patterns and intensity of some infectious diseases,” said Gerald Friedland, professor of medicine and
epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine. Global warming will likely cause major population
upheavals, creating crowded slums of refugees, Friedland said. Not only do areas of high population density facilitate
disease transmission, but their residents are more likely to be vulnerable to disease because of malnutrition and poverty,
he said. This pattern of vulnerability holds for both tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, increasing the incidence of both the
acquisition and spread of the diseases, he explained. He said these potential effects are not surprising, since tuberculosis
epidemics historically have followed major population and environmental upheavals. By contrast, global warming may
increase the infection rates of mosquito-borne diseases by creating a more mosquito-friendly habitat. Warming, and the
floods associated with it, are like to increase rates of both malaria and dengue, a debilitating viral disease found in tropical
areas and transmitted by mosquito bites, said Maria Diuk-Wasser, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School
of Public Health. “The direct effects of temperature increase are an increase in immature mosquito development, virus
development and mosquito biting rates, which increase contact rates (biting) with humans. Indirect effects are linked to
how humans manage water given increased uncertainty in the water supply caused by climate change,” Diuk-Wasser said.
Global warming may affect other diseases in even more complicated ways, Diuk-Wasser said. The effect of global warming
on the incidence of Lyme disease, a tick-borne chronic disease, is more difficult to examine and measure, though she said
it will probably increase. “One possible way in which temperature may limit tick populations is by increasing the length of
their life cycle from two to three years in the north, where it is colder,” she said. “Climate change could be reverting that
and therefore increasing production of ticks. The transmission of the Lyme bacterium is so complex, though, that it is
difficult to ‘tease out’ a role of climate change.” Diuk-Wasser added, however, that scientists do find an effect of climate
change on the distribution of Lyme disease in their data, but are not yet sure of the reasons behind such results. While the
study of global warming itself is relatively new, research on the impact of global warming on disease is an even more
recent endeavor that draws on the skills and expertise of a wide variety of scientists and researchers. “The field is multisourced, and recently interest has been evolving among climatologists, vector biologists, disease epidemiologists,
ecologists, and policymakers alike,” said Uriel Kitron, professor and chair of the environmental studies department at
Emory University. Kitron said that in order to mitigate the effects of global warming on disease, the public must turn its
attention to water management and an increased understanding of the connecting between “global processes and local
impact.” Diuk-Wasser said that raising awareness about the public health effects of global warming might aid climate
control efforts, because it made the potential impact of global warming more personal. “There’s been a great interest in
climate advocacy groups to look for negative effects of climate change on health, since studies have found that this
motivates people to adopt measures to curb climate change,” Diuk-Wasser said. The Yale Climate and Engery Institute
recently won a grant to study the direct and indirect effects of climate change on dengue transmission in Colombia.
Mutated disease cause extinction
Discover ‘00 (“Twenty Ways the World Could End” by Corey Powell in Discover Magazine, October 2000,
http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld)
If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have always coexisted, but
occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one European in four during the 14th century; influenza took at least 20
million lives between 1918 and 1919; the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar death toll and is still going strong. From 1980 to 1992, reports the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mortality from infectious disease in the United States rose 58 percent. Old diseases such as cholera
and measles have developed new resistance to antibiotics. Intensive agriculture and land development is bringing humans
closer to animal pathogens. International travel means diseases can spread faster than ever . Michael Osterholm, an
infectious disease expert who recently left the Minnesota Department of Health, described the situation as "like trying to swim
against the current of a raging river." The grimmest possibility would be the emergence of a strain that spreads so fast we
are caught off guard or that resists all chemical means of control, perhaps as a result of our stirring of the ecological pot.
About 12,000 years ago, a sudden wave of mammal extinctions swept through the Americas. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History
argues the culprit was extremely virulent disease, which humans helped transport as they migrated into the New World.
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XT – Disease
Warming spreads tropical disease everywhere
Irfan 12 (Umfair Irfan, reporter for Scientific America, a scientific news agency, June 4, 2012,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=exotic-diseases-warmer-climate-us-gain)
Diseases once thought to be rare or exotic in the United States are gaining a presence and getting new attention from
medical researchers who are probing how immigration, limited access to care and the impacts of climate change are
influencing their spread. Illnesses like schistosomiasis, Chagas disease and dengue are endemic in warmer, wetter and
poorer areas of the world, often closer to the equator. According to the World Health Organization, almost 1 billion people
are afflicted with more than one tropical disease. Caused by bacteria, parasites and viruses, these diseases are spread
through bites, excrement and dirty water stemming from substandard housing and sanitation. Consequently, the United
States has been largely isolated from them. But Americans are traveling more, and as tropical vacationers return home,
they may unwittingly bring back dangerous souvenirs. Immigrants from endemic regions are also bringing in these
diseases, some of which can lie dormant for years. All the while, the flies, ticks and mosquitoes that spread these illnesses
are moving north as rising temperatures make new areas more welcoming. In 2009, dengue emerged in south Florida and
infected more than 60 people, the first outbreak since 1934, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). Dengue is caused by four closely related viruses spread by mosquitoes. It results in joint and muscle pain, severe
headaches and bleeding. The outbreak was first detected in a Rochester, N.Y., woman who traveled to Key West, Fla., for
one week, with several Key West residents subsequently reporting infections. The infection rate rose to 5 percent, which
CDC said indicated "a serious risk of transmission." According to the Monroe County Health Department, there hasn't
been a confirmed dengue case in the Florida Keys since November 2010. "We keep the public aware that they need to be
dumping standing water and wearing mosquito repellent," explained Chris Tittle, public information officer at the health
department. The outbreak may have been linked to travel from Latin America and the Caribbean, where the disease's
incidence has risen fourfold over the past 30 years. In 2010, Puerto Rico faced the largest dengue epidemic in its history.
However, not every outbreak is imported, and future epidemics may come from within. "There's a substantial but hidden
burden of tropical disease in the United States, particularly among people in poverty," said Peter Hotez, founding dean of
the National School of Tropical Medicine, the first such school in the United States, at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
Diseases like leishmaniasis often are not tracked rigorously in this country and are classified as neglected, unlike vectorborne illnesses like Lyme disease that are monitored.
Warming makes spreads disease – misquitos
Surendran et al 12 (Ranjan Ramasamy and Sinnathamby Noble Surendran, National Center for Biotechnology
Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Published online 2012 June 19,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3377959/)
Models have been developed for forecasting the impact of global climate change on mosquito-borne diseases, notably the
global distributions of malaria (Lindsay and Martens, 1998; Githeko et al., 2000; Rogers and Randolph, 2000; Paaijmans
et al., 2009) and dengue (Hales et al., 2002). One model used current temperature, rainfall, and humidity ranges that
permit malaria transmission to forecast malaria distribution in 2050 in a global climate change scenario (Rogers and
Randolph, 2000). This model found surprisingly few changes, but predicted that some parts of the world that are
presently free of malaria may be prone to a greater risk of malaria transmission while certain malaria-endemic areas will
have a decreased risk of malaria transmission (Rogers and Randolph, 2000). Larger areas of northern and eastern
Australia are expected to become more conducive for the transmission of dengue (McMichael et al., 2006) and a greater
proportion of the global population at risk of dengue (Hales et al., 2002) as a result of global climate change. While these
models did not specifically address changes in coastal zones, the transmission of malaria (Rogers and Randolph, 2000)
and dengue (Hales et al., 2002; McMichael et al., 2006) were generally predicted to increase in coastal areas of northern
and eastern Australia. Many modeling forecasts are limited by uncertainties in the extent of global climate change as a
result of the inability to accurately predict major drivers such as future emission rates of greenhouse gases. Other factors
such as the resilience of the geosphere and biosphere that are difficult to estimate precisely, and regional characteristics,
can also influence climate change parameters. Furthermore, the considerable adaptability of mosquito vectors and their
pathogens to changing environments are difficult to model. Models however have an important role in highlighting
potential problems and the need to develop measures to counter possible increases in disease transmission. Global climate
change has led to observable alterations in the global distribution of plants and animals with species adapted to warmer
temperatures moving to higher latitudes (Root et al., 2003). However there is no unequivocal evidence yet that global
climate change has already affected the distribution of a mosquito-borne disease in inland or coastal areas. The reports of
increased incidence of malaria epidemics related to warmer temperatures in the Kenyan highlands have been
controversial as changes in many other factors could have influenced malaria transmission in this area, and perhaps even
masked an increase in transmission due to higher temperatures (Githeko et al., 2000; Alonso et al., 2011; Omumbo et al.,
2011; Chaves et al., 2012). However it is clear that the incidence of malaria has decreased over the last decade in many
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countries due primarily to better case detection and treatment, the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets and indoor
residual spraying of more effective insecticides (World Health Organization, 2011). It seems quite likely that such
improvements in malaria control measures worldwide have masked any tendency for the incidence of malaria to increase
as a result of global climate change (Gething et al., 2010). On the other hand, there is evidence that short term changes in
global climate can influence the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases. The El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) entails
multi-annual cyclic changes in the temperature of the eastern Pacific Ocean that influences air temperature and rainfall in
large areas of the bordering continents, spreading as far as Africa. ENSO has been associated with a higher incidence of
dengue in some countries, notably in parts of Thailand in recent times (Tipayamongkholgul et al., 2009). Global warming
due to the greenhouse effect may increase the frequency of ENSO events (Timmermann et al., 1999) and therefore cause
more numerous epidemics of dengue. The warming of surface sea temperatures in the western Indian Ocean due to short
term fluctuations known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is associated with higher malaria incidence in the western
Kenyan highlands (Hashizume et al., 2009). The effects of short term ENSO and IOD events are a likely indication of the
potential impacts of long term global climate change on mosquito-borne diseases that can also affect coastal zones. There
have been very few studies on other primary climate changes like wind and atmospheric pollution that can also affect
mosquito populations in coastal areas. Changes in wind patterns as a result of climate change are difficult to predict and
likely to be locality-specific. It can be expected that higher onshore wind velocities will tend to disperse mosquito
populations further inland. Atmospheric pollution will be higher in the vicinity of urban coastal areas, and it may be
anticipated that mosquitoes will adapt to pollution with time. The gaps in knowledge in these areas need to be addressed.
Warming causes disease – parasites
SPPI 12 (Science and Public Policy Institute, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. "Global
Warming and Animal Parasitic Diseases.” Last modified February 8, 2012.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/p/summaries/animalparasites.php.)
One of the perceived great tragedies of CO2-induced global warming is that rising temperatures will increase the
development, transmission, and survival rates of parasites in general, leading to a perfect storm of biological interactions
that will raise the prevalence of parasitic disease among animals in the future. But is this really so? In a provocative paper
analyzing the intricacies of this complex issue, Hall et al. (2006)1 begin their analysis of the subject by asking “Will an
increasingly warmer world necessarily become a sicker world?” They posed this question because, in their words,
“increased temperatures can accelerate the fitness of parasites, reduce recruitment bottlenecks for parasites during winter,
and weaken hosts,” while further noting that “warmer temperatures may allow vectors of parasites to expand their range,”
which would enable them to “introduce diseases to novel habitats,” which is something climate alarmists frequently claim
about mosquitoes and malaria. However, as they continue, “these doom-and-gloom scenarios do not necessarily apply to
all taxa or all situations,” and they note that “warming does not necessarily increase the fitness of all parasites.” Enlarging
upon these latter points, the four biologists and their statistician co-author write that the “virulence of parasites may not
change, may decrease, or may respond unimodally to increasing temperatures (Stacey et al., 2003; Thomas and Blanford,
2003),” and in this regard they further note that “vital rates increase with temperature until some optimum is reached,”
and that “once temperature exceeds this optimum, vital rates decline gradually with increasing temperature for some taxa,
but rapidly for others,” such that “in some host-parasite systems, a parasite’s optimum occurs at cooler temperatures than
the optimum of its host,” citing the work of Carruthers et al. (1992), Blanford and Thomas (1999) and Blanford et al.
(2003) on fungus-grasshopper associations in substantiation of this scenario. In such cases, as they describe it, “a host can
use warmer temperatures to help defeat its parasites through behavioral modification of its thermal
environment.”However, the situation sometimes can be even more complex than this; for Hall et al. write that “warmer
temperatures can also lead to shifts in temperature optima (Huey and Hertz, 1984; Huey and Kingsolver, 1989, 1993),”
and that “the exact evolutionary trajectory of host-parasite systems in a warmer world may depend sensitively upon
underlying genetic correlation structures and interactions between host genotypes, parasite genotypes, and the
environment (Blanford et al., 2003; Thomas and Blanford, 2003; Stacey et al., 2003; Mitchell et al., 2004).”
Consequently, they conclude that “longer-term response of the physiology of host-parasite systems to global warming
becomes difficult to predict.” But these considerations are not the end of the story either; for the researchers note that
“other species can profoundly shape the outcome of parasitism in host populations,” and that “predators provide an
important example” because, as they elucidate, predators “can actually inhibit epidemics by selectively culling sick hosts
and/or by maintaining host densities below levels required for parasites to persist (Hudson et al., 1992; Packer et al.,
2003, Lafferty, 2004; Ostfeld and Holt, 2004; Duffey et al., 2005; Hall et al., 2005).” When all is said and done, therefore,
Hall et al. conclude that “global warming does not necessarily mean that disease prevalence will increase in all systems.”
Warming will increase our vulnerability to HIV/AIDs and will cause new, drug resistant
strains
Age News, 2008 (April 29. Age News“Global warming set to fan the HIV fire.”
http://news.theage.com.au/national/global-warming-set-to-fan-the-hiv-fire-20080430-29eh.html NMS)
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Climate change is the latest threat to the world's growing HIV epidemic, say Australian experts who warn of the "grim"
outlook in the fight against the infectious disease.¶ A leading professor of health and human rights, Daniel Tarantola, has
cautioned that global warming will indirectly make citizens of developing countries even more vulnerable to death and
severe ill health from HIV/AIDS.¶ "It was clear soon after the emergence of the HIV epidemic that discrimination, gender
inequality and lack of access to essential services have made some populations more vulnerable than others," said Prof
Tarantola, of the University of NSW.¶ Those problems had not gone away, he said, and extra threats were lurking on the
horizon "as the global economic situation deteriorates, food scarcity worsens and climate change begins to affect those
who were already dependent on survival economies".¶ Advertisement¶ "Climate change will trigger a chain of events which
is likely to increase the stress on society and result in higher vulnerability to diseases including HIV," said Prof Tarantola,
due to address an HIV forum in Sydney.¶ Prominent HIV scientist Professor David Cooper, director of the National Centre
in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, agreed environmental change would have a negative impact on HIV
sufferers.¶ "Climate change will lead to food scarcity and poorer nutrition, putting people with perilous immune systems at
more risk of dying of HIV, as well as contracting and transmitting new and unusual infections," Prof Cooper said. "And
this would effect Australia too, because these infections could potentially spread. Just look at the horror that SARS and
avian flu have caused."¶ The specialist said the HIV landscape was grim, with 16,000 new infections worldwide each day
and the failure of research to produce a much-needed cure or vaccine.¶ He echoed the deep pessimism of 35 top British
and US scientists who predicted this week that a vaccine would be at least 10 years and maybe even 20 years away. ¶ "It's a
pretty grim situation," Prof Cooper said.¶ "I don't think we have any idea of how to harness a vaccine for this and we need a
strong basic science breakthrough to get anywhere with it."
Climate change can spread disease
Harvard School of Public Health, The medical section of the University studying Diseases, 12 (Harvard School of
Public Health 2012 http://chge.med.harvard.edu/topic/climate-change-and-infectious-disease PB)
Many prevalent human infections, including malaria, dengue fever, and cholera, are climate sensitive. In some
cases, such as with malaria and dengue fever, this is in part because the disease is transmitted by mosquitoes which cannot
survive if temperatures are too low.¶ For others, climate restricts where an infection can occur because it limits the
distribution of other species that are required for disease transmission.¶ Although some evidence indicates that warming
may be causing malaria, for instance, to spread to higher elevations on mountains in East Africa, predicting how climate
change will ultimately influence the incidence of diseases transmitted by insects remains challenging. Consider that
malaria was once common over much of North America and Europe in the 19th century but is not routinely present on
either continent today, even after the temperature has warmed in the intervening century. ¶ More predictable as climate
change unfolds is the spread of so-called waterborne infections. These infections most often cause diarrheal illness and
flourish in the wake of heavy rainfalls as runoff from land enters into and may contaminate water supplies. Many
pathogens that cause diarrheal disease reproduce more quickly in warmer conditions as well
Climate Changes has claimed many lives and will continue to spread disease
Patz, Professor & Director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, 05 (Jonathan A
Patz, 11/17/2205 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7066/abs/nature04188.html PB)
The World Health Organisation estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change
of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate
fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heatwaves, to altered transmission of
infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures. Uncertainty remains in attributing the expansion or resurgence of
diseases to climate change, owing to lack of long-term, high-quality data sets as well as the large influence of socioeconomic factors and changes in immunity and drug resistance. Here we review the growing evidence that climate–health
relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change and that the warming trend over
recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world. Potentially
vulnerable regions include the temperate latitudes, which are projected to warm disproportionately, the regions around
the Pacific and Indian oceans that are currently subjected to large rainfall variability due to the El Niño/Southern
Oscillation sub-Saharan Africa and sprawling cities where the urban heat island effect could intensify extreme climatic
events¶
The Spread of Disease leads to extinction
Smith, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University., 06 (Katherine F. Smith 10/5/2006,
http://www.brown.edu/Research/Sax_Research_Lab/Documents/PDFs/evidemnce%20for%20role%20of%20disease.pd
f PB)
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Infectious disease is listed among the top five causes of global species extinctions. However, the¶ majority of available data
supporting this contention is largely anecdotal. We used the IUCN Red List of ¶ Threatened and Endangered Species and
literature indexed in the ISI Web of Science to assess the role of¶ infectious disease in global species loss. Infectious disease
was listed as a contributing factor in <4% of species¶ extinctions known to have occurred since 1500 (833 plants and
animals) and as contributing to a species’¶ status as critically endangered in <8% of cases (2852 critically endangered
plants and animals). Although¶ infectious diseases appear to play a minor role in global species loss, our findings
underscore two important¶ limitations in the available evidence: uncertainty surrounding the threats to species survival
and a temporal¶ bias in the data. Several initiatives could help overcome these obstacles, including rigorous scientific tests
to¶ determine which infectious diseases present a significant threat at the species level, recognition of the limitations ¶
associated with the lack of baseline data for the role of infectious disease in species extinctions, combining ¶ data with
theory to discern the circumstances under which infectious disease is most likely to serve as an agent¶ of extinction, and
improving surveillance programs for the detection of infectious disease. An evidence-based¶ understanding of the role of
infectious disease in species extinction and endangerment will help prioritize¶ conservation initiatives and protect global
biodiversity. Recent studies suggest that infectious diseases in wildlife¶ populations are emerging at unusually high rates.
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are those caused by parasites and pathogens¶ that have recently increased in
incidence, occupied host¶ species or geographic extent; have been newly discovered; or are caused by a newly evolved
agent. The diversity of EIDs afflicting wildlife, coupled with the fear that an increased¶ frequency of outbreaks will occur
in the future, have¶ raised concern that infectious disease may play a strong¶ role in species extinction. Indeed, infectious
diseases can¶ extirpate local populations, mediate community dynamics, and shrink host ranges. ¶ Given the effects of
infectious diseases on wildlife, it is¶ not surprising that a survey of biologists listed infectious¶ disease among the top five
causes of species extinctions¶ in the United States (Wilcove et al. 1998). However, the¶ majority of available data
supporting this contention is¶ largely anecdotal. Moreover, epidemiological theory predicts that infectious diseases should
only drive species¶ to extinction under specific circumstances—most commonly when pre-epidemic population size is
small, reservoir hosts are available, or when the infectious agent can¶ survive in the abiotic environment (de Castro &
Bolker¶ 2005). In response to a growing interest in global species¶ loss and emerging infectious diseases, it is worth
investigating the generalization that infectious diseases play a¶ widespread role in species extinction. Infectious disease
was infrequently listed as a contributing factor to species extinction or endangerment. The¶ IUCN Red List (IUCN 2004)
reports that in the past 500¶ years, 100 plant and 733 animal species are known to¶ have gone extinct. Whereas multiple
causal factors are¶ typically listed as having contributed to a species’ extinction, the most common causes appear to be
habitat loss¶ and overexploitation (IUCN 2004). Of these 833 known¶ species extinctions, only 31 cases (3.7%) have been
attributed, at least in part, to infectious disease
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Warming Bad – Food Prices
Warming causes rising food prices which will lead to global unrest, riots, and war
Adam, Environmental Correspondent for the Guardian, 2008 (David, April 8, 2008 The Guardian “Food price rises
threaten global security – UN” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/09/food.unitednations NMS)
Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned
yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts
of the world.¶ Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief
coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He
said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40%
on average globally since last summer.¶ "The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated
as food riots are already being reported across the globe," Holmes said. "Current food price trends are likely to increase
sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."¶ He added that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work is
climate change, which has doubled the number of disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 a year in the past two
decades.¶ As well as this week's violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:¶ · Riots in Haiti
last week that killed four people¶ · Violent protests in Ivory Coast¶ · Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people
dead¶ · Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal¶ · Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and
Indonesia¶ UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay rise in the face of a 50% hike in
prices, while Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan have curbed rice exports to ensure
supplies for their own residents.¶ Officials in the Philippines have warned that people hoarding rice could face economic
sabotage charges. A moratorium is being considered on converting agricultural land for housing or golf courses, while fastfood outlets are being pressed to offer half-portions of rice.¶ The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says rice
production should rise by 12m tonnes, or 1.8%, this year, which would help ease the pressure. It expects "sizable" increases
in all the major Asian rice producing countries, especially Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines
and Thailand.¶ Holmes is the latest senior figure to warn the world is facing a worsening food crisis. Josette Sheeran,
director of the UN World Food Programme, said last month: "We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more
urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."¶ The programme
has launched an appeal to boost its aid budget from $2.9bn to $3.4bn (£1.5bn to £1.7bn) to meet higher prices, which
officials say are jeopardising the programme's ability to continue feeding 73 million people worldwide. ¶ Robert Zoellick,
president of the World Bank, said "many more people will suffer and starve" unless the US, Europe, Japan and other rich
countries provide funds. He said prices of all staple food had risen 80% in three years, and that 33 countries faced unrest
because of the price rises.
Food crisis triggers global war.
Stephen Hume, 4/16/2008. Senior writer for the Vancouver Sun. “World Food Crisis Threatens Rich Nations (That's
Us), Too,” Vancouver Sun, http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2008/04/10852.php
In Rome, Reuters reported Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, warning that
with 37 countries already in crisis, each day brings greater risk of global famine. "I'm surprised that I have not been
summoned to the UN Security Council," Diouf said. "Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react."
India's finance minister was more direct. "It is becoming starker by the day," Palaniappan Chidambaram said. "Unless we
act fast for a global consensus on the price spiral, the social unrest induced by food prices in several countries will
conflagrate into a global contagion, leaving no country -- developed or otherwise -- unscathed."
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XT – Food
Warming reduces global food production, which leads to global starvation
IPCC 2007 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, December 12-17-2007, p. 26 NMS)
At lower latitudes, especially in seasonally dry and tropical regions, crop productivity is projected to decrease for even
small local temperature increases (1 to 2°C), which would increase the risk of hunger (medium confidence). {WGII 5.4,
SPM} _ Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase with increases in local average temperature
over a range of 1 to 3°C, but above this it is projected to decrease (medium confidence).
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Warming Bad – Hyperstorms
Warming will increase the intensity and frequency of powerful storms, known as
hyperstorms
Leahy Environmental Journalist, 2005 (Stephen, September 16 2006, Inter Press News Agency “ENVIRONMENT: The
Dawn of the Hypercane?” http://www.ipsnews.net/2005/09/environment-the-dawn-of-the-hypercane/ NMS)
The number of super-powerful storms like Hurricane Katrina has nearly doubled and there will be even more in the future
as the world’s oceans continue to warm, scientists say.¶ Climate change is warming the surface of the oceans, and the
additional heat provides the extra energy to generate more powerful hurricanes and cyclones.¶ The number of Category 4
and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, according to a new study published Friday in the
journal Science.¶ “Warmer sea surface temperatures have increased the amount of water vapour, which is the fuel for
hurricanes,” said study co-author Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric
Sciences.¶ The largest increases in the number of intense hurricanes occurred in the North Pacific, Southwest Pacific and
the North and South Indian Oceans, with slightly smaller increases in the North Atlantic Ocean. ¶ The link between the
global rise in sea surface temperatures and increased hurricane intensity is quite strong, Webster told IPS.¶ Related IPS
Articles¶ Science¶ National Centre for Atmospheric Research¶ The National Climatic Data Centre¶ “I think it’s clear that
global warming is causing oceans to warm,” he said.¶ Over the last 40 years, the top 300 metres of the world’s oceans have
warmed about 0.5C on average. Earlier this year, Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, published a study that provided clear evidence that emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil
fuels was responsible for ocean warming.¶ Hurricane Katrina offers a good illustration of the role of warm water, Webster
said.¶ Before it struck the U.S. Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Florida as a Category 1. However when it
crossed over into the Gulf of Mexico, there was a huge, deep pool of very warm water that served as the storm’s highoctane fuel, he said.¶ Practically overnight, Katrina turned into a Category 5 super storm.¶ The Saffir-Simpson scale rates
hurricanes from 1 to 5 according to wind speeds and destructive potential. A Category 1 storm has winds blowing
continuously above 110 kilometres an hour: A Category 5 has continuous winds above 250 kilometres per hour.¶ At
landfall, Katrina weakened to a Category 4. But with its exceptionally large size, the damage it caused will cost the U.S. at
least 200 billion dollars.¶ “I wasn’t surprised by (Webster’s) results,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis
section of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. ¶ Trenberth recently published his own
paper in Science about the link between human-induced climate change and increased hurricane intensity and rainfall.¶
“Our estimate is that rainfall from Katrina was about seven percent enhanced by global warming,” Trenberth said in an
interview.¶ He also points out that Kerry Emanuel, a leading hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, released another study in Science showing that major storms have increased in intensity and duration by a
whopping 70 percent in the North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific Oceans since the 1970s. ¶ It’s important to note that
Emanuel, Webster and Trenberth took different approaches to the issue, but all arrived at similar conclusions. ¶ “We may
differ on the details but there is no doubt there has been an increase in intensity of storms,” Trenberth said. ¶ The North
Atlantic ocean is exceptionally hot this year – about 1.5 degrees C warmer than average – and that’s why double the
normal number of hurricanes and tropical storms have been forecast. That extra heat translates into an average intensity
or power of these storms that is also likely to be 15 to 20 percent higher, he said.¶ Currently, the U.S. East Coast is being
pummeled by a weakening Hurricane Ophelia, the fifteenth named storm of the hurricane season – which still has 10
more weeks to run.¶ Hurricanes and thunderstorms are climate regulating mechanisms for removing heat from the surface
of oceans and land upwards and into space, Trenberth explains. With the extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere and
oceans by global warming, there has to be a corresponding increase either in the numbers or intensity of storms.¶ What
will the future be like when the oceans warm another 0.5 degrees C, as they inevitably will even if all human emissions of
greenhouse gases were cut off today?¶ More Category 4 and 5 storms and possibly beyond that towards what Emanuel and
others have called “hypercanes”, said Webster.¶ Hypercanes is a speculative attempt to explain mass species extinctions
245 million years ago. Computer models showed that continent-sized super-storms with winds averaging 600 kilometres
per hour could be produced if oceans warmed to an incredible 45 to 50 degrees C. Such temperatures are impossible today
barring a massive meteor strike or gigantic underwater volcano eruption.
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Warming Bad – Middle East Instability
Warming will lead to Middle East war due to struggle over resources
Duchene, Research Assistant at Pennsylvania State 2008 (Lisa, June 5th, 2008. Phys.org “Probing Question: Are water
wars in our future?” http://phys.org/news131901803.html NMS)
With rapid population growth, wasteful practices, and impending climate change, the situation is likely to get worse.
Water resources in semi-arid regions are expected to be especially hard-hit, warned the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change in its 2007 summary report. By some estimates, two-thirds of the world's population will be waterstressed by 2025.¶ During a year when many states across the U.S. are suffering some of the worst droughts ever, water is a
topic on people's minds. Will the prospect of a diminishing water supply result in serious geopolitical conflict?¶
"Freshwater resources are unevenly distributed around the globe," says Robert B. Packer, lecturer in political science at
Penn State, who studies international political economy and the causes of war. "While freshwater is relatively abundant in
Europe and much of North America, other regions of the globe, such as the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of West
and Eastern Africa, face increasingly severe shortages." According to the BBC, the number of 'water-scarce' countries in
the Middle East grew from three in 1955 to eight in 1990, with another seven expected to be added within 20 years.¶ "Of
particular concern," said Packer, "are certain riparian basins that could explode into conflict as sources of freshwater
diminish. Conflict is more likely to occur where water can be seized and controlled in addition to being scarce." ¶ Among
Middle East countries, where every major river crosses at least one international border, up to 50 percent of water needs
of any specific state finds its source in another state, Packer noted. "Hydro-politics already play a central role among states
in riparian basins, such as the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, the Jordan, as well as those sharing the underground aquifers of
the West Bank."¶ Conflicts are likely to emerge as competition intensifies to control river waters for hydroelectricity,
agricultural use, and human consumption, he added. "Farms and cities downstream are vulnerable to the actions and
decisions of upstream countries that they have little control over. This is exemplified in the tensions over the TigrisEuphrates, where Turkey commenced construction of a system of hydroelectric dams. Iraq and Syria have protested, citing
the project would reduce the rivers' flow downstream. Turkey's response to the Arab states has been 'we don't control their
oil, they don't control our water.'"¶ To the west, the Nile has been the lifeline for Egyptian civilization dating back to
antiquity. Nearly all of Egypt's 80 million people live on the three percent of Egyptian territory that is the river's valley and
delta. "For Egypt the Nile is life, and its government has voiced to upstream countries that any reduction of Nile waters
would be taken as national security threat that could trigger a military response," says Packer.¶ "Nearly all freshwater in
the Israeli-occupied West Bank comes from underground aquifers," he added. "Water access has become a major issue
between Israelis and Palestinians."¶ "Perhaps the greatest of all modern Middle East conflicts, the Six Day War of 1967,
began as a dispute over water access," Packer noted. Israel built a National Water Carrier to transport freshwater from the
Jordan and the Sea of Galilee to the country's farming and urban centers. (The Carrier now supplies half the drinking
water in Israel.) In 1965, Israeli forces attacked a Syrian water diversion project that would have cut the Carrier's supply,
and prolonged violence led to war. "For Israelis, control of the Golan Heights is important strategically in terms of
controlling the headwaters of the Jordan River," Packer noted.¶ The effects of global warming and desertification also have
impacted hydro-politics around the world. In West Africa, rainfall has declined 30 percent over the last four decades and
the Sahara is advancing more than one mile per year. Senegal and Mauritania engaged in militarized conflict in 1989
across the Senegal River that divides them, in part over changing access to arable land.¶
Middle East wars cause extinction
Russell, 9 (James A. Russell, Senior Lecturer, National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, ‘9 (Spring)
“Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East” IFRI, Proliferation
Papers//, #26, __http://www.ifri.org/downloads/PP26_Russell_2009.pdf__)
Strategic stability in the region is thus undermined by various factors: (1) asymmetric interests in the bargaining framework that can introduce
unpredictable behavior from actors; (2) the presence of non-state actors that introduce unpredictability into relationships between
the antagonists; (3) incompatible assumptions about the structure of the deterrent relationship that makes the bargaining
framework strategically unstable; (4) perceptions by Israel and the United States that its window of opportunity for military action is closing,
which could prompt a preventive attack; (5) the prospect that Iran’s response to pre-emptive attacks could involve unconventional weapons, which could
prompt escalation by Israel and/or the United States; (6) the lack of a communications framework to build trust and cooperation
among framework participants. These systemic weaknesses in the coercive bargaining framework all suggest that escalation by any the
parties could happen either on purpose or as a result of miscalculation or the pressures of wartime circumstance. Given
these factors, it is disturbingly easy to imagine scenarios under which a conflict could quickly escalate in which the regional antagonists
would consider the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. It would be a mistake to believe the nuclear taboo can somehow magically
keep nuclear weapons from being used in the context of an unstable strategic framework. Systemic asymmetries between actors in fact suggest a certain
increase in the probability of war – a war in which escalation could happen quickly and from a variety of participants. Once such a war starts, events
would likely develop a momentum all their own and decision-making would consequently be shaped in unpredictable ways. The international
community must take this possibility seriously, and muster every tool at its disposal to prevent such an outcome, which would be an unprecedented
disaster for the peoples of the region, with substantial risk for the entire world.
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XT – Mid East
Warming leads to middle east instability and conflicts
Guttman Washington correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper, 2007 (Nathan, June 13, 2007 The Jewish Daily,
“Congress Warned That Global Warming Is Threat to Israel and Moderate Arab States”
http://forward.com/articles/10954/congress-warned-that-global-warming-is-threat-to-i/#ixzz2Yxg65IFY NMS)
“Israel is an insignificant player in contributing to global warming, but it suffers from it in a nonproportional rate,” Bar-Or
said.¶ The main changes, the Israeli experts predicted, would be a drop in the water supply — already a scarce commodity
in the Middle East — and an expected rise in temperature that will make it even more difficult to replenish water sources.
According to the information presented this week, if action is not taken, then Israel might be facing a loss of up to 100
millimeters of rain a year — almost 20% of the country’s annual rainfall.¶ For Israel, water shortages could influence not
only its population but also the future of its relations with neighboring countries. Israel is already facing difficulties
fulfilling its agreement — as part of its 1994 peace treaty with Jordan — to transfer water to the Hashemite kingdom, and
will face great problems when trying to work out water arrangements with Palestinians in a final status agreement. The
Jordanian monarchy, which is based on support of the agricultural communities, might be in danger. The same is true for
the Palestinian leadership, which might encounter an uprising of extremists who will feed on the poverty and despair
caused by the collapse of agriculture due to lack of water.
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Warming Bad – Migrations
That results in sudden onset migrations which risk resource wars—escalation is likely
Bahati 10 — Policy Analyst @ Africa Faith and Social Justice Network Originally published in
the Jan-Feb edition of Around Africa, Climate Change: What About the Displaced?, February 9,
2010, Bahati Ntama Jacques, Policy Analyst, http://afjn.org/focus-campaigns/other/othercontinental-issues/82-general/792-climate-change-what-about-the-displaced.html
Already, as a result of climate change, at least 18 islands have been submerged worldwide. These include Lohachara
Island in India, Bedford, Kabasgadi and Suparibhanga Island near India. Other islands are at risk of being submerged.
They include Bangladesh’s Bhola Island, half of which is permanently flooded, Kutubdia in southeastern Bangladesh
with thousands of people already displaced and more to be displaced, in Shishmaref and Kivalini of Alaska, and
Maldives, a state island in the Indian Ocean whose President wishes to relocate the entire country. Climate changerelated disasters not only affect ecosystems, but cause people to relocate either by choice or by force. Some will be
displaced within the boundaries of their affected countries (Internal Displacement or ID) and others will cross state
borders. Some will be displaced because of sudden-onset hydro-meteorological disasters, such as flooding, hurricanes,
landslides, etc. Others will be affected by slow-onset disasters, like desertification, rising sea levels and droughts. Sea
level rise will, in some cases, lead to permanent loss of small state islands, Maldives being an example, which means
permanent displacement of the inhabitants of the island. In high-risk zones authorities have to choose between the cost
of rebuilding every time a disaster hits or of just displacing the people permanently. Furthermore, as a result of
displacement, disputes over resources such as water and land will cause violence. It is more than likely that some of the
violence will end up in armed conflict.
Climate change diplaces millions and destroys fundamental human rights
EFJ 11 — Environmental Justice Foundation EJF a UK Registered charity working
internationally to protect the natural environment and human rights 2011 Climate Change and
migration:forced displacement, ‘climate refugees’ and the need for a new legal instrument
http://www.ejfoundation.org/pdf/climate_briefing.pdf
Climate change is without doubt one of the foremost and most profound threats to environmental security and basic
human rights, and its effects are already being observed across the globe. For human populations, the impacts are
considerable, with an estimated 325 million people adversely affected, and 300,000 deaths each year 1 . Climate
change is deteriorating environmental conditions and compromising the most basic human rights to life, food,
shelter, health, and water. The short and long-term effects of climate change will compound existing poverty levels
and obstruct social and economic development. The overall impacts for the developing world are sobering: within this
century, hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced by Sea Level Rise (SLR); accompanying economic
and ecological damage will be severe for many. The world has not previously faced a crisis on this scale, and planning
for adaptation should begin immediately 17 . Environmental factors arising from climate change and leading to
migration may be fast occurring. For example more intense tropical cyclones or in the longer-term, effects such as
desertification or sea level rise that inundates lowlying regions damaging homes and infrastructure, increased health
risks, declining soil fertility and lack of freshwater. Fisheries and agriculture are already showing signs of stress, yet
they are projected to face a 50% increase in demand by 2030 18 . In the oceans, climate change is reducing the
abundance and diversity of fish and other marine life – this could be devastating for the 520 million people – around
8% of the global population – who are dependent on fisheries for food and income. In Africa, an estimated 10 million
people have migrated or been displaced over the last two decades mainly because of environmental degradation and
desertification 7,19 . A recent (2009) report suggested that about 12 million people have fallen into poverty today
because of climate change 1 .
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Warming Bad – Ocean Acidification
Anthropogenic rising C02 causes ocean acidification which affects marine biodiversity
Doney , Marine Chemistry and Geochemistr, 09 (Sctott C. Doney 1/2009
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/QwPqRGcRzQM5ffhPjAdT/full/10.1146/annurev.marine
.010908.163834 PB)
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), primarily from human fossil fuel combustion, reduces ocean pH and causes
wholesale shifts in seawater carbonate chemistry. The process of ocean acidification is well documented in
field data, and the rate will accelerate over this century unless future CO2 emissions are curbed dramatically .
Acidification alters seawater chemical speciation and biogeochemical cycles of many elements and
compounds. One well-known effect is the lowering of calcium carbonate saturation states, which impacts shell-forming
marine organisms from plankton to benthic molluscs, echinoderms, and corals . Many calcifying species exhibit
reduced calcification and growth rates in laboratory experiments under high-CO2 conditions. Ocean
acidification also causes an increase in carbon fixation rates in some photosynthetic organisms (both calcifying and
noncalcifying). The potential for marine organisms to adapt to increasing CO2 and broader
implications for ocean ecosystems are not well known; both are high priorities for future research.
Although ocean pH has varied in the geological past, paleo-events may be only imperfect analogs to
current conditions. Over the past 250 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels increased by
nearly 40%, from preindustrial levels of approximately 280 ppmv (parts per million volume) to nearly
384 ppmv in 2007 (Solomon et al. 2007). This rate of increase, driven by human fossil fuel
combustion and deforestation, is at least an order of magnitude faster than has occurred for millions
of years (Doney & Schimel 2007), and the current concentration is higher than experienced on Earth for at least
the past 800,000 years (Lüthi et al. 2008). Rising atmospheric CO2 is tempered by oceanic uptake, which accounts
for nearly a third of anthropogenic carbon added to the atmosphere (Sabine & Feely 2007, Sabine et al. 2004),
and without which atmospheric CO2 would be approximately 450 ppmv today, a level of CO2 that
would have led to even greater climate change than witnessed today. Ocean CO2 uptake, however, is not
benign; it causes pH reductions and alterations in fundamental chemical balances that together are commonly referred to
as ocean acidification. Because climate change and ocean acidification are both caused by increasing
atmospheric CO2, acidification is commonly referred to as the “other CO2 problem” (Henderson 2006,
Turley 2005).¶ Ocean acidification is a predictable consequence of rising atmospheric CO2 and does not suffer from
uncertainties associated with climate change forecasts. Absorption of anthropogenic CO2, reduced pH, and
lower calcium carbonate (CaCO3) saturation in surface waters, where the bulk of oceanic production
occurs, are well verified from models, hydrographic surveys, and time series data (Caldeira & Wickett
2003,2005; Feely et al. 2004, 2008; Orr et al. 2005; Solomon et al. 2007). At the Hawaii Ocean TimeSeries (HOT) station ALOHA the growth rates of surface water pCO2 and atmospheric CO2 agree well
(Takahashi et al. 2006) (Figure 1), indicating uptake of anthropogenic CO2 as the major cause for
long-term increases in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and decreases in CaCO3 saturation state.
Correspondingly, since the 1980s average pH measurements at HOT, the Bermuda Atlantic TimeSeries Study, and European Station for Time-Series in the Ocean in the eastern Atlantic have
decreased approximately 0.02 units per decade (Solomon et al. 2007). Since preindustrial times, the
average ocean surface water pH has fallen by approximately 0.1 units, from approximately 8.21 to
8.10 (Royal Society 2005), and is expected to decrease a further 0.3–0.4 pH units (Orr et al. 2005) if
atmospheric CO2 concentrations reach 800 ppmv [the projected end-of-century concentration
according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) business-as-usual emission
scenario].¶ Fossil fuel combustion and agriculture also produce increased atmospheric inputs of
dissociation products of strong acids (HNO3 and H2SO4) and bases (NH3) to the coastal and open
ocean. These inputs are particularly important close to major source regions, primarily in the
northern hemisphere, and cause decreases in surface seawater alkalinity, pH, and DIC (Doney et al.
2007). On a global scale, these anthropogenic inputs (0.8 Tmol/yr reactive sulfur and 2.7 Tmol/yr
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reactive nitrogen) contribute only a small fraction of the acidification caused by anthropogenic CO2,
but they are more concentrated in coastal waters where the ecosystem responses to ocean acidification could be more
serious for humankind.¶ Seawater carbon dioxide measurements have been conducted since the beginning
of the nineteenth century (Krogh 1904) but were sparse until the middle of the twentieth century
(Keeling et al. 1965, Takahashi 1961) and particularly until the Geochemical Sections (GEOSECS)
(1973–1979) (Craig & Turekian 1976, 1980) and Transient Tracers in the Ocean (TTO) (1981–1983)
(Brewer et al. 1985) programs. Even so, the GEOSECS and TTO measurements were significantly less
precise than those of today. Although researchers recognized that the concentration of carbon dioxide
in the surface ocean was more or less in equilibrium with overlying atmosphere CO2, they largely
dismissed the potential impact on the ocean biota because calcite (the assumed CaCO3 mineralogy of
most calcifying organisms) would remain supersaturated in the surface ocean.¶ Since then, multiple
studies revealed several issues that elevate ocean acidification as a threat to marine biota : (a) the calcification rates
of many shell-forming organisms respond to the degree of supersaturation (e.g.,Smith & Buddemeier
1992, Kleypas et al. 1999); (b) aragonite, a more soluble CaCO3 mineral equally important in
calcifying organisms, may become undersaturated in the surface ocean within the early 21st century
(Feely & Chen 1982, Feely et al. 1988, Orr et al. 2005); and (c) the biological effects of decreasing
ocean pH reach far beyond limiting calcification.¶
Marine ecosystems are critical to the survival of all life on earth.
Craig ‘3 (Robin Kundis Craig, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial
ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant
tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect
against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food
production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef
ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the
elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as
well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of
marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the
functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the
face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable."
n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the
complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any
other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components
is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system.
n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the
ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake
of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for
marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary
justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the
forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of
human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it
was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we
are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef
ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are
doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States
has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much
about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the
biosphere with us . The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely
replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the
web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The
Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills,
industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened,
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slowly at first, then collapsed with [*266] shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should not be lost to the rest
of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the
Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis.
n865 Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers,
forcing marine animals to flee and killing all that cannot. n866 Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that
the United States should protect fully-functioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of
business as a result.
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Warming Bad – Ozone
Global Warming depletes Ozone layer
Shah, founder of global issues and chief of environmental section, 02 (Anup Shah 6/8/02
http://www.globalissues.org/article/184/the-ozone-layer-and-climate-change PB)
Scientists believe that Global Warming will lead to a weaker Ozone layer, because as the surface temperature rises, the
stratosphere (the Ozone layer being found in the upper part) will get colder, making the natural repairing of the Ozone
slower.¶ NASA, for example, reports that by 2030, "climate change may surpass chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as the main
driver of overall ozone loss."¶ The Ozone layer protects all life on Earth from the harmful effects of the Sun's rays. It has
been depleting for many years now. Scientists have said that currently over Antarctica the Ozone hole is three times the
size of the United States andgrowing.¶ Also, according to scientists, more than 60 percent of the ozone layer blanketing the
Arctic Circle was lost in the 1999/2000 winter.¶ Also, September 9 to 10, 2000, the ozone hole stretched over a populated
city for the first time. It was in Punta Arenas, a southern Chile city of about 120,000 people, exposing residents to very
high levels of ultra violet radiation.¶ The ozone depletion has also been correlated with higher levels of cancer in humans
and animals.\
Ozone depletion causes complete extinction – scientific consensus is on our side
Greenpeace, 1995, Full of Holes: Montreal Protocol and the Continuing Destruction of the Ozone Layer,
http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/holes/holebg.html
When chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina first postulated a link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone layer
depletion in 1974, the news was greeted with scepticism, but taken seriously nonetheless. The vast majority of credible
scientists have since confirmed this hypothesis. The ozone layer around the Earth shields us all from harmful ultraviolet
radiation from the sun. Without the ozone layer , life on earth would not exist . Exposure to increased levels of
ultraviolet radiation can cause cataracts, skin cancer, and immune system suppression in humans as well as innumerable
effects on other living systems. This is why Rowland's and Molina's theory was taken so seriously, so quickly - the stakes
are literally the continuation of life on earth.
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Warming Bad – Prolif
Global Warming causes proliferation
Schwartz, chair of the Global Business Network, and Doug Randall, co-head of the Global Business Network’s consulting practice, ‘3 Peter, An
Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, p. 18 Google 7-12-13 KB
The two most likely reactions to a sudden drop in carrying capacity due to climate¶ change are defensive and offensive.¶
The United States and Australia are likely to build defensive fortresses around their¶ countries because they have the
resources and reserves to achieve self-sufficiency.¶ With diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant
resources, the¶ United States could likely survive shortened growing cycles and harsh weather¶ conditions without
catastrophic losses. Borders will be strengthened around the¶ country to hold back unwanted starving immigrants from the
Caribbean islands (an¶ especially severe problem), Mexico, and South America. Energy supply will be¶ shored up through
expensive (economically, politically, and morally) alternatives ¶ such as nuclear, renewables, hydrogen, and Middle Eastern
contracts. Pesky¶ skirmishes over fishing rights, agricultural support, and disaster relief will be ¶ commonplace. Tension
between the U.S. and Mexico rise as the U.S. reneges on the¶ 1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the Colorado
River. Relief workers will¶ be commissioned to respond to flooding along the southern part of the east coast and ¶ much
drier conditions inland. Yet, even in this continuous state of emergency the¶ U.S. will be positioned well compared to
others. The intractable problem facing the¶ nation will be calming the mounting military tension around the world.¶ As
famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to the abrupt climate¶ change, many countries’ needs will exceed
their carrying capacity. This will create a¶ sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression in order to¶
reclaim balance. Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their¶ populations with a falling supply of food,
water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose¶ population is already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy
supply.¶ Or, picture Japan, suffering from flooding along its coastal cities and contamination¶ of its fresh water supply,
eying Russia’s Sakhalin Island oil and gas reserves as an¶ energy source to power desalination plants and energy-intensive
agricultural¶ processes. Envision Pakistan, India, and China – all armed with nuclear weapons –¶ skirmishing at their
borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land.¶ Spanish and Portuguese fishermen might fight over fishing
rights – leading to¶ conflicts at sea. And, countries including the United States would be likely to better¶ secure their
borders. With over 200 river basins touching multiple nations, we can¶ expect conflict over access to water for drinking,
irrigation, and transportation. The¶ Danube touches twelve nations, the Nile runs though nine, and the Amazon runs¶
through seven.
Proliferation leads to a global nuclear war.
Taylor 6 [Theodore B., Chairman of NOVA. July 6 2006, “Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,”
http://wwwee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/chapters/taylor.html]
Nuclear proliferation - be it among nations or terrorists - greatly increases the chance of nuclear violence on a scale that
would be intolerable. Proliferation increases the chance that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of irrational people,
either suicidal or with no concern for the fate of the world. Irrational or outright psychotic leaders of military factions or
terrorist groups might decide to use a few nuclear weapons under their control to stimulate a global nuclear war, as an act
of vengeance against humanity as a whole. Countless scenarios of this type can be constructed. Limited nuclear wars
between countries with small numbers of nuclear weapons could escalate into major nuclear wars between superpowers.
For example, a nation in an advanced stage of "latent proliferation," finding itself losing a nonnuclear war, might complete
the transition to deliverable nuclear weapons and, in desperation, use them. If that should happen in a region, such as the
Middle East, where major superpower interests are at stake, the small nuclear war could easily escalate into a global
nuclear war.
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Warming Bad – Racism
Global warming is racist—U.S. emissions affect the Southern hemisphere significantly
more than itself
Paroma Basu, University of Wisconsin, 11-16-‘5
(“Third World bears brunt of global warming impacts” http://www.news.wisc.edu/11878.html) 7-12-13 KB
In a recent chilling assessment, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that human-induced changes in the
Earth's climate now lead to at least 5 million cases of illness and more than 150,000 deaths every year. Temperature
fluctuations may sway human health in a surprising number of ways, scientists have learned, from influencing the spread
of infectious diseases to boosting the likelihood of illness-inducing heat waves and floods. Now, in a synthesis report
featured on the cover of the journal Nature, a team of health and climate scientists at UW-Madison and WHO has shown
that the growing health impacts of climate change affect different regions in markedly different ways. Ironically, the places
that have contributed the least to warming the Earth are the most vulnerable to the death and disease higher temperatures
can bring. "Those least able to cope and least responsible for the greenhouse gases that cause global warming are most
affected," says lead author Jonathan Patz, a professor at UW-Madison's Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental
Studies. "Herein lies an enormous global ethical challenge." According to the Nature report, regions at highest risk for
enduring the health effects of climate change include coastlines along the Pacific and Indian oceans and sub-Saharan
Africa. Large sprawling cities, with their urban "heat island" effect, are also prone to temperature-related health problems.
Africa has some of the lowest per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases. Yet, regions of the continent are gravely at risk for
warming-related disease. "Many of the most important diseases in poor countries, from malaria to diarrhea and
malnutrition, are highly sensitive to climate," says co-author Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of WHO. "The health sector is
already struggling to control these diseases and climate change threatens to undermine these efforts." "Recent extreme
climatic events have underscored the risks to human health and survival," adds Tony McMichael, director of the National
Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University. "This synthesizing paper points the
way to strategic research that better assesses the risks to health from global climate change." ¶ The UW-Madison and WHO
assessment appears only weeks before global leaders convene in Montreal during the first meeting of the Conference of
Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect in February 2005. Patz will also deliver the keynote address at a
parallel WHO/Health Canada event.¶ The United States - the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases - has yet to ratify the
Kyoto treaty. Patz and his colleagues say their work demonstrates the moral obligation of countries with high per-capita
emissions, such as the U.S. and European nations, to adopt a leadership role in reducing the health threats of global
warming. It also highlights the need for large, fast-growing economies, such as China and India, to develop sustainable
energy policies.¶ "The political resolve of policy-makers will play a big role in harnessing the man-made forces of climate
change," says Patz, who also holds a joint appointment with the UW-Madison department of Population Health Sciences.¶
Scientists believe that greenhouse gases will increase the global average temperature by approximately 6 degrees
Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Extreme floods, droughts and heat waves, such as Europe's 2003 heat wave, are
likely to strike with increasing frequency. Other factors such as irrigation and deforestation can also affect local
temperatures and humidity.
Moral obligation to reject racism-Plus it outweighs
Memmi ‘00
MEMMI Professor Emeritus of Sociology @ Unv. Of Paris Albert-; RACISM, translated by Steve Martinot, pp.163-165
The struggle against racism will be long, difficult, without intermission, without remission, probably never achieved, yet
for this very reason, it is a struggle to be undertaken without surcease and without concessions. One cannot be indulgent
toward racism. One cannot even let the monster in the house, especially not in a mask. To give it merely a foothold
means to augment the bestial part in us and in other people which is to diminish what is human. To accept the racist
universe to the slightest degree is to endorse fear, injustice, and violence. It is to accept the persistence of the dark history
in which we still largely live. It is to agree that the outsider will always be a possible victim (and which [person] man is not
[themself] himself an outsider relative to someone else?). Racism illustrates in sum, the inevitable negativity of the
condition of the dominated; that is it illuminates in a certain sense the entire human condition. The anti-racist struggle,
difficult though it is, and always in question, is nevertheless one of the prologues to the ultimate passage from animality to
humanity. In that sense, we cannot fail to rise to the racist challenge. However, it remains true that one’s moral conduct
only emerges from a choice: one has to want it. It is a choice among other choices, and always debatable in its
foundations and its consequences. Let us say, broadly speaking, that the choice to conduct oneself morally is the condition
for the establishment of a human order for which racism is the very negation. This is almost a redundancy. One cannot
found a moral order, let alone a legislative order, on racism because racism signifies the exclusion of the other and his or
her subjection to violence and domination. From an ethical point of view, if one can deploy a little religious language,
racism is “the truly capital sin.”fn22 It is not an accident that almost all of humanity’s spiritual traditions counsel respect
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for the weak, for orphans, widows, or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical counsel respect for the weak, for
orphans, widows or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical morality and disinterested commandments. Such
unanimity in the safeguarding of the other suggests the real utility of such sentiments. All things considered, we have an
interest in banishing injustice, because injustice engenders violence and death. Of course, this is debatable. There are
those who think that if one is strong enough, the assault on and oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever
sure of remaining the strongest. One day, perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust society contains within itself the
seeds of its own death. It is probably smarter to treat others with respect so that they treat you with respect. “Recall,” says
the bible, “that you were once a stranger in Egypt,” which means both that you ought to respect the stranger because you
were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming once again someday. It is an ethical and a practical appeal – indeed,
it is a contract, however implicit it might be. In short, the refusal of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical
morality. Because, in the end, the ethical choice commands the political choice. A just society must be a society accepted
by all. If this contractual principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is
accepted, we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.
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Warming Bad – Russia War
Global warming makes US Russia war inevitable
Zellen, Security Innovator, 07
Barry, “The Polar Show Down: As the Arctic's ice begins to melt, a new race for its undersea resources begins” August 23,
2007 http://securityinnovator.com/index.php?articleID=12387&sectionID=43, 7-12-13, KB
In response to Russia’s aggressive assertion of its claims to the Arctic, Cohen believes that “legal and diplomatic actions
are necessary,” and pointed out that the U.S. State Department has “already expressed its skepticism of planting of the
Russian Flag,” and believes the act was “not in legal effect.” Cohen added that “Canada joined in this opposition,” noting
its Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, quickly embarked upon a “three-day Arctic trip” during which he made major
announcements that “increased Canada’s naval presence in the Arctic.” In order to “block Russia's grab,” Cohen believes
that the United States “should encourage its friends and allies—especially Canada, Denmark, and Norway—to pursue their
own claims with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.” And while America “has not
ratified LOST,” the Law of the Sea Treaty, Cohen noted the other Arctic states “have filed claims with the Commission in
opposition to Russia's claims,” and believes “the U.S. should also encourage Canada to coordinate a possible claim through
the International Justice Court in The Hague against the Russian grab, which the U.S. may join.” Cohen believes Moscow’s
“decision to take an aggressive stand has left the U.S., Canada, and the Nordic countries little choice but to forge a
cooperative high-north strategy and invite other friendly countries, such as Great Britain, to help build a Western presence
in the Arctic: This will probably have to include a fleet of modern icebreakers, submersibles, geophysics/seismic vessels,
and polar aircraft.” As Cohen explained, there’s “too much at stake to leave the Arctic to the Russian bear.” But in an
optimistic “parting thought,” Cohen added, “I don’t think Russia has financial resources and technology to explore Artic
for its riches alone,” and that it “would be much better if U.S., Canada, and—as well as Denmark and Norway will have a
multilateral regime negotiated that will specify the economic zones, and will open each other’s resources for joint ventures
that will boost economic development in the Arctic.” To understand Russia’s intentions, we interviewed Dr. Vladimir
Frolov, the director of the National Laboratory for Foreign Policy, a Moscow-based think tank.[18] Frolov, a former
Foreign Service officer, writes about Russia’s foreign policy for Russia Profile magazine and penned a prescient column in
the July 17th edition titled “The Coming Conflict in the Arctic: Russia and U.S. to Square Off Over Arctic Energy
Reserves.”[19] Frolov explained that “there are two principal lines of thinking on global warming in Russia. One is that
global warming is a myth, the other is that global warming exists and it is good for Russia.” He added that “Russia might
benefit from global warming if it leads to more mild temperatures in the Arctic, provided the problem of flooding could be
solved,” because a milder climate “would make it less prohibitively costly to develop the considerable energy resources
that Russia has there.” He noted that “Russia views the Arctic reserves as its ‘last barrel of oil’ to be safeguarded and then
used to Russia’s strategic advantage,” much like the U.S. view of “oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
(ANWR).”¶ ¶ So bountiful are Russia’s reserves of Arctic petroleum resources that Frolov thinks that they will precipitate an
inevitable clash between Russia and the United States reminiscent of its Cold War clash across the Arctic. As Frolov
explained in his July 17, 2007 column in Russia Profile, “the stage has been quietly set for a much more serious
confrontation in the non-too-distant future between Russia and the United States—along with Canada, Norway and
Denmark,” as Russia “recently laid claim to a vast 1,191,000 square km chunk of the ice-covered Arctic seabed.” Its claim
is “not really about territory, but rather about the huge hydrocarbon reserves that are hidden on the seabed under the
Arctic ice cap: these newly discovered energy reserves will play a crucial role in the global energy balance as the existing
reserves of oil and gas are depleted over the next 20 years.
US-Russia war causes extinction
Bostrom ‘2 - Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Yale (Nick, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction
Scenarios and Related Hazards," 38, www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html)
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear
war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to
qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear
Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization. Russia and the US retain large
nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation , either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may
one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an
existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently.
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Warming Bad – Resources
Warming causes resource scarcity
Evans 10 (Alex Evans, Center on International Cooperation, New York University, September 9, 2010,
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTWDR2011/Resources/64060821283882418764/WDR_Background_Paper_Evans.pdf)
Climate change and its effects on resource scarcity
All of these potential limitations to supply growth are before climate change is considered, which is likely to be the most
important long-term driver of change on all of the above sectors. Since pre-industrial times, global average temperatures
have increase by 0.7° Celsius, and emissions already in the atmosphere mean that the world is committed to a further
increase of 0.6° Celsius.18 Overall, even stringent global mitigation action may not be enough to avoid a 2.0° Celsius
increase on pre-industrial temperatures. Even if the 2009 Copenhagen summit had agreed that global emissions would
peak in 2015 and decline by 3% a year thereafter, this would still have left the world with an even chance of exceeding a 2°
Celsius temperature increase.19 As it is, the summit’s outcome appears insufficient to prevent warming of 3° Celsius or
more.20 Most of the key near-term impacts of climate change will result from reduced freshwater availability, which will
expose hundreds of millions of people to additional water stress.21 Decreased crop yields (in all areas except mid and high
latitudes, and in all areas above 2.0° Celsius), will also be particularly important, and will expose tens to hundreds of
millions more people to the risk of hunger.22 The IPCC also highlights a number of regions that will be particularly
exposed to climate change, including the Arctic, Africa, small islands, and densely populated coastal “megadeltas” in Asia
and Africa such as the Nile, Ganges-Brahmaputra and Mekong, where tens of millions will be at increased risk of acute
flood and storm damage, chronic coastal flooding and loss of coastal wetlands.23 Significantly, these regions’ high
exposure is in some cases as much the result of their high vulnerability as of the scale of climate impacts they are projected
to experience; Africa, for example, is likely to be especially affected by climate change because of its “low adaptive
capacity”, whilst the high population densities of Asian and African megadeltas are also factors in determining their
exposure.24However, assessments of the climate and scarcity outlook are complicated by a number of methodological
issues, particularly in the area of climate change. New science findings continue to emerge rapidly, with the effect that
overall estimates quickly become dated: the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report is already out of date in some key
respects, for example, whilst the next assessment is not due to be published until 2014.25 Although climate models are
improving all the time, their findings remain subject to a substantial degree of uncertainty, a problem that increases at
more specific levels of geographical focus. A further challenge for policymakers arises from the fact that while some
estimates of future climate impacts may seem to imply steady, gradual changes that can be adapted to over time, in fact
past changes in the earth’s climate have been the opposite: highly non-linear and unpredictable, and hallmarked by
sudden shifts as key thresholds are passed. Accordingly, an increasing concern for policymakers in recent years has been
the risk of abrupt climate change that could result from positive feedback effects, such as:
-back of tropical
forests or melting of Arctic tundra (both of which would release large amounts of methane into the atmosphere);26
rapid melting of polar ice sheets or glaciers (which would result in higher sea levels);27 or
atmospheric sinks such as the world’s oceans to absorb carbon dioxide (which would magnify the impact of current
emissions).28 While these kinds of risk are largely omitted from IPCC assessments, due to the high degree of uncertainty
associated with them, they nonetheless remain a real consideration for policymakers wanting to take a risk management
approach based on feasible worst case scenarios.29 Some best-guess estimates suggest that global average warming of
around 2.0° Celsius may be a key threshold for some of these effects, while the IPCC concluded in its Third Assessment
Report that “there is low to medium confidence that a rapid warming of over 3° Celsius would trigger large-scale
singularities in the climate system”, but such assessments are highly uncertain.30
Resource conflict causes prolif and nuclear conflict.
Wooldridge 9. (Frosty, free lance writer, once lectured at Cornell University, “Humanity galloping toward its greatest
crisis in the 21st century” http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10042:humanitygalloping-toward-its-greatest-crisis-in-the-21st-century&catid=125:frosty-wooldridge&Itemid=244
It is clear that most politicians and most citizens do not recognize that returning to “more of the same” is a recipe for
promoting the first collapse of a global civilization. The required changes in energy technology, which would benefit not
only the environment but also national security, public health, and the economy, would demand a World War II type
mobilization -- and even that might not prevent a global climate disaster. Without transitioning away from use of fossil
fuels, humanity will move further into an era of resource wars (remember, Africom has been added to the Pentagon’s
structure -- and China has noticed), clearly with intent to protect US “interests” in petroleum reserves. The consequences
of more resource wars, many likely triggered over water supplies stressed by climate disruption, are likely to include
increased unrest in poor nations, a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, widening inequity within and between
nations, and in the worst (and not unlikely) case, a nuclear war ending civilization.
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Warming Bad – South Asia War
Climate change leads to south Asian nuclear war
Sharma 10 (Rajeev Sharma, journalist-author who has been writing on international relations,
foreign policy, strategic affairs, security and terrorism for over two decades, 2/25/2010,
"Climate Change = War?" The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2010/02/25/climate-changewar/)
For all the heat generated by discussions of global warming in recent months, it is an often overlooked fact that climate
change has the potential to create border disputes that in some cases could even provoke clashes between states. Throw
into the mix three nuclear-armed nations with a history of disagreements, and the stakes of any conflict rise
incalculably. Yet such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely as glaciers around the world melt, blurring
international boundaries. The chastened United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example,
still doesn’t dispute that glaciers are melting; the only question is how fast. The phenomenon is already pushing
Europeans and Africans to redraw their borders. Switzerland and Italy, for example, were forced to introduce draft
resolutions in their respective parliaments for fresh border demarcations after alpine glaciers started melting unusually
quickly. And in Africa, meanwhile, climate change has caused rivers to change course over the past few years. Many
African nations have rivers marking international boundaries and are understandably worried about these changing
course and therefore cutting into their borders. Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are just some of the African
countries that have indicated apprehension about their international boundaries. But it is in Asia where a truly
nightmarish scenario could play out between India, Pakistan and China–nuclear weapon states that between them
have the highest concentration of glaciers in the world outside the polar regions. A case in point is the Siachen Glacier
in the Karakoram range, the largest glacier outside the polar region, which is the site of a major bilateral dispute
between India and Pakistan. According to scientific data, Siachen Glacier is melting at the rate of about 110 meters a
year–among the fastest of any glaciers in the world. The glacier’s melting ice is the main source of the Nubra River,
which itself drains into the Shyok River. These are two of the main rivers in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The Shyok
also joins the Indus River, and forms the major source of water for Pakistan. It is clear, then, why the melting of
glaciers in the Karakoram region could have a disastrous impact on ties between India and Pakistan. French geologists
have already predicted the Indus will become a seasonal river by 2040, which would unnerve Pakistan as its ‘granary
basket,’ Punjab, would become increasingly drought-prone and eventually a desert–all within a few decades. It takes
no great leap of imagination to see the potential for conflict as the two nations resort to military means to control this
water source. Meanwhile, glacier melting could also be creating a potential flashpoint between India and China. The
melting Himalayan glaciers will inevitably induce changes to the McMahon Line, the boundary that separates India
and China. Beijing has already embarked upon a long-term strategy of throttling of India’s major water source in the
north-east–the Brahmaputra River that originates in China.
Indo-China territorial disputes go nuclear - results in great-power draw-in
Kahn 9 (Jeremy Kahn, staff writer for Newsweek, 10/9/2009, "Why India Fears China,"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/10/09/why-india-fears-china.print.html)
Ever since the anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet last year, progress toward settling the border dispute has stalled, and the
situation has taken a dangerous turn. The emergence of videos showing Tibetans beating up Han Chinese shopkeepers
in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities created immense domestic pressure on Beijing to crack down. The Communist Party
leadership worries that agitation by Tibetans will only encourage unrest by the country's other ethnic minorities, such
as Uighurs in Xinjiang or ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, threatening China's integrity as a nation. Susan Shirk,
a former Clinton-administration official and expert on China, says that "in the past, Taiwan was the 'core issue of
sovereignty,' as they call it, and Tibet was not very salient to the public." Now, says Shirk, Tibet is considered a "core
issue of national sovereignty" on par with Taiwan. The implications for India's security—and the world's—are ominous.
It turns what was once an obscure argument over lines on a 1914 map and some barren, rocky peaks hardly worth
fighting over into a flash point that could spark a war between two nuclear-armed neighbors. And that makes the
India-China border dispute into an issue of concern to far more than just the two parties involved. The United States
and Europe as well as the rest of Asia ought to take notice—a conflict involving India and China could result in a
nuclear exchange. And it could suck the West in—either as an ally in the defense of Asian democracy, as in the case of
Taiwan, or as a mediator trying to separate the two sides.
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Warming Bad – Structural Violence
Warming enforces and entrenches societal exclusion and structural violence due to
depleted resources
Klare professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, 2006 (Michael. March 10 2006. AlterNet
“The Coming Resource Wars” http://www.alternet.org/environment/33243 NMS)
Violence and disruption stemming from the stresses created by abrupt changes in the climate pose a different type of
threat to national security than we are accustomed to today," the 2003 report noted. "Military confrontation may be
triggered by a desperate need for natural resources such as energy, food and water rather than by conflicts over ideology,
religion or national honor." Until now, this mode of analysis has failed to command the attention of top American and
British policymakers. For the most part, they insist that ideological and religious differences -- notably, the clash between
values of tolerance and democracy on one hand and extremist forms of Islam on the other -- remain the main drivers of
international conflict. But Reid's speech at Chatham House suggests that a major shift in strategic thinking may be under
way. Environmental perils may soon dominate the world security agenda. This shift is due in part to the growing weight of
evidence pointing to a significant human role in altering the planet's basic climate systems. Recent studies showing the
rapid shrinkage of the polar ice caps, the accelerated melting of North American glaciers, the increased frequency of severe
hurricanes and a number of other such effects all suggest that dramatic and potentially harmful changes to the global
climate have begun to occur. More importantly, they conclude that human behavior -- most importantly, the burning of
fossil fuels in factories, power plants, and motor vehicles -- is the most likely cause of these changes. This assessment may
not have yet penetrated the White House and other bastions of head-in-the-sand thinking, but it is clearly gaining ground
among scientists and thoughtful analysts around the world. For the most part, public discussion of global climate change
has tended to describe its effects as an environmental problem -- as a threat to safe water, arable soil, temperate forests,
certain species and so on. And, of course, climate change is a potent threat to the environment; in fact, the greatest threat
imaginable. But viewing climate change as an environmental problem fails to do justice to the magnitude of the peril it
poses. As Reid's speech and the 2003 Pentagon study make clear, the greatest danger posed by global climate change is
not the degradation of ecosystems per se, but rather the disintegration of entire human societies, producing wholesale
starvation, mass migrations and recurring conflict over resources. "As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters
strike due to abrupt climate change," the Pentagon report notes, "many countries' needs will exceed their carrying
capacity" -- that is, their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human survival. This "will create a sense of
desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression" against countries with a greater stock of vital resources.
"Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy,
eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply." Similar
scenarios will be replicated all across the planet, as those without the means to survival invade or migrate to those with
greater abundance -- producing endless struggles between resource "haves" and "have-nots." It is this prospect, more than
anything, that worries John Reid. In particular, he expressed concern over the inadequate capacity of poor and unstable
countries to cope with the effects of climate change, and the resulting risk of state collapse, civil war and mass migration.
"More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water," he observed, and "climate change will worsen
this dire situation" -- provoking more wars like Darfur. And even if these social disasters will occur primarily in the
developing world, the wealthier countries will also be caught up in them, whether by participating in peacekeeping and
humanitarian aid operations, by fending off unwanted migrants or by fighting for access to overseas supplies of food, oil,
and minerals. When reading of these nightmarish scenarios, it is easy to conjure up images of desperate, starving people
killing one another with knives, staves and clubs -- as was certainly often the case in the past, and could easily prove to be
so again. But these scenarios also envision the use of more deadly weapons. "In this world of warring states," the 2003
Pentagon report predicted, "nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable." As oil and natural gas disappears, more and more
countries will rely on nuclear power to meet their energy needs -- and this "will accelerate nuclear proliferation as
countries develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national security." Although speculative, these
reports make one thing clear: when thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we must emphasize its
social and political consequences as much as its purely environmental effects. Drought, flooding and storms can kill us,
and surely will -- but so will wars among the survivors of these catastrophes over what remains of food, water and shelter.
As Reid's comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape involvement in these forms of conflict.
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Warming Turns Bio D
Warming destroys biodiversity—Leads to extinction
Hansen, is member of the National Academy of Sciences 2011, an adjunct professor in the Department of
Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, and director of the NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (PB)
As long as the total movement of isotherms toward the poles is much smaller than the size of the habitat, or the ranges in which the animals live, the effect on species is
limited. But now the
movement is inexorably toward the poles and totals more than one hundred miles over the past several
decades. If greenhouse gases continue to increase at business-as-usual rates, then the rate of isotherm movement will
double in this century to at least seventy miles per decade. Species at the most immediate risk are those in polar climates
and the biologically diverse slopes of alpine regions. Polar animals, in effect, will be pushed off the planet. Alpine species will be pushed toward higher
altitudes, and toward smaller, rockier areas with thinner air ; thus, in effect, they will also be pushed off the planet. A few such species, such as polar bears, no doubt will be
"rescued" by human beings, but survival in zoos or managed animal reserves will be small consolation to bears or nature lovers. Earth's history provides an invaluable
perspective about what is possible. Fossils
in the geologic record reveal that there have been five mass extinctions during the past five
hundred million years— geologically brief periods in which about half or more of the species on Earth disappeared forever .
In each case, life survived and new species developed over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. All these mass extinctions were associated with
large and relatively rapid changes of atmospheric composition and climate. In the most extreme extinction, the "end-Permian"
event, dividing the Permian Triassic periods 251 million years ago, nearly all life on Earth— more than 90 percent of terrestrial and marine species—
was exterminated. None of the extinction events is understood in full. Research is active, as increasingly powerful methods of "reading the rocks" are being developed.
Yet enough is now known to provide an invaluable perspective for what is already being called the sixth mass extinction, the
human-caused destruction of species. Knowledge of past extinction events can inform us about potential paths for the future and perhaps help guide our
actions, as our single powerful species threatens all others, and our own. We do not know how many animal, plant, insect, and microbe species exist
today. Nor do we know the rate we are driving species to extinction. About two million species—half of them being insects, including butterflies—have been cataloged, but
more are discovered every day. The order of magnitude for the total is perhaps ten million. Some biologists estimate that when all the microbes, fungi, and parasites are
counted, there may be one hundred million species. Bird species are documented better than most. Everybody has heard of the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the ivory-billed
woodpecker—all are gone—and the whooping crane, which, so far, we have just barely "saved." We are still losing one or two bird species per year. In total about 1 percent of
bird species have disappeared over the past several centuries. If the
loss of birds is representative of other species, several thousand species
are becoming extinct each year. The current extinction rate is at least one hundred times greater than the average natural
rate. So the concern that humans may have initiated the sixth mass extinction is easy to understand. However, the outcome is still
very much up in the air, and human-made climate change is likely to be the determining factor. I will argue that if we continue on a business-as-usual path,
with a global warming of several degrees Celsius, then we will drive a large fraction of species, conceivably all species, to
extinction. On the other hand, just as in the case of ice sheet stability, if we bring atmospheric composition under control in the near future, it is still possible to keep
human-caus ed extinctions to a moderate level.
Biodiversity loss causes extinction
Young, PhD coastal marine ecology 2010 - (Ruth, “Biodiversity: what it is and why it’s important”, February 9 th,
http://www.talkingnature.com/2010/02/biodiversity/biodiversity-what-and-why/ PB)
Different species within ecosystems fill particular roles, they all have a function, they all have a niche. They interact with each
other and the physical environment to provide ecosystem services that are vital for our survival. For example plant species
convert carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and energy from the sun into useful things such as food, medicines and timber.
Pollination carried out by insects such as bees enables the production of ⅓ of our food crops. Diverse mangrove and coral reef
ecosystems provide a wide variety of habitats that are essential for many fishery species . To make it simpler for economists to
comprehend the magnitude of services offered by biodiversity , a team of researchers estimated their value – it amounted to $US33 trillion
per year. “By protecting biodiversity we maintain ecosystem services” Certain species play a “keystone” role in maintaining
ecosystem services. Similar to the removal of a keystone from an arch, the removal of these species can result in the collapse of an ecosystem
and the subsequent removal of ecosystem services. The most well known example of this occurred during the 19th century when sea otters were almost
hunted to extinction by fur traders along the west coast of the USA. This led to a population explosion in the sea otters’ main source of prey, sea urchins. Because the urchins
graze on kelp their booming population decimated the underwater kelp forests. This loss of habitat led to declines in local fish populations. Sea otters are a keystone species
once hunted for their fur (Image: Mike Baird) Eventually a treaty protecting sea otters allowed the numbers of otters to increase which inturn controlled the urchin population,
leading to the recovery of the kelp forests and fish stocks. In other cases, ecosystem services are maintained by entire functional groups, such as apex predators (See Jeremy
Hance’s post at Mongabay). During the last 35 years, over fishing of large shark species along the US Atlantic coast has led to a population explosion of skates and rays. These
skates and rays eat bay scallops and their out of control population has led to the closure of a century long scallop fishery. These are just two examples demonstrating how
biodiversity can maintain the services that ecosystems provide for us, such as fisheries. One
could argue that to maintain ecosystem services we don’t
need to protect biodiversity but rather, we only need to protect the species and functional groups that fill the keystone
roles. However, there are a couple of problems with this idea. First of all, for most ecosystems we don’t know which species are
the keystones! Ecosystems are so complex that we are still discovering which species play vital roles in maintaining them.
In some cases its groups of species not just one species that are vital for the ecosystem. Second, even if we did complete
the enormous task of identifying and protecting all keystone species, what back-up plan would we have if an unforseen
event (e.g. pollution or disease) led to the demise of these ‘keystone’ species? Would there be another species to save the day and
take over this role? Classifying some species as ‘keystone’ implies that the others are not important. This may lead to the non-keystone species being considered
ecologically worthless and subsequently over-exploited. Sometimes we may not even know which species are likely to fill the keystone roles. An example of this was
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discovered on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This research examined what would happen to a coral reef if it were over-fished. The “over-fishing” was
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simulated by fencing off coral bommies thereby excluding and removing fish from them for three years. By the end of the experiment, the reefs had changed from a coral to an
algae dominated ecosystem – the coral became overgrown with algae. When the time came to remove the fences the researchers expected herbivorous species of fish like the
parrot fish (Scarus spp.) to eat the algae and enable the reef to switch back to a coral dominated ecosystem. But, surprisingly, the shift back to coral was driven by a supposed
‘unimportant’ species – the bat fish (Platax pinnatus). The bat fish was previously thought to feed on invertebrates – small crabs and shrimp, but when offered a big patch of
algae it turned into a hungry herbivore – a cow of the sea – grazing the algae in no time. So a fish previously thought to be ‘unimportant’ is actually a keystone species in the
recovery of coral reefs overgrown by algae! Who knows how many other species are out there with unknown ecosystem roles! In some
cases it’s easy to see who the keystone species are but in many ecosystems seemingly unimportant or redundant species are also capable of changing niches and maintaining
ecosystems. The
more biodiverse an ecosystem is, the more likely these species will be present and the more resilient an
ecosystem is to future impacts. Presently we’re only scratching the surface of understanding the full importance of
biodiversity and how it helps maintain ecosystem function. The scope of this task is immense. In the meantime, a wise
insurance policy for maintaining ecosystem services would be to conserve biodiversity. In doing so, we increase the
chance of maintaining our ecosystem services in the event of future impacts such as disease, invasive species and of course, climate change.
This is the international year of biodiversity – a time to recognize that biodiversity makes our survival on this planet possible and that
our protection of biodiversity maintains this service.
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Warming Turns Heg
Warming collapses US heg
Smith, – professor of Security Strategies at the Naval War College 11, former associate/assistant
professor with the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (Paul, “ The geopolitics of climate change: power transitions,
conflict and the future of military activities,” Conflict, Security, & Development,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14678802.2011.593810, PB )
In particular, extreme weather events could create social, economic and political disruption for developed countries and,
in some cases, undermine public morale and confidence. Recent extreme weather events demonstrate the persistent
vulnerability of richer, powerful states to such scenarios. In Japan, a heat wave in the summer of 2010 killed 66 people
and resulted in more than 15,000 hospitalisations.62 In 2003, a heat wave in Europe killed at least, 35,000 people during
a two-week period. Two years later, Hurricane Katrina not only nearly destroyed an American city, it killed roughly 1,800
people, left thousands homeless and displaced tens of thousands. Moreover, Hurricane Katrina had a deleterious effect on
Americans' psyche, just as the country was engaged in ‘state-building’ efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The storm put the
United States into an awkward position of having been transformed into a major recipient of foreign financial assistance,
for which the American bureaucracy was ill-prepared.63 As in the case of the BRICS countries, adaptive capacity will
determine the degree to which climate change (and its varied effects) will influence current major powers. In general, it is
assumed that wealthier countries have, by virtue of available capital and other factors, high adaptive capacity and that
such capacities can effectively immunise these countries from the effects of climate change. In reality, however, extreme
climate change events can exceed adaptation measures, even in wealthier, developed countries.64 Even when such
investments are planned, they will compete against other fiscal priorities, at a time when public debt-to-GDP ratios in
richer, developed countries are soaring.65 Thus, climate change potentially could affect the major powers by undermining
national resilience and public confidence. At the very least, the effects of climate change (such as extreme weather events)
could provoke a more inward political orientation in the United States, European Union or Japan, as their respective
populations demand their governments deploy national assets (including military forces) solely for domestic disaster
assistance or reconstruction missions. This would also imply less willingness to act in the global commons or in countries
(or continents) confronting far less favourable conditions brought about by climate change.
Warming kills the navy – stretches capabilities and destroys crucial basing
Broder Reporter at the NYT 11
[John, 3/10/2011, New York Times, “Study Says Navy Must Adapt to Climate
Change,” http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/study-says-navy-must-adapt-to-climate-change/, 7-12-13 KB
A report commissioned by the United States Navy concludes that climate change will pose profound challenges for the sea
service in coming decades, including a need to secure Arctic shipping lanes, prepare for more frequent humanitarian
missions and protect coastal installations from rising seas.¶ The 15-month study, conducted by the National Research
Council, accepts the scientific consensus that the climate is changing and that the effects are being felt now. Of particular
consequence to American naval forces – the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard – are the melting polar ice cap, rising
seas and increasingly frequent severe storms and droughts that could lead to famine, mass migration and political
instability.¶ The report from research council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on previous work by the
Pentagon, State Department, the intelligence community and independent research groups that have concluded that
climate change is a “threat multiplier” that adds new and unpredictable dangers to global physical and political stability.
The primary authors are Frank L. Bowman, a retired Navy admiral who led the service’s nuclear propulsion unit, and
Antonio J. Busalacchi, Jr., a climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the
University of Maryland, College Park. They were assisted by a large number of climate and oceanography experts as well
as corporate planners and active-duty military officers.¶ The group found that the precise impacts of climate change are
impossible to predict, but that actions should be undertaken now to prepare for a range of outcomes. It also found that
some impacts are already observable, including melting sea ice in the Arctic and rising sea levels, and require planning
and action by naval forces.¶ “Even the most moderate predicted trends in climate change will present new national
security challenges for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard,” Mr. Bowman said. “Naval forces need to monitor
more closely and start preparing now for projected challenges climate change will present in the future.Ӧ Summer sea ice
is retreating at an estimated rate of 10 percent a decade, and Arctic Ocean sea lanes could be open as early as the summer
of 2030, the report found. Shipping, oil and gas operations and other activities in the region will require an increased
naval presence in the region, new equipment such as icebreakers and increased cold-weather training, the authors write.¶
The report also concludes that the military should also be prepared for large-scale and frequent missions to help people
displaced by major storms or drought. The Navy should consider beefing up its small complement of hospital ships,
perhaps by contracting with private companies to provide extra capability in emergencies, it said.¶ What is more, major
naval installations along the coasts are vulnerable to rising seas and storm surges, and plans should be made to relocate
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some critical facilities inland, the report contends, estimating that $100 billion of Navy installations would be at risk of sea
level rise of one meter or more.¶ “Although the future degree and magnitude of climate change on regional scales is
uncertain, it’s clear that the potential for environmental disasters is on the rise due to the changing nature of the
hydrologic cycle and sea level,” Mr. Busalacchi said. “Naval forces must be prepared to provide more aid and disaster relief
in the decades ahead.”
Warming destroys the US Navy’s ability to win the artic conflict – facilitates
belligerence
MSNBC 11
“Navy's got new challenges with warming, experts say Report: Arctic role will grow; bases will be vulnerable to storms, rising
seas”,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41990999/ns/us_news-environment/t/navys-got-new-challenges-warming-experts-say/, 7-12-13, KB
— from costly base repairs, to mobilizing for
humanitarian aid and geopolitical conflicts in the Arctic — the National Research Council said in a
report Thursday.¶ "Even the most moderate predicted trends in climate change will present new national security
challenges," retired Adm. Frank Bowman, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report at the Navy's
request, said in a statement.¶ "Naval forces need to monitor more closely and start preparing now for projected
challenges climate change will present in the future," he added.¶ As rising temperatures continue to melt sea ice, Arctic
sea lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 , the report noted. The region is already seeing ships
testing the waters, as well as nations lining up to seek energy and mineral deposits.¶ Russia has been
among the most aggressive in seeking energy riches, while Canada has beefed up its patrols.¶ "The
geopolitical situation in the Arctic region has become complex and nuanced, despite the area being
essentially ignored since the end of the Cold War," the experts wrote.¶ In order to protect U.S. interests,
they added, "the Navy should begin Arctic training and the Marine Corps should also reestablish a cold-weather
The U.S. Navy should plan for climate change impacts
training program.¶ Rising sea levels and more extreme storm surges tied to warming could also become costly for the
Navy.¶ A rise of three feet, the experts said, would place at risk 56 Navy installations worth $100 billion. The Navy
should expect a rise by 2100 anywhere between a foot and six feet , they added.¶ The report also urged the Navy to
increase its capacity for helping climate refugees via hospital ships.¶ "Naval forces must be prepared to
provide more aid and disaster relief in the decades ahead," said panel co-chair Antonio Busalacchi, director of
the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland.
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Warming Turns War
Global warming is real, feedbacks cause rapid escalation, and it causes population
migrations fueling political instability and failed states, escalating to nuclear war and
extinction
Kaku , co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory, 11
(Michio Kaku, He received a B.S. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics
class. (“Physics of the Future” http://213.55.83.52/ebooks/physics/Physics%20of%20the%20Future.pdf PB)
By midcentury, the full impact of a fossil fuel economy should be in full swing: global warming. It is now indisputable that
the earth is heating up. Within the last century, the earth’s temperature rose 1.3° F, and the pace is accelerating. The signs
are unmistakable everywhere we look: The thickness of Arctic ice has decreased by an astonishing 50 percent in just the
past fifty years. Much of this Arctic ice is just below the freezing point, floating on water. Hence, it is acutely sensitive to
small temperature variations of the oceans, acting as a canary in a mineshaft, an early warning system. Today, parts of the
northern polar ice caps disappear during the summer months, and may disappear entirely during summer as early as
2015. The polar ice cap may vanish permanently by the end of the century, disrupting the world’s weather by altering the
flow of ocean and air currents around the planet. Greenland’s ice shelves shrank by twenty-four square miles in 2007. This
figure jumped to seventy-one square miles in 2008. (If all the Greenland ice were somehow to melt, sea levels would rise
about twenty feet around the world.) Large chunks of Antarctica’s ice, which have been stable for tens of thousands of
years, are gradually breaking off. In 2000, a piece the size of Connecticut broke off, containing 4,200 square miles of ice.
In 2002, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island broke off the Thwaites Glacier. (If all Antarctica’s ice were to melt, sea
levels would rise about 180 feet around the world.) For every vertical foot that the ocean rises, the horizontal spread of the
ocean is about 100 feet. Already, sea levels have risen 8 inches in the past century, mainly caused by the expansion of
seawater as it heats up. According to the United Nations, sea levels could rise by 7 to 23 inches by 2100. Some scientists
have said that the UN report was too cautious in interpreting the data. According to scientists at the University of
Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, by 2100 sea levels could rise by 3 to 6 feet. So gradually the map of the
earth’s coastlines will change. Temperatures started to be reliably recorded in the late 1700s; 1995, 2005, and 2010 ranked
among the hottest years ever recorded; 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade. Likewise, levels of carbon dioxide are rising
dramatically. They are at the highest levels in 100,000 years. As the earth heats up, tropical diseases are gradually
migrating northward. The recent spread of the West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes may be a harbinger of things to
come. UN officials are especially concerned about the spread of malaria northward. Usually, the eggs of many harmful
insects die every winter when the soil freezes. But with the shortening of the winter season, it means the inexorable spread
of dangerous insects northward. CARBONDIOXIDE—GREENHOUSEGAS According to the UN’s Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, scientists have concluded with 90 percent confidence that global warming is driven by human
activity, especially the production of carbon dioxide via the burning of oil and coal. Sunlight easily passes through carbon
dioxide. But as sunlight heats up the earth, it creates infrared radiation, which does not pass back through carbon dioxide
so easily. The energy from sunlight cannot escape back into space and is trapped. We also see a somewhat similar effect in
greenhouses or cars. The sunlight warms the air, which is prevented from escaping by the glass. Ominously, the amount of
carbon dioxide generated has grown explosively, especially in the last century. Before the Industrial Revolution, the
carbon dioxide content of the air was 270 parts per million (ppm). Today, it has soared to 387 ppm. (In 1900, the world
consumed 150 million barrels of oil. In 2000, it jumped to 28 billion barrels, a 185-fold jump. In 2008, 9.4 billion tons of
carbon dioxide were sent into the air from fossil fuel burning and also deforestation, but only 5 billion tons were recycled
into the oceans, soil, and vegetation. The remainder will stay in the air for decades to come, heating up the earth.) VISIT
TO ICELAND The rise in temperature is not a fluke, as we can see by analyzing ice cores. By drilling deep into the ancient
ice of the Arctic, scientists have been able to extract air bubbles that are thousands of years old. By chemically analyzing
the air in these bubbles, scientists can reconstruct the temperature and carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere going
back more than 600,000 years. Soon, they will be able to determine the weather conditions going back a million years. I
had a chance to see this firsthand. I once gave a lecture in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and had the privilege of visiting
the University of Iceland, where ice cores are being analyzed. When your airplane lands in Reykjavik, at first all you see is
snow and jagged rock, resembling the bleak landscape of the moon. Although barren and forbidding, the terrain makes the
Arctic an ideal place to analyze the climate of the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. When I visited their
laboratory, which is kept at freezing temperatures, I had to pass through thick refrigerator doors. Once inside, I could see
racks and racks containing long metal tubes, each about an inch and a half in diameter and about ten feet long. Each
hollow tube had been drilled deep into the ice of a glacier. As the tube penetrated the ice, it captured samples from snows
that had fallen thousands of years ago. When the tubes were removed, I could carefully examine the icy contents of each.
At first, all I could see was a long column of white ice. But upon closer examination, I could see that the ice had stripes
made of tiny bands of different colors. Scientists have to use a variety of techniques to date them. Some of the ice layers
contain markers indicating important events, such as the soot emitted from a volcanic eruption. Since the dates of these
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eruptions are known to great accuracy, one can use them to determine how old that layer is. These ice cores were then cut
in various slices so they could be examined. When I peered into one slice under a microscope, I saw tiny, microscopic
bubbles. I shuddered to realize that I was seeing air bubbles that were deposited tens of thousands of years ago, even
before the rise of human civilization. The carbon dioxide content within each air bubble is easily measured. But calculating
the temperature of the air when the ice was first deposited is more difficult. (To do this, scientists analyze the water in the
bubble. Water molecules can contain different isotopes. As the temperature falls, heavier water isotopes condense faster
than ordinary water molecules. Hence, by measuring the amount of the heavier isotopes, one can calculate the
temperature at which the water molecule condensed.) Finally, after painfully analyzing the contents of thousands of ice
cores, these scientists have come to some important conclusions. They found that temperature and carbon dioxide levels
have oscillated in parallel, like two roller coasters moving together, in synchronization over many thousands of years.
When one curve rises or falls, so does the other. Most important, they found a sudden spike in temperature and carbon
dioxide content happening just within the last century. This is highly unusual, since most fluctuations occur slowly over
millennia. This unusual spike is not part of this natural heating process, scientists claim, but is a direct indicator of human
activity. There are other ways to show that this sudden spike is caused by human activity, and not natural cycles. Computer
simulations are now so advanced that we can simulate the temperature of the earth with and without the presence of
human activity. Without civilization producing carbon dioxide, we find a relatively flat temperature curve. But with the
addition of human activity, we can show that there should be a sudden spike in both temperature and carbon dioxide. The
predicted spike fits the actual spike perfectly. Lastly, one can measure the amount of sunlight that lands on every square
foot of the earth’s surface. Scientists can also calculate the amount of heat that is reflected into outer space from the earth.
Normally, we expect these two amounts to be equal, with input equaling output. But in reality, we find the net amount of
energy that is currently heating the earth. Then if we calculate the amount of energy being produced by human activity, we
find a perfect match. Hence, human activity is causing the current heating of the earth. Unfortunately, even if we were to
suddenly stop producing any carbon dioxide, the gas that has already been released into the atmosphere is enough to
continue global warming for decades to come. As a result, by midcentury, the situation could be dire. Scientists have
created pictures of what our coastal cities will look like at midcentury and beyond if sea levels continue to rise. Coastal
cities may disappear. Large parts of Manhattan may have to be evacuated, with Wall Street underwater. Governments will
have to decide which of their great cities and capitals are worth saving and which are beyond hope. Some cities may be
saved via a combination of sophisticated dikes and water gates. Other cities may be deemed hopeless and allowed to
vanish under the ocean, creating mass migrations of people. Since most of the commercial and population centers of the
world are next to the ocean, this could have a disastrous effect on the world economy. Even if some cities can be salvaged,
there is still the danger that large storms can send surges of water into a city, paralyzing its infrastructure. For example, in
1992 a huge storm surge flooded Manhattan, paralyzing the subway system and trains to New Jersey. With transportation
flooded, the economy grinds to a halt. FLOODING BANGLADESH AND VIETNAM A report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change isolated three hot spots for potential disaster: Bangladesh, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, and the
Nile Delta in Egypt. The worst situation is that of Bangladesh, a country regularly flooded by storms even without global
warming. Most of the country is flat and at sea level. Although it has made significant gains in the last few decades, it is
still one of the poorest nations on earth, with one of the highest population densities. (It has a population of 161 million,
comparable to that of Russia, but with 1/120 of the land area.) About 50 percent of the land area will be permanently
flooded if sea levels rise by three feet. Natural calamities occur there almost every year, but in September 1998, the world
witnessed in horror a preview of what may become commonplace. Massive flooding submerged two-thirds of the nation,
leaving 30 million people homeless almost overnight; 1,000 were killed, and 6,000 miles of roads were destroyed. This
was one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. Another country that would be devastated by a rise in sea level is
Vietnam, where the Mekong Delta is particularly vulnerable. By midcentury, this country of 87 million people could face a
collapse of its main food-growing area. Half the rice in Vietnam is grown in the Mekong Delta, home to 17 million people,
and much of it will be flooded permanently by rising sea levels. According to the World Bank, 11 percent of the entire
population would be displaced if sea levels rise by three feet by midcentury. The Mekong Delta will also be flooded with
salt water, permanently destroying the fertile soil of the area. If millions are flooded out of their homes in Vietnam, many
will flock to Ho Chi Minh City seeking refuge. But one-fourth of the city will also be underwater. In 2003 the Pentagon
commissioned a study, done by the Global Business Network, that showed that, in a worst-case scenario, chaos could
spread around the world due to global warming. As millions of refugees cross national borders, governments could lose all
authority and collapse, so countries could descend into the nightmare of looting, rioting, and chaos. In this desperate
situation, nations, when faced with the prospect of the influx of millions of desperate people, may resort to nuclear
weapons. “Envision Pakistan, India, and China—all armed with nuclear weapons—skirmishing at their borders over
refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land,” the report said. Peter Schwartz, founder of the Global Business Network
and a principal author of the Pentagon study, confided to me the details of this scenario. He told me that the biggest hot
spot would be the border between India and Bangladesh. In a major crisis in Bangladesh, up to 160 million people could be
driven out of their homes, sparking one of the greatest migrations in human history. Tensions could rapidly rise as borders
collapse, local governments are paralyzed, and mass rioting breaks out. Schwartz sees that nations may use nuclear
weapons as a last resort. In a worst-case scenario, we could have a greenhouse effect that feeds on itself. For example, the
melting of the tundra in the Arctic regions may release millions of tons of methane gas from rotting vegetation. Tundra
covers nearly 9 million square miles of land in the Northern Hemisphere, containing vegetation frozen since the last Ice
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Age tens of thousands of years ago. This tundra contains more carbon dioxide and methane than the atmosphere, and this
poses an enormous threat to the world’s weather. Methane gas, moreover, is a much deadlier greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide. It does not stay in the atmosphere as long, but it causes much more damage than carbon dioxide. The release of so
much methane gas from the melting tundra could cause temperatures to rapidly rise, which will cause even more methane
gas to be released, causing a runaway cycle of global warming.
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Warming Bad – Water
Water Shortages are a form of structural violence driven by colonialism and present
day corporations plan breaks down oppression
Mukherjee 7 — Joia S Mukherjee. Medical Director of Partners in Health. 2007. “Structural
Violence, Poverty and the AIDS Pandemic” http://www.palgravejournals.com/development/journal/v50/n2/full/1100376a.html
Current global inequalities are often the legacies of oppression, colonialism and slavery, and are to- day perpetuated by
radical, market-driven inter- national financial policies that foment poor health. Neo-liberal economic ‘reforms’ imposed
on poor countries by international financial insti- tutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
force poor governments, as the recipients of qualified loans, to decrease their public sector budgets, privatize health
services and, when they would rather invest their minus- cule capital to protect their vulnerable citizens and educate their
children, these recipient coun- tries are instead forced to march in lock step to- ward the ‘free’ market, enforcing policies
such as user fees for health and primary education. In poor countries, revitalizing the public health infrastructure and
improving the delivery of es- sentials such as vaccination, sanitation and clean water are critical aspects to remediating the
struc- tural violence that underlies disease. It is only with ongoing, large-scale international assistance that poor
governments will be able to address the right to health in a sustained way. Advocacy to re- dress the violations of the basic
right to health must recognize that more money is needed for health now, and for decades to come. Further- more, the
coercion by international financial in- stitutions of poor governments to restrict health spending only serves to deepen
inequalities in health care and perpetuate social injustice.
Water wars will go nuclear
Weiner 90 (Jonathan, Visiting Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, “The Next One Hundred Years:
Shaping Fate of Our Living Earth,” p214)
If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-bomb and the H-bomb, then we may destroy ourselves with the C-bomb, the
Change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the Middle East, from
North Africa to the Persian Gulf and from the Nile to the Euphrates, tensions over dwindling water supplies
and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint. A climate shift in the
single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some of the 60,000 nuclear warheads the
world has stockpiled since Trinity.
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XT – Water
Water shortages will lead to conflict and nuclear war between India and Pakistan
Lynas, Environmental Journalist, 2008 (Mark National Geographic “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
National” 336p.)
With India particularly dependent on hydroelectric power generation, dwindling summer flows may lead to blackouts and
energy shortages during the hottest months of the year. Two of the Indus River's major tributaries-the Chenab and the
Sutlej-arise in India and flow into Pakistan. Both will also be suffering the effects of deglaciation in their upper reaches.
Conflicts may well break out between these two nuclear-armed countries as water supplies dwindle and political leaders
quarrel over how much can be stored behind dams in upstream reservoirs.
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Warming Good
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Defense
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Warming Fake – Generic
Warming not real - 30,000 scientists signed a petition saying warming is flat-out
nonexistent - their data is skewed
Bell 12 (Larry Bell, Prof at Univ of Houston, Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture, 7/17/2012, "That
Scientific Global Warming Consensus...Not!," Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/07/17/that-scientificglobal-warming-consensus-not/2/)
Since 1998, more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000
with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…there is no convincing scientific evidence that
human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause
catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric
physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists. So where did that famous “consensus” claim that
“98% of all scientists believe in global warming” come from? It originated from an endlessly reported 2009 American
Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of an intentionally brief two-minute, two question online survey sent to
10,257 earth scientists by two researchers at the University of Illinois. Of the about 3.000 who responded, 82% answered
“yes” to the second question, which like the first, most people I know would also have agreed with. Then of those, only a
small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed
climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “98% all scientists” referred to a laughably puny
number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes”. That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions. The first: “When
compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained
relatively constant?” Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the
middle 19th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended
roughly 10,000 years ago.) The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in
changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and
warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as
agriculture and deforestation?
WARMING NOT REAL - 31,000 SCIENTISTS AGREE
PolicyMic No date
(Policymic.com “A really inconvenient Truth: Global Warming is Not Real” No date
http://www.policymic.com/articles/3824/a-really-inconvenient-truth-global-warming-is-not-real)
Sixteen prominent scientists recently signed an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal expressing their belief that the theory of
global warming is not supported by sci ence. This has not been getting the attention it deserves because politicians
(looking at you Al Gore) are frankly embarrassed to admit that they are wrong about the phenomenon known as global
warming. Not only has our planet stopped warming, but we may be headed toward a vast cooling period.
New data shows that in fact the Earth has not warmed at all over the last 15 years. In fact, the Daily Mail reports that the
Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, after taking data from nearly 30,000 stations around
the world, have found that the earth stopped warming in 1997. The report suggests we are headed toward a new solar
cycle, Cycle 25, which NASA scientists have predicted will be significantly cooler than Cycle 24 which we are in now. This
data largely contradicts the accepted theory among the public that carbon dioxide pollution is causing global warming and
even proposes that we are actually heading toward global cooling.
I share the same frustration in the political and scientific community that the sixteen scientists express. Why did we all
hop on board the global warming bandwagon started by politicians when the scientific community didn’t back it? Since
1998, 31,000 scientists have signed apetition agreeing with the fact that there is no scientific evidence or consensus that
man-made global warming exists while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has the support of only
2,500 scientists. Yet, for some reason it is accepted that global warming is scientifically undeniable.
Their quals argument don’t apply here
Wilson ’12 (GLOBAL WARMING: THE SATELLITES DON'T LIE March 3, 2012 7:48 AM | 7 Comments James A.
Wilson
Over the summer Forbes Magazine published NASA satellite data indicating the alarmist predictions - even the UN
computer models on which they were based - are dead wrong. The study, reported in the peer reviewed journal, Remote
Sensing, correlates data from 2000 through 2011. It shows two phenomena surprising to the apostles of doom in the
scientific and political community. There is much less heat being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases - or any
other cause - than the models portend, and a lot more of it is being released naturally into space. This is especially true
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over the oceans. James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environmental policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor
of Environment and Climate News authored the Forbes article. Credentials don't get any more impeccable.
Consensus of NASA and NOAA satellite data shows no warming
Wilson ’12 (GLOBAL WARMING: THE SATELLITES DON'T LIE March 3, 2012 7:48 AM | 7 Comments James A.
Wilson
The latest satellite gathered information is consistent with NOAA and NASA data showing humidity and the formation of
cirrus clouds has lagged far behind alarmist predictions as well. These findings, and those of NASA's ERBS satellite show
similar patterns of heat exhange for the years 1985 to 1999. In other words, we are simply not going to hell in a climate
change hand basket.
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Warming Fake – Not Anthro
Not anthropogenic – multiple warrants
Spencer 12 (Roy, former NASA climatologist and author, “Ten Years After the Warming,” 2/26,
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/)
As can be seen, in the last 10 years the estimated forcing has been the strongest. Yet, most if not all temperature datasets
show little or no global-average warming recently, either in the atmosphere, at the surface, or in the upper 700 meters of
the ocean. For example, here are the tropospheric temperatures up though a few days ago: So what is happening? You
cannot simply say a lack of warming in 10 years is not that unusual, and that there have been previous 10-year periods
without warming, too. No, we are supposedly in uncharted territory with a maximum in radiative forcing of the climate
system. One cannot compare on an equal basis the last 10 years with any previous decades without warming. There are 5
possibilities for the recent cessation of warming which are most discussed: 1) cooling from anthropogenic aerosols has
been cancelling out warming from more greenhouse gases 2) natural cooling from internal climate fluctuations or the sun
is cancelling out the GHG warming 3) increased ocean mixing is causing the extra energy to be distributed into the deep
ocean 4) the temperature ’sensitivity’ of the climate system is not as large as the IPCC assumes. 5) there is something
fundamentally wrong with the GHG warming theory itself Of course, some combination of the above 5 explanations is also
possible. The 1st possibility (aerosol cooling is cancelling out GHG forcing) is one of the more popular explanations with
the climate modelers, and especially with NASA’s James Hansen. The uncertain strength (and even sign) of aerosol forcing
allows the climate modelers to use aerosols as a tuning knob (aka fudge factor) in making their models produce warming
more-or-less consistent with past observations. Using an assumed large aerosol cooling to cancel out the GHG warming
allows the modelers to retain high climate sensitivity, and thus the fear of strong future warming if those aerosols ever
dissipate. The 2nd possibility (natural cooling) is a much less desirable explanation for the IPCC crowd because it opens
the door to Mother Nature having as much or more influence on the climate system than do humans. We can’t have that,
you know. Then you would have to consider the possibility that most of the warming in the last 50 years was natural, too.
Goodbye, AGW funding. The 3rd possibility (increased ocean mixing) is one of the more legitimate possibilities, at least theoretically. It’s popular with
NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth. But one would need more observational evidence this is happening before embracing the idea. Unfortunately, how vertical
mixing in the ocean naturally varies over time is poorly understood; the different IPCC models have widely varying strengths of mixing,
and so ocean mixing is a huge wild card in the global warming debate, as is aerosol cooling. I believe much of past climate change
on time scales of decades to many centuries might be due to such variations in ocean mixing, along with their likely influence on global cloud cover
changing the amount of solar input into the climate system. The 4th possibility ( the climate system is relatively insensitive to forcing ) is the
top contender in the opinion of myself, Dick Lindzen, and a few other climate researchers who work in this field . The 5th possibility
(increasing GHGs don’t really cause warming) is total anathema to the IPCC. Without GHG warming, the whole AGW movement collapses. This kind of
scientific finding would normally be Nobel Prize territory…except that the Nobel Prize has become more of a socio-political award in recent years, with
only politically correct recipients. The self-flagellating elites don’t like the idea humans might not be destroying the Earth. The longer we
go without significant warming, the more obvious it will become that there is something seriously wrong with current
AGW theory. I don’t think there is a certain number of years – 5, 10, 20, etc. – which will disprove the science of AGW….unless the climate system
cools for the next 10 years. Eek! But I personally doubt that will happen.
Warming not anthropogenic based on Earth’s natural cycles
De Blij 9 (Harm, John A. Hannah Professor of Geography at Michigan State University, is author of The
Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization (Oxford University Press, 2009).
So might
the greenhouse-effect-enhancing gases we are pouring into the atmosphere counter a cooling trend rather than
exacerbate a warming swing? No doubt about it: the numerous cycles – axial, solar, orbital, oceanic, atmospheric – that generate
nature’s environmental seesaws continue even as humanity has become a major factor in the process through massive
modification of the planetary atmosphere. But supercomputer models and IPCC projections notwithstanding, no one knows the
proportional contribution to the current phase of climate change from natural and human sources. Contrary to what some
scientists are asserting, we do not know with any satisfactory level of confidence what form climate change would be
taking today in the absence of human interference. What is clear is that humans have become an additional factor driving climate change,
and that reducing the rate of pollution of the atmosphere should have priority as a public health as well as environmental matter. But don’t expect a
reward in the form of “stopping climate change.” Ice ages will continue to come and go. Glaciers will wax and wane. Sea
levels will fall and rise. Species, cultures, and civilizations will flourish and fail. Nature’s power will prevail.
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Warming Fake – CO2 Not key
CO2 IS NOT THE SOURCE OF GLOBAL WARMING -- CFC’S ARE
Bastasch 5/30/13 (Michael Bastach, “REPORT: CO2 IS NOT RESPOSNIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING” May 30,
2013 http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/30/report-co2-not-responsible-for-global-warming/2/”
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — not carbon emissions — are the real culprit behind global warming, claims a new study out
of the University of Waterloo.¶ “Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as
carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming. But we have observed data going back to the Industrial
Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong,” said Qing-Bin Lu, a science professor at
the University of Waterloo and author of the study.¶ “In fact, the data shows that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused
both the polar ozone hole and global warming,” Lu said.¶ Ads by Google¶ Ads by CouponDropDown ¶ Lu’s findings were
published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B and analyzed data from 1850 to the present.¶ Lu’s study runs
counter to the long-standing argument that carbon dioxide emissions were the driving force behind global warming.
Recently scientists warned that carbon concentrations were nearing the 400 parts per million level. Scientists say that
carbon dioxide levels must be lowered to 350 ppm to avoid the severe impacts of global warming.¶ “The 400-ppm
threshold is a sobering milestone and should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to support clean-energy technology and
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases before it’s too late for our children and grandchildren,” said Tim Lueker, an
oceanographer and carbon cycle researcher who is a member of the Scripps CO2 Group.¶ Lu notes that data from 1850 to
1970 show carbon emissions increasing due to the Industrial Revolution. However, global temperatures stayed constant.¶
“The conventional warming model of CO2, suggests the temperatures should have risen by 0.6°C over the same period,
similar to the period of 1970-2002,” reads the study’s press release.¶ Ads by Google¶ CFCs “are nontoxic, nonflammable
chemicals containing atoms of carbon, chlorine, and fluorine” that are used to make “aerosol sprays, blowing agents for
foams and packing materials, as solvents, and as refrigerants” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. The Montreal Protocol phased out the production of CFCs as they were believed to be linked to ozone
depletion. According to the National Institutes of Health, CFCs are considered a greenhouse gas, like carbon dioxide,
because they absorb heat in the atmosphere and send some of it back to the earth’s surface, which contributes to global
warming.
“From the University of Waterloo, an extraordinary claim,’ writes global warming blogger Anthony Watt. “While
plausible, due to the fact that CFC’s have very high [Global Warming Potential] numbers, their atmospheric
concentrations compared to CO2 are quite low, and the radiative forcings they add are small by comparison to CO2.”
“This may be nothing more than coincidental correlation,” Watt added. “But, I have to admit, the graph is visually
compelling. But to determine if his proposed cosmic-ray-driven electron-reaction mechanism is valid, I’d say it is a case of
‘further study is needed’, and worth funding.”
When Barack Obama promised to slow the earth’s rising sea levels and heal the planet during the 2008 campaign, he
probably had no idea that curbing carbon dioxide emissions might not lower the sea levels.¶ A study published in the
Journal of Geodesy found that the sea level has only risen by 1.7 millimeters per year over the last 110 years — about 6.7
inches per century — all while carbon dioxide concentrations in the air have risen by a third, suggesting that rising carbon
concentrations have not impacted the rate at which sea levels are rising.¶ The study used data from the Gravity Recovery
And Climate Experiment satellite mission and analyzed “continental mass variations on a global scale, including both
land-ice and land-water contributions, for 19 continental areas that exhibited significant signals” over a nine-year period
from 2002 to 2011.¶ The results echoed a study conducted last year, which also found that sea level has been rising on
average by 1.7 mm/year over the last 110 years. This was also suggested by two other studies conducted in the last decade.¶
“The latest results show once again that sea levels are not accelerating after all, and are merely continuing their modest
rise at an unchanged rate,” said Pierre Gosselin, who runs the climate skeptic blog NoTricksZone. “The more alarmist sea
level rise rates some have claimed recently stem from the use of statistical tricks and the very selective use of data.
Fortunately, these fudged alarmist rates do not agree with real-life observations. Overall the latest computed rates show
that there is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about.”¶ Other experts agree, citing data regarding the Earth’s rate of
rotation.¶ “For the last 40-50 years strong observational facts indicate virtually stable sea level conditions,” writes NilsAxel Mörner, former head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University , in the Journal
Energy and Environment. ”The Earth’s rate of rotation records a mean acceleration from 1972 to 2012, contradicting all
claims of a rapid global sea level rise, and instead suggests stable, to slightly falling, sea levels.Ӧ But in the wake of
Hurricane Sandy, U.S. coastal states have been more concerned about the possible effects of global warming on rising sea
levels.¶ A report by 21 U.S. scientists, commissioned by Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, found that the sea
levels are rising faster than they predicted five years ago. Florida Keys residents are also concerned about sea levels by the
island that have risen 9 inches in the past decade, according to a tidal gauge that has operated since pre-Civil War days.¶
“It doesn’t need a lot of rocket science,” said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science. “We’ve got tide gauges that show us sea level is increasing. This is a real phenomenon. We should
take it seriously and have to plan for it.Ӧ The Maryland report found that ocean waters and the Chesapeake Bay might
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only rise about one foot by 2050, but the study’s authors said that it would be prudent to plan for a two-foot rise in sea
levels to account for the risks of flooding caused by storms. The state has already seen sea levels rise by about a foot in the
past century — half coming from the natural sinking of the land and the other half coming from rising seas from a
warming ocean.¶ New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also announced a $20 billion plan to adapt to global
warming to prepare the city for rising sea levels and hotter summers.¶ A report commissioned by New York City found
that the number of sweltering summer days could double, maybe even triple, and that waters surrounding the city could
rise by 2 feet or more¶ New York City can “do nothing and expose ourselves to an increasing frequency of Sandy-like
storms that do more and more damage,” Bloomberg remarked. “Or we can make the investments necessary to build a
stronger, more resilient New York — investments that will pay for themselves many times over in the years go to come.”
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XT – Adaptation
Tech and adaptive advances prevent all climate impacts---warming won’t cause war
Singer et al 11, Dr. S. Fred Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental
Sciences at the University of Virginia, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics; Robert M.
Carter, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia),
palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional
experience; and Craig D. Idso, founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union,
American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, and Association of American Geographers, et al,
2011, “Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report,” online:
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/FrontMatter.pdf
Decades-long empirical trends of climate-sensitive measures of human well-being, including the percent of developing
world population suffering from chronic hunger, poverty rates, and deaths due to extreme weather events, reveal dramatic
improvement during the twentieth century, notwithstanding the historic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The
magnitude of the impacts of climate change on human well-being depends on society‘s adaptability (adaptive capacity),
which is determined by, among other things, the wealth and human resources society can access in order to obtain, install,
operate, and maintain technologies necessary to cope with or take advantage of climate change impacts. The IPCC
systematically underestimates adaptive capacity by failing to take into account the greater wealth and technological
advances that will be present at the time for which impacts are to be estimated.
Even accepting the IPCC‘s and Stern
Review‘s worst-case scenarios, and assuming a compounded annual growth rate of per-capita GDP of only 0.7 percent,
reveals that net GDP per capita in developing countries in 2100 would be double the 2006 level of the U.S. and triple that
level in 2200. Thus, even developing countries‘ future ability to cope with climate change would be much better than that
of the U.S. today. The IPCC‘s embrace of biofuels as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was premature, as many
researchers have found ―even the best biofuels have the potential to damage the poor, the climate, and biodiversity‖
(Delucchi, 2010). Biofuel production consumes nearly as much energy as it generates, competes with food crops and
wildlife for land, and is unlikely to ever meet more than a small fraction of the world‘s demand for fuels.
The notion
that global warming might cause war and social unrest is not only wrong, but even backwards – that is, global cooling has
led to wars and social unrest in the past, whereas global warming has coincided with periods of peace, prosperity, and
social stability.
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XT – No Warming
Their quals argument don’t apply here
Wilson ’12 (GLOBAL WARMING: THE SATELLITES DON'T LIE March 3, 2012 7:48 AM | 7 Comments James A.
Wilson
Over the summer Forbes Magazine published NASA satellite data indicating the alarmist predictions - even the UN
computer models on which they were based - are dead wrong. The study, reported in the peer reviewed journal, Remote
Sensing, correlates data from 2000 through 2011. It shows two phenomena surprising to the apostles of doom in the
scientific and political community. There is much less heat being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases - or any
other cause - than the models portend, and a lot more of it is being released naturally into space. This is especially true
over the oceans. James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environmental policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor
of Environment and Climate News authored the Forbes article. Credentials don't get any more impeccable.
Consensus of NASA and NOAA satellite data shows no warming
Wilson ’12 (GLOBAL WARMING: THE SATELLITES DON'T LIE March 3, 2012 7:48 AM | 7 Comments James A.
Wilson
The latest satellite gathered information is consistent with NOAA and NASA data showing humidity and the formation of
cirrus clouds has lagged far behind alarmist predictions as well. These findings, and those of NASA's ERBS satellite show
similar patterns of heat exhange for the years 1985 to 1999. In other words, we are simply not going to hell in a climate
change hand basket.
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XT – Negative Feedbacks Solves
History proves that water vapor is a negative feedback- this renders their evidence
obselete
McShane 8 (Owen, the chairman of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and director of the
Center for Resource Management Studies, 4-4-8, The National Business Review (New Zealand), “Climate change
confirmed but global warming is cancelled”, Lexis)
The climate is not highly sensitive to CO2 warming because water vapour is a damper against the warming effect of CO2.
That is why history is full of Ice Ages - where other effects, such as increased reflection from the ice cover, do provide
positive feedback - while we do not hear about Heat Ages. The Medieval Warm Period, for example, is known for being
benignly warm - not dangerously hot. We live on a benign planet - except when it occasionally gets damned cold. While I
have done my best to simplify these developments they remain highly technical and many people distrust their own ability
to assess competing scientific claims. However, in this case the tipping point theories are based on models that do not
include the effects of rain and clouds. The new Nasa Aqua satellite is the first to measure the effects of clouds and rainfall.
Spencer's interpretation of the new data means all previous models and forecasts are obsolete. Would anyone trust longterm forecasts of farm production that were hopeless at forecasting rainfall? The implications of these breakthroughs in
measurement and understanding are dramatic to say the least. The responses will be fun to watch.
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Impact Defense
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Warming Uniqueness – Inevitable
Cease in Gases Won’t Stop Warming From Being Inevitable
Solomon, Atmospheric Chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2010
[Susan, 11-11-10, National Academy of Sciences, “Persistence of Climate Changes Due To A Range Of Greenhouse Gases,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972948/]
Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases increased over the course of the 20th century due to
human activities. The human-caused increases in these gases are the primary forcing that accounts for much of the global
warming of the past fifty years, with carbon dioxide being the most important single radiative forcing agent (1). Recent
studies have shown that the human-caused warming linked to carbon dioxide is nearly irreversible for more than 1,000 y,
even if emissions of the gas were to cease entirely (2–5). The importance of the ocean in taking up heat and slowing the
response of the climate system to radiative forcing changes has been noted in many studies (e.g., refs. 6 and 7). The key
role of the ocean’s thermal lag has also been highlighted by recent approaches to proposed metrics for comparing the
warming of different greenhouse gases (8, 9). Among the observations attesting to the importance of these effects are
those showing that climate changes caused by transient volcanic aerosol loading persist for more than 5 y (7, 10), and a
portion can be expected to last more than a century in the ocean (11–13); clearly these signals persist far longer than the
radiative forcing decay timescale of about 12–18 mo for the volcanic aerosol (14, 15). Thus the observed climate response
to volcanic events suggests that some persistence of climate change should be expected even for quite short-lived radiative
forcing perturbations. It follows that the climate changes induced by short-lived anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as
methane or hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) may not decrease in concert with decreases in concentration if the anthropogenic
emissions of those gases were to be eliminated. In this paper, our primary goal is to show how different processes and
timescales contribute to determining how long the climate changes due to various greenhouse gases could be expected to
remain if anthropogenic emissions were to cease. Advances in modeling have led to improved AtmosphereOcean General
Circulation Models (AOGCMs) as well as to Earth Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs). Although a detailed
representation of the climate system changes on regional scales can only be provided by AOGCMs, the simpler EMICs
have been shown to be useful, particularly to examine phenomena on a global average basis. In this work, we use the Bern
2.5CC EMIC (see Materials and Methods and SI Text), which has been extensively intercompared to other EMICs and to
complex AOGCMs (3, 4). It should be noted that, although the Bern 2.5CC EMIC includes a representation of the surface
and deep ocean, it does not include processes such as ice sheet losses or changes in the Earth’s albedo linked to evolution
of vegetation. However, it is noteworthy that this EMIC, although parameterized and simplified, includes 14 levels in the
ocean; further, its global ocean heat uptake and climate sensitivity are near the mean of available complex models, and its
computed timescales for uptake of tracers into the ocean have been shown to compare well to observations (16). A recent
study (17) explored the response of one AOGCM to a sudden stop of all forcing, and the Bern 2.5CC EMIC shows broad
similarities in computed warming to that study (see Fig. S1), although there are also differences in detail. The climate
sensitivity (which characterizes the long-term absolute warming response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations) is 3 °C for the model used here. Our results should be considered illustrative and exploratory rather than
fully quantitative given the limitations of the EMIC and the uncertainties in climate sensitivity. Results One Illustrative
Scenario to 2050. In the absence of mitigation policy, concentrations of the three major greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide can be expected to increase in this century. If emissions were to cease, anthropogenic CO2
would be removed from the atmosphere by a series of processes operating at different timescales (18). Over timescales of
decades, both the land and upper ocean are important sinks. Over centuries to millennia, deep oceanic processes become
dominant and are controlled by relatively well-understood physics and chemistry that provide broad consistency across
models (see, for example, Fig. S2 showing how the removal of a pulse of carbon compares across a range of models). About
20% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon remains in the atmosphere for many thousands of years (with a range across
models including the Bern 2.5CC model being about 19 4% at year 1000 after a pulse emission; see ref. 19), until much
slower weathering processes affect the carbonate balance in the ocean (e.g., ref. 18). Models with stronger carbon/climate
feedbacks than the one considered here could display larger and more persistent warmings due to both CO2 and non-CO2
greenhouse gases, through reduced land and ocean uptake of carbon in a warmer world. Here our focus is not on the
strength of carbon/climate feedbacks that can lead to differences in the carbon concentration decay, but rather on the
factors that control the climate response to a given decay. The removal processes of other anthropogenic gases including
methane and nitrous oxide are much more simply described by exponential decay constants of about 10 and 114 y,
respectively (1), due mainly to known chemical reactions in the atmosphere. In this illustrative study, we do not include
the feedback of changes in methane upon its own lifetime (20). We also do not account for potential interactions between
CO2 and other gases, such as the production of carbon dioxide from methane oxidation (21), or changes to the carbon
cycle through, e.g., methane/ozone chemistry (22). Fig. 1 shows the computed future global warming contributions for
carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide for a midrange scenario (23) of projected future anthropogenic emissions of
these gases to 2050. Radiative forcings for all three of these gases, and their spectral overlaps, are represented in this work
using the expressions assessed in ref. 24. In 2050, the anthropogenic emissions are stopped entirely for illustration
purposes. The figure shows nearly irreversible warming for at least 1,000 y due to the imposed carbon dioxide increases,
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as in previous work. All published studies to date, which use multiple EMICs and one AOGCM, show largely irreversible
warming due to future carbon dioxide increases (to within about 0.5 °C) on a timescale of at least 1,000 y (3–5, 25, 26).
Fig. 1 shows that the calculated future warmings due to anthropogenic CH4 and N2O also persist notably longer than the
lifetimes of these gases. The figure illustrates that emissions of key non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as CH4 or N2O could
lead to warming that both temporarily exceeds a given stabilization target (e.g., 2 °C as proposed by the G8 group of
nations and in the Copenhagen goals) and remains present longer than the gas lifetimes even if emissions were to cease. A
number of recent studies have underscored the important point that reductions of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions are
an approach that can indeed reverse some past climate changes (e.g., ref. 27). Understanding how quickly such reversal
could happen and why is an important policy and science question. Fig. 1 implies that the use of policy measures to reduce
emissions of short-lived gases will be less effective as a rapid climate mitigation strategy than would be thought if based
only upon the gas lifetime. Fig. 2 illustrates the factors influencing the warming contributions of each gas for the test case
in Fig. 1 in more detail, by showing normalized values (relative to one at their peaks) of the warming along with the
radiative forcings and concentrations of CO2 , N2O, and CH4 . For example, about two-thirds of the calculated warming
due to N2O is still present 114 y (one atmospheric lifetime) after emissions are halted, despite the fact that its excess
concentration and associated radiative forcing at that time has dropped to about one-third of the peak value.
Warming is Ineluctable
Longley, Environmental Protection Agent
[Robert, US Government Info, http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/technologyandresearch/a/climatetochange.htm]
Despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and a greater increase in sea level are inevitable
during this century, according to a new study performed by a team of climate modelers at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.¶ Indeed, say the researchers, whose work was funded by the National
Science Foundation (NSF), globally averaged surface air temperatures would still rise one degree Fahrenheit (about a half
degree Celsius) by the year 2100, even if no more greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. And the resulting
transfer of heat into the oceans would cause global sea levels to rise another 4 inches (11 centimeters) from thermal
expansion alone.¶ The team's findings are published in this week's issue of the journal "Science."¶ “This study is another
in a series that employs increasingly sophisticated simulation techniques to understand the complex interactions of the
Earth,” says Cliff Jacobs of NSF’s atmospheric sciences division. “These studies often yield results that are not revealed by
simpler approaches and highlight unintended consequences of external factors interacting with Earth’s natural systems.”¶
“Many people don’t realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea level rise
because of the greenhouse gases we have already put into the atmosphere,” says lead author Jerry Meehl. “Even if we
stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the climate will continue to warm, and there will be proportionately even more
sea level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future.Ӧ The half-degree
temperature rise predicted by the NCAR modelers is similar to what was actually observed by the end of the 20th century,
but the projected sea level rise is more than twice the 3-inch (5-centimeter) rise that was observed then. Moreover, these
forecasts do not take into account any fresh water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, which could at least double the
sea-level rise caused by thermal expansion alone.¶ The models also predict a weakening of the North Atlantic
thermohaline circulation, which currently warms Europe by transporting heat from the tropics. Even so, Europe heats up
along with the rest of the planet because of the overwhelming effect of greenhouse gases.¶ Though the study finds signs
that the temperature rise will level off some 100 years after the greenhouse gases stabilize, it also finds that ocean waters
will continue to warm and expand beyond then, causing global sea level to rise unabated.
Mass Reduction of Green House Gases Won’t Cease Warming
Idso, Founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2011
[Craig, Keith, and Sherwood, 12-11, Recent Reflection of Sea Level Rise Reflect Poorly On IPCC,
http://co2science.org/articles/V14/N50/EDIT.php]
It has long been the practice of the world's climate alarmists to promote fear about the future in terms of anthropogenicCO2-induced increases in various types of climatic extremes. As noted by Lee (2011), for example, "in 1990 the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested that, for a 'business-as-usual' greenhouse gas forcing
scenario, global sea level could rise by 8-29 cm by 2030 and 31-110 cm by 2100," as reported by Houghton et al. (1990),
which report also stated that "even with substantial decreases in the emissions of greenhouse gases, future rises in sea
level were unavoidable owing to 'lags in the climate system'." And he also noted that "the Second World Climate
Conference (Jager and Ferguson, 1991) reached similar conclusions, which in the case of the British Isles was that there
could be a [sea level] rise of between 50 and 70 cm over the next 100 years."¶ Noting that "the IPCC projections set the
framework for the coastal policy response to sea-level rise in England and Wales," which was developed by the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF, 1991), Lee says it was widely predicted that the expected relative sea-level rise
(RSLR) would result in an increase in wave energy at the base of coastal cliffs that would lead to accelerated cliff recession
that "inevitably would lead to increased risk to properties behind actively retreating cliff-lines," adding that Bray and
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Hooke (1997) suggested that "significant increases in recession rate could be expected to occur," as their analysis pointed
towards "a 22-133% increase in cliff recession rates on the south coast of England by 2050."¶ As a result of these
projections, Lee decided to analyze the most recent 50-year recession records of the United Kingdom's Holderness Cliffs,
stating that "twenty years on from the IPCC First Assessment Report seems an appropriate moment to reflect on what has
actually happened." So what did he find?¶ As Lee describes it, "relative sea level has risen over the second half of the 20th
century," and "so have Holderness cliff recession rates, from around 1.2 m/year in the early 1950s to around 1.5 m/year by
2000." However, as he continues, "there has been no significant acceleration in the rate of global sea-level rise since 1990
and no rapid increase in the recession rate." Thus, he states that "predictions of 20-year recession distances made in the
early 1990s that took account of the RSLR advice from MAFF (1991) are likely to have overestimated the risk to cliff-top
property and the benefits of coast protection."¶ In a candid expression of his feelings after conducting his analysis, Lee
writes that "as someone who was heavily involved in providing technical support to policymakers through the research
and development of methods for predicting cliff recession that took account of RSLR (see Lee et al., 2001; Hall et al.,
2000; Lee and Clark, 2002; Lee, 2005), I feel somewhat awkward about the absence of accelerated cliff recession over the
last two decades," acknowledging that "perhaps we were all too keen to accept the unquestioned authority of the IPCC and
their projections." Thus, he ends by stating "I am left with the feeling that a healthy skepticism of the climate change
industry might not be such a bad thing," suggesting that people see, in this regard, the report of the Nongovernmental
Panel on Climate Change that was edited by Idso and Singer (2009).
Green House Gases Are Too Abundant, Leading To Warming
Roach, 2005
[John, 3-17-2005, National Geographic News, Global Warming Unstoppable For 100 Years, Study Says,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0317_050317_warming.html
Even if humans stop burning oil and coal tomorrow—not likely—we've already spewed enough greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere to cause temperatures to warm and sea levels to rise for at least another century. That's the message from two
studies appearing in tomorrow's issue of the journalScience.¶ Researchers used computer models of the global climate
system to put numbers to the concept of thermal inertia—the idea that global climate changes are delayed because it water
takes longer to heat up and cool off than air does. The oceans are the primary drivers of the global climate.¶ "Even if you
stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases, you are still committed to a certain amount of climate change no matter
what you do because of the lag in the ocean," said Gerald Meehl, a climate scientist with the National Center for
Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.¶ Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide collect in the atmosphere and are
believed to act as a blanket, trapping heat and causing the Earth to warm. To stop this warming, many scientists say
humans must reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.¶ Human activities that make the largest contributions to
greenhouse gases include exhaust fumes from automobiles and commercial jets and emissions from power stations and
factories.¶ "The longer you wait to do something, the more climate change you are committed to in the future," Meehl
said.
More evidence- there’s too much CO2 in the air even if we stop
Hansen, Head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor in the
Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia University, ‘8
(James E. Hanson.. Al Gore’s science advisor. Introductory chapter for the book State of the Wild. “Tipping point:
Perspective of a Scientist.” April. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/StateOfWild_20080428.pdf)
The upshot of the combination of inertia and feedbacks is that additional climate change is already “in the pipeline”: even
if we stop increasing greenhouse gases today, more warming will occur . This is sobering when one considers the present status of
Earth’s climate. Human civilization developed during the Holocene (the past 12,000 years). It has been warm enough to keep ice sheets off North
America and Europe, but cool enough for ice sheets to remain on Greenland and Antarctica. With rapid warming of 0.6°C in the past 30 years, global
temperature is at its warmest level in the Holocene.3 The warming that has already occurred, the positive feedbacks that have been set in
motion, and the additional warming in the pipeline together have brought us to the precipice of a planetary tipping point. We are at the
tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West
Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenland’s ice. Little additional forcing is needed to trigger these feedbacks and magnify
global warming. If we go over the edge, we will transition to an environment far outside the range that has been experienced by
humanity, and there will be no return within any foreseeable future generation. Casualties would include more than the loss of
indigenous ways of life in the Arctic and swamping of coastal cities. An intensified hydrologic cycle will produce both greater floods and greater droughts.
In the US, the semiarid states from central Texas through Oklahoma and both Dakotas would become more drought-prone and ill suited for agriculture,
people, and current wildlife. Africa would see a great expansion of dry areas, particularly southern Africa. Large populations in Asia and South America
would lose their primary dry season freshwater source as glaciers disappear. A major casualty in all this will be wildlife.
Too late
Rahn 11
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(Richard W. Rahn, 1/25/2011, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, The Washington Times, “Obama's regulatory reform
test,” Lexis)
The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and, as a result, has been holding up the permitting of
new power and manufacturing plants. If this continues, it will cause a significant drop in U.S. economic growth and job creation, yet it will have no
measurable benefit. China, India and many other countries are rapidly increasing CO2 emissions, overwhelming whatever
actions the United States may take. Even if all new CO2 emissions were stopped globally, it would be decades before there
would be even a minor effect on global temperatures. Now, new research is indicating that sunspot activity is much more
important than CO2 when it comes to influencing the earth’s temperature. The EPA ban is nothing more than national
economic suicide. Let us see if Mr. Obama has the courage to tell the EPA to stop.
Ice melting irreversibly now
FP 11
(Foreign Policy, “Beating a retreat”, http://www.economist.com/node/21530079, September 24, 2011)
ON SEPTEMBER 9th, at the height of its summertime shrinkage, ice covered 4.33m square km, or 1.67m square miles, of the Arctic
Ocean, according to America's National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC). That is not a record low—not quite. But the actual record, 4.17m square km
in 2007, was the product of an unusual combination of sunny days, cloudless skies and warm currents flowing up from mid-latitudes. This year has seen
no such opposite of a perfect storm, yet the summer sea-ice minimum is a mere 4% bigger than that record. Add in the fact that the thickness of the
ice, which is much harder to measure, is estimated to have fallen by half since 1979, when satellite records began, and there is probably
less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago , soon after the last
ice age. That Arctic sea ice is disappearing has been known for decades. The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of
climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet the rate the ice is vanishing confounds these
climatologists' models. These predict that if the level of carbon dioxide, methane and so on in the atmosphere continues to rise,
then the Arctic Ocean will be free of floating summer ice by the end of the century . At current rates of shrinkage, by contrast, this
looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050. The reason is that Arctic air is warming twice as fast as the
atmosphere as a whole. Some of the causes of this are understood, but some are not. The darkness of land and water compared with
the reflectiveness of snow and ice means that when the latter melt to reveal the former, the area exposed absorbs more
heat from the sun and reflects less of it back into space. The result is a feedback loop that accelerates local warming . Such
feedback, though, does not completely explain what is happening. Hence the search for other things that might assist the ice's rapid disappearance.
Forcing the issue One is physical change in the ice itself. Formerly a solid mass that melted and refroze at its edges, it is now thinner,
more fractured, and so more liable to melt. But that is (literally and figuratively) a marginal effect. Filling the gap between model and reality
may need something besides this. The latest candidates are “short-term climate forcings”. These are pollutants, particularly ozone and
soot, that do not hang around in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, but have to be renewed continually if they are to have a
lasting effect. If they are so renewed, though, their impact may be as big as CO2's. At the moment, most eyes are on soot (or “black carbon”, as
jargon-loving researchers refer to it). In the Arctic, soot is a double whammy. First, when released into the air as a result of incomplete
combustion (from sources as varied as badly serviced diesel engines and forest fires), soot particles absorb sunlight, and so warm up the
atmosphere. Then, when snow or rain wash them onto an ice floe, they darken its surface and thus cause it to melt faster.
Reducing soot (and also ozone, an industrial pollutant that acts as a greenhouse gas) would not stop the summer sea ice disappearing, but
it might delay the process by a decade or two. According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme, reducing black carbon and
ozone in the lower part of the atmosphere, especially in the Arctic countries of America, Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, could cut warming in the Arctic
by two-thirds over the next three decades. Indeed, the report suggests, if such measures—preventing crop burning and forest fires, cleaning up diesel
engines and wood stoves, and so on—were adopted everywhere they could halve the wider rate of warming by 2050. Without corresponding measures to
cut CO2 emissions, this would be but a temporary fix. Nonetheless, it is an attractive idea because it would have other benefits (soot is bad for people's
lungs) and would not require the wholesale rejigging of energy production which reducing CO2 emissions implies. Not everyone agrees it would work,
though. Gunnar Myhre of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, for example, notes that the amount of black
carbon in the Arctic is small and has been falling in recent decades. He does not believe it is the missing factor in the
models. Carbon dioxide, in his view, is the main culprit. Black carbon deposited on the Arctic snow and ice, he says, will have only a minimal effect on
its reflectivity. The rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, then, illuminates the difficulty of modelling the climate —but not in a way that
brings much comfort to those who hope that fears about the future climate might prove exaggerated. When reality is changing faster than
theory suggests it should, a certain amount of nervousness is a reasonable response . It's an ill wind… The direct consequences of
changes in the Arctic are mixed. They should not bring much rise in the sea level, since floating ice obeys Archimedes's principle and displaces its own
mass of water. A darker—and so more heat-absorbent—Arctic, though, will surely accelerate global warming and may thus encourage
melting of the land-bound Greenland ice sheet. That certainly would raise sea levels (though not as quickly as News Corporation's
cartographers suggest in the latest edition of the best-selling “Times Atlas”, which claims that 15% of the Greenland sheet has melted in the past 12 years;
the true figure is more like 0.05%). Wildlife will also suffer. Polar bears, which hunt for seals along the ice's edge, and walruses, which fish there,
will both be hard-hit.
All their impacts are inevitable
Sterlicchi ‘9
(John Sterlicchi, BusinessGreen, “US report says rising sea levels inevitable”,
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1805554/us-report-rising-sea-levels-inevitable, January 29, 2009)
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Some of the effects of global warming will be irreversible and others may last for at least 1,000 years, according to a new
US government-sponsored report. The study, led by researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and paid for by the Department of Energy, paints a depressing picture of the future caused by increased
CO2 emissions. If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, said the report, the result will be less dry-season
rainfall that will be reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl era in the US. There will be decreases in drinking water supplies,
increased fire frequency and an end to dry-season farming of wheat and maize. Regions that will be affected are southern
Europe, northern and southern Africa, southwestern US, and western Australia. Also, if CO2 peaks at 600ppm, global
water levels will rise by as much as one metre. If it peaks at 1,000ppm, the rise will double. Rising sea levels would cause
"irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would
ultimately become submerged," the report said. Those grim predictions of rising sea levels also did not take into account
the melting of ice at both poles, as the result of that was unpredictable. "People have imagined that if we stopped emitting
carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that is not true," the head of the research
team, Susan Solomon, said in a teleconference. This is because of the role played by the world's oceans. Currently the
oceans are absorbing the CO2 and keeping the planet cool but in the future they will become saturated.
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Tech and adaptive advances prevent all climate impacts---warming won’t cause war
Singer et al 11, Dr. S. Fred Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental
Sciences at the University of Virginia, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics; Robert M.
Carter, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia),
palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional
experience; and Craig D. Idso, founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union,
American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, and Association of American Geographers, et al,
2011, “Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report,” online:
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/FrontMatter.pdf
Decades-long empirical trends of climate-sensitive measures of human well-being, including the percent of developing
world population suffering from chronic hunger, poverty rates, and deaths due to extreme weather events, reveal dramatic
improvement during the twentieth century, notwithstanding the historic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The
magnitude of the impacts of climate change on human well-being depends on society‘s adaptability (adaptive capacity),
which is determined by, among other things, the wealth and human resources society can access in order to obtain, install,
operate, and maintain technologies necessary to cope with or take advantage of climate change impacts. The IPCC
systematically underestimates adaptive capacity by failing to take into account the greater wealth and technological
advances that will be present at the time for which impacts are to be estimated.
Even accepting the IPCC‘s and Stern
Review‘s worst-case scenarios, and assuming a compounded annual growth rate of per-capita GDP of only 0.7 percent,
reveals that net GDP per capita in developing countries in 2100 would be double the 2006 level of the U.S. and triple that
level in 2200. Thus, even developing countries‘ future ability to cope with climate change would be much better than that
of the U.S. today. The IPCC‘s embrace of biofuels as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was premature, as many
researchers have found ―even the best biofuels have the potential to damage the poor, the climate, and biodiversity‖
(Delucchi, 2010). Biofuel production consumes nearly as much energy as it generates, competes with food crops and
wildlife for land, and is unlikely to ever meet more than a small fraction of the world‘s demand for fuels.
The notion
that global warming might cause war and social unrest is not only wrong, but even backwards – that is, global cooling has
led to wars and social unrest in the past, whereas global warming has coincided with periods of peace, prosperity, and
social stability.
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XT – Can’t Solve
Asia pollution offsets any US action – global warming is inevitable
Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, ‘12
(Chip, “Asian Air Pollution Warms U.S More than Our GHG Emissions” 7/12/06, http://www.masterresource.org/2012/,
06/asian-air-pollution-warming/)
“The whims of foreign nations, not to mention Mother Nature, can completely offset any climate changes induced by U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions reductions…. So, what’s the point of forcing Americans into different energy choices?” A new study provides
evidence that air pollution emanating from Asia will warm the U.S. as much or more than warming from U.S. greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. The implication? Efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (and otherwise) to mitigate anthropogenic
climate change is moot. If the future temperature rise in the U.S. is subject to the whims of Asian environmental and energy policy, then what
sense does it make for Americans to have their energy choices regulated by efforts aimed at mitigating future temperature
increases across the country—efforts which will have less of an impact on temperatures than the policies enacted across
Asia? Maybe the EPA should reconsider the perceived effectiveness of its greenhouse gas emission regulations—at least when it comes to impacting
temperatures across the U.S. New Study A new study just published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters is authored by a team led by
Haiyan Teng from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado. The paper is titled “Potential Impacts of Asian Carbon Aerosols
on Future US Warming.” Skipping the details of this climate modeling study and cutting to the chase, here is the abstract of the paper: This study uses an
atmosphere-ocean fully coupled climate model to investigate possible remote impacts of Asian carbonaceous aerosols on US climate change. We took a
21st century mitigation scenario as a reference, and carried out three sets of sensitivity experiments in which the prescribed carbonaceous aerosol
concentrations over a selected Asian domain are increased by a factor of two, six, and ten respectively during the period of 2005–2024. The resulting
enhancement of atmospheric solar absorption (only the direct effect of aerosols is included) over Asia induces tropospheric heating anomalies that force
large-scale circulation changes which, averaged over the twenty-year period, add as much as an additional 0.4°C warming over the eastern US during
winter and over most of the US during summer. Such remote impacts are confirmed by an atmosphere stand-alone experiment with specified heating
anomalies over Asia that represent the direct effect of the carbon aerosols. Usually, when considering the climate impact from carbon
aerosol emissions (primarily in the form of black carbon, or soot), the effect is thought to be largely contained to the local or regional
scale because the atmospheric lifetime of these particulates is only on the order of a week (before they are rained out). Since Asia lies
on the far side of the Pacific Ocean—a distance which requires about a week for air masses to navigate—we usually aren’t overly concerned about the
quality of Asian air or the quantity of junk that they emit into it. By the time it gets here, it has largely been naturally scrubbed clean. But in the Teng
et al. study, the authors find that, according to their climate model, the local heating of the atmosphere by the Asian carbon aerosols
(which are quite good at absorbing sunlight) can impart changes to the character of the larger-scale atmospheric circulation
patterns. And these changes to the broader atmospheric flow produce an effect on the weather patterns in the U.S. and thus induce a
change in the climate here characterized by “0.4°C [surface air temperature] warming on average over the eastern US during winter and over almost the
entire US during summer” averaged over the 2005–2024 period. While most of the summer warming doesn’t start to kick in until Asian carbonaceous
aerosol emissions are upped in the model to 10 times what they are today, the winter warming over the eastern half of the country is large (several tenths
of a °C) even at twice the current rate of Asian emissions. Now let’s revisit just how much “global warming” that stringent U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
reductions may avoid averaged across the country. In my Master Resource post “Climate Impacts of Waxman-Markey (the IPCC-based arithmetic of no
gain)” I calculated that a more than 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by the year 2050 would result in a reduction of global
temperatures (from where they otherwise would be) of about 0.05°C. Since the U.S. is projected to warm slightly more than the global average (land
warms faster than the oceans), a 0.05°C of global temperature reduction probably amounts to about 0.075°C of temperature “savings” averaged across
the U.S., by the year 2050. Comparing the amount of warming in the U.S. saved by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by
some 80% to the amount of warming added in the U.S. by increases in Asian black carbon (soot) aerosol emissions (at least according to
Teng et al.) and there is no clear winner. Which points out the anemic effect that U.S. greenhouse gas reductions will have on
the climate of the U.S. and just how easily the whims of foreign nations, not to mention Mother Nature, can completely offset any climate changes
induced by our greenhouse gas emissions reductions. And even if the traditional form of air pollution (e.g., soot) does not increase
across Asia (a slim chance of that), greenhouse gases emitted there certainly will. For example, at the current growth rate, new greenhouse
gas emissions from China will completely subsume an 80% reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emission in just over a decade. Once again, pointing out
that a reduction in domestic greenhouse gases is for naught , at least when it comes to mitigating climate change. So, what’s the point,
really, of forcing Americans into different energy choices? As I have repeatedly pointed out, nothing we do here (when it comes to greenhouse gas
emissions) will make any difference either domestically, or globally, when it comes to influences on the climate. What the powers-that-be behind
emissions reduction schemes in the U.S. are hoping for is that 1) it doesn’t hurt us too much, and 2) that China and other
large developing nations will follow our lead. Both outcomes seem dubious at time scales that make a difference.
China is a greater cause of warming- destroys all solvency
Wortzel, Former Director of Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation, ‘08
(Larry, “Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission”, Nov, p. google, js)
China argues that developed countries are the primary cause of climate change and therefore places primary responsibility for reducing emissions on
those countries rather than on China and other developing countries, a concept identified as "common but differentiated responsibilities." 190 The
United States is the largest historical greenhouse gas emitter and far exceeds China in emissions per capita.191 However, in the past two years
China has overtaken the United States in total production of greenhouse gas emissions. All projections indicate that, in the absence of
major energy consumption changes in China, both China's aggregate emissions and its share of global emissions will continue to
increase dramatically for the foreseeable future. The consequent reality is that it will be impossible for the international
community to resolve the climate change problem by sufficiently reducing emissions unless China contributes to the
effort. The solution also is unachievable unless the United States—as currently the world's second largest emitter and the largest historical emitter of
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greenhouse gases— makes a substantial contribution. Any efforts to address this problem will require global participation by developed and developing
nations.
No modeling or momentum
Mead, senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, '10
(Walter Russell, The Death of Global Warming, http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/02/01/the-death-ofglobal-warming/, February 1, 2010, js)
The global warming movement as we have known it is dead. Its health had been in steady decline during the last year as the once
robust hopes for a strong and legally binding treaty to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen Summit faded away . By the time that
summit opened, campaigners were reduced to hoping for a ‘politically binding’ agreement to be agreed that would set the stage
for the rapid adoption of the legally binding treaty. After the failure of the summit to agree to even that much, the movement went
into a rapid decline. The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics . After years in which global warming
activists had lectured everyone about the overwhelming nature of the scientific evidence, it turned out that the most prestigious agencies in the
global warming movement were breaking laws, hiding data, and making inflated, bogus claims resting on , in some cases, no
scientific basis at all. This latest story in the London Times is yet another shocker; the IPCC’s claims that the rainforests were going to
disappear as a result of global warming are as bogus and fraudulent as its claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt
by 2035. It seems as if a scare story could grab a headline, the IPCC simply didn’t care about whether it was realitybased.Gore_Pachauri With this in mind, ‘climategate’ — the scandal over hacked emails by prominent climate scientists — looks sinister rather than
just unsavory. The British government has concluded that University of East Anglia, home of the research institute that provides the global warming with
much of its key data, had violated Britain’s Freedom of Information Act when scientists refused to hand over data so that critics could check their
calculations and methods. Breaking the law to hide key pieces of data isn’t just ‘science as usual,’ as the global warming movement’s
embattled defenders gamely tried to argue. A cover-up like that suggests that you indeed have something to conceal. The urge to
make the data better than it was didn’t just come out of nowhere. The global warmists were trapped into the necessity of
hyping the threat by their realization that the actual evidence they had — which, let me emphasize, all hype aside, is serious, troubling
and establishes in my mind the need for intensive additional research and investigation, as well as some prudential steps that would reduce CO2
emissions by enhancing fuel use efficiency and promoting alternative energy sources — was not sufficient to get the world’s governments to
do what they thought needed to be done. Hyping the threat increasingly doesn’t look like an accident: it looks like it was a
conscious political strategy. Now it has failed. Not everything that has come out of the IPCC and the East Anglia Climate Unit is false, but
enough of their product is sufficiently tainted that these institutions can best serve the cause of fighting climate change by
stepping out of the picture. New leadership might help, but everything these two agencies have done will now have to be re-checked by
independent and objective sources. The global warming campaigners got into this mess because they had a deeply flawed political
strategy. They were never able to develop a pragmatic approach that could reach its goals in the context of the existing
international system. The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast
transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political
economies of most countries on the planet. As it happened, the movement never got to the first step — it never got the world’s countries to agree to the
necessary set of treaties, transfers and policies that would constitute, at least on paper, a program for achieving its key goals. Even if that first step had
been reached, the second and third would almost surely not have been. The United States Congress is unlikely to pass the kind of legislation
these agreements would require before the midterm elections, much less ratify a treaty. (It takes 67 senate votes to ratify a treaty and only
60 to overcome a filibuster.) After the midterms, with the Democrats expected to lose seats in both houses, the chance of passage would be even more
remote — especially as polls show that global warming ranks at or near the bottom of most voters’ priorities. American public opinion supports ‘doing
something’ about global warming, but not very much; support for specific measures and sacrifices will erode rapidly as
commentators from Fox News and other conservative outlets endlessly hammer away. Without a commitment from the United States to
pay its share of the $100 billion plus per year that poor countries wanted as their price for compliance, and without US participation in other aspects of
the proposed global approach, the intricate global deals fall apart. From Gallup Since the United States was never very likely to accept these
agreements and ratify these treaties, and is even less prepared to do so in a recession with the Democrats in retreat, even “success” in
Copenhagen would not have brought the global warming movement the kind of victory it sought — although it would have
created a very sticky and painful political problem for the United States. But even if somehow, miraculously, the United States and all the other
countries involved not only accepted the agreements but ratified them and wrote domestic legislation to incorporate them into
law, it is extremely unlikely that all this activity would achieve the desired result. Countries would cheat, either because
they chose to do so or because their domestic systems are so weak, so corrupt or so both that they simply wouldn’t be able
to comply. Governments in countries like China and India aren’t going to stop pushing for all the economic growth they can get by any means that will
work — and even if central governments decided to move on global warming, state and local authorities have agendas of their own. The examples of
blatant cheating would inevitably affect compliance in other countries; it would also very likely erode what would in any
case be an extremely fragile consensus in rich countries to keep forking over hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries — many of
whom would not be in anything like full compliance with their commitments. For better or worse, the global political system isn’t capable of
producing the kind of result the global warming activists want. It’s like asking a jellyfish to climb a flight of stairs; you can poke and prod
all you want, you can cajole and you can threaten. But you are asking for something that you just can’t get — and at the end of the day, you won’t get it.
The grieving friends and relatives aren’t ready to pull the plug; in a typical, whistling-past-the-graveyard comment, the BBC first acknowledges that even
if the current promises are kept, temperatures will rise above the target level of two degrees Celsius — but let’s not despair! The BBC quotes one of its
own reporters: “BBC environment reporter Matt McGrath says the accord lacks teeth and does not include any clear targets on cutting emissions. But if
most countries at least signal what they intend to do to cut their emissions, it will mark the first time that the UN has a comprehensive written collection
of promised actions, he says.”
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Tech strategies insufficient
Revkin ’12 (Andrew C., Environment and energy blogger – NYT, “Can China Follow U.S. Shift from Coal to Gas?”, July
4, 2012)
Fourth, there is growing interest in so-called “technology strategies” to address climate change. The gas revolution is a good poster child
for the importance of technological innovation. Most of the key advances that make today’s gas revolution possible—not just fracking but across the
production and transmission of gas as well as in the ultra-efficient turbines that are today’s best way to make electricity from gas—trace their origins back
to publicly funded R&D in tandem with lots of private sector investment. Some people have unwisely taken that logic to the extreme and
suggested that if the US and other innovating nations just pushed hard on technology that there wouldn’t be much need for
emission limits, cap and trade or carbon taxes. That’s too simplistic. There’s no question that we need a big push on
technology and that all nations, collectively, massively under-invest in energy R&D. But a technology push with no pull from the markets a
recipe for waste. I like the carbon tax like the one Australia introduced this week to create an incentive not just to invent new low-carbon
technologies but also to deploy them. One implication for technology R&D policy is that in a world of cheap gas there’s probably a lot
of value in looking carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for use on gas-fired power plants. To date, most CCS
investment has focused on coal on the assumption that coal is cheap and that the technologies needed for CCS on gas are
too expensive. That conventional view could change in a world where the full cost of burning coal is high and gas is cheap. Some of the technologies
for CCS are generic—they work whether the original fuel is coal or gas—but others (including the costliest parts of CCS systems) must be tailored to the
fuel. I’ve always thought that CCS was an inelegant way to lick the carbon problem—because it involves burning fuels and then corralling a huge mass of
pollution rather than avoiding the pollution in the first place—but if gas is to be a real “bridge” to a low emission future rather than a nice-looking dead
end then we must seriously explore ways to further cut emissions from gas plants. [Here's a link to an article by Jesse Ausubel on one such technology.]
Fifth, all these surprises are a reminder of how much we don’t know about how technology and markets will unfold. Earlier this year the Energy
Information Administration published a rather brave study: a retrospective on how well its forecasters have done predicting things like demand for
energy, the cost of oil and such. One lesson from that study is that a lot of forecasting is done by looking in the rear view mirror—forecasts typically start
with current conditions, and as facts on the ground change radically so do the forecasts. Another lesson from that study is that the record of forecasting
energy prices—gas in particular but also oil—is pretty abysmal. Since so much, even CO2, depends on relative energy prices we should be sober about
what we can realistically predict for the future. Sixth, I see the gas revolution as just one of a large class of strategies for getting
serious about climate change in ways that are politically expedient . In a few countries and jurisdictions—such as Europe, California, and
Vermont—people will invest lots of their own money to control emissions in an effort to slow global warming. But most of the world isn’t so keen,
yet, to spend handsomely on this global goal. I’ve always thought that the way to make progress on climate change, especially in “reluctant”
countries like China and even the U.S., is to start by focusing on places where climate goals overlap with other national priorities—like clearing the air or
making energy supplies more reliable. (For another example, focused on the tremendous potential for slowing climate change through action on soot, see
the last issue of foreign affairs for an article co-authored with two colleagues here in La Jolla, V. Ramanathan and C. Kennel.) We probably can’t lick
global warming with self-interested actions alone, but at least we can point countries in the right direction and build political support for the deeper and
more expensive cuts that will be essential. As Victor notes, simply moving from coal to gas is hardly a climate solution on its own, and
others challenge the idea that natural gas can serve as a bridge along the road to a post-fossil energy future. And certainly if
China’s gas push comes with the same wasteful, leaky practices that American oil and gas companies have only slowly abandoned (and that
still abound in Russia and elsewhere), that’s not a reasonable bridge at all. Nothing I, or anyone else writes, will change the reality that the gas
age is here for many years to come. But my hope is that progress in avoiding environmental regrets can come through constructive discussion of ways to
cut risks and waste and to sustain a long-term energy quest that extends beyond fossil fuels even while they remain abundant and cheap. That’s no easy
task.
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XT – Irreversible
More evidence- there’s too much CO2 in the air even if we stop
Hansen, Head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor in the
Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia University, ‘8
(James E. Hanson.. Al Gore’s science advisor. Introductory chapter for the book State of the Wild. “Tipping point:
Perspective of a Scientist.” April. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/StateOfWild_20080428.pdf)
The upshot of the combination of inertia and feedbacks is that additional climate change is already “in the pipeline”: even
if we stop increasing greenhouse gases today, more warming will occur . This is sobering when one considers the present status of
Earth’s climate. Human civilization developed during the Holocene (the past 12,000 years). It has been warm enough to keep ice sheets off North
America and Europe, but cool enough for ice sheets to remain on Greenland and Antarctica. With rapid warming of 0.6°C in the past 30 years, global
temperature is at its warmest level in the Holocene.3 The warming that has already occurred, the positive feedbacks that have been set in
motion, and the additional warming in the pipeline together have brought us to the precipice of a planetary tipping point. We are at the
tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West
Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenland’s ice. Little additional forcing is needed to trigger these feedbacks and magnify
global warming. If we go over the edge, we will transition to an environment far outside the range that has been experienced by
humanity, and there will be no return within any foreseeable future generation. Casualties would include more than the loss of
indigenous ways of life in the Arctic and swamping of coastal cities. An intensified hydrologic cycle will produce both greater floods and greater droughts.
In the US, the semiarid states from central Texas through Oklahoma and both Dakotas would become more drought-prone and ill suited for agriculture,
people, and current wildlife. Africa would see a great expansion of dry areas, particularly southern Africa. Large populations in Asia and South America
would lose their primary dry season freshwater source as glaciers disappear. A major casualty in all this will be wildlife.
Too late
Rahn 11
(Richard W. Rahn, 1/25/2011, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, The Washington Times, “Obama's regulatory reform
test,” Lexis)
The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and, as a result, has been holding up the permitting of
new power and manufacturing plants. If this continues, it will cause a significant drop in U.S. economic growth and job creation, yet it will have no
measurable benefit. China, India and many other countries are rapidly increasing CO2 emissions, overwhelming whatever
actions the United States may take. Even if all new CO2 emissions were stopped globally, it would be decades before there
would be even a minor effect on global temperatures. Now, new research is indicating that sunspot activity is much more
important than CO2 when it comes to influencing the earth’s temperature. The EPA ban is nothing more than national
economic suicide. Let us see if Mr. Obama has the courage to tell the EPA to stop.
Ice melting irreversibly now
FP 11
(Foreign Policy, “Beating a retreat”, http://www.economist.com/node/21530079, September 24, 2011)
ON SEPTEMBER 9th, at the height of its summertime shrinkage, ice covered 4.33m square km, or 1.67m square miles, of the Arctic
Ocean, according to America's National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC). That is not a record low—not quite. But the actual record, 4.17m square km
in 2007, was the product of an unusual combination of sunny days, cloudless skies and warm currents flowing up from mid-latitudes. This year has seen
no such opposite of a perfect storm, yet the summer sea-ice minimum is a mere 4% bigger than that record. Add in the fact that the thickness of the
ice, which is much harder to measure, is estimated to have fallen by half since 1979, when satellite records began, and there is probably
less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago, soon after the last
ice age. That Arctic sea ice is disappearing has been known for decades. The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of
climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet the rate the ice is vanishing confounds these
climatologists' models. These predict that if the level of carbon dioxide, methane and so on in the atmosphere continues to rise,
then the Arctic Ocean will be free of floating summer ice by the end of the century . At current rates of shrinkage, by contrast, this
looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050. The reason is that Arctic air is warming twice as fast as the
atmosphere as a whole. Some of the causes of this are understood, but some are not. The darkness of land and water compared with
the reflectiveness of snow and ice means that when the latter melt to reveal the former, the area exposed absorbs more
heat from the sun and reflects less of it back into space. The result is a feedback loop that accelerates local warming. Such
feedback, though, does not completely explain what is happening. Hence the search for other things that might assist the ice's rapid disappearance.
Forcing the issue One is physical change in the ice itself. Formerly a solid mass that melted and refroze at its edges, it is now thinner,
more fractured, and so more liable to melt. But that is (literally and figuratively) a marginal effect. Filling the gap between model and reality
may need something besides this. The latest candidates are “short-term climate forcings”. These are pollutants , particularly ozone and
soot, that do not hang around in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, but have to be renewed continually if they are to have a
lasting effect. If they are so renewed, though, their impact may be as big as CO2's. At the moment, most eyes are on soot (or “black carbon”, as
jargon-loving researchers refer to it). In the Arctic, soot is a double whammy. First, when released into the air as a result of incomplete
combustion (from sources as varied as badly serviced diesel engines and forest fires), soot particles absorb sunlight, and so warm up the
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atmosphere. Then, when snow or rain wash them onto an ice floe, they darken its surface and thus cause it to melt faster.
Reducing soot (and also ozone, an industrial pollutant that acts as a greenhouse gas) would not stop the summer sea ice disappearing, but
it might delay the process by a decade or two. According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme, reducing black carbon and
ozone in the lower part of the atmosphere, especially in the Arctic countries of America, Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, could cut warming in the Arctic
by two-thirds over the next three decades. Indeed, the report suggests, if such measures—preventing crop burning and forest fires, cleaning up diesel
engines and wood stoves, and so on—were adopted everywhere they could halve the wider rate of warming by 2050. Without corresponding measures to
cut CO2 emissions, this would be but a temporary fix. Nonetheless, it is an attractive idea because it would have other benefits (soot is bad for people's
lungs) and would not require the wholesale rejigging of energy production which reducing CO2 emissions implies. Not everyone agrees it would work,
though. Gunnar Myhre of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, for example, notes that the amount of black
carbon in the Arctic is small and has been falling in recent decades. He does not believe it is the missing factor in the
models. Carbon dioxide, in his view, is the main culprit. Black carbon deposited on the Arctic snow and ice, he says, will have only a minimal effect on
its reflectivity. The rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, then, illuminates the difficulty of modelling the climate—but not in a way that
brings much comfort to those who hope that fears about the future climate might prove exaggerated. When reality is changing faster than
theory suggests it should, a certain amount of nervousness is a reasonable response. It's an ill wind… The direct consequences of
changes in the Arctic are mixed. They should not bring much rise in the sea level, since floating ice obeys Archimedes's principle and displaces its own
mass of water. A darker—and so more heat-absorbent—Arctic, though, will surely accelerate global warming and may thus encourage
melting of the land-bound Greenland ice sheet. That certainly would raise sea levels (though not as quickly as News Corporation's
cartographers suggest in the latest edition of the best-selling “Times Atlas”, which claims that 15% of the Greenland sheet has melted in the past 12 years;
the true figure is more like 0.05%). Wildlife will also suffer. Polar bears, which hunt for seals along the ice's edge, and walruses, which fish there,
will both be hard-hit.
All their impacts are inevitable
Sterlicchi ‘9
(John Sterlicchi, BusinessGreen, “US report says rising sea levels inevitable”,
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1805554/us-report-rising-sea-levels-inevitable, January 29, 2009)
Some of the effects of global warming will be irreversible and others may last for at least 1,000 years, according to a new US governmentsponsored report. The study, led by researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and paid for by the Department of Energy,
paints a depressing picture of the future caused by increased CO2 emissions. If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, said the
report, the result will be less dry-season rainfall that will be reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl era in the US. There will be
decreases in drinking water supplies, increased fire frequency and an end to dry-season farming of wheat and maize.
Regions that will be affected are southern Europe, northern and southern Africa, southwestern US, and western Australia. Also, if CO2 peaks at 600ppm,
global water levels will rise by as much as one metre. If it peaks at 1,000ppm, the rise will double. Rising sea levels would cause
"irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would
ultimately become submerged," the report said. Those grim predictions of rising sea levels also did not take into account the
melting of ice at both poles, as the result of that was unpredictable . "People have imagined that if we stopped emitting
carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that is not true ," the head of the research team,
Susan Solomon, said in a teleconference. This is because of the role played by the world's oceans. Currently the oceans are
absorbing the CO2 and keeping the planet cool but in the future they will become saturated.
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XT – No Impact
Consensus of experts agree that there is no impact to warming
Hsu 10
(Jeremy, Live Science Staff, July 19, pg. http://www.livescience.com/culture/can-humans-survive-extinction-doomsday100719.html)
His views deviate sharply from those of most experts, who don't view climate change as the end for humans. Even the worst-case
scenarios discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change don't foresee human extinction. "The scenarios that
the mainstream climate community are advancing are not end-of-humanity, catastrophic scenarios," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate policy analyst at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Humans have the technological tools to begin tackling climate change, if not quite enough yet to
solve the problem, Pielke said. He added that doom-mongering did little to encourage people to take action. "My view of politics is that
the long-term, high-risk scenarios are really difficult to use to motivate short-term, incremental action," Pielke explained. "The
rhetoric of fear and alarm that some people tend toward is counterproductive ." Searching for solutions One technological
solution to climate change already exists through carbon capture and storage, according to Wallace Broecker, a geochemist and
renowned climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City. But Broecker remained skeptical that
governments or industry would commit the resources needed to slow the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and predicted that more drastic
geoengineering might become necessary to stabilize the planet. "The rise in CO2 isn't going to kill people, and it's not going to kill humanity,"
Broecker said. "But it's going to change the entire wild ecology of the planet, melt a lot of ice, acidify the ocean, change the availability of water and
change crop yields, so we're essentially doing an experiment whose result remains uncertain."
No impact to warming – history and scientific study prove
Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw and
former chair of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, ‘08 (Professor Zbigniew,
“Fear Propaganda,”http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/cycles/chap3.htm, js)
Doomsayers preaching the horrors of warming are not troubled by the fact that in the Middle Ages, when for a few hundred
years it was warmer than it is now, neither the Maldive atolls nor the Pacific archipelagos were flooded . Global oceanic levels
have been rising for some hundreds or thousands of years (the causes of this phenomenon are not clear). In the last 100 years, this increase
amounted to 10 cm to 20 cm, (24) but it does not seem to be accelerated by the 20th Century warming . It turns out that in warmer
climates, there is more water that evaporates from the ocean (and subsequently falls as snow on the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps)
than there is water that flows to the seas from melting glaciers. (17) Since the 1970s, the glaciers of the Arctic, Greenland, and the
Antarctic have ceased to retreat, and have started to grow. On January 18, 2002, the journal Science published the results of satellite-borne
radar and ice core studies performed by scientists from CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Santa Cruz. These results
indicate that the Antarctic ice flow has been slowed, and sometimes even stopped, and that this has resulted in the thickening of the continental glacier at
a rate of 26.8 billion tons a year. (25) In 1999, a Polish Academy of Sciences paper was prepared as a source material for a report titled "Forecast
of the Defense Conditions for the Republic of Poland in 2001-2020." The paper implied that the increase of atmospheric precipitation by
23% in Poland, which was presumed to be caused by global warming, would be detrimental . (Imagine stating this in a country where
38% of the area suffers from permanent surface water deficit!) The same paper also deemed an extension of the vegetation period by 60 to 120 days as a
disaster. Truly, a possibility of doubling the crop rotation, or even prolonging by four months the harvest of radishes, makes for a
horrific vision in the minds of the authors of this paper. Newspapers continuously write about the increasing frequency and
power of the storms. The facts, however, speak otherwise. I cite here only some few data from Poland, but there are plenty of data from all
over the world. In Cracow, in 1896-1995, the number of storms with hail and precipitation exceeding 20 millimeters has decreased
continuously, and after 1930, the number of all storms decreased. (26) In 1813 to 1994, the frequency and magnitude of floods of Vistula River in
Cracow not only did not increase but, since 1940, have significantly decreased. (27) Also, measurements in the Kolobrzeg Baltic Sea harbor indicate that
the number of gales has not increased between 1901 a
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AT: Sea Level Rise
Sea level rise is junk science—models empirically fail
Gupta ’12 (Alexander Sen, Climate Change Research Centre @ University of New South Wales, et al., “Climate Drift in
the CMIP3 Models,” Journal of Climate Vol. 25, Issue 13, p. 4621-4640, 2012)
As discussed above, drift in temperature and salinity dominates 20C3M trends throughout most of the subsurface ocean.
In the calculation of steric sea-level rise, a given temperature or salinity change will generally have less effect at depth than
near the surface. As the amount of expansion for a given change in temperature or salinity is itself a function of
temperature, salinity and pressure (in particular warmer water expands more than colder water for the same increase in
heat content), the changes in temperature near the warm surface ocean have a proportionally larger influence on steric
sea-level rise than temperature changes in the cold deeper ocean (at least away from the well mixed high latitude regions).
Nevertheless, given that the global warming signal over the 20th century is predominantly limited to the top few hundred
meters, in most regions, while ocean drift extends through the entire water column, drift still introduces considerable bias
into both regional and global sea-level rise. The CMIP3 models show a broad range of estimates for steric sea-level rise
over 1950-2000 (Fig. 10a). The spread in the raw 20C3M estimates is considerable (standard deviation ~0.76mm/yr with
a multi-model mean of 0.45mm/yr). In addition a number of the models indicate a lowering of sea- level over the period.
For the drift-corrected sea-level rise (i.e. by using drift corrected temperature and salinity) values become considerably
more consistent (standard deviation ~0.36mm/yr) and all models now indicate a rise in sea-level. While considerable
inter-model variability still exists the drift-corrected multi-model mean (~0.59mm/yr) is consistent with the Domingues et
al (2008) observational estimate (0.52 ±0.08 mm/yr, for 0-700m, 1950-2003). Figure 10a shows raw 20C3M trends and
drift corrected estimates of forced trend for steric sea-level rise, including multiple ensemble members where available;
ensemble members for a given model are generally initialised from the same PICNTRL experiment but from different
points in time, usually separated by multiple years (Table. 1). Nevertheless the drift, which is derived from different time
periods from a single PICNTRL simulation, is very similar across ensemble members, suggesting that the linear drift
approximation is valid and that natural variability is not having a major effect on the drift estimates. Figure 10b shows a
scatter of the raw 20C3M trend magnitudes versus drift magnitudes. The drift related error varies considerably across the
models from less than 10% to over 200% for the ECHAM4 model (but see previous discussion of this model). As with
surface drift, subsurface drift in temperature and salinity is spatially heterogeneous and so can result in a larger bias on
regional scales. This is particularly important for assessing 20th century regional changes, where the steric component of
sea-level rise is a major component of the total (e.g. Domingues et al. 2008). Figure 11 shows both the raw 20C3M and
drift-corrected 1950- 2000 trends for three models (calculated from the surface to the bottom). A few models (e.g. MRI)
have a well equilibrated pre-industrial control throughout the ocean and so are essentially untroubled by drift. However,
most models are significantly affected in certain regions. In fact for many models and regions the sign of the sea-level
trend is changed by the spurious drift. For instance in the CSIRO_mk3.0 model the steric sea-level anomaly over much of
the tropics and mid- latitudes, estimated from the raw 20C3M temperature and salinity, changes sign once the drift is
taken into account.
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AT: Arctic War
Cooperation Between The U.S. and Russia
Ackerman, DC Defense Agent, 2011,
[Spencer, 6-8-11, War For The Arctic: Never Mind, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/war-for-the-arcticnever-mind/]
It wasn’t long ago that the press was running wild with hyperbolic claims of the U.S. losing out in an impending Arctic
conflict. After all, global warming is freeing up access to large deposits of oil, gas and minerals right in the backyard of the
Russians. But the press forgot to tell other polar nations to freak out. ¶ Indeed, at a forum convened on Wednesday by the
Center for Strategic and International Security, ambassadors from four polar nations, including some traditionally
menaced by Russia, were sanguine about the future of polar exploration. ¶ “We actually think we handled these areas for
decades during the Cold War rather well,” said Wegger Strommen, Norway’s man in Washington.¶ The U.S Geological
Survey assesses that the North Pole holds about 13 percent of the world’s untapped oil supplies. Companies and nations
are champing at the bit to expand exploration as the ice caps melt. The Russians have an advantage: a fleet of six nuclear
powered icebreakers on its northern shore. By contrast, the U.S. Coast Guard has just one, the cutter Healy.¶ But no one’s
sweating it. Should there actually be an arctic sea conflict, the U.S. submarine fleet is second to none, as my colleague
David Axe has pointed out. And a massive Arctic oil rush is “years off,” Strommen added, since the “climate is harsh, the
conditions are difficult and it’s incredibly expensive.”¶ Beyond that, the Russians are warm in the Arctic. Russia finalized a
maritime border with Norway on Tuesday that took 30 years to negotiate. Strommen’s colleagues from Greenland, Canada
and Sweden gave high marks to a meeting last month of the Arctic Council, the diplomatic contact group of arctic nations,
in which Russia signed onto an accord for search and rescue missions in the cold waters. Think of it as a diplomatic thaw.
Russia Will Cooperate With The U.S. In The Arctic
Shuster, Time Reporter, 10
[Simon, 9-27- 2010, “The Race for Arctic Oil: Is Russia Ready to Share?”
www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2021644,00.html#ixzz1x4fGS8Fk],
Russia's leaders have never been coy about their designs on the Arctic. In recent years, their message has been clear: We
want a a big, fat slice of it, including the seas of oil and gas underneath, and we are ready to defend our claim. The country
expressed its intentions blatantly in August 2007, when a Russian lawmaker planted a flag on the seabed at the top of the
world, and a year later, when President Dmitri Medvedev told his top generals at a meeting that defending Russia's
interests in the Arctic was nothing less than "their direct duty to posterity." Which is why so many of the world's Arctic
decisionmakers were amazed last week when they were called to a forum in Moscow to hear a very different message.
Russia wants the Arctic to be "a zone of peace and cooperation," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told them. But could he
possibly be serious? Many observers, including a large portion of the guests at the Sept. 23 forum, say the rhetoric is
welcome, but the world will have to wait and see. For now, no one is rushing to dismantle the huge military capacities all
of the Arctic countries — the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway (all members of NATO) and Russia — have been building
north of the Arctic Circle. Ebbing and swelling over the past half-century, the intensity of this militarization has largely
depended on Russia's assertiveness over the years. (See pictures of the Arctic.) It began, of course, at the height of the Cold
War, when the Arctic was studded with more nuclear weapons than virtually any other part of the world. Then, in the late
1980s, as the Soviet Empire approached its collapse, the military build-up tapered off and began to decline after Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev made his famous Murmansk speech in October 1987 in which he said the Arctic should become
"a zone of peace and fruitful cooperation." When Gorbachev used that phrase, it meant something very different from how
Putin used it last week. By the end of the 1980s, Russia was financially incapable of waging an arms race in the polar
regions. With no more threat from the Russians, the four other Arctic powers began to let their northern militaries lapse.
Attitudes changed after 2001, when soaring oil prices put jets beneath the Russian economy and Putin's government
began allocating billions to its Arctic infrastructure. Canada and other Arctic states responded with a greater focus on
military spending in the north. At the same time, it became obvious to everyone that the polar ice caps were melting fast
and the potential for drilling for and shipping oil and gas in the Arctic would soon be considerable. The northern powers
were suddenly facing the last great energy frontier, with a quarter of the world's untapped reserves in the Arctic — more
than 400 billion bbl. of oil and oil-equivalent natural gas — and the scramble to claim it began. (See pictures of the rise
and fall of Gorbachev.) By the end of 2014, the U.N. will receive competing claims for parts of the Arctic from Canada,
Denmark and Russia, which are using seabed samples to try to prove that the oil-rich regions are extensions of their
continental shelves and therefore belong to them. But even though the U.N. will rule on whether the science behind these
claims is accurate (it already rejected a Russian claim in 2001 based on poor evidence), it is not the job of the U.N. to
delineate borders. That will be up to the countries themselves, and that is where things might get sticky. A hopeful sign on
this front came on Sept. 15, when Russia and Norway settled an Arctic border dispute that had been festering for four
decades. The agreement came in the lead-up to last week's forum in Moscow, "The Arctic — Territory of Dialogue," and
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was seen as part of Russia's push to shed its image as the Arctic aggressor. "We're at a transition," says Paul Berkman,
professor of Arctic Ocean geopolitics at the University of Cambridge. "Russia, from the perspective of the West, had been
the difficult entity and is now inviting the international community to participate." The reasoning behind Russia's change
of tune is both pragmatic and political. A gentler approach to Arctic policy is in line with Medvedev's broader effort to win
over the West, as symbolized by his budding friendship with President Obama. (Remember the french fries they shared at
Ray's Hell Burger in June?) And as Russia realizes, exploiting the energy wealth of the Arctic will be much harder if the
region gets mired in conflict. "In the absence of stability, none of the energy opportunities are possible," says Berkman.
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AT: Biodiversity
Extinction Is Not Cause By Climate Change
Idso, Founder of and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon
Dioxide and Global Change, 2011
[Craig, Sherwood, and Keith, 11-23-11, CO2 Science, “Thoughts on Species' Abilities to Survive Rapid Climate Change”,
http://co2science.org/articles/V14/N47/EDIT.php]
In an Opinion article published in Global Change Biology, Hof et al. (2011) note that recent and projected climate change
is assumed to be exceptional because of its supposedly unprecedented velocity; and they say that this view has fuelled the
prediction that CO2-induced global warming "will have unprecedented effects on earth's biodiversity," primarily by
driving many species to extinction, because of the widespread belief that earth's plants and animals are unable to migrate
poleward in latitude or upward in altitude fast enough to avoid that deadly consequence, as well as the assumption that
current climate change simply outpaces evolutionary adaptation. But are these assumptions correct? The four biological
researchers address this important question in stages. First, they present evidence demonstrating that "recent geophysical
studies challenge the view that the speed of current and projected climate change is unprecedented." In one such study, for
example, they report that Steffensen et al. (2008) showed that temperatures in Greenland warmed by up to 4°C/year near
the end of the last glacial period. And they state that this change and other rapid climate changes during the Quaternary
(the last 2.5 million years) did not cause a noticeable level of broad-scale, continent-wide extinctions of species. Instead,
they state that these rapid changes appeared to "primarily affect a few specific groups, mainly large mammals (Koch and
Barnosky, 2006) and European trees (Svenning, 2003)," with the result that "few taxa became extinct during the
Quaternary (Botkin et al., 2007)." So how were the bulk of earth's species able to survive what many today believe to be
unsurvivable? Hof et al. speculate that "species may have used strategies other than shifting their geographical
distributions or changing their genetic make-up." They note, for example, that "intraspecific variation in physiological,
phenological, behavioral or morphological traits may have allowed species to cope with rapid climatic changes within their
ranges (Davis and Shaw, 2001; Nussey et al., 2005; Skelly et al., 2007)," based on "preexisting genetic variation within and
among different populations, which is an important prerequisite for adaptive responses," noting that "both intraspecific
phenotypic variability and individual phenotypic plasticity may allow for rapid adaptation without actual
microevolutionary changes." So do these observations imply that all is well with the planet's many and varied life forms?
Not necessarily, because, as Hof et al. continue, "habitat destruction and fragmentation, not climate change per se, are
usually identified as the most severe threat to biodiversity (Pimm and Raven, 2000; Stuart et al., 2004; Schipper et al.,
2008)." And since Hof et al. conclude that "species are probably more resilient to climatic changes than anticipated in
most model assessments of the effect of contemporary climate change on biodiversity," these several observations suggest
to us that addressing habitat destruction and fragmentation, rather than climate change, should take center stage when it
comes to striving to protect earth's biosphere, since the former more direct and obvious effects of mankind are more
destructive, more imminent and more easily addressed than are the less direct, less obvious, less destructive, less
imminent, and less easily addressed effects of the burning of fossil fuels.
Adaption Forces Warming To Increase Biodiversity
Singer, Research Professor at George Mason and Dennis, Director Of The Center For Global
Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, 2006
[Fred, 28-10-06, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years,]
We know that species can adapt to abrupt global warming because the climate shifts in the 1,500-year cycle have often
been abrupt. Moreover, the world's species have already survived at least six hundred such warmings and coolings in the
past million years. The major effect of global warming will be more biodiversity in our forests, as most trees, plants, birds,
and animals extend their ranges. This is already happening. Some biologists claim that a further warming of 0.8 degrees
Celsius will destroy thousands of species. However, the Earth warmed much more than that during the Holocene Climate
Optimum, which occurred 8,000 to 5,000 years ago, and no known species were driven extinct by the temperature
increase.¶
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AT: Disease
Warming doesn’t cause diseases – scientists admit
Donnelly ‘7 (John, 12-5, Staff, http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/12/05/a_tussle_over_link_of_warming_disease/)
Donald S. Burke, dean of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, noted that the 2001 study found that weather
fluctuation and seasonal variability may influence the spread of infectious disease. But he also noted that such conclusions should be
interpreted with caution. "There are no apocalyptic pronouncements," Burke said. "There's an awful lot we don't know."
Burke said he is not convinced that climate change can be proven to cause the spread of many diseases, specifically naming
dengue fever, influenza, and West Nile virus.
Warming definitively does not cause disease – their authors distort science and ignore
bigger alt causes
Reiter ‘98 (Paul, prof of entomology @ the Pasteur Inst., fellow of Royal Entomological Society, The Lancet, Vol. 351, Issue 9105,
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)78979-0/fulltext)
In your news item on the Kyoto Summit (Dec 20/27, p 1825) Justin McCurry reports on warnings that man-made climate change may unleash a publichealth disaster. Specifically he mentions “adamant” claims by Paul Epstein and Andrew Haines that global warming has already caused
malaria, dengue, and yellow fever to invade higher latitudes in the temperate regions and higher altitudes in the tropics. Such claims, oft
repeated, plainly ignore the past. Until the 20th century, malaria was a common disease throughout much of the USA, and it
remained endemic until the 1950s. Yellow fever played a major part in US history. Widespread epidemics of dengue were also common, and
continued until the 1940s. In Europe, malaria was probably present in neolithic times. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates clearly distinguished between the
symptoms of vivax and falciparum malaria. Throughout history, nearly all countries of that continent were affected. Even in the present
century, devastating epidemics occurred as far north as Archangel on the Arctic Circle, and the disease remained endemic in such un-tropical countries
as Holland, Poland, and Finland until after World War II. Yellow fever also killed tens of thousands in many European countries until
the end of the 19th century, and a devastating epidemic of dengue, with an estimated 1 million cases and 1000 deaths, occurred in Greece in
1927—28. Claims that malaria and dengue have recently climbed to higher altitudes are equally uninformed. Highland malaria
was widespread throughout the world until the era of DDT and cheap malaria prophylaxis. The figure shows the maximum altitude of
autochthonous cases in 11 countries in the early half of this century. Transmission occurred to 2600 m in Kenya, and 2450 m in Ethopia. In the
Himalayas, the disease was present to 2500 m in India and 1830 m in China. In the Andes, epidemics were recorded to 2180 m in
Argentina and 2600 m in Bolivia. In the latter country, cases actually occurred to 2773 m, transmitted by mosquitoes breeding at 35°C in thermal
springs. Recent epidemics of malaria in the highlands of Madagascar have been attributed to global warming, although they occurred
well below the maximum altitude for transmission (figure) and were clearly a sequel to a breakdown of control infrastructure. Moreover,
similar epidemics had taken place in the same areas in 1878 and 1895, and local records show no great change in temperature.
Similarly, recent dengue transmission at 1250 m in Costa Rica followed the reappearance of the vector Aedes aegypti (Linn) after a successful period of
control, and there is no evidence to support the suggestion that transmission was due to putative climate change . Lastly,
repeated claims that the disease has ascended to new altitudes in Colombia consistently cite a publication by Nelson et al but ignore its content, for
although the vector was present to 2200 m, the investigators clearly stated there were no cases at high altitude, and none have been reported since that
study. The distortion of science to make predictions of unlikely public-health disasters diverts attention from the true
reasons for the recrudescence of vector-borne diseases. These include the large-scale resettlement of people (often
associated with major ecological change), rampant urbanisation without adequate infrastructure, high mobility through
air travel, resistance to antimalarial drugs, insecticide resistance, and the deterioration of vector-control operations and
other public-health practices.
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AT: Drought
Climate Change Didn’t Bring Upon Droughts
Bastasch, 2013
[Michael, 4-12-2013, Government report: Historic drought not caused by global warming, The DC,
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/12/government-report-historic-drought-not-caused-by-global-warming/]
Despite claims made by environmentalists and the Obama administration, a study released Thursday suggests the recordhigh drought that ravaged agricultural production across the Great Plains region last year was not caused by manmade
global warming.¶ “The Central Great Plains drought during May-August of 2012 resulted mostly from natural variations in
weather,” read a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s drought unit.¶ “Neither ocean states
nor human-induced climate change, factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared to play significant roles in
causing severe rainfall deficits over the major corn producing regions of central Great Plains.Ӧ According to the report,
the jet stream, that typically pushes moist air from the Gulf region northward, was stuck too far north in Canada and did
not bring spring rains.¶ The lack of thunderstorms and rainfall in July and August made last summer the driest and
hottest on record, creating drought conditions across two-thirds of the U.S. — which were even hotter and drier than the
infamous “dust bowl” of the Great Depression era. The report stated that a “sequence of unfortunate events” occurred
suddenly, making the drought unpredictable.¶ “This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of
years,” Martin Hoerling, a NOAA research meteorologist and lead author of the report, told the Associated Press. “Climate
change was not a significant part, if any, of the event.Ӧ Hoerling factored climate change into computer simulations of the
the drought, but found it was not a factor in this particular drought. Hoerling previously used the same method to
determine that climate change had been a factor in a 2011 drought in Texas.¶ Environmentalists and the Obama
administration have held up extreme weather events, including the severe drought, to highlight the need to immediately
address climate change.¶ “Yes, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record
have all come in the last 15,” Obama said in his State of the Union address. “Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods —
all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that superstorm Sandy, and the most severe
drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose
to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late.”¶ Other scientists have challenged the
NOAA study. Climate scientists Kevin Trenberth with the National Centre for Atmospheric Research said the study failed
to take into account the lack of snowpack in the Rockies or how climate change could have kept the jet stream away.
Warming Won’t Cause Massive and Severe Droughts
Idso, PH.D and Founder of and Current Chairman of the Board of the Center for the Study of
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2011
[Sherwood, Keith, and Craig, 10-12-2011, Droughts of Southwestern North America: Past and Present, “CO2 Science,”
http://co2science.org/articles/V14/N41/EDIT.php]
The world's climate alarmists claim that rising temperatures will bring ever worse droughts to precipitation-deficient
regions of the earth. One such region is Southwest North America, for which Woodhouse et al. (2010) developed a 1200year history of drought that allowed them to compare recent droughts with those of prior centuries; and in spite of the fact
that the warmth of the last few decades is said by alarmists to have been unprecedented over the past millennium or more,
the review and analysis presented by the five U.S. researchers demonstrates that major 20th century droughts "pale in
comparison to droughts documented in paleoclimatic records over the past two millennia (Cook et al., 2009)," which
suggests that recent temperatures have not been unprecedented. Presenting a little more detail, Woodhouse et al. report
that "the medieval period, ~AD 900-1300," was "a period of extensive and persistent aridity over western North America,"
with paleoclimatic evidence suggesting that drought in the mid-12th century (AD 1146-1155) "far exceeded the severity,
duration, and extent of subsequent droughts," including the 21st century drought of 2000-2009; and they also state that
the AD 1146-1155 period was "anomalously warm," which would seem to confirm the climate-alarmist contention that
greater warmth leads to greater droughts. However, the five scientists contend that temperature was "almost certainly
higher during the 21st century drought," which again contradicts the climate-alarmist claim that greater warmth translates
into greater drought in precipitation-deficient regions of the earth. These observations do little to advance the climatealarmist cause; for in order for their claim that rising temperatures promote more severe and expansive droughts to be
correct, the peak warmth of the Medieval Warm Period would have had to have been greater than the Current Warm
Period has been to date; but that situation is in conflict with their even more basic claim that recent temperatures have
been unprecedented compared to those of the prior millennium or two. ¶
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AT: Extinction
Consensus of experts agree that there is no impact to warming
Hsu 10
(Jeremy, Live Science Staff, July 19, pg. http://www.livescience.com/culture/can-humans-survive-extinction-doomsday100719.html)
His views deviate sharply from those of most experts, who don't view climate change as the end for humans. Even the worst-case
scenarios discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change don't foresee human extinction. "The scenarios that
the mainstream climate community are advancing are not end-of-humanity, catastrophic scenarios," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate policy analyst at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Humans have the technological tools to begin tackling climate change, if not quite enough yet to
solve the problem, Pielke said. He added that doom-mongering did little to encourage people to take action. "My view of politics is that
the long-term, high-risk scenarios are really difficult to use to motivate short-term, incremental action," Pielke explained. "The
rhetoric of fear and alarm that some people tend toward is counterproductive ." Searching for solutions One technological
solution to climate change already exists through carbon capture and storage, according to Wallace Broecker, a geochemist and
renowned climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City. But Broecker remained skeptical that
governments or industry would commit the resources needed to slow the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and predicted that more drastic
geoengineering might become necessary to stabilize the planet. "The rise in CO2 isn't going to kill people, and it's not going to kill humanity,"
Broecker said. "But it's going to change the entire wild ecology of the planet, melt a lot of ice, acidify the ocean, change the availability of water and
change crop yields, so we're essentially doing an experiment whose result remains uncertain."
No impact to warming – history and scientific study prove
Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw and
former chair of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, ‘08 (Professor Zbigniew,
“Fear Propaganda,”http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/cycles/chap3.htm, js)
Doomsayers preaching the horrors of warming are not troubled by the fact that in the Middle Ages, when for a few hundred
years it was warmer than it is now, neither the Maldive atolls nor the Pacific archipelagos were flooded . Global oceanic levels
have been rising for some hundreds or thousands of years (the causes of this phenomenon are not clear). In the last 100 years, this increase
amounted to 10 cm to 20 cm, (24) but it does not seem to be accelerated by the 20th Century warming . It turns out that in warmer
climates, there is more water that evaporates from the ocean (and subsequently falls as snow on the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps)
than there is water that flows to the seas from melting glaciers. (17) Since the 1970s, the glaciers of the Arctic, Greenland, and the
Antarctic have ceased to retreat, and have started to grow. On January 18, 2002, the journal Science published the results of satellite-borne
radar and ice core studies performed by scientists from CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Santa Cruz. These results
indicate that the Antarctic ice flow has been slowed, and sometimes even stopped, and that this has resulted in the thickening of the continental glacier at
a rate of 26.8 billion tons a year. (25) In 1999, a Polish Academy of Sciences paper was prepared as a source material for a report titled "Forecast
of the Defense Conditions for the Republic of Poland in 2001-2020." The paper implied that the increase of atmospheric precipitation by
23% in Poland, which was presumed to be caused by global warming, would be detrimental . (Imagine stating this in a country where
38% of the area suffers from permanent surface water deficit!) The same paper also deemed an extension of the vegetation period by 60 to 120 days as a
disaster. Truly, a possibility of doubling the crop rotation, or even prolonging by four months the harvest of radishes, makes for a
horrific vision in the minds of the authors of this paper. Newspapers continuously write about the increasing frequency and
power of the storms. The facts, however, speak otherwise. I cite here only some few data from Poland, but there are plenty of data from all
over the world. In Cracow, in 1896-1995, the number of storms with hail and precipitation exceeding 20 millimeters has decreased
continuously, and after 1930, the number of all storms decreased. (26) In 1813 to 1994, the frequency and magnitude of floods of Vistula River in
Cracow not only did not increase but, since 1940, have significantly decreased. (27) Also, measurements in the Kolobrzeg Baltic Sea harbor indicate that
the number of gales has not increased between 1901 a
Extinction Isn’t Caused By Warming- Empirically Proven
Idso, Founder and current chairman of The Board of the Center for The Study of Carbon
Dioxide and Global Change, 2012
[Craig, Sherwood, Keith, 6-12-2012, “Plant Response to Significant and Rapid Global Warming.”, CO2 Science,
http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N24/EDIT.php]
In an impressive and enlightening review of the subject, Willis and MacDonald (2011) begin by noting that key research
efforts have focused on extinction scenarios derived from "a suite of predictive species distribution models (e.g., Guisan
and Thuiller, 2005)" - which are most often referred to as bioclimatic envelope models - that "predict current and future
range shifts and estimate the distances and rates of movement required for species to track the changes in climate and
move into suitable new climate space." And they write that one of the most-cited studies of this type - that of Thomas et al.
(2004) - "predicts that, on the basis of mid-range climatic warming scenarios for 2050, up to 37% of plant species globally
will be committed to extinction owing to lack of suitable climate space."¶ In contrast, the two researchers say that "biotic
adaptation to climate change has been considered much less frequently." This phenomenon - which is sometimes referred
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to as evolutionary resilience - they describe as "the ability of populations to persist in their current location and to undergo
evolutionary adaptation in response to changing environmental conditions (Sgro et al., 2010)." And they note that this
approach to the subject "recognizes that ongoing change is the norm in nature and one of the dynamic processes that
generates and maintains biodiversity patterns and processes," citing MacDonald et al. (2008) and Willis et al. (2009).¶
The aim of Willis and MacDonald's review, therefore, was to examine the effects of significant and rapid warming on
earth's plants during several previous intervals of the planet's climatic history that were as warm as, or even warmer than,
what climate alarmists typically predict for the next century. These intervals included the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum, the Eocene climatic optimum, the mid-Pliocene warm interval, the Eemian interglacial, and the Holocene. And
it is important to note that this approach, in contrast to the approach typically used by climate alarmists, relies on
empirical (as opposed to theoretical) data-based (as opposed to model-based), reconstructions (as opposed to projections)
of the past (as opposed to the future).¶ And what were the primary findings of the two researchers?¶ As they describe
them, in their own words, "persistence and range shifts (migrations) seem to have been the predominant terrestrial biotic
response (mainly of plants) to warmer intervals in Earth's history," while "the same responses also appear to have
occurred during intervals of rapid climate change." In addition, they make a strong point of noting that "evidence for
global extinctions or extinctions resulting from reduction of population sizes on the scale predicted for the next century
owing to loss of suitable climate space (Thomas et al., 2004) is not apparent." In fact, they state that sometimes an actual
increase in local biodiversity is observed, the case for which we lay out in Section II (Physiological Reasons for Rejecting
the CO2-Induced Global Warming Extinction Hypothesis) of our Major Report
Global Warming Doesn’t Kill, It Saves
Lomborg, former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute, 2009
[Bjorn, 3-12-2009, “The Telegraph”, “Global Warming Will Save Millions of Lives,”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4981028/Global-warming-will-save-millions-of-lives.html]
But low temperatures also kill. The old, infirm, homeless and very young are at the highest risk of hypothermia, heart
attacks, strokes and illnesses caused or exacerbated by the cold. Winter regularly takes many more lives than any
heatwave: 25,000 to 50,000 people each year die in Britain from excess cold. Across Europe, there are six times more
cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths. We know this from the world's biggest cross-national, peer-reviewed studies
under the aegis of Professor William Keatinge of the University of London. Global warming will mean more frequent
heatwaves, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – by 2100, every three years instead of every 20
years. But bitterly cold spells will decrease as quickly, coming once every two decades, rather than every three years. For
the UK, the Keatinge studies show heat-related deaths caused by global warming will increase by 2,000. But cold-related
deaths will decrease by 20,000. The only global study suggests that this is true internationally: by 2050, there will be
almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths a year, and almost 1.8 million fewer cold-related deaths. Warmer temperatures
will save 1.4 million lives each year. The number of saved lives will outweigh the increase in heat-related deaths until at
least 2200. This is not an argument to do nothing in the face of global warming. But focusing only on the negative lays the
groundwork for extremely poor policies. Hunt's research was presented at a Copenhagen summit that had key speakers
with views more negative than consensus expectations, in the hope of convincing politicians to commit to drastic carbon
cuts. This is the wrong response: even if the Kyoto Protocol's promised carbon emission reductions had been fully
implemented across this century, temperatures would only be reduced by an insignificant 0.2°C, at a cost of $180 billion a
year. If we want to cut temperatures faster – and identify new technology that can cool houses in summer and save lives –
we need cheap alternative energy technology within 20 to 40 years. If every country committed to spending 0.05 per cent
of GDP on researching non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, that would cost $25 billion a year, and it would do a lot
more than massive carbon cuts to fight warming and save lives. To prepare adequately for the challenge of global
warming, we must acknowledge both the good and the bad that it will bring. If our starting point is to prove that
Armageddon is on its way, we will not consider all of the evidence, and will not identify the smartest policy choices. ¶
Warming doesn't cause extinction- their authors are hacks
Lomborg ‘8 (Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business
School, Bjorn, “Warming warnings get overheated”, The Guardian, 8/15,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/carbonemissions.climatechange)
These alarmist predictions are becoming quite bizarre, and could be dismissed as sociological oddities, if it weren't for the
fact that they get such big play in the media. Oliver Tickell, for instance, writes that a global warming causing a 4C
temperature increase by the end of the century would be a "catastrophe" and the beginning of the "extinction" of the
human race. This is simply silly. His evidence? That 4C would mean that all the ice on the planet would melt, bringing the
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long-term sea level rise to 70-80m, flooding everything we hold dear, seeing billions of people die. Clearly, Tickell has
maxed out the campaigners' scare potential (because there is no more ice to melt, this is the scariest he could ever
conjure). But he is wrong. Let us just remember that the UN climate panel, the IPCC, expects a temperature rise by the
end of the century between 1.8 and 6.0C. Within this range, the IPCC predicts that, by the end of the century, sea levels
will rise 18-59 centimetres – Tickell is simply exaggerating by a factor of up to 400. Tickell will undoubtedly claim that he
was talking about what could happen many, many millennia from now. But this is disingenuous. First, the 4C temperature
rise is predicted on a century scale – this is what we talk about and can plan for. Second, although sea-level rise will
continue for many centuries to come, the models unanimously show that Greenland's ice shelf will be reduced, but
Antarctic ice will increase even more (because of increased precipitation in Antarctica) for the next three centuries. What
will happen beyond that clearly depends much more on emissions in future centuries. Given that CO2 stays in the
atmosphere about a century, what happens with the temperature, say, six centuries from now mainly depends on
emissions five centuries from now (where it seems unlikely non-carbon emitting technology such as solar panels will not
have become economically competitive). Third, Tickell tells us how the 80m sea-level rise would wipe out all the world's
coastal infrastructure and much of the world's farmland – "undoubtedly" causing billions to die. But to cause billions to
die, it would require the surge to occur within a single human lifespan. This sort of scare tactic is insidiously wrong and
misleading, mimicking a firebrand preacher who claims the earth is coming to an end and we need to repent. While it is
probably true that the sun will burn up the earth in 4-5bn years' time, it does give a slightly different perspective on the
need for immediate repenting. Tickell's claim that 4C will be the beginning of our extinction is again many times beyond
wrong and misleading, and, of course, made with no data to back it up. Let us just take a look at the realistic impact of
such a 4C temperature rise. For the Copenhagen Consensus, one of the lead economists of the IPCC, Professor Gary Yohe,
did a survey of all the problems and all the benefits accruing from a temperature rise over this century of about
approximately 4C. And yes, there will, of course, also be benefits: as temperatures rise, more people will die from heat, but
fewer from cold; agricultural yields will decline in the tropics, but increase in the temperate zones, etc. The model
evaluates the impacts on agriculture, forestry, energy, water, unmanaged ecosystems, coastal zones, heat and cold deaths
and disease. The bottom line is that benefits from global warming right now outweigh the costs (the benefit is about 0.25%
of global GDP). Global warming will continue to be a net benefit until about 2070, when the damages will begin to
outweigh the benefits, reaching a total damage cost equivalent to about 3.5% of GDP by 2300. This is simply not the end of
humanity. If anything, global warming is a net benefit now; and even in three centuries, it will not be a challenge to our
civilisation. Further, the IPCC expects the average person on earth to be 1,700% richer by the end of this century.
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AT: Extinction [Chalko]
Chalko’s claims are wrong and he’s an idiot
Hube 8 (D.S., Member of the National Association of Scholars and Former Chair of the Delaware Textbook Assessment
Committee, “CBS, MSNBC Websites Promote Earthquakes' Tie to Global Warming,” NewsBuster, June 19th,
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/d-s-hube/2008/06/19/cbs-msnbc-websites-promote-earthquakes-tie-global-warming,)
An article at CBSNews.com and MSNBC.com utilizes the claims of a scientist with some very questionable ideas and
theories. In this case it's "seismic activity is five times more energetic than 20 years ago" and the reason is due to -- you
guessed it -- global warming. The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast
and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and urgently addressed.
The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007 recorded on the US Geological Survey database
proved that the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast since 1990. Dr. [Tom] Chalko
said that global seismic activity was increasing faster than any other global warming indicator on Earth and that this
increase is extremely alarming. Who exactly is this Dr. Tom Chalko? And how precisely are earthquakes related to global
warming? The blog SansPretense has done a pretty thorough job dissecting Chalko's claims, as well as investigating some
of Chalko's other "research." For example, Chalko contributes to a "scientific" journal that's ... not what many would
consider scientific. It's called the NU Journal of Discovery -- the "NU" standing for Natural University. There's just one
problem: There is no Natural University. Take a look at the "university's" website to see what I mean: NU is a University
in which there are no professors, only Autonomous Individual Intellects that respect each other's Freedom of Choice. NU
is a University in which everyone is a perpetual STUDENT and everyone learns from everyone else. NU is a University in
which there are no secrets, no project is ever banned and information is always open for discussion for those who can
comprehend it. NU is a University that accepts anyone who has enough motivation to develop his/her individual intellect,
regardless of age, gender, nationality, belief system and social status. NU is a University in which the study of the
limitations of the material reality will be only a part of exploring the Universal Law and the Purpose of Existence. NU is a
University in which there is nothing to steal, simply because knowledge is given away free to start with. NU is a University
that is nowhere in particular and yet everywhere on Earth. NU is a University that will never be referred to as a building
or a business. NU is a University that will be impossible to close down. NU is a University in which the distribution of
information will resemble the fractal distribution of the information in the entire Universe, so by studying any fragment in
sufficient detail you can eventually learn the lot NU is a University whose Purpose precisely coincides with The Purpose of
the entire Universe - maximizing the satisfaction from conscious existence. So, Chalko is a professor, er, um, "facilitator of
knowledge" (since Natural University has no professors) at a university that doesn't exist/yet exists everywhere. Right. Got
it. Some of Chalko's other "scientific" interests/workshops are the study of "auras" which includes "How to see your own
Aura," "Meaning of the Aura and its colours," "Amplifying your Aura vibration," and "Matching your Aura with the
environment." Then there's "Healing and Consciousness" which includes the "Role of Aura, bio-energy and chakras," the
use of "colour to enhance your well-being," and "Choosing garments, decorating home and office." MSNBC's version of the
article lists [another of] Chalko's "credentials" at bottom -- he is "Head of Geophysics Division at Scientific Engineering
Research, Mt Best, Australia." If you visit the site, it appears to be nothing more than Chalko's own webpage (or one of his
webpages). There are no other individuals listed at the Division that I could find; in other words, Scientific Engineering
Research is Tom Chalko, and Tom Chalko is Scientific Engineering Research. But Chalko's claims in the CBS/MSNBC
articles are tame compared to the assertions in one of his papers linked to at the SER: The Earth could explode as a result
of global warming! I kid you not. Funny how, as the blog SansPretense points out, the planet didn't explode long ago when
the planet was much hotter than it is now. In addition, SansPretense provides links to two articles that refute Chalko's
overall thesis about earthquakes.
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AT: Extinction [Tickell]
Warming doesn't cause extinction- their authors are hacks
Lomborg ‘8 (Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business
School, Bjorn, “Warming warnings get overheated”, The Guardian, 8/15,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/carbonemissions.climatechange)
These alarmist predictions are becoming quite bizarre, and could be dismissed as sociological oddities, if it weren't for the
fact that they get such big play in the media. Oliver Tickell, for instance, writes that a global warming causing a 4C
temperature increase by the end of the century would be a "catastrophe" and the beginning of the "extinction" of the
human race. This is simply silly. His evidence? That 4C would mean that all the ice on the planet would melt, bringing the
long-term sea level rise to 70-80m, flooding everything we hold dear, seeing billions of people die. Clearly, Tickell has
maxed out the campaigners' scare potential (because there is no more ice to melt, this is the scariest he could ever
conjure). But he is wrong. Let us just remember that the UN climate panel, the IPCC, expects a temperature rise by the
end of the century between 1.8 and 6.0C. Within this range, the IPCC predicts that, by the end of the century, sea levels
will rise 18-59 centimetres – Tickell is simply exaggerating by a factor of up to 400. Tickell will undoubtedly claim that he
was talking about what could happen many, many millennia from now. But this is disingenuous. First, the 4C temperature
rise is predicted on a century scale – this is what we talk about and can plan for. Second, although sea-level rise will
continue for many centuries to come, the models unanimously show that Greenland's ice shelf will be reduced, but
Antarctic ice will increase even more (because of increased precipitation in Antarctica) for the next three centuries. What
will happen beyond that clearly depends much more on emissions in future centuries. Given that CO2 stays in the
atmosphere about a century, what happens with the temperature, say, six centuries from now mainly depends on
emissions five centuries from now (where it seems unlikely non-carbon emitting technology such as solar panels will not
have become economically competitive). Third, Tickell tells us how the 80m sea-level rise would wipe out all the world's
coastal infrastructure and much of the world's farmland – "undoubtedly" causing billions to die. But to cause billions to
die, it would require the surge to occur within a single human lifespan. This sort of scare tactic is insidiously wrong and
misleading, mimicking a firebrand preacher who claims the earth is coming to an end and we need to repent. While it is
probably true that the sun will burn up the earth in 4-5bn years' time, it does give a slightly different perspective on the
need for immediate repenting. Tickell's claim that 4C will be the beginning of our extinction is again many times beyond
wrong and misleading, and, of course, made with no data to back it up. Let us just take a look at the realistic impact of
such a 4C temperature rise. For the Copenhagen Consensus, one of the lead economists of the IPCC, Professor Gary Yohe,
did a survey of all the problems and all the benefits accruing from a temperature rise over this century of about
approximately 4C. And yes, there will, of course, also be benefits: as temperatures rise, more people will die from heat, but
fewer from cold; agricultural yields will decline in the tropics, but increase in the temperate zones, etc. The model
evaluates the impacts on agriculture, forestry, energy, water, unmanaged ecosystems, coastal zones, heat and cold deaths
and disease. The bottom line is that benefits from global warming right now outweigh the costs (the benefit is about 0.25%
of global GDP). Global warming will continue to be a net benefit until about 2070, when the damages will begin to
outweigh the benefits, reaching a total damage cost equivalent to about 3.5% of GDP by 2300. This is simply not the end of
humanity. If anything, global warming is a net benefit now; and even in three centuries, it will not be a challenge to our
civilisation. Further, the IPCC expects the average person on earth to be 1,700% richer by the end of this century.
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AT: Flooding
Climate Change Doesn’t Cause Flooding
Idso, PH.D and Founder of and Current Chairman of the Board of the Center for the Study of
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2011
[Craig, Keith, Sherwood, Climate Change Reconsidered Interlim Report,
http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/2011NIPCCinterimreport.pdf]
The IPCC claims flooding has become more frequent and severe in response to twentieth century global warming. But it is
important to establish whether floods are truly becoming more frequent or severe, and whether other factors might be
behind such trends if they in fact exist. In this section we highlight studies addressing both questions. To test for longterm changes in flood magnitudes and frequencies in the Mississippi River system of the United States, Pinter et al.
(2008) ―constructed a hydrologic database consisting of data from 26 rated stations (with both stage and discharge
measurements) and 40 stage-only stations.‖ Then, to help ―quantify changes in flood levels at each station in response to
construction of wing dikes, bendway weirs, meander cutoffs, navigational dams, bridges, and other modifications,‖ they
put together a geospatial database consisting of ―the locations, emplacement dates, and physical characteristics of over
15,000 structural features constructed along the study rivers over the past 100–150 years.‖ As a result of these operations,
Pinter et al. write, ―significant climate- and/or land use-driven increases in flow were detected,‖ but they indicate ―the
largest and most pervasive contributors to increased flooding on the Mississippi River system were wing dikes and related
navigational structures, followed by progressive levee construction.‖ In discussing the implications of their findings, Pinter
et al. write, ―the navigable rivers of the Mississippi system have been intensively engineered, and some of these
modifications are associated with large decreases in the rivers‘ capacity to convey flood flows.‖ Hence, it would appear man
has indeed been responsible for the majority of the increased flooding of the rivers of the Mississippi system over the past
century or so, but not in the way suggested by the IPCC. The question that needs addressing by the region‘s inhabitants
has nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with how to ―balance the local benefits of river engineering against the
potential for large-scale flood magnification.‖In a study designed to determine the environmental origins of extreme
flooding events throughout the southwestern United States, Ely (1997) wrote, ―paleoflood records from nineteen rivers in
Arizona and southern Utah, including over 150 radiocarbon dates and evidence of over 250 flood deposits, were combined
to identify regional variations in the frequency of extreme floods,‖ and that information ―was then compared with
paleoclimatic data to determine how the temporal and spatial patterns in the occurrence of floods reflect the prevailing
climate.‖ The results of this comparison indicated ―long-term variations in the frequency of extreme floods over the
Holocene are related to changes in the climate and prevailing large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns that affect the
conditions conducive to extreme flood-generating storms in each region.‖ These changes, in Ely‘s view, ―are very plausibly
related to global-scale changes in the climate system.‖ With respect to the Colorado River watershed, which integrates a
large portion of the interior western United States, she writes, ―the largest floods tend to be from spring snowmelt after
winters of heavy snow accumulation in the mountains of Utah, western Colorado, and northern New Mexico,‖ such as
occurred with the ―cluster of floods from 5 to 3.6 ka,‖ which occurred in conjunction with ―glacial advances in mountain
ranges throughout the western United States‖ during the ―cool, wet period immediately following the warm midHolocene.‖ The frequency of extreme floods also increased during the early and middle portions of the first millennium
AD, many of which coincided ―with glacial advances and cool, moist conditions both in the western U.S. and globally.‖
Then came a ―sharp drop in the frequency of large floods in the southwest from AD 1100-1300,‖ which corresponded, in
her words, ―to the widespread Medieval Warm Period, which was first noted in European historical records.‖ With the
advent of the Little Ice Age, however, there was another ―substantial jump in the number of floods in the southwestern
U.S.,‖ which was ―associated with a switch to glacial advances, high lake levels, and cooler, wetter conditions.‖ Distilling
her findings down to a single succinct statement and speaking specifically of the southwestern United States, Ely writes,
―global warm periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period, are times of dramatic decreases in the number of highmagnitude floods in this region‖ [emphasis added].
Warmer Climates Reduces Floods
Stewart, Institute of Geography and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, 2011
[Monique, 11-15-2011, “Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology”, SciVerse,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018211004597]
Insight into the relationship between floods and climate, under a wide range of climate variability in Central Europe from
ca. 1450 BC to AD 420, can be found in the sediments of Lake Silvaplana (Upper Engadine, Switzerland). The frequency of
local paleofloods can be reconstructed from turbidite frequency. Long-term cool and/or wet and warm and/or dry climate
phases can be reconstructed from anomalies in low-frequency Mass Accumulation Rates (MAR). This is because lowfrequency MAR reflects glacier length changes in the Swiss Alps and glacier lengths are a response to long-term climate
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conditions. Transitions between cool and/or wet and warm and/or dry climate phases can be inferred from centennial
trends in low-frequency MAR. Furthermore, quantitative absolute June-July–August (JJA) temperatures reconstructed
from Biogenic Silica (BSi) flux and chironomids in the sediments of Lake Silvaplana are available from ca. 570 BC to AD
120 (Stewart et al., 2011). Comparison of turbidite frequency to MAR-inferred climate phases (ca. 1450 BC–AD 420) and
JJA temperatures (ca. 570 BC–AD 120) suggests an increase in the frequency of paleofloods during cool and/or wet
climates and windows of cooler JJA temperatures. Specifically, the frequency of turbidites was reduced during warm
and/or dry climates of ca. 1450 BC to AD 420. Following the transition to cool and/or wet climates, the frequency of
turbidites increased. However, no discernable relationship between the rate of transition from warm and/or dry to cool
and/or wet climate and turbidite could be found.
CO2 does not link to increased rainfall.
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13,
AK)
As noted in the previous chapter (see Section 4.3.1), Chu et al. (2010) found the precipitation predictions of the IPCC had
not been realized throughout the part of the Pacific that is home to the Hawaiian Islands, and in fact just the opposite had
occurred there: The three scientists determined, ―since the 1980s, there has been a change in the types of precipitation
intensity, resulting in more frequent light precipitation and less frequent moderate and heavy precipitation Climate
Change Reconsidered – 2011 Interim Report 124 intensity, as well as a ―shorter annual number of days with intense
precipitation and smaller consecutive 5-day precipitation amounts and smaller fraction of annual precipitation due to
events exceeding the 1961–1990 95th percentile in the recent epoch [1980–2007] relative to the first epoch [1950– 1979].
Similarly, in that chapter we noted Stankoviansky (2003) found extreme and destructive rainfall events were much more
common throughout the Myjava Hill Land of Slovakia during the Little Ice Age than they have been subsequently, and
this, in his words (and in harmony with the many references he cites), ―is often regarded as generally valid for Central
Europe. This conclusion runs counter to that of the IPCC, which equates destructive precipitation events and the flooding
they cause with global warming. In a model-based study of precipitation,Schliep et al. (2010) compared estimates of local
extreme precipitation events using six regional climate models (RCMs), which run at a higher spatial resolution than
global climate models (GCMs). The six RCMs were forced with a common set of reanalysis data, created by running a
climate model that was fed real-world data for a 20-year simulation period. The area analyzed was North America, where
winter precipitation was the response variable and the onehundred-yearextremum of daily winter precipitation was the
test statistic, extreme values of which were estimated by fitting a tailed distribution to the data, taking into account their
spatial aspects. The six RCMs showed similar general spatial patterns of extremes across North America, with the highest
extremes in the Southeast and along the West Coast. However, when comparing absolute levels, which are most relevant
to risk forecasts, the models exhibited strong disagreement. The lowest-predicting model was low almost everywhere in
North America compared to the mean of the six models and, similarly, the highest-predicting model was above the mean
almost everywhere. The difference between the two models was almost 60mm of daily precipitation (for the one-hundredyear extreme event) over much of the United States. The other four models showed greatly differing spatial patterns of
extremes from each other, and those differences were found to be statistically significant by F test. The researchers
speculate that when driven by multiple GCMs rather than reanalysis data, the range of extreme outcomes would only
increase. As a result, extreme rainfall event predictions may vary considerably among models and extend well beyond the
realm of reality. The lesson we take from Schliep et al. is that model-based claims of a CO2-induced increase in extreme
precipitation events should be treated with considerable skepticism.
Floods do not have an impact- plants continue to grow underwater due to more CO2.
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine
Geologist, and Singer, Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D.,
Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7,
http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13, AK)
At the other end of the moisture spectrum, we confront the problem of an over-sufficiency of water, which we equate with
complete submergence in water. This phenomenon was recently studied by Pedersen et al. (2010), who write, with respect
to terrestrial plants in general, that complete submergence in water “impedes exchange of O2 and CO2 with shoots
(Voesenek et al., 2006),” and that underwater photosynthesis “is limited by CO2 availability owing to slow diffusion in
water, and stomatal closure (Mommer and Visser, 2005).” These submergence-induced phenomena—if long sustained—
typically lead to plant death. To learn how the wetland plant Hordeum marinum Huds. would respond when fully
submerged in water, Pedersen et al. grew several 28-day-old plants consisting of three Nordic Gene Bank accessions (H21,
H90, and H546) for seven additional days while exposing them to four different treatments: “aerated root zone controls
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with shoots in air; stagnant root zone with shoots in air; stagnant root zone with shoots also completely submerged with
18 μM CO2 (air equilibrium); stagnant root zone with shoots also completely submerged with 200 μM CO2 (simulating
CO2 enrichment in many natural flood waters),” while measuring numerous plant responses. This revealed, as they
describe it, that “plants submerged for 7 days in water at air equilibrium (18 μM CO2) suffered loss of biomass, whereas
those with 200 μM CO2 continued to grow.” In addition, “higher underwater net photosynthesis at 200 μM CO2 increased
by 2.7- to 3.2-fold sugar concentrations in roots of submerged plants, compared with at air equilibrium CO2.” They state
this phenomenon “is likely to have contributed to the greater root growth in submerged plants with the higher CO2
supply.” Finally, they note the latter CO2-enriched plants “tillered similarly to plants with shoots in air.” Pedersen et al.
further report that CO2 enrichment of submerging water to ~290 μM enhanced by twofold the growth of two cultivars of
rice, compared to plants submerged with water in equilibrium with normal ambient air (Setter et al., 1989), and they state
such elevated CO2 concentrations “have been reported at various field sites,” citing Setter et al. (1987) and Ram et al.
(1999). Thus, they indicate plants experiencing total submergence during floods typically lose mass and die under normal
conditions, but when the water is supersaturated with CO2, they can not only survive, they actually continue to grow.
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AT: Ocean Acidification
Oceans Acidification Is Solved Via Adaption
Idso, PH.D and Founder of and Current Chairman of the Board of the Center for the Study of
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2012
[Sherwood, Keith, and Craig, 6-11-2012 The Potential for Adaptive Evolution to Enable the World's Most Important
Calcifying Organism to Cope with Ocean Acidification, http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N28/EDIT.php]
Our present understanding of the sensitivity of marine life to ocean acidification is based primarily on short-term
experiments," which often depict negative effects. However, they go on to say that phytoplanktonic species with short
generation times "may be able to respond to environmental alterations through adaptive evolution." And with this
tantalizing possibility in mind, they studied, as they describe it, "the ability of the world's single most important calcifying
organism, the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi, to evolve in response to ocean acidification in two 500-generation
selection experiments." Working with freshly isolated genotypes from Bergen, Norway, the three German researchers grew
them in batch cultures over some 500 asexual generations at three different atmospheric CO2 concentrations - ambient
(400 ppm), medium (1100 ppm) and high (2200 ppm) - where the medium CO2 treatment was chosen to represent the
atmospheric CO2 level projected for the beginning of the next century. This they did in a multi-clone experiment designed
to provide existing genetic variation that they said "would be readily available to genotypic selection," as well as in a
single-clone experiment that was initiated with one "haphazardly chosen genotype," where evolutionary adaptation would
obviously require new mutations. So what did they learn? Compared with populations kept at ambient CO2 partial
pressure, Lohbeck et al. found that those selected at increased CO2 levels "exhibited higher growth rates, in both the
single- and multi-clone experiment, when tested under ocean acidification conditions." Calcification rates, on the other
hand, were somewhat lower under CO2-enriched conditions in all cultures; but the research team reports that they were
"up to 50% higher in adapted [medium and high CO2] compared with non-adapted cultures." And when all was said and
done, they concluded that "contemporary evolution could help to maintain the functionality of microbial processes at the
base of marine food webs in the face of global change [our italics]." In other ruminations on their findings, the marine
biologists indicate that what they call the swift adaptation processes they observed may "have the potential to affect foodweb dynamics and biogeochemical cycles on timescales of a few years, thus surpassing predicted rates of ongoing global
change including ocean acidification." And they also note, in this regard, that "a recent study reports surprisingly high
coccolith mass in an E. huxleyi population off Chile in high-CO2 waters (Beaufort et al., 2011)," which observation is said
by them to be indicative of "across-population variation in calcification, in line with findings of rapid microevolution
identified here."
Ocean Acidification Is Good, Beneficial to Organisms
Idso, PH.D and Founder of and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2012
[Sherwood, Keith, Craig, 5-19-12, “The Unsettled Science of Ocean Warming and Acidification” ,
http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N19/EDIT.php]
The world's climate alarmists would have us believe that they know all they need to know about earth's climate system and
its biological ramifications to justify an unbelievably expensive and radical restructuring of the way the industrialized
world both obtains and utilizes energy. But is this really so? In an eye-opening "perspective" article published a couple of
years ago in the 9 December 2009 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America, three researchers from the Marine Biogeochemistry Section of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel,
Germany, describe their assessment of various possible responses of the global ocean's seawater carbonate system, plus its
physical and biological carbon pumps, to ocean warming and associated changes in vertical mixing and overturning
circulation, as well as the closely-allied phenomena of ocean acidification and carbonation. All of these phenomena, many
of which are nonlinear and extremely complicated, are interlinked; and Riebesell and his colleagues thus conclude, from
their objective review of the pertinent scientific literature, that the magnitude and even the sign of the global ocean's
carbon cycle feedback to climate change are, in their words, "yet unknown." They note, for example, that "our
understanding of biological responses to ocean change is still in its infancy." With respect to ocean acidification, in
particular, they write that the impact it will have on marine life "is still uncertain," and that the phenomenon itself is but
"one side of the story," the other side being what they call "ocean carbonation," which, as they describe it, "will likely be
beneficial to some groups of photosynthetic organisms." Thus, they write that "our present understanding of biologically
driven feedback mechanisms is still rudimentary," and that with respect to many of their magnitudes, "our understanding
is too immature to even make a guess." What is more, they imply that even what we do think we know could well be
wrong, because, as they elucidate, "our present knowledge of pH/CO2 sensitivities of marine organisms is based almost
entirely on short-term perturbation experiments, neglecting the possibility of evolutionary adaptation."¶
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Ocean acidification will be slow and stable, proven by 1000 studies- it improves ocean
resiliency
Codling ‘11 [Jo, received a Bachelor of Science first class and won the FH Faulding and the Swan Brewery prizes at the
University of Western Australia. Her major was microbiology, molecular biology. Nova received a Graduate Certificate in
Scientific Communication from the Australian National University in 1989,[4] and she did honours research in 1990,
prize-winning science graduate, Jo has has done over 200 radio interviews, many on the Australian ABC. She was
formerly an associate lecturer in Science Communication at the ANU and is based in Perth, Western Australia, , “Ocean
Acidification — a little bit less alkalinity could be a good thing,” Sept. 11, http://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/oceanacidification-a-little-bit-less-alkalinity-could-be-a-good-thing/]
Studies of how marine life copes with less alkaline conditions include many experiments with water at pH values in a
range beyond anything that is likely on planet Earth — they go beyond the bounds of what’s possible. There are estimates
that the pH of the ocean has shifted about 0.1 pH unit in the last 200 years, yet some studies consider the effects of water
that is shifted by 2 or even 4 entire pH units. Four pH units means 10,000 fold change in the concentration of hydrogen
ions). That’s a shift so large, it’s not going to occur in the next few thousand years, even under the worst of the worst case
scenarios by the most sadistic models. Indeed, it’s virtually impossible for CO2 levels to rise high enough to effect that
kind of change, even if we burned every last fossil, every tree, plant microbe, and vaporized life on earth. (Yet still someone
thought it was worth studying what would happen if, hypothetically, that happened. Hmm.) CO2 science has an
extraordinary data base of 1103 studies of the effects of “acidification” on marine life. They reason that any change beyond
0.5 pH units is “far far beyond the realms of reality” even if you are concerned about coral reefs in the year 2300 (see Tans
2009). Even the IPCC’s highest end “scenario A2″ estimate predicts a peak change in the range of 0.6 units by 2300.
Many of the headlines forecasting “Death to Reefs” come from studies of ocean water at extreme pH’s that will never occur
globally, and that are beyond even what the IPCC is forecasting. Some headlines come from studies of hydrothermal vents
where CO2 bubbles up from the ocean floor. Not surprisingly they find changes to marine life near the vents, but then, the
pH of these areas ranges right down to 2.8. They are an extreme environment, nothing like what we might expect to
convert the worlds oceans too. Studies of growth, calcification, metabolism, fertility and survival show that, actually, if
things were a little less alkaline, on average, marine life would benefit. There will be winners and losers, but on the whole,
using those five measures of health, the reefs are more likely to have more life on and around them, than they are to
shrink. First, marine life evolved under conditions were most of the time the world was warmer and had more CO2 in the
atmosphere than it does today. Second, like life above the water, life-below-water is based on carbon, and putting more
carbon into the water is not necessarily a bad thing. That said, the dots in the graph above represent study results, and the
ones below zero tell us there will be some losers, even though there will be more winners (above zer0). Thirdly, watch out
for some of the more devastating headlines which also come from studies where researchers changed the pH by tossing
hydrochloric acid into the tank. Chlorine, as they say, is not the same as the gas nature breathes — CO2. (The strange thing
about the studies with hydrochloric acid, is that it doesn’t seem to be bad as we might have expected– nonetheless, it
seems like a dubious practice to use in studying the health of corals.) Yes, we should watch and monitor the oceans
careful. No, there is no chance the Great Barrier Reef will be gone in the next 100 years: 1103 studies show that if the
worlds oceans were slightly less basic then marine life as a whole will be slightly more likely to grow, survive, and be
fertile.
Climate change proves Oceans and marine bioD are resilient – alarmist predictions
empirically denied
Taylor ‘10 (James M. Taylor is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment &
Climate News., “Ocean Acidification Scare Pushed at Copenhagen,” Feb 10
http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/26815/Ocean_Acidification_Scare_Pushed_at_
Copenhagen.html)
With global temperatures continuing their decade-long decline and United Nations-sponsored global warming talks
falling apart in Copenhagen, alarmists at the U.N. talks spent considerable time claiming carbon dioxide emissions will
cause catastrophic ocean acidification, regardless of whether temperatures rise. The latest scientific data, however, show
no such catastrophe is likely to occur. The United Kingdom’s environment secretary, Hilary Benn, initiated the
Copenhagen ocean scare with a high-profile speech and numerous media interviews claiming ocean acidification threatens
the world’s food supply. “The fact is our seas absorb CO2. They absorb about a quarter of the total that we produce, but it
is making our seas more acidic,” said Benn in his speech. “If this continues as a problem, then it can affect the one billion
people who depend on fish as their principle source of protein, and we have to feed another 2½ to 3 billion people over the
next 40 to 50 years.” Benn’s claim of oceans becoming “more acidic” is misleading, however. Water with a pH of 7.0 is
considered neutral. pH values lower than 7.0 are considered acidic, while those higher than 7.0 are considered alkaline.
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The world’s oceans have a pH of 8.1, making them alkaline, not acidic. Increasing carbon dioxide concentrations would
make the oceans less alkaline but not acidic. Since human industrial activity first began emitting carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere a little more than 200 years ago, the pH of the oceans has fallen merely 0.1, from 8.2 to 8.1. Following Benn’s
December 14 speech and public relations efforts, most of the world’s major media outlets produced stories claiming ocean
acidification is threatening the world’s marine life. An Associated Press headline, for example, went so far as to call ocean
acidification the “evil twin” of climate change. Numerous recent scientific studies show higher carbon dioxide levels in the
world’s oceans have the same beneficial effect on marine life as higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have on
terrestrial plant life. In a 2005 study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, scientists examined trends in
chlorophyll concentrations, critical building blocks in the oceanic food chain. The French and American scientists reported
“an overall increase of the world ocean average chlorophyll concentration by about 22 percent” during the prior two
decades of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. In a 2006 study published in Global Change Biology, scientists
observed higher CO2 levels are correlated with better growth conditions for oceanic life. The highest CO2 concentrations
produced “higher growth rates and biomass yields” than the lower CO2 conditions. Higher CO2 levels may well fuel
“subsequent primary production, phytoplankton blooms, and sustaining oceanic food-webs,” the study concluded. In a
2008 study published in Biogeosciences, scientists subjected marine organisms to varying concentrations of CO2,
including abrupt changes of CO2 concentration. The ecosystems were “surprisingly resilient” to changes in atmospheric
CO2, and “the ecosystem composition, bacterial and phytoplankton abundances and productivity, grazing rates and total
grazer abundance and reproduction were not significantly affected by CO2-induced effects.” In a 2009 study published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists reported, “Sea star growth and feeding rates increased with
water temperature from 5ºC to 21ºC. A doubling of current [CO2] also increased growth rates both with and without a
concurrent temperature increase from 12ºC to 15ºC.” “Far too many predictions of CO2-induced catastrophes are treated
by alarmists as sure to occur, when real-world observations show these doomsday scenarios to be highly unlikely or even
virtual impossibilities,” said Craig Idso, Ph.D., author of the 2009 book CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs. “The
phenomenon of CO2-induced ocean acidification appears to be no different.
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AT: Natural Disasters
Climate Change Doesn’t Cause Tornadoes
Kunzig, Scientific Journalist, 2013
[Robert, 5-22-2013, National Geographic. “It Sounds Intuitive: Of Course Global Warming Should Lead to More and More
Powerful Tornadoes”, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130522-tornado-climate-change-oklahomascience-global-warming/]
We're adding energy to the atmosphere by trapping heat with greenhouse gases, and tornadoes are the very picture of
terrifying atmospheric energy.¶ Linking any particular weather event to climate change is always tricky, because weather is
inherently random. But weather patterns can speak to a warming planet. Scientists can detect that extreme rain events, for
instance, are already happening more often than they used to, and that a warmer atmosphere with more water vapor in it
is making such events more likely.¶ Tornadoes are different. Global warming may well end up making them more frequent
or intense, as our intuition would tell us. But it might also actually suppress them—the science just isn't clear yet.¶ Neither
is the historical record.¶ There is no real evidence that tornadoes are happening more often. A lot more are being recorded
now than in 1950, but a closer look at the data shows the increase is only in the weakest category, EF0. There's been no
increase in stronger twisters, and maybe even a slight decrease in EF4s and EF5s.¶ That suggests we're just spotting more
of the weak and short-lived tornadoes than we did back when the country was emptier (the U.S. population in 1950 was
less than half what it is now), we didn't have Doppler radar, and Oklahoma highways weren't jammed with storm-chasers.¶
There is also no evidence that tornadoes have gotten more damaging, according to a study by Roger Pielke, Jr., of the
University of Colorado and his colleagues. Even so, when you allow for inflation and increases in population and wealth in
the United States, 2011 becomes the third worst year for tornado damage, after 1953 and 1965. ¶ When National Geographic
magazine asked "What's Up With the Weather" in acover story last September, we put a tornado photo on the cover and
six pages of twister pictures inside—including a large shot of the swath of destruction that an EF4 tornado cut through
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 2011, killing 64 people there and in Birmingham.¶ But as writer Peter Miller made clear in that
story, intuition is not a reliable guide to tornadoes.
Tornadoes Aren’t Becoming More Frequent Because Of Climate Change
Sheffield, President of Dialog New Media, 2013
[Matthew, 5-25-2013, News Busters, Scientist Corrects Gullible Reporter: ‘Climate Change’ Not Causing More Tornadoes,
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2013/05/25/scientist-corrects-gullible-reporter-we-are-not-havingmore-extre]
Occasionally, we hear from people who believe that liberal media bias isn’t really that big of an issue because most people
don’t really trust reporters to tell the truth. While public trust in the media is at an all-time low, that hardly means they
lack the power to shape opinion.¶ A perfect case in point is the notion popularized by environmental alarmist Al Gore that
the Earth is experiencing more severe weather events supposedly caused by “climate change.” Like his earlier debunked
claims that global temperatures were increasing, this statement is also false. But many people are simply unaware of the
facts.That is understandable given that most people are not interested in keeping tallies of the number of hurricanes and
tornadoes. Being uninformed about the facts, they are easily susceptible to having their opinion influenced by the media’s
love of disaster coverage and also of extremists like Gore making false claims about severe weather phenomena.¶ One such
person who appears to have been influenced in this way is Los Angeles Times reporter Stacey Lessca. Fortunately for her,
yesterday she received some much-needed education during an interview with a scientist working for the National Severe
Storms Laboratory. After discussing some of the particulars of the recent tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, Lessca
shifted her questioning toward environmental orthodoxy (to watch, fast-forward to the 11:20 mark), asking research
scientist Robin Tanamachi if there really were more tornadoes happening thanks to “climate change:”¶ “It seems like
there’s been more severe weather, it seems, it just feels like hurricanes are getting worse. Hurricane Sandy ravaged the
East Coast. This tornado now has killed 24 people in the town of Moore. Do you think that more severe storms are
becoming the norm, and do you think that they are directly related to climate change?Ӧ Tanamachi answered that this
was not the case whatsoever and that people who thought otherwise were likely being influenced by the media’s continual
reporting on weather events:¶ Well the statistics don’t bear that assertion out. What we’re finding is that people’s
perception is that severe weather has increased. That perception is largely based on media presentation and that an event
like the Moore tornado is now broadcast worldwide within moments of its occurence. And so it can seem more local to
people than it is.¶ But as far as the number of tornadoes, we haven’t been able to discern an increasing trend. As far as the
number of hurricanes, we haven’t been able to discern a really solid increasing trend with that. So it’s just a matter of
people being aware of those events when they occur and being aware of them almost immediately after they happen.¶ This
is not the only issue where the media have influenced the public into believing something that is false. As Geoffrey Dickens
noted earlier this month, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that only 12 percent of Americans were
aware that gun violence has decreased even though the drop has been quite significant. By contrast, a majority, 56 percent,
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believed incorrectly that gun violence had increased. This misperception was almost certainly created by the press which
has been feverish in its coverage of mass shootings and in its advocacy for anti-gun laws.¶ Side note: The idea that human
wickedness has some sort of effect on climate has long been a staple of some religious thought and it is yet another way in
which modern environmentalism is actually similar to a religion. Both Al Gore and your garden-variety End Times lunatic
believe that humans are being punished for their sins with more extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes. It
is sad reflection on modern society that the former is on his way to becoming a billionaire while only the latter is dismissed
as a crank.
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AT: Wars
Warming Is Empirically Proven To Not Cause Wars
Schiemeier, Statistic and Geographer, 2010
[Quirin, 9-6-2010 “Climate Change Not Link To African War” ,
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100906/full/news.2010.451.html]
Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist with the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway. In research published today in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, he finds virtually no correlation between climate-change indicators
such as temperature and rainfall variability and the frequency of civil wars over the past 50 years in sub-Saharan Africa —
arguably the part of the world that is socially and environmentally most vulnerable to climate change. "The primary causes
of civil war are political, not environmental," says Buhaug. The analysis challenges a study published last year that claimed
to have found a causal connection between climate warming and civil violence in Africa. Marshall Burke, an economist at
the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues, reported a strong historical relationship between temperature and
the incidence of civil war. They found that the likelihood of armed conflict across the continent rose by around 50% in
unusually warm years during 1981-20022. Projected future warming threatens to offset the positive effects of
democratization and eradicating poverty in Africa, they warned. Data-set discord The two rival groups are now disputing
the validity of each other's findings. Buhaug says that Burke's study may have been skewed by the choice of climate data
sets, and by their narrow definition of 'civil war' as any year that saw more than 1,000 fatalities from intra-national
conflict. The definition is at odds with conventional measures of civil war in the academic literature, says Buhaug: "If a
conflict lasts for 10 years, but in only 3 of them the death toll exceeds 1,000, [Burke et al] may code it as three different
wars." "You'd really like to apply as many complementary definitions as possible before proclaiming a robust correlation
with climate change," Buhaug adds. Burke maintains that his findings are robust, and counters that Buhaug has cherrypicked his data sets to support his hypothesis. "Although we have enjoyed discussing it with him, we definitely do not
agree with Halvard on this," says Burke. "There are legitimate disagreements about which data to use, [but] basically we
think he's made some serious econometric mistakes that undermine his results. He does not do a credible job of
controlling for other things beyond climate that might be going on." Buhaug disagrees vigorously. "If they accuse me of
highlighting data sets in favour of my hypothesis, then this applies tenfold more to their own paper." The debate has much
wider implications for policy-makers. The link between climate and civil war has been mooted several times before — for
example, in a 2003 report for the Pentagon on the national-security implications of climate change; in the Stern Review on
the Economics of Climate Change, prepared for the UK government in 2006; and in the United Nations' post-conflict
environmental assessment of Sudan in 2007, which suggested that climate change was an aggravating factor in the Darfur
conflict. Given the many causes of unrest, it is not surprising that a meaningful correlation with climate is hard to pin
down, says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. "Even
if the data and methods were up to the task — which they aren't — the 'causal noise' would be too loud to discern the
currently still weak climate signals in civil wars." It is extremely difficult to identify simple, robust cause-and-effect
relationships between changes in climate and societal outcomes, agrees Roger Pielke, a political scientist and climate
policy expert at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "The climate signals are small in the context of the broader social
factors," Pielke says. "This does not at all diminish the importance of responding to climate change, but it does offer a
stark warning about trying to use overly simplistic notions of cause and effect to advocate for such actions.
Climate Change Doesn’t Cause War- Model Proves
Koubi, PH.D, 2012
[Vally, Center for Comparative and International Studies, “Climate variability, economic growth, and civil conflict”,
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/49/1/113.full]
Whether increasing local or regional climate variability due to large-scale, human-induced changes in the global
atmosphere is associated with an increased risk of violent conflict remains contested, both among policymakers and in
academic circles. In this article we contribute in two ways to the existing literature on the climate change–conflict nexus.
First, we conceptualize this nexus in terms of a two-stage process in which climatic variability affects the probability of
violent intrastate conflict via climate effects on economic growth, and where these effects may be contingent on political
system characteristics. Second, we employ a measure of climatic variability that has advantages over those used in the
existing literature, primarily because it takes into account the adaptation of economic activity to persistent climatic
changes. Our results suggest that climate variability, measured as deviations in temperature and precipitation from their
past, long-run levels (a 30-year moving average), does not affect violent intrastate conflict through economic growth. This
finding is important because the causal pathway leading from climate variability via (deteriorating) economic growth to
conflict is a key part of most theoretical models of the climate–conflict nexus. While our empirical results provide no
support for the climate change–economic growth–conflict pathway, further research is required before we can move
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towards closure of the debate. In particular, it would be very useful to improve on existing indicators of climatic
variability, adaptation to climate variability, and relevant (from the viewpoint of violent conflict) economic performance.
For instance, in the absence of appropriate indicators for adaptation it remains difficult to estimate the effect of climatic
variability on economic performance and hence on the probability of violent conflict. ¶
Resource Wars Are Far From Inevitable
Bier, 2011
[David, 28-11-2011, Steven Pinker: Resource Scarcity Doesn’t Cause Wars,
http://www.globalwarming.org/2011/11/28/steven-pinker-resource-scarcity-doesnt-cause-wars/]
A 2007 New York Times op-ed warned, “Climate stress may well represent a challenge to international security just as
dangerous–and more intractable–than the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War
or the proliferation of nuclear weapons among rogue states today.” That same year Al Gore and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their call to action against global warming because,
according to the citation, climate change is a threat to international security. A rising fear lifts all the boats. Calling global
warming “a force multiplier for instability,” a group of military officers wrote that “climate change will provide the
conditions that will extend the war on terror.”¶ Once again it seems to me that the appropriate response is “maybe, but
maybe not.” Though climate change can cause plenty of misery… it will not necessarily lead to armed conflict. The political
scientists who track war and peace, such as Halvard Buhaug, Idean Salehyan, Ole Theisen, and Nils Gleditsch, are
skeptical of the popular idea that people fight wars over scarce resources. Hunger and resource shortages are tragically
common in sub-Saharan countries such as Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania, but wars involving them are not. Hurricanes,
floods, droughts, and tsunamis (such as the disastrous one in the Indian Ocean in 2004) do not generally lead to conflict.
The American dust bowl in the 1930s, to take another example, caused plenty of deprivation but no civil war. And while
temperatures have been rising steadily in Africa during the past fifteen years, civil wars and war deaths have been falling.¶
Pressures on access to land and water can certainly cause local skirmishes, but a genuine war requires that hostile forces
be organized and armed, and that depends more on the influence of bad governments, closed economies, and militant
ideologies than on the sheer availability of land and water. Certainly any connection to terrorism is in the imagination of
the terror warriors: terrorists tend to be underemployed lower-middle-class men, not subsistence farmers. As for
genocide, the Sudanese government finds it convenient to blame violence in Darfur on desertification, distracting the
world from its own role in tolerating or encouraging the ethnic cleansing.¶ In a regression analysis on armed conflicts
from 1980 to 1992, Theisen found that conflict was more likely if a country was poor, populous, politically unstable, and
abundant in oil, but not if it had suffered from droughts, water shortages, or mild land degradation. (Severe land
degradation did have a small effect.) Reviewing analyses that examined a large number (N) of countries rather than
cherry-picking one or toe, he concluded, “Those who foresee doom, because of the relationship between resource scarcity
and violent internal conflict, have very little support from the large-N literature.Ӧ Salehyan adds that relatively
inexpensive advances in water use and agricultural practices in the developing world can yield massive increases in
productivity with a constant or even shrinking amount of land, and that better governance can mitigate the human costs of
environmental damage, as it does in developed democracies. Since the state of the environment is at most one ingredient
in a mixture that depends far more on political and social organization, resource wars are far from inevitable, even in a
climate-changed world.
Resource Scarcity Solves Relations and Conflict
Dinar, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida
International University, 2011
[Shlomi, 8-21-2011, “Beyond Resource Wars”, http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/beyond-resource-wars]
This volume asserts that while resource scarcity and environmental degradation may well constitute sources of conflict,
political dispute, and mismanagement between states, they may also be the impetus for coop- eration, coordination, and
negotiation between them. While the volume recognizes both sides of the resource scarcity and environmental degradation coin, the cooperative relationship is of particular interest and scrutiny. Indeed, conflict frequently motivates
cooperation, and resource scarcity and environmental degradation are important elements of this relationship. Generally,
the authors in this volume maintain that increasing scarcity and degradation induce cooperation across states. To that
Solve Extent, we provide a different perspective than that of the resource wars argument made with regard to particular
natural resources such as oil, freshwater, minerals, and fisheries. Yet beyond this claim, the volume systematically
explores the intricacies and nuances of this scarcity and degradation contention across a set of additional resources and
environmental prob- lems, which may merely motivate political conflicts such as climate change, ozone depletion, oceans
pollution, transboundary air pollution, and biodiversity conservation. In particular, and in line with the collec- tive action
school, the volume investigates the notion that as scarcity and degradation worsen, interstate cooperation becomes
difficult to achieve since it may be too costly to manage the degradation or there is simply too little of the resource to share
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(Ostrom 2001). Similarly, low levels of scarcity may depress cooperation as there is less urgency to organize and
coordinate. Scarcity and degradation levels, in other words, should matter in explaining the intensity of cooperation.
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***Warming Good DAs***
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***Ice Age***
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1NC – Ice Age DA
An ice age is coming and will cause extinction- only maintaining emissions can solve
Kenny 2
(Andrew, 7/14/02, The Sunday Mail, “The Ice Age Cometh”, http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/iceage.htm, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
A new ice age is due now , but you wont hear it from the green groups, who like to play on Western guilt about consumerism to make us
believe in global warming.¶ THE Earth's climate is changing in a dramatic way, with immense danger for mankind and the
natural systems that sustain it. This was the frightening message broadcast to us by environmentalists in the recent past. Here are some of their
prophecies.¶ The facts have emerged, in recent years and months, from research into past ice ages. They imply that the threat of a
new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind. (Nigel Calder,
former editor of New Scientist, in International Wildlife, July 1975)¶ The cooling has already killed thousands of people in poor nations ...
If it continues, and no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world
war, and this could all come about by the year 2000. (Lowe Ponte, The Cooling, 1976)¶ As recently as January 1994, the supreme authority on matters
environmental, Time magazine, wrote:¶ The ice age cometh? Last week's big chill was a reminder that the Earth's climate can change at any time ... The
last (ice age) ended 10,000 years ago; the next one — for there will be a next one — could start tens of thousands of years
from now. Or tens of years. Or it may have already started.¶ The scare about global cooling was always the same:
unprecedented low temperatures; the coldest weather recorded; unusual floods and storms; a rapid shift in the world's
climate towards an icy apocalypse.¶ But now, the scare is about global warming. To convert from the first scare to the second, all you have to do
is substitute "the coldest weather recorded" with "the warmest weather recorded". Replace the icicles hanging from oranges in California with melting
glaciers on Mt Everest, and the shivering armadillos with sweltering polar bears. We were going to freeze but now we are going to fry.¶ Even the White
House is making cautionary sounds about warming.¶ What facts have emerged to make this dramatic reversal? Well, none really. The most reliable
measurements show no change whatsoever in global temperatures in the past 20 years. What has changed is the perception that global warming makes a
better scare than the coming ice age.¶ A good environmental scare needs two ingredients. The first is impending catastrophe. The second is a suitable
culprit to blame. In the second case, the ice age fails and global warming is gloriously successful. It is not the destruction itself of Sodom and Gomorrah
that makes the story so appealing but the fact that they were destroyed because they were so sinful.¶ One of the real threats to mankind is the danger of
collision with a large asteroid. It has happened in the past with catastrophic effect, and it will probably happen again. But there are no conferences,
resolutions, gatherings, protests and newspaper headlines about asteroid impacts. The reason is that you cannot find anyone suitable to blame for them.
If you could persuade people that President Bush or the oil companies were responsible for the asteroids, I guarantee there would be a billion-dollar
campaign to "raise awareness" about the asteroid danger, with sonorous editorials in all the papers. ¶ Global warming has the perfect culprit: naughty,
industrialised, advanced, consuming, Western society, which has made itself very rich by burning a lot of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). This, so the scare
goes, is releasing a lot of carbon dioxide, which is dangerously heating up the world.¶ THERE are two facts in the scare. First, it is true that carbon
dioxide is a greenhouse gas one which traps heat on Earth. (Without it, the Earth would be 'too cold for' life.) Second, it is true that the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising. The rest is guesswork.¶ The global warmers said the most accurate measure of climate change would be air
temperatures. For the past 20 years or more, air temperatures have been measured with extreme accuracy. They show no warming whatsoever.¶ Surface
temperatures are much less reliable since the recording stations are often encroached on by expanding cities, which warm the local environment. The
curve most often used by the global warmers is one showing surface temperatures rising by about half a degree in the past 100 years. (The curve,
incidentally, is a bad match against rising carbon dioxide but a good one against solar activity, which suggests the sun might be the reason for the
warming.)¶ However, there are accurate methods of measuring sea temperatures going back much further. Past temperatures for the Atlantic Ocean have
been found by looking at dead marine life. The isotope ratio of carbon-14 in their skeletons tells you when they lived. The ratio of other isotopes tells you
the temperature then. Thus we are able to know temperatures in the Atlantic and northern Europe going back thousands of years. They make nonsense
of the global warming scare.¶ The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. Temperatures rose to the "Holocene Maximum" of about 5000 years ago
when it was about l.5°C higher than now, dropped in the time of Christ, and then rose to the "Medieval Climate Optimum" in the years 600 to 1100, when
temperatures. were about 1°C higher than now. This was a golden age for northern European agriculture and led to the rise of Viking civilisation.¶
Greenland, now a frozen wasteland, was then a habitable Viking colony. There were vineyards in the south of England. Then temperatures dropped to
"The Little Ice Age" in the 1600s, when the Thames froze over. And they have been rising slowly ever since, although they are still much lower than 1000
years ago.¶ We are now in a rather cool period.¶ What caused these ups and downs of temperature? We do not know. Temperature changes are a fact of
nature, and we have no idea if the claimed 0.3C heating over the past 100 years is caused by man's activities or part of a natural cycle.¶ What we can say,
though, is that if Europe heats up by 1°C it would do it a power of good. We can see this from records of 1000 years ago. Moreover, increased carbon
dioxide makes plants grow more quickly, so improving crops and forests.¶ The Earth's climate is immensely complicated, far beyond our present powers
of understanding and the calculating powers of modern computers. Changes in phase from ice to water to vapour; cloud formation; convection; ocean
currents; winds; changes in the sun: the complicated shapes of the land masses; the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide — all of these and a
thousand other factors operating with small differences over vast masses and distances make it practically impossible for us to make predictions about
long-term climate patterns, and perhaps make such predictions inherently impossible. The computer models that the global warmers now use are
ludicrously oversimplified, and it is no surprise they have made one wrong prediction after another.¶ If the global warming scare has little foundation in
fact, the ice-age scare is only too solidly founded. For the past two million years, but not before, the northern hemisphere has gone through a regular
cycle of ice ages: 90,000 years with ice: 10,000 years without. The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago. Our time is up. The next ice age is due.¶ We do not
know what causes the ice ages. It is probably to do with the arrangement of northern land masses and the path of the Gulf Stream, but we do not know.¶
However, a new
ice age, unlike global warming, would be a certain calamity.¶ It may be that increased levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere are actually warding off the ice age. In this case, we should give tax relief to coal
power stations and factories for every tonne of carbon dioxide they release.
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An ice age is coming and will cause extinction- need to keep up emissions to survive
Chapman, geophysicist and astronautical engineer, ‘8
(Phil, April 23th 2008, The Australian, “Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html, accessed 7/12/2013, JA)
THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.¶ What is scary about the picture is that
there is only one tiny sunspot.¶ Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth
has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.¶ All four agencies that
track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in
New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California ) report that it
cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we
were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.¶ There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence
that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of
Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.¶ It is generally not possible to draw
conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next
few years.¶ This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent
minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.¶ It didn't
happen. The first
sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days . A tiny spot appeared last Monday but
vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon. ¶ The
reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous
time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from
1790.¶ Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly
due to the lack of sunspots.¶ That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on
schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.¶ It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin
contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.¶ There is no
doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything
warming may do . There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the
US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.¶ Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare
for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.¶ There is also another possibility,
remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation
has almost always afflicted our planet.¶ The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about
1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.¶ The interglacial
we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation
can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years. ¶ The next descent into an ice age is
inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in
typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027. ¶ By then, most of the
advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a
catastrophe beyond imagining.¶ Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of
refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.¶
The coming Ice Age outweighs any impacts of Warming
Singer, distinguished research professor at George Mason and Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the
Hudson Institute, ‘7
(Fred, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years”, Page 13, JA
The climate event that deserves real concern is the next Big Ice Age. That is inevitably approaching, though it may still be
thousands of years away. When it comes, temperatures may plummet 15 degrees Celsius, with the high latitudes getting up to
40 degrees colder. Humanity and food production will be forced closer to the equator , as huge ice sheets expand in Canada.
Scandinavia. Russia, and Argentina. Even Ohio and Indiana may gradually be encased in mile-thick ice, while California and the Great
Plains could suffer century-long drought. Keeping warm will become the critical issue,
both night and day . Getting
enough food for eight or nine billion people from the relatively small amount of arable land left unfrozen will be a
potentially desperate effort. The broad, fertile plains of Alberta and the Ukraine will become sub-Arctic wastes. Wildlife species
will be extremely challenged, even though they've survived such cold before-because this time there will be more humans
competing for the ice-free land. That's when human knowledge and high-tech farming will be truly needed. In contrast, none of the
scary scenarios posited by today's global warming advocates took place during the Earth's past warm periods
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An ice age is coming
National Post ‘8 (February 25th 2008, the National Post, “Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=d7c7fcce-d248-4e97-ab72-1adbdbb1d0d0, accessed
7/12/13, JA)
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. ¶ The U.S.
National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures
in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the
1901-2000 (20th century) average."¶ China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally
balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because
once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.¶ There have been so many snow and ice storms in
Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed
home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.¶ In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of
snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days
of 1950.¶ And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on
record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological
evidence of much greater melts in the past.¶ The ice is back.¶ Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice
Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker
in many places than at this time last year.¶ OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an
Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades. ¶ But if environmentalists and
environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin
shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder
whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.¶ And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climatechange dogma.¶ According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University
and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate
modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial
water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong. ¶ "We
missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives
ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects
on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice
melt.¶ But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the
equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious
in the current Arctic warming.¶ Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences,
shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase,
Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."¶ He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research
Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold
weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.¶ The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age
that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war
were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.¶ It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen
again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.
An ice age is cooling due to lower sun activity- solar science proves
Svensmark, PhD., director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space,‘9
(Henrik, 9/10/09, Whatsupwiththat.com, “Svensmark: “global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning” – “enjoy
global warming while it lasts”, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-acooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s
magnetic activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.”
Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance
that has for us on Earth.¶ If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current
consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is
probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.¶ Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had
a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May
were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the
coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period. ¶ But
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after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call
the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by
marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop
failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and
hunger.¶ "The March across the Belts was a campaign between January 30 and February 8, 1658 during the Northern Wars
where Swedish king Karl X Gustav led the Swedish army from Jutland across the ice of the Little Belt and the Great Belt to
reach Zealand (Danish: Sjælland). The risky but vastly successful crossing was a crushing blow to Denmark, and led to the
Treaty of Roskilde later that year...." - Click for larger image.¶ It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global
event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity
has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again,
and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age.¶ The match
between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that,
almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated
between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a
sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.¶ You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not
believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation.
That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light
bulb.¶ Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change.
But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we
discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming
from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.¶ When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding
us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover,
the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low
solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s
magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of
global warming seen then.¶ That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour
their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a
significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.¶ Ever since we
put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science. ¶ First it was said
that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in
2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical
mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation. ¶ Then came the criticism that
the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical
significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically. ¶ It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be
called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few
days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud
droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s
clouds originate in space.¶ So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane
in the mid-1990s.¶ That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in
Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little
provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”¶ In fact global warming has stopped
and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in
Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North
Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a
comeback.
Emissions can prevent an ice age – we must continue to burn fossil fuels
Science Daily, ‘7
(Aug. 30, 2007, ScienceDaily.com, “Next Ice Age Delayed By Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels”,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070829193436.htm, accessed 7/12/2013, JA)
Future ice ages may be delayed by up to half a million years by our burning of fossil fuels. That is the implication of recent
work by Dr Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National
Oceanography Centre, Southampton.¶ Arguably, this work demonstrates the most far-reaching disruption of long-term
planetary processes yet suggested for human activity.¶ Dr Tyrrell's team used a mathematical model to study what would
happen to marine chemistry in a world with ever-increasing supplies of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. ¶ The world's
oceans are absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere but in doing so they are becoming more acidic. This in turn is dissolving
the calcium carbonate in the shells produced by surface-dwelling marine organisms, adding even more carbon to the
oceans. The outcome is elevated carbon dioxide for far longer than previously assumed. ¶ Computer modelling in 2004 by a
then oceanography undergraduate student at the University, Stephanie Castle, first interested Dr Tyrrell and colleague
Professor John Shepherd in the problem. They subsequently developed a theoretical analysis to validate the plausibility of
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the phenomenon.¶ The work, which is part-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, confirms earlier ideas of
David Archer of the University of Chicago, who first estimated the impact rising CO2 levels would have on the timing of
the next ice age.¶ Dr Tyrrell said: 'Our research shows why atmospheric CO2 will not return to pre-industrial levels after we
stop burning fossil fuels. It shows that it if we use up all known fossil fuels it doesn't matter at what rate we burn them.
The result would be the same if we burned them at present rates or at more moderate rates; we would still get the same
eventual ice-age-prevention result.'¶ Ice ages occur around every 100,000 years as the pattern of Earth's orbit alters over
time. Changes in the way the sun strikes the Earth allows for the growth of ice caps, plunging the Earth into an ice age. But
it is not only variations in received sunlight that determine the descent into an ice age; levels of atmospheric CO2 are also
important.¶ Humanity has to date burnt about 300 Gt C of fossil fuels. This work suggests that even if only 1000 Gt C
(gigatonnes of carbon) are eventually burnt (out of total reserves of about 4000 Gt C) then it is likely that the next ice age
will be skipped. Burning all recoverable fossil fuels could lead to avoidance of the next five ice ages.
Warming can’t trigger another Ice Age – prefer our science over their unwarranted
fear-mongering
Gibbs, journalist for the New York Times, 2007
(Walter, May 15th 2007, The New York Times, “Scientists Back Off Theory of a Colder Europe in a Warming World”,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/science/earth/15cold.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/News/Science/Topics/%20Env
ironment&_r=2%3E, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
Mainstream climatologists who have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern
Europe or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster, although it retains a
vivid hold on the public imagination.¶ The idea, which held climate theorists in its icy grip for years, was that the North
Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream that cuts northeast across the Atlantic Ocean to bathe the high latitudes
of Europe with warmish equatorial water, could shut down in a greenhouse world.¶ Without that warm-water current,
Americans on the Eastern Seaboard would most likely feel a chill, but the suffering would be greater in Europe, where
major cities lie far to the north. Britain, northern France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway could in theory take
on Arctic aspects that only a Greenlander could love, even as the rest of the world sweltered. ¶ All that has now been
removed from the forecast. Not only is northern Europe warming, but every major climate model produced by scientists
worldwide in recent years has also shown that the warming will almost certainly continue. ¶ “The concern had previously
been that we were close to a threshold where the Atlantic circulation system would stop,” said Susan Solomon, a senior
scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We now believe we are much farther from that
threshold, thanks to improved modeling and ocean measurements. The Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current are
more stable than previously thought.Ӧ After consulting 23 climate models, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change said in February it was “very unlikely” that the crucial flow of warm water to Europe would stall in this
century. The panel did say that the gradual melting of the Greenland ice sheet along with increased precipitation in the far
north were likely to weaken the North Atlantic Current by 25 percent through 2100. But the panel added that any cooling
effect in Europe would be overwhelmed by a general warming of the atmosphere, a warming that the panel said was under
way as a result of rising concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.¶ “The bottom line is that the
atmosphere is warming up so much that a slowdown of the North Atlantic Current will never be able to cool Europe,” said
Helge Drange, a professor at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway.
An Ice Age causes extinction
Snook, author, ‘7
(Jim, “Ice Age Extinction: Cause and Human Consequences”, JA)
This study indicates that low atmospheric carbon dioxide was the major cause of the large animal extinction near the end
of the last ice age. There was not enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for most plants in the higher latitude and low
altitude areas. The reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere occurred over thousands of years, and the dying off of
the plants was a very gradual process. Without sufficient plants to eat, most of the large animals could not survive .
These large animals had been on earth for many millions of years and had survived many previous threats to their
existence. Yet in a geologically short period of time they became extinct. We will now look at the sequence of events
involved in extinction.
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Sunspots prove- global cooling is coming
Ferrara, Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform
and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and
Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. I served in the White House Office of Policy Development under
President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. I
am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of America's Ticking Bankruptcy
Bomb, 5/26/13
(Peter, 7/12/13, Forbes.com, “To the Horror of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here”,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-ishere/, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
The 20 to 30 year ocean temperature cycles turned back to warm from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, which is the
primary reason that global temperatures warmed during this period. But that warming ended 15 years ago, and global
temperatures have stopped increasing since then, if not actually cooled, even though global CO2 emissions have soared
over this period. As The Economist magazine reported in March, “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to
the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750.” Yet,
still no warming during that time. That is because the CO2 greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural
causes of global temperature changes.¶ At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles turning
back to cold. But something much more ominous has developed over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term
cycles, with longer cyclical trends of 90 and even 200 years. The number of sunspots declined substantially in the last 11
year cycle, after flattening out over the previous 20 years. But in the current cycle, sunspot activity has collapsed. NASA’s
Science News report for January 8, 2013 states,¶ “Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right
now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 [the current short term 11 year cycle] is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is
(controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and
William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on
the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology
and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.”¶ That is even more significant because NASA’s climate science
has been controlled for years by global warming hysteric James Hansen, who recently announced his retirement.¶ But this
same concern is increasingly being echoed worldwide. The Voice of Russia reported on April 22, 2013,¶ “Global warming
which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists
from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to
decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from
groundless.”¶ That report quoted Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory saying, “Evidently, solar activity is on the
decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle
is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.” In other words,
another Little Ice Age.
An ice age is coming and will cause extinction- only maintaining emissions can solve
Kenny 2
(Andrew, 7/14/02, The Sunday Mail, “The Ice Age Cometh”, http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/iceage.htm, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
A new ice age is due now , but you wont hear it from the green groups, who like to play on Western guilt about
consumerism to make us believe in global warming.¶ THE Earth's climate is changing in a dramatic way, with immense
danger for mankind and the natural systems that sustain it. This was the frightening message broadcast to us by
environmentalists in the recent past. Here are some of their prophecies.¶ The facts have emerged, in recent years and
months, from research into past ice ages. They imply that the threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear
war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind. (Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, in
International Wildlife, July 1975)¶ The cooling has already killed thousands of people in poor nations... If it continues, and
no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world war,
and this could all come about by the year 2000. (Lowe Ponte, The Cooling, 1976) ¶ As recently as January 1994, the
supreme authority on matters environmental, Time magazine, wrote:¶ The ice age cometh? Last week's big chill was a
reminder that the Earth's climate can change at any time ... The last (ice age) ended 10,000 years ago; the next one — for
there will be a next one — could start tens of thousands of years from now. Or tens of years. Or it may have already
started.¶ The scare about global cooling was always the same: unprecedented low temperatures; the coldest weather
recorded; unusual floods and storms; a rapid shift in the world's climate towards an icy apocalypse. ¶ But now, the scare is
about global warming. To convert from the first scare to the second, all you have to do is substitute "the coldest weather
recorded" with "the warmest weather recorded". Replace the icicles hanging from oranges in California with melting
glaciers on Mt Everest, and the shivering armadillos with sweltering polar bears. We were going to freeze but now we are
going to fry.¶ Even the White House is making cautionary sounds about warming.¶ What facts have emerged to make this
dramatic reversal? Well, none really. The most reliable measurements show no change whatsoever in global temperatures
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in the past 20 years. What has changed is the perception that global warming makes a better scare than the coming ice
age.¶ A good environmental scare needs two ingredients. The first is impending catastrophe. The second is a suitable
culprit to blame. In the second case, the ice age fails and global warming is gloriously successful. It is not the destruction
itself of Sodom and Gomorrah that makes the story so appealing but the fact that they were destroyed because they were
so sinful.¶ One of the real threats to mankind is the danger of collision with a large asteroid. It has happened in the past
with catastrophic effect, and it will probably happen again. But there are no conferences, resolutions, gatherings, protests
and newspaper headlines about asteroid impacts. The reason is that you cannot find anyone suitable to blame for them. If
you could persuade people that President Bush or the oil companies were responsible for the asteroids, I guarantee there
would be a billion-dollar campaign to "raise awareness" about the asteroid danger, with sonorous editorials in all the
papers.¶ Global warming has the perfect culprit: naughty, industrialised, advanced, consuming, Western society, which has
made itself very rich by burning a lot of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). This, so the scare goes, is releasing a lot of carbon
dioxide, which is dangerously heating up the world.¶ THERE are two facts in the scare. First, it is true that carbon dioxide
is a greenhouse gas one which traps heat on Earth. (Without it, the Earth would be 'too cold for' life.) Second, it is true that
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising. The rest is guesswork. ¶ The global warmers said the most
accurate measure of climate change would be air temperatures. For the past 20 years or more, air temperatures have been
measured with extreme accuracy. They show no warming whatsoever.¶ Surface temperatures are much less reliable since
the recording stations are often encroached on by expanding cities, which warm the local environment. The curve most
often used by the global warmers is one showing surface temperatures rising by about half a degree in the past 100 years.
(The curve, incidentally, is a bad match against rising carbon dioxide but a good one against solar activity, which suggests
the sun might be the reason for the warming.)¶ However, there are accurate methods of measuring sea temperatures going
back much further. Past temperatures for the Atlantic Ocean have been found by looking at dead marine life. The isotope
ratio of carbon-14 in their skeletons tells you when they lived. The ratio of other isotopes tells you the temperature then.
Thus we are able to know temperatures in the Atlantic and northern Europe going back thousands of years. They make
nonsense of the global warming scare.¶ The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. Temperatures rose to the "Holocene
Maximum" of about 5000 years ago when it was about l.5°C higher than now, dropped in the time of Christ, and then rose
to the "Medieval Climate Optimum" in the years 600 to 1100, when temperatures. were about 1°C higher than now. This
was a golden age for northern European agriculture and led to the rise of Viking civilisation.¶ Greenland, now a frozen
wasteland, was then a habitable Viking colony. There were vineyards in the south of England. Then temperatures dropped
to "The Little Ice Age" in the 1600s, when the Thames froze over. And they have been rising slowly ever since, although
they are still much lower than 1000 years ago.¶ We are now in a rather cool period.¶ What caused these ups and downs of
temperature? We do not know. Temperature changes are a fact of nature, and we have no idea if the claimed 0.3C heating
over the past 100 years is caused by man's activities or part of a natural cycle.¶ What we can say, though, is that if Europe
heats up by 1°C it would do it a power of good. We can see this from records of 1000 years ago. Moreover, increased
carbon dioxide makes plants grow more quickly, so improving crops and forests. ¶ The Earth's climate is immensely
complicated, far beyond our present powers of understanding and the calculating powers of modern computers. Changes
in phase from ice to water to vapour; cloud formation; convection; ocean currents; winds; changes in the sun: the
complicated shapes of the land masses; the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide — all of these and a thousand
other factors operating with small differences over vast masses and distances make it practically impossible for us to make
predictions about long-term climate patterns, and perhaps make such predictions inherently impossible. The computer
models that the global warmers now use are ludicrously oversimplified, and it is no surprise they have made one wrong
prediction after another.¶ If the global warming scare has little foundation in fact, the ice-age scare is only too solidly
founded. For the past two million years, but not before, the northern hemisphere has gone through a regular cycle of ice
ages: 90,000 years with ice: 10,000 years without. The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago. Our time is up. The next ice
age is due.¶ We do not know what causes the ice ages. It is probably to do with the arrangement of northern land masses
and the path of the Gulf Stream, but we do not know.¶ However, a new ice age, unlike global warming, would be a certain
calamity.¶ It may be that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are actually warding off the
ice age. In this case, we should give tax relief to coal power stations and factories for every tonne of carbon dioxide they
release.
An ice age is coming and will cause extinction- need to keep up emissions to survive
Chapman, geophysicist and astronautical engineer, ‘8
(Phil, April 23th 2008, The Australian, “Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html, accessed 7/12/2013, JA)
THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun
from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial
gravity.¶ What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot. ¶ Disconcerting as it may be to true believers
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Warming Core
in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade,
despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global
temperature is falling precipitously.¶ All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research
Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of
Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest
temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not
soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.¶ There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007
was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and
the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in
1770.¶ It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would
normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years. ¶ This is where SOHO comes in.
The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in
March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.¶
It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days . A tiny spot appeared last
Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more,
and soon. ¶ The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and
Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that
lasted several decades from 1790.¶ Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army
during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.¶ That the rapid temperature decline
in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for
concern.¶ It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we
are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.¶ There is no doubt that the next
little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do .
There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the
US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.¶ Millions will
starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will
die from cold-related diseases.¶ There is also another possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and
Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation has almost always
afflicted our planet.¶ The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried
under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically
lasting less than 10,000 years.¶ The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene,
began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in
global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.¶ The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not
happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in
typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027. ¶ By then, most of the
advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a
catastrophe beyond imagining.¶ Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of
refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.¶
The coming Ice Age outweighs any impacts of Warming
Singer, distinguished research professor at George Mason and Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the
Hudson Institute, ‘7
(Fred, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years”, Page 13, JA
The climate event that deserves real concern is the next Big Ice Age. That is inevitably approaching, though it may still be
thousands of years away. When it comes, temperatures may plummet 15 degrees Celsius, with the high latitudes getting up to
40 degrees colder. Humanity and food production will be forced closer to the equator , as huge ice sheets expand in Canada.
Scandinavia. Russia, and Argentina. Even Ohio and Indiana may gradually be encased in mile-thick ice, while California and the Great
Plains could suffer century-long drought. Keeping warm will become the critical issue,
both night and day . Getting
enough food for eight or nine billion people from the relatively small amount of arable land left unfrozen will be a
potentially desperate effort. The broad, fertile plains of Alberta and the Ukraine will become sub-Arctic wastes. Wildlife species
will be extremely challenged, even though they've survived such cold before-because this time there will be more humans
competing for the ice-free land. That's when human knowledge and high-tech farming will be truly needed. In contrast, none of the
scary scenarios posited by today's global warming advocates took place during the Earth's past warm periods
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2NC – UQ – Ice Age Coming
Sunspots prove- global cooling is coming
Ferrara, Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform
and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and
Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. I served in the White House Office of Policy Development under
President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. I
am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of America's Ticking Bankruptcy
Bomb, 5/26/13
(Peter, 7/12/13, Forbes.com, “To the Horror of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here”,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-ishere/, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
The 20 to 30 year ocean temperature cycles turned back to warm from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, which is the primary reason that global
temperatures warmed during this period. But that warming ended 15 years ago, and global temperatures have stopped increasing since then, if not
actually cooled, even though global CO2 emissions have soared over this period. As The Economist magazine reported in March, “The world added
roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010 . That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by
humanity since 1750.” Yet, still no warming during that time. That is because the CO2 greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural
causes of global temperature changes.¶ At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles turning back to cold. But something
much more ominous has developed over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term cycles, with longer cyclical trends of 90 and
even 200 years. The number of sunspots declined substantially in the last 11 year cycle, after flattening out over the
previous 20 years. But in the current cycle, sunspot activity has collapsed. NASA’s Science News report for January 8, 2013 states,¶
“Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 [the current short term 11 year cycle] is the
weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the
magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time
Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research
involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.”¶ That is even more significant because NASA’s climate science has
been controlled for years by global warming hysteric James Hansen, who recently announced his retirement.¶ But this same concern is increasingly being
echoed worldwide. The Voice of Russia reported on April 22, 2013,¶ “Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions
in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is
waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global
cooling are far from groundless.”¶ That report quoted Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory saying, “Evidently, solar activity is on the
decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle
is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.” In other words,
another Little Ice Age.
An ice age is coming
National Post ‘8 (February 25th 2008, the National Post, “Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=d7c7fcce-d248-4e97-ab72-1adbdbb1d0d0, accessed
7/12/13, JA)
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. ¶ The U.S.
National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and
early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."¶ China is
surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities
went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.¶ There have been so many
snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather
than venturing out looking for new houses.¶ In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record
of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.¶ And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we
were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is
anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.¶ The ice is back.¶ Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice
Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many
places than at this time last year.¶ OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we
have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.¶ But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade
destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather
stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.¶ And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change
dogma.¶ According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor
of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the
oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow)
are all wrong.¶ "We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents
northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have
compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.¶ But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to
include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the
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north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.¶ Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off
manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up
on fur coats."¶ He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is
convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.¶ The last time the sun was this inactive,
Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and
drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased. ¶ It's way too early to claim
the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.
An ice age is cooling due to lower sun activity- solar science proves
Svensmark, PhD., director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space,‘9
(Henrik, 9/10/09, Whatsupwiththat.com, “Svensmark: “global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning” – “enjoy
global warming while it lasts”, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-acooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic
activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the
current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of
hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance that has for us on Earth. ¶ If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research
suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.¶ Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period
of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great
importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example,
China’s population doubled in this period.¶ But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the
episode we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching
across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished
populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger. ¶ "The March across the Belts was a campaign between January 30
and February 8, 1658 during the Northern Wars where Swedish king Karl X Gustav led the Swedish army from Jutland across the ice of the Little Belt
and the Great Belt to reach Zealand (Danish: Sjælland). The risky but vastly successful crossing was a crushing blow to Denmark, and led to the Treaty of
Roskilde later that year...." - Click for larger image.¶ It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century
and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago.
But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such
as we saw in the Little Ice Age.¶ The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained
away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a
link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years . In fact the Sun spent about 17
per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.¶ You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not
believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way
for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.¶ Satellite measurements have shown that the
variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much
more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s
cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.¶ When the Sun is active, its magnetic
field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the
Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding
against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural
mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.¶ That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility.
It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of
warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.¶ Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been
subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.¶ First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because
no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of
a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.¶ Then came the criticism that the mechanism we
found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical significance. We have just rejected that criticism
emphatically.¶ It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray
intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid
water in cloud droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in
space.¶ So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.¶ That the Sun might now fall
asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our
book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”¶ In fact global warming
has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that
the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years . His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in
solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.
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2NC – Links – Emissions Good
Emissions can prevent an ice age – we must continue to burn fossil fuels
Science Daily, ‘7
(Aug. 30, 2007, ScienceDaily.com, “Next Ice Age Delayed By Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels”,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070829193436.htm, accessed 7/12/2013, JA)
Future ice ages may be delayed by up to half a million years by our burning of fossil fuels. That is the implication of recent work by
Dr Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.¶ Arguably,
this work demonstrates the most far-reaching disruption of long-term planetary processes yet suggested for human activity.¶ Dr Tyrrell's team used a
mathematical model to study what would happen to marine chemistry in a world with ever-increasing supplies of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.¶
The world's oceans are absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere but in doing so they are becoming more acidic. This in turn is dissolving the calcium
carbonate in the shells produced by surface-dwelling marine organisms, adding even more carbon to the oceans. The outcome is elevated carbon dioxide
for far longer than previously assumed.¶ Computer modelling in 2004 by a then oceanography undergraduate student at the University, Stephanie
Castle, first interested Dr Tyrrell and colleague Professor John Shepherd in the problem. They subsequently developed a theoretical analysis to validate
the plausibility of the phenomenon.¶ The work, which is part-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, confirms earlier ideas of
David Archer of the University of Chicago, who first estimated the impact rising CO2 levels would have on the timing of the next
ice age.¶ Dr Tyrrell said: 'Our research shows why atmospheric CO2 will not return to pre-industrial levels after we stop
burning fossil fuels. It shows that it if we use up all known fossil fuels it doesn't matter at what rate we burn them. The
result would be the same if we burned them at present rates or at more moderate rates; we would still get the same
eventual ice-age-prevention result.'¶ Ice ages occur around every 100,000 years as the pattern of Earth's orbit alters over time. Changes in the
way the sun strikes the Earth allows for the growth of ice caps, plunging the Earth into an ice age. But it is not only variations in received sunlight that
determine the descent into an ice age; levels of atmospheric CO2 are also important.¶ Humanity has to date burnt about 300 Gt C of fossil fuels. This
work suggests that even if only 1000 Gt C (gigatonnes of carbon) are eventually burnt (out of total reserves of about 4000 Gt C) then it is likely that the
next ice age will be skipped. Burning all recoverable fossil fuels could lead to avoidance of the next five ice ages.
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2NC – AT: Warming = Ice Age
Warming can’t trigger another Ice Age – prefer our science over their unwarranted
fear-mongering
Gibbs, journalist for the New York Times, 2007
(Walter, May 15th 2007, The New York Times, “Scientists Back Off Theory of a Colder Europe in a Warming World”,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/science/earth/15cold.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/News/Science/Topics/%20Env
ironment&_r=2%3E, accessed 7/12/13, JA)
Mainstream climatologists who
have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern Europe
or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster , although it retains a vivid hold on the
public imagination.¶ The idea, which held climate theorists in its icy grip for years , was that the North Atlantic Current, an
extension of the Gulf Stream that cuts northeast across the Atlantic Ocean to bathe the high latitudes of Europe with
warmish equatorial water, could shut down in a greenhouse world.¶ Without that warm-water current, Americans on the Eastern
Seaboard would most likely feel a chill, but the suffering would be greater in Europe, where major cities lie far to the north. Britain, northern France, the
Low Countries, Denmark and Norway could in theory take on Arctic aspects that only a Greenlander could love, even as the rest of the world sweltered.¶
All that has now been removed from the forecast. Not only is northern Europe warming, but every major climate model produced by scientists worldwide
in recent years has also shown that the warming will almost certainly continue.¶ “The concern had previously been that we were close to a threshold
where the Atlantic circulation system would stop,” said Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We
now believe we are much farther from that threshold, thanks to improved modeling and ocean measurements. The Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic
Current are more stable than previously thought.Ӧ After consulting 23 climate models, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change said in February it was “very unlikely” that the crucial flow of warm water to Europe would stall in this century. The
panel did say that the gradual melting of the Greenland ice sheet along with increased precipitation in the far north were likely to weaken the North
Atlantic Current by 25 percent through 2100. But the panel added that any cooling effect in Europe would be overwhelmed by a general
warming of the atmosphere, a warming that the panel said was under way as a result of rising concentrations of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.¶ “The bottom line is that the atmosphere is warming up so much that a slowdown of
the North Atlantic Current will never be able to cool Europe,” said Helge Drange, a professor at the Nansen Environmental and Remote
Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway.
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2NC – Impacts – Extinction
An Ice Age causes extinction
Snook, author, ‘7
(Jim, “Ice Age Extinction: Cause and Human Consequences”, JA)
This study indicates that low atmospheric carbon dioxide was the major cause of the large animal extinction near the end
of the last ice age. There was not enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for most plants in the higher latitude and low
altitude areas. The reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere occurred over thousands of years, and the dying off of
the plants was a very gradual process. Without sufficient plants to eat, most of the large animals could not survive .
These large animals had been on earth for many millions of years and had survived many previous threats to their
existence. Yet in a geologically short period of time they became extinct. We will now look at the sequence of events
involved in extinction.
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AFF – 2AC – Ice Age DA
No impact – Enough resources to survive an ice age
Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc. Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological
Protection in Warsaw, 2004
(Zbigniew, winter 2004, “Solar Cycles, Not CO2, Determine Climate,” 21st Century Science and
Technology, p. 64, http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter20034/global_warming.pdf, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
Will mankind be able to protect the biosphere against the¶ next returning Ice Age? It depends on how much time we still ¶
have. I do not think that in the next 50 years we would acquire ¶ the knowledge and resources sufficient for governing
climate¶ on a global scale. Surely we shall not stop climate cooling by¶ increasing industrial CO2¶ emissions. Even with the
doubling of¶ CO2¶ atmospheric levels, the increase in global surface air temperature would be trifling. However, it is
unlikely that permanent doubling of the atmospheric CO2¶ , even using all our carbon resources, is attainable by human
activities.29 (See also¶ Kondratyev, Reference 59.)¶ Also, it does not seem possible that we will ever gain influence over the
Sun’s activity. However, I think that in the next¶ centuries we shall learn to control sea currents and clouds, and ¶ this could
be sufficient to govern the climate of our planet.¶ The following “thought experiment” illustrates how valuable ¶ our
civilization, and the very existence of man’s intellect, is for¶ the terrestrial biosphere. Mikhail Budyko, the leading Russian ¶
climatologist (now deceased), predicted in 1982 a future drastic ¶ CO2¶ deficit in the atmosphere, and claimed that one of
the next¶ Ice Age periods could result in a freezing of the entire surface of¶ the Earth, including the oceans. The only niches
of life, he said,¶ would survive on the active volcano edges.60¶ Budyko’s hypothesis is still controversial, but 10 years later ¶
it was discovered that 700 million years ago, the Earth already¶ underwent such a disaster, changing into “Snowball
Earth,”¶ covered in white from Pole to Pole, with an average temperature of minus 40°C.15¶ However let’s assume that
Budyko has been right and that¶ everything, to the very ocean bottom, will be frozen. Will¶ mankind survive this? I think
yes, it would. The present technology of nuclear power, based on the nuclear fission of uranium and thorium, would secure
heat and electricity supplies¶ for 5 billion people for about 10,000 years. At the same time,¶ the stock of hydrogen in the
ocean for future fusion-based¶ reactors would suffice for 6 billion years. Our cities, industrial¶ plants, food-producing
greenhouses, our livestock, and also¶ zoos and botanical gardens turned into greenhouses, could be¶ heated virtually
forever, and we could survive, together with¶ many other organisms, on a planet that had turned into a¶ gigantic glacier. I
think, however, that such a “passive” solution would not fit the genius of our future descendants, and¶ they would learn
how to restore a warm climate for ourselves¶ and for everything that lives on Earth.
Warming melts arctic sea ice – that leads to an ice age
The Telegraph 2/27/12
(The Telegraph, news agency, 27 Feb 2012, Freezing winters ahead due to melting Arctic Sea ice,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9109106/Freezing-winters-ahead-due-to-melting-Arctic-Sea-ice.html)
Climate change means autumn levels of sea ice have dropped by almost 30 percent since 1979 - but this is likely to trigger
more frequent cold snaps such as those that brought blizzards to the UK earlier this month. And Arctic sea ice could be to
blame. Dr Jiping Liu and colleagues studied the extensive retreat of the ice in the summer and its slow recovery focusing
on the impacts of this phenomenon on weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Information about snow cover, sea level
pressure, surface air temperature and humidity was used to generate model simulations for the years 1979-2010. The
researchers say dramatic loss of ice may alter atmospheric circulation patterns and weaken the westerly winds that blow
across the North Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Europe. This will encourage regular incursions of cold air from the Arctic
into Northern continents - increasing heavy snowfall in the UK. Dr Liu said: "The results of this study add to an increasing
body of both observational and modeling evidence that indicates diminishing Arctic sea ice plays a critical role in driving
recent cold and snowy winters over large parts of North America, Europe and east Asia." While the Arctic region has been
warming strongly in recent decades there has been abnormally large snowfall in these areas. Dr Liu, of Georgia Institute if
Technology in Atlanta, said: "Here we demonstrate the decrease in autumn Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the
winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation. "This circulation change results in more frequent episodes of
blocking patterns that lead to increased cold surges over large parts of northern continents. "Moreover, the increase in
atmospheric water vapor content in the Arctic region during late autumn and winter driven locally by the reduction of sea
ice provides enhanced moisture sources, supporting increased heavy snowfall in Europe during early winter and the
northeastern and midwestern United States during winter. "We conclude the recent decline of Arctic sea ice has played a
critical role in recent cold and snowy winters." In November research showed there is less Arctic sea ice now than there
has been at any time in the last 1,450 years.
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Warming causes a second ice age – melting ice
Black 2/27/12
(By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News, Melting Arctic link to cold, snowy UK winters,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17143269)
The progressive shrinking of Arctic sea ice is bringing colder, snowier winters to the UK and other areas of Europe, North
America and China, a study shows. As global temperatures have risen, the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice in summer
and autumn has been falling. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a US/China-based
team show this affects the jet stream and brings cold, snowy weather. Whether conditions will get colder still as ice melts
further is unclear. There was a marked deterioration in ice cover between the summers of 2006 and 2007, which still
holds the record for the lowest extent on record; and it has not recovered since. The current winter is roughly tracking the
graph of 2007, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The new study is not the first to propose
a causal relationship between low Arctic ice in autumn and Europe's winter weather. But it has gone further than others in
assessing the strength of the link. Through observations and computer modelling, the team headed by Jiping Liu from
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US, and the Insitute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing has also elucidated the
mechanisms involved. "For the past four winters, for much of the northern US, east Asia and Europe, we had this
persistent above-normal snow cover," Dr Liu told BBC News. "We don't see a predictive relationship with any of the other
factors that have been proposed, such as El Nino; but for sea ice, we do see a predictive relationship." How it happens If
less of the ocean is ice-covered in autumn, it releases more heat, warming the atmosphere. This reduces the air
temperature difference between the Arctic and latitudes further south, over the Atlantic Ocean. The dwindling Arctic
summer ice may have severe consequences for wildlife In turn, this reduces the strength of the northern jet stream, which
usually brings milder, wetter weather to Europe from the west. It is these "blocking" conditions that keep the UK and the
other affected regions supplied with cold air. The researchers also found that the extra evaporation from the Arctic Ocean
makes the air more humid, with some of the additional water content falling out as snow. "I agree with the study - I have
no beef with the case that declining Arctic sea ice can drive easterly winds and produce colder winters over Europe,"
commented Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the UK Met Office. Research in other institutions,
including the Met Office, confirmed the argument, he said. Dr Scaife was involved with another study published last year
that showed how small, natural changes in the Sun's output can also affect winter weather. And he emphasised that the
declining Arctic ice cover was just one of several factors that could increase blocking. "You can hit a bell with anything,
and you still produce the same note," he told BBC News. "This is no bigger than the solar effect or the El Nino effect. But
they vary, whereas Arctic ice is on a pretty consistent downward trend." The picture is further complicated by the
involvement of the Arctic Oscillation, a natural variation of air pressure that also changes northern weather. Dr Len
Shaffrey, University of Reading: "This is very early days for this research" The oscillation is not understood well enough to
predict - and even if it were, any pattern it has may be changing due to escalating greenhouse gas concentrations.
Nevertheless, the research suggests that on average, winters in the UK and the rest of the affected region will be colder in
years to come than they have been in recent decades. Various computer simulations have generated a range of dates by
which the Arctic might be completely ice-free in summer and autumn, ranging from 2016 to about 2060. A few years ago,
one projection even showed 2013 was possible, though this now appears unlikely. So a related question is whether UK
winters will get colder and snowier still as the melting progresses, "It's possible that future winters will be colder and
snowier, but there are some uncertainties," cautioned Dr Liu. His team's next research project is to feed Arctic ice
projections and the mechanisms they have deciphered into various computer models of climate, and see whether they do
forecast a growing winter chill.
No extinction from ice age—technology solves
Croatian Times, 2010
(Oct. 10, Croatian Times, “Croat scientist warns ice age could start in five years,”
http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/General_News/2010-0210/8836/Croat_scientist_warns_ice_age_could_start_in_five_years, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
*quoting Vladimir Paar—physicist at Croatia’s Zagreb University. **This card has been gender
modified
The Zagreb based scientist says it will still be possible for humans to survive in the ice age, but the spending on energy will
be enormous. "Food production also might be a problem. It would need to be produced in greenhouses with a lot of energy
spent to heat it", commented the professor, who remains optimistic despite his predictions. He said: "The nuclear energy
we know today will not last longer than 100 years as we simply do not have enough uranium in the world to match the
needs in an ice age. But I'm still optimistic. There is the process of nuclear fusion happening on the Sun. The fuel for that
process is hydrogen and such a power plant is already worked on in France as a consortium involving firms from Marseille
and the European Union, the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. The head of the project is a Japanese expert, and
former Japanese ambassador in Croatia", Vladimir Paar revealed. He said the building of the new technology power plant
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will take at least another 10 years. "In 40 years we'll know how it functions. That would be a solution that could last for
thousands of years. We have a lot of hydrogen and the method is an ecological one", the professor concluded.
The most recent scientific consensus is that an ice age will not occur for at least 70,000
years
Berger, professor at Universite Catholique de Louvain and MF Loutre, 2002
(Andre, Aug. 23, Science, “An exceptionally long interglacial ahead?,” EBSCO, Vol. 297,
accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
When paleoclimatologists gathred in 1972 to discuss how and when the present warm period would end ( 1), a slide into
the next glacial seemed imminent. But more recent studies point toward a different future: a long interglacial that may last
another 50,000 years.¶ An interglacial is an uninterrupted warm interval during which global climate reaches at least the
preindustrial level of warmth. Based on geological records available in 1972, the last two interglacials including the
Eemian, ∼125,000 years ago) were believed to have lasted about 10,000 years. This is about the length of the current
warm interval—the Holocene—to date. Assuming a similar duration for all interglacials, the scientists concluded that “it is
likely that the present-day warm epoch will terminate relatively soon if man does not intervene” ( 1,p. 267). ¶ Some
assumptions made 30 years ago have since been questioned. Past interglacials may have been longer than originally
assumed ( 2). Some, including marine isotope stage 11 (MIS-11, 400,000 years ago), may have been warmer than at
present ( 3). We are also increasingly aware of the intensification of the greenhouse effect by human activities ( 4). But
even without human perturbation, future climate may not develop as in past interglacials ( 5) because the forcings and
mechanisms that produced these earlier warm periods may have been quite different from today's. ¶ Most early attempts to
predict future climate at the geological time scale ( 6, 7) prolonged the cooling that started at the peak of the Holocene
some 6000 years ago, predicting a cold interval in about 25,000 years and a glaciation in about 55,000 years. These
projections were based on statistical rules or simple models that did not include any CO2 forcing. They thus implicitly
assumed a value equal to the average of the last glacial-interglacial cycles [∼225 parts per million by volume (ppmv) ( 8)].¶
But some studies disagreed with these projections. With a simple ice-sheet model, Oerlemans and Van der Veen ( 9)
predicted a long interglacial lasting another 50,000 years, followed by a first glacial maximum in about 65,000 years.
Ledley also stated that an ice age is unlikely to begin in the next 70,000 years ( 10), based on the relation between the
observed rate of change of ice volume and the summer solstice radiation.
Their predictions about cooling are based on short term logic—default to long term
trends which show warming is coming
Revkin, weather and climate writer for the NY Times, 2008
(Andrew, March 2, The New York Times, “Skeptics on Human Climate Impact seize on cold spell,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/science/02cold.html, accessed 7/12/13, CBC)
The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg
last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer,
paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature. ¶ It is no wonder that some scientists,
opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global
warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment.¶ “Earth’s ‘Fever’ Breaks: Global COOLING Currently Under Way,”
read a blog post and news release on Wednesday from Marc Morano, the communications director for the Republican
minority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.¶ So what is happening?¶ According to a host of climate
experts, including some who question the extent and risks of global warming, it is mostly good old-fashioned weather,
along with a cold kick from the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is in its La Niña phase for a few more months, a year after it
was in the opposite warm El Niño pattern.¶ If anything else is afoot — like some cooling related to sunspot cycles or slow
shifts in ocean and atmospheric patterns that can influence temperatures — an array of scientists who have staked out
differing positions on the overall threat from global warming agree that there is no way to pinpoint whether such a new
force is at work.¶ Many scientists also say that the cool spell in no way undermines the enormous body of evidence pointing
to a warming world with disrupted weather patterns, less ice and rising seas should heat-trapping greenhouse gases from
burning fossil fuels and forests continue to accumulate in the air.¶ “The current downturn is not very unusual,” said Carl
Mears, a scientist at Remote Sensing Systems, a private research group in Santa Rosa, Calif., that has been using satellite
data to track global temperature and whose findings have been held out as reliable by a variety of climate experts. He
pointed to similar drops in 1988, 1991-92, and 1998, but with a long-term warming trend clear nonetheless.¶
“Temperatures are very likely to recover after the La Niña event is over,” he said.¶ Mr. Morano, in an e-mail message, was
undaunted, saying turnabout is fair play: “Fair is fair. Noting (not hyping) an unusually harsh global winter is merely
pointing out the obvious. Dissenters of a man-made ‘climate crisis’ are using the reality of this record-breaking winter to
expose the silly warming alarmism that the news media and some scientists have been ceaselessly promoting for
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decades.Ӧ More clucking about the cold is likely over the next several days. The Heartland Institute, a public policy
research group in Chicago opposed to regulatory approaches to environmental problems, is holding a conference in Times
Square on Monday and Tuesday aimed at exploring questions about the cause and dangers of climate change.¶ The event
will convene an array of scientists, economists, statisticians and libertarian commentators holding a dizzying range of
views on the changing climate — from those who see a human influence but think it is not dangerous, to others who say
global warming is a hoax, the sun’s fault or beneficial. Many attendees say it is the dawn of a new paradigm. But many
climate scientists and environmental campaigners say it is the skeptics’ last stand. ¶ Michael E. Schlesinger, an atmospheric
scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said that any focus on the last few months or years as evidence
undermining the established theory that accumulating greenhouse gases are making the world warmer was, at best, a
waste of time and, at worst, a harmful distraction.¶ Discerning a human influence on climate, he said, “involves finding a
signal in a noisy background.” He added, “The only way to do this within our noisy climate system is to average over a
sufficient number of years that the noise is greatly diminished, thereby revealing the signal. This means that one cannot
look at any single year and know whether what one is seeing is the signal or the noise or both the signal and the noise.” ¶
The shifts in the extent and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic (where ice has retreated significantly in recent summers) and
Antarctic (where the area of floating sea ice has grown lately) are similarly hard to attribute to particular influences. ¶
Interviews and e-mail exchanges with half a dozen polar climate and ice experts last week produced a rough consensus:
Even with the extensive refreezing of Arctic waters in the deep chill of the sunless boreal winter, the fresh-formed ice
remains far thinner than the yards-thick, years-old ice that dominated the region until the 1990s.¶ That means the odds of
having vast stretches of open water next summer remain high, many Arctic experts said. ¶ “Climate skeptics typically take a
few small pieces of the puzzle to debunk global warming, and ignore the whole picture that the larger science community
sees by looking at all the pieces,” said Ignatius G. Rigor, a climate scientist at the Polar Science Center of the University of
Washington in Seattle.¶ He said the argument for a growing human influence on climate laid out in last year’s reports from
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or I.P.C.C., was supported by evidence from many fields. ¶ “I will admit
that we do not have all the pieces,” Dr. Rigor said, “but as the I.P.C.C. reports, the preponderance of evidence suggests that
global warming is real.” As for the Arctic, he said, “Yes, this year’s winter ice extent is higher than last year’s, but it is still
lower than the long-term mean.”¶ Dr. Rigor said next summer’s ice retreat, despite the regrowth of thin fresh-formed ice
now, could still surpass last year’s, when nearly all of the Arctic Ocean between Alaska and Siberia was open water. ¶ Some
scientists who strongly disagree with each other on the extent of warming coming in this century, and on what to do about
it, agreed that it was important not to be tempted to overinterpret short-term swings in climate, either hot or cold.¶ Patrick
J. Michaels, a climatologist and commentator with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, has long chided
environmentalists and the media for overstating connections between extreme weather and human-caused warming. (He
is on the program at the skeptics’ conference.)¶ But Dr. Michaels said that those now trumpeting global cooling should
beware of doing the same thing, saying that the “predictable distortion” of extreme weather “goes in both directions.” ¶
Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan who has spoken out about
the need to reduce greenhouse gases, disagrees with Dr. Michaels on many issues, but concurred on this point. ¶ “When I
get called by CNN to comment on a big summer storm or a drought or something, I give the same answer I give a guy who
asks about a blizzard,” Dr. Schmidt said. “It’s all in the long-term trends. Weather isn’t going to go away because of climate
change. There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether
that’s the next ice age coming or global warming.”
The plan doesn’t cause an ice age—and even if it does, its 50,000 years away
Stager, an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science journalist with a Ph.D. in biology and
geology from Duke University, 11.
(Curt, “Deep Future”, p 17-19, CBC)
But maybe there's a middle route. If we do manage to follow a moderate-emissions path, then we'll probably be leaving
most of our coal reserves where they lie and running our future civilizations on other energy sources. Environmental
damage during the next several centuries will be held to a minimum, some societies might benefit from a partial and
temporary opening of the Arctic Ocean, and the next ice age of 50,000 ad will be held at bay. This could also produce a
longer-term benefit, as well, by leaving lots of coal already sequestered in the ground for later. By saving most of our fossil
carbon in a safe, solid, reasonably accessible form, we would bequeath it to later generations for possible use, not necessarily as a fuel but rather as a simple, cost-effective tool for climate control.
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High-risk of short-term food shortages – CO2 emissions is key to prevent extinction
Sherwood and Idso 10 (Keith and Craig, "The World's Looming Food and Water Shortage," CO2 Science Magazine,
Volume 13, Number 49:8, December, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N49/EDIT.php)
Every now and then, various astute observers of man's precarious position on planet earth call our attention to a
developing global crisis that seems destined to wreak havoc on the human race a mere forty years from now: a lack of
sufficient land and freshwater resources to produce the food that will be required to sustain our growing population. The
most recent of this community of researchers to address the approaching problem are Hanjra and Qureshi (2010), who
begin their treatment of the subject by quoting Benjamin Franklin's well-known homily: "when the well is dry, we know
the worth of water."¶ "Food policy," as the two Australian researchers write, "must not lose sight of surging water scarcity."
Stating that "population and income growth will increase the demand for food and water," they indicate that "irrigation
will be the first sector to lose water, as water competition by non-agricultural uses increases and water scarcity
intensifies." And noting that "increasing water scarcity will have implications for food security, hunger, poverty, and
ecosystem health and services," they report that "feeding the 2050 population will require some 12,400 km3 of water, up
from 6800 km3 used today." This huge increase, in their words, "will leave a water gap of about 3300 km3 even after
improving efficiency in irrigated agriculture, improving water management, and upgrading of rainfed agriculture," as per
the findings of de Fraiture et al. (2007), Molden (2007) and Molden et al. (2010).¶ This water deficiency, according to
Hanjra and Qureshi, "will lead to a food gap unless concerted actions are taken today." Some of the things they propose, in
this regard, are to conserve water and energy resources, develop and adopt climate-resilient crop varieties, modernize
irrigation, shore up domestic food supplies, reengage in agriculture for further development, and reform the global food
and trade market. And to achieve these goals, they say that "unprecedented global cooperation is required," which by the
looks of today's world is an even more remote possibility than that implied by the proverbial wishful thinking. So, on top
of everything else they suggest (a goodly portion of which will not be achieved), what can we do to defuse the ticking timebomb that is the looming food and water crisis?¶ We suggest doing nothing. But not just any "nothing." The nothing we
suggest is to not mess with the normal, unforced evolution of civilization's means of acquiring energy. We suggest this,
because on top of everything else we may try to do to conserve both land and freshwater resources, we will still fall short of
what is needed to be achieved unless the air's CO2 content rises significantly and thereby boosts the water use efficiency of
earth's crop plants, as well as that of the plants that provide food and habitat for what could be called "wild nature,"
enabling both sets of plants to produce more biomass per unit of water used in the process. And to ensure that this
happens, we will need all of the CO2 that will be produced by the burning of fossil fuels, until other forms of energy truly
become more cost-efficient than coal, gas and oil. In fact, these other energy sources will have to become much more costefficient before fossil fuels are phased out; because the positive externality of the CO2-induced increase in plant water use
efficiency provided by the steady rise in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration due to the burning of fossil fuels will be
providing a most important service in helping us feed and sustain our own species without totally decimating what yet
remains of wild nature.
CO2 solves food shortages – no habitat destruction
Sherwood and Idso 10 (Keith and Craig, "Surviving the Perfect Storm," CO2 Science Magazine, Volume 13, Number
44:3 November, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N44/EDIT.php)
In introducing their review of food security publications pertinent to the challenge of feeding nine billion people just four
decades from now, Godfray et al. (2010) note that "more than one in seven people today still do not have access to
sufficient protein and energy from their diet and even more suffer some form of micronutrient malnourishment," citing
the FAO (2009); and they write that although "increases in production will have an important part to play" in correcting
this problem and keeping it from worsening in the future, they state that mankind "will be constrained by the finite
resources provided by the earth's lands, oceans and atmosphere," which set of difficulties they describe at the end of their
review as comprising a "perfect storm."¶ The first question they ask in regard to how we might successfully navigate this
highly restricted terrain is: "How can more food be produced sustainably?" They say that the primary solution to food
shortages of the past was "to bring more land into agriculture and to exploit new fish stocks," but they note that there is
precious little remaining of either of these pristine resources. Thus, they conclude that "the most likely scenario is that
more food will need to be produced from the same or less land," because, as they suggest, "we must avoid the temptation
to sacrifice further the earth's already hugely depleted biodiversity for easy gains in food production, not only because
biodiversity provides many of the public goods upon which mankind relies, but also because we do not have the right to
deprive future generations of its economic and cultural benefits." And, we might add, because we should be enlightened
enough to realize that we have a moral responsibility to drive no more species to extinction than we have already sent to
that sorry state.¶ So how can these diverse requirements all be met? ... and at one and the same time? A clue comes from
Godfray et al.'s statement that "greater water and nutrient use efficiency, as well as tolerance of abiotic stress, are likely to
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become of increasing importance." And what is there that can bring about all of these changes in mankind's crops? You
guessed it: carbon dioxide.¶ Yes, the colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that all of us release to the atmosphere with every
breath we exhale fits the bill perfectly. Rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 increase the photosynthetic prowess of
essentially all of earth's plants, while generally reducing the rate at which they simultaneously transfer water from the soil
to the air. In addition, more CO2 in the air tends to enhance the efficiency with which plants utilize nutrients in
constructing their tissues and producing the edible portions that we and all of earth's animals depend upon for our very
existence, as you can read about -- almost interminably -- on our website (check out our Subject Index for a host of related
topics), and as you can readily convince yourself is true by perusing our vast Plant Growth Database, which lists the
experimentally-derived photosynthetic and biomass production responses of a huge host of different plants to
standardized increases in the air's CO2 concentration. ¶ Oh, and by the way, you can also spend a few months reading about
all of the scientific studies which, taken in their entirety, pretty much demonstrate that the climatic catastrophes
prophesied by the world's climate alarmists to result from anthropogenic CO2 emissions are largely devoid of significant
real-world substantiation.
CO2 Ag Fertilization is key to solve the root cause of global war – resource disparity
Idso and idso 99 (Craig, president of CO2 Science, Keith, Vice president of CO2 Science, Give Peace a Chance by
Giving Plants a Chance, October 1, 1999 http://www.co2science.org/articles/V2/N19/EDIT.php)
President Carter begins by stating that "when the Cold War ended 10 years ago, we expected an era of peace" but got
instead "a decade of war." He then asks why peace has been so elusive, answering that most of today's wars are fueled by
poverty, poverty in developing countries "whose economies depend on agriculture but which lack the means to make their
farmland productive." This fact, he says, suggests an obvious, but often overlooked, path to peace: "raise the standard of
living of the millions of rural people who live in poverty by increasing agricultural productivity," his argument being that
thriving agriculture, in his words, "is the engine that fuels broader economic growth and development, thus paving the
way for prosperity and peace."¶ Can the case for atmospheric CO2 enrichment be made any clearer? Automatically, and
without the investment of a single hard-earned dollar, ruble, or what have you, people everywhere promote the cause of
peace by fertilizing the atmosphere with carbon dioxide; for CO2 - one of the major end-products of the combustion
process that fuels the engines of industry and transportation - is the very elixir of life, being the primary building block of
all plant tissues via the essential role it plays in the photosynthetic process that sustains nearly all of earth's vegetation,
which in turn sustains nearly all of the planet's animal life.¶ As with any production process, the insertion of more raw
materials (in this case CO2) into the production line results in more manufactured goods coming out the other end, which,
in the case of the production line of plant growth and development, is biosphere-sustaining food. And as President Carter
rightly states, "leaders of developing nations must make food security a priority." Indeed, he ominously proclaims in his
concluding paragraph that "there can be no peace until people have enough to eat."¶ Within this context, we recently
completed a project commissioned by the Greening Earth Society entitled "Forecasting World Food Supplies: The Impact
of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration," which we presented at the Second Annual Dixy Lee Ray Memorial
Symposium held in Washington, DC on 31 August - 2 September 1999. We found that continued increases in agricultural
knowledge and expertise would likely boost world food production by 37% between now and the middle of the next
century, but that world food needs, which we equated with world population, would likely rise by 51% over this period.
Fortunately, we also calculated that the shortfall in production could be overcome - but just barely - by the additional
benefits anticipated to accrue from the many productivity-enhancing effects of the expected rise in the air's CO2 content
over the same time period.¶ Our findings suggest that the world food security envisioned by President Carter is
precariously dependent upon the continued rising of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration. As Sylvan Wittwer, Director
Emeritus of Michigan State University's Agricultural Experiment Station, stated in his 1995 book, Food, Climate, and
Carbon Dioxide: The Global Environment and World Food Production, ¶ "The rising level of atmospheric CO2 could be the
one global natural resource that is progressively increasing food production and total biological output, in a world of
otherwise diminishing natural resources of land, water, energy, minerals, and fertilizer. It is a means of inadvertently
increasing the productivity of farming systems and other photosynthetically active ecosystems. The effects know no
boundaries and both developing and developed countries are, and will be, sharing equally."¶ So, let's give peace a chance.
Let's give plants a chance. And, while we're at it, let's give all of the world's national economies a chance as well. Let's let
the air's CO2 content rise unimpeded, and let's let the peoples of the world reap the multitudinous benefits that come from
the God-given - and scientifically proven - aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Let's live and let live.
And let's let CO2 do its wonderful work of promoting world peace via the planet-wide prosperity that comes from
enhanced agricultural productivity.
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CO2 Solves Food Scarcity – Outweighs and Turns the Case
A. Magnitude – their science is wrong and its try or die
CO2 Science 2 (Feeding Humanity to Help Save Natural Ecosystems: The Role of the Rising Atmospheric CO2
Concentration, September 4 2002, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V5/N36/EDIT.php)
How much land can ten billion people spare for nature? This provocative question was posed by Waggoner (1995) in the
title of an essay designed to illuminate the dynamic tension that exists between the need for land to support the
agricultural enterprises that sustain mankind and the need for land to support the natural ecosystems that sustain all
other creatures. As noted by Huang et al. (2002), human populations "have encroached on almost all of the world's
frontiers, leaving little new land that is cultivatable." And in consequence of humanity's ongoing usurpation of this most
basic of natural resources, Raven (2002) notes that "species-area relationships, taken worldwide in relation to habitat
destruction, lead to projections of the loss of fully two-thirds of all species on earth by the end of this century."¶ If one were
to pick the most significant problem currently facing the biosphere, this would probably be it: a single species of life,
Homo sapiens, is on course to completely annihilate fully two-thirds of the ten million or so other species with which we
share the planet within a mere hundred years, simply by taking their land. Global warming, by comparison, pales in
significance. Its impact is nowhere near as severe, being possibly nil or even positive. In addition, its root cause is highly
debated; and actions to thwart it are much more difficult, if not impossible, to both define and implement. Furthermore,
what many people believe to be the cause of global warming, i.e., anthropogenic CO2 emissions, may actually be a
powerful force for preserving land for nature.¶ What parts of the world are likely to be hardest hit by this human landeating machine? Tilman et al. (2001) note that developed countries are expected to actually withdraw large areas of land
from farming over the next fifty years, leaving developing countries to shoulder essentially all of the growing burden of
feeding our expanding species. In addition, they calculate that the loss of these countries' natural ecosystems to cropland
and pasture will amount to about half of all potentially suitable remaining land, which "could lead to the loss of about a
third of remaining tropical and temperate forests, savannas, and grasslands," along with the many unique species they
support.
B. Probability – ambivalence causes extinction
Idso squared 1 (Craig and Keith, Two Crises of Unbelievable Magnitude: Can We Prevent One Without Exacerbating the
Other? Volume 4, Number 24: 13 June, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N24/EDIT.php)
So how do we resolve the knotty issue of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, when they are claimed to create one crisis but are
deemed capable of averting another? We do it by invoking the precautionary principle, wherein we consider the question
of risk; and in this regard we have already completed, with a little help from our friends, one phase of the required
analysis. We have determined with a good degree of confidence that the agriculturally-driven environmental crisis will
likely occur in spite of all we can do to stop it with what we already know, and even in spite of all we can do to stop it with
what we can reasonably hope to learn over the next fifty years (Idso and Idso, 2000; Tilman et al., 2001). The second task,
therefore, is to determine if the likelihood of catastrophic CO2-induced global warming occurring sometime in the
foreseeable future is anywhere near as certain as the looming agricultural crisis.¶ We could, of course, argue this question
back and forth with various climate alarmists until both of our groups turned blue in the face; and so we will take a
different tack. What we will do instead is refer to the recent News Focus article of Kerr (2001) in the 13 April issue of
Science. In spite of the bad marks we gave the journal's Editor-in-Chief a few weeks ago for his extremely biased
comments about the subject (see our Editorial of 18 April 2001), news writer Kerr has produced an amazingly balanced
piece of science journalism aimed at this topic that provides all the information needed for our purposes. ¶ Kerr begins by
pointing out something about the latest report from the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) that "drew little public notice" when it was released to the world at large. That something was the fact that the
range of global warming projections actually widened over the five years since the group's previous set of warming
projections. In other words, the most recent report of the IPCC suggests that it could get either warmer or colder than
what they predicted five years ago, which means, or course, that the last five years of scientific scrutiny of the subject have
only served to make earth's climatic future more uncertain than it was five years ago.¶ Kerr then proceeds to interview a
number of outstanding climate scientists about this intriguing situation, noting that in some vital areas of the climate
modeling enterprise, it is very true that "uncertainties have actually grown." Texas A & M's Gerald North, for example,
says "it's extremely hard to tell whether the models have improved." Peter Stone of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology offers the opinion that "the major [climate prediction] uncertainties have not been reduced at all." Seattle's
Robert Charlson, emeritus professor at the University of Washington, states that "to make it sound like we understand
climate is not right."¶ With respect to how today's climate models perform in comparison to those of five years ago, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography's Tim Barnett says "I don't know that they reproduce climate any better." Jeffrey Kiehl of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research allows that "the more we learn [about aerosols], the less we know." In fact, the
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progress on the aerosol front has been so "good" that the range of possible aerosol effects now extends from essentially no
effect to a cooling large enough, in Kerr's words, "to almost compensate for the total warming from all current greenhouse
gases," which includes a lot more than just CO2.
C. CO2 Solves Food Scarcity – Solves the root cause of war – resource scarcity – creates
precedent for global cooperation
CO2 Science 2 (Center for the study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Feeding Humanity to Help Save Natural
Ecosystems: The Role of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration Volume 5, Number 36: 4 September,
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V5/N36/EDIT.php
How much land can ten billion people spare for nature? This provocative question was posed by Waggoner (1995) in the
title of an essay designed to illuminate the dynamic tension that exists between the need for land to support the
agricultural enterprises that sustain mankind and the need for land to support the natural ecosystems that sustain all
other creatures. As noted by Huang et al. (2002), human populations "have encroached on almost all of the world's
frontiers, leaving little new land that is cultivatable." And in consequence of humanity's ongoing usurpation of this most
basic of natural resources, Raven (2002) notes that "species-area relationships, taken worldwide in relation to habitat
destruction, lead to projections of the loss of fully two-thirds of all species on earth by the end of this century."¶ If one
were to pick the most significant problem currently facing the biosphere, this would probably be it: a single species of life,
Homo sapiens, is on course to completely annihilate fully two-thirds of the ten million or so other species with which we
share the planet within a mere hundred years, simply by taking their land. Global warming, by comparison, pales in
significance. Its impact is nowhere near as severe, being possibly nil or even positive. In addition, its root cause is highly
debated; and actions to thwart it are much more difficult, if not impossible, to both define and implement. Furthermore,
what many people believe to be the cause of global warming, i.e., anthropogenic CO2 emissions, may actually be a
powerful force for preserving land for nature.¶ What parts of the world are likely to be hardest hit by this human landeating machine? Tilman et al. (2001) note that developed countries are expected to actually withdraw large areas of land
from farming over the next fifty years, leaving developing countries to shoulder essentially all of the growing burden of
feeding our expanding species. In addition, they calculate that the loss of these countries' natural ecosystems to cropland
and pasture will amount to about half of all potentially suitable remaining land, which "could lead to the loss of about a
third of remaining tropical and temperate forests, savannas, and grasslands," along with the many unique species they
support.¶ What can be done to alleviate this bleak situation? In a new analysis of the problem, Tilman et al. (2002)
introduce a few more facts before suggesting some solutions. They note, for example, that by 2050 the human population
of the globe is projected to be 50% larger than it is today and that global grain demand could well double, due to expected
increases in per capita real income and dietary shifts toward a higher proportion of meat. Hence, they but state the
obvious when they conclude that "raising yields on existing farmland is essential for 'saving land for nature'."¶ So how is it
to be done? Tilman et al. (2002) suggest a strategy that is built around three essential tasks: (1) increasing crop yield per
unit of land area, (2) increasing crop yield per unit of nutrients applied, and (3) increasing crop yield per unit of water
used.¶ With respect to the first of these requirements, Tilman et al. note that in many parts of the world the historical rate
of increase in crop yields is declining, as the genetic ceiling for maximal yield potential is being approached. This
observation, they say, "highlights the need for efforts to steadily increase the yield potential ceiling." With respect to the
second requirement, they note that "without the use of synthetic fertilizers, world food production could not have
increased at the rate it did [in the past] and more natural ecosystems would have been converted to agriculture." Hence,
they say the ultimate solution "will require significant increases in nutrient use efficiency, that is, in cereal production per
unit of added nitrogen, phosphorus," and so forth. Finally, with respect to the third requirement, Tilman et al. note that
"water is regionally scarce," and that "many countries in a band from China through India and Pakistan, and the Middle
East to North Africa either currently or will soon fail to have adequate water to maintain per capita food production from
irrigated land." Increasing crop water use efficiency, therefore, is also a must.¶ Although the impending biological crisis
and several important elements of its potential solution are thus well defined, Tilman et al. (2001) report that "even the
best available technologies, fully deployed, cannot prevent many of the forecasted problems." This is also the conclusion of
the study of Idso and Idso (2000), who - although acknowledging that "expected advances in agricultural technology and
expertise will significantly increase the food production potential of many countries and regions" - note that these
advances "will not increase production fast enough to meet the demands of the even faster-growing human population of
the planet."¶ Fortunately, we have a powerful ally in the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content that can provide what we
can't. Since atmospheric CO2 is the basic "food" of essentially all terrestrial plants, the more of it there is in the air, the
bigger and better they grow. For a nominal doubling of the air's CO2 concentration, for example, the productivity of
earth's herbaceous plants rises by 30 to 50% (Kimball, 1983; Idso and Idso, 1994), while the productivity of its woody
plants rises by 50 to 80% or more (Saxe et al. 1998; Idso and Kimball, 2001). Hence, as the air's CO2 content continues to
rise, so too will the land use efficiency of the planet rise right along with it (see also Plant Growth Data on our website). In
addition, atmospheric CO2 enrichment typically increases plant nutrient use efficiency and plant water use efficiency (see
Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Water Use Efficiency in our Subject Index). Thus, with respect to all three of the major needs
noted by Tilman et al. (2002), increases in the air's CO2 content pay huge dividends, helping to increase agricultural
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output without the taking of new lands from nature.¶ In conclusion, it would appear that the extinction of two-thirds of all
species of plants and animals on the face of the earth is essentially assured within the next century, if world agricultural
output is not dramatically increased. This unfathomable consequence will occur simply because we will need more land to
produce what is required to sustain us and, in the absence of the needed productivity increase, because we will simply take
that land from nature to keep ourselves alive. It is also the conclusion of scientists who have studied this problem in depth
that the needed increase in agricultural productivity is not possible, even with anticipated improvements in technology
and expertise. With the help of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, however, Idso and Idso (2000) have shown that
we should be able - but just barely - to meet our expanding food needs without bringing down the curtain on the world of
nature.¶ That certain forces continue to resist this reality is truly incredible. More CO2 means life for the planet; less CO2
means death ... and not just the death of individuals, but the death of species. And to allow, nay, cause the extinction of
untold millions of unique and irreplaceable species has got to rank close to the top of all conceivable immoralities.¶ We
humans, as stewards of the earth, have got to get our priorities straight. We have got to do all that we can to preserve
nature by helping to feed humanity; and to do so successfully, we have got to let the air's CO2 content rise. Any policies
that stand in the way of that objective are truly obscene.
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2NC – AT: CO2 Causes Warming
CO2 AGRICULTURE FERTILIZATION ACTUALLY LOWERS THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF CO2 IN THE
ATMOSPHERE AND PREVENTS WARMING – ALL YOUR TURNS GO THE WRONG WAY.
1. PHOTOSYNTHESIS
A. CO2 ENHANCES PHOTOSYNTHETIC RATES––THAT STABILIZES CO2 LEVELS.
Idso and idso 1 (Craig, president of CO2 Science, Keith, Vice president of CO2 Science, Yet Another Biophysical
Feedback Mechanism that May Help to Protect the Planet Against Deleterious CO2-Induced Global Warming October 10,
2001, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N41/EDIT.php
The first of the linkages of this negative feedback loop is the proven propensity for higher levels of atmospheric CO2 to
enhance vegetative productivity (see Plant Growth Data on our sidebar for verification) and plant water use efficiency (see
Water Use Efficiency in our Subject Index for verification), which phenomena are themselves powerful negative feedback
mechanisms of the type we envision. Greater CO2-enhanced photosynthetic rates, for example, enable plants to remove
considerably more CO2 from the air than they do under current conditions; while CO2-induced increases in plant water
use efficiency allow plants to grow where it was previously too dry for them. This latter consequence of atmospheric CO2
enrichment establishes a potential for more CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere by increasing the abundance of
earth's plants, whereas the former phenomenon does so by increasing their robustness. Both limbs of this one-linkagelong double-barreled negative feedback loop are extremely powerful, as Idso (1991a,b) has demonstrated how just the first
of them may be capable of stabilizing the air's CO2 concentration at less than a doubling of its pre-industrial value.
Nevertheless, these tremendous "side-effects" comprise but the first link of the more extended negative feedback loop that
is the subject of this essay.
B. This absorbs at least 50% of total emissions.
Spencer 8 (Roy, More Carbon Dioxide, Please, National Review Online, May 1st 2008,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/224319/more-carbon-dioxide-please/roy-spencer
It is quite possible that the biosphere (vegetation, sea life, etc.) has been starved for atmospheric CO2. Before humans
started burning fossil fuels, vegetation and ocean plankton had been gobbling up as much CO2 out of the atmosphere as
they could, but it was like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck through a stopped-up hose. Now, no matter how much CO2 we
pump into the atmosphere each year, the biosphere takes out an average of 50 percent of that extra amount. Even after we
triple the amount of CO2 we produce, nature still takes out 50 percent of the extra amount.
2.Bio-Aerosols––CO2 increases Biosols which block radiation and prevent warming.
Idso and idso 1 (Craig, president of CO2 Science, Keith, Vice president of CO2 Science, Yet Another Biophysical
Feedback Mechanism that May Help to Protect the Planet Against Deleterious CO2-Induced Global Warming October 10,
2001, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N41/EDIT.php
The second of the linkages of the new feedback loop is the ability of plants to emit gases to the atmosphere that are
ultimately converted into "biosols," i.e., aerosols that owe their existence to the biological activities of earth's vegetation
(Duce et al., 1983; Mooney et al., 1987), many of which function as cloud condensation nuclei (Went, 1966; Meszaros,
1988; Kavouras et al., 1998; Hopke et al., 1999). It takes little imagination to realize that since the existence of these
atmospheric particles is dependent upon the physiological activities of plants and their associated soil biota (Idso, 1990),
the CO2-induced presence of more and more-highly-productive plants will lead to the production of more of these cloudmediating particles, which can then act as described by Charlson et al. to cool the planet. But this two-linkage-long
negative feedback effect, like the one-linkage-long dual cooling mechanism described in the previous paragraph, is still not
the endpoint of the new feedback loop we are describing. The third linkage of the new scenario is the observed propensity
for increases in aerosols and cloud particles to enhance the amount of diffuse solar radiation reaching the earth's surface
(Suraqui et al., 1974; Abakumova et al., 1996). The fourth linkage is the ability of enhanced diffuse lighting to reduce the
volume of shade within vegetative canopies (Roderick et al., 2001). The fifth linkage is the tendency for less internal
canopy shading to enhance whole-canopy photosynthesis (Healey et al., 1998), which finally produces the end result: a
greater biological extraction of CO2 from the air and subsequent sequestration of its carbon, compliments of the
intensified diffuse-light-driven increase in total canopy photosynthesis and subsequent transfers of the extra fixed carbon
to plant and soil storage reservoirs.
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3. Carbon Sequestration––CO2 increases nitrogen in the soil which exponentially
enhances its ability to safely absorb carbon.
Idso squared 8 (Sherwood, Keith, CO2 to the Rescue ... Again!
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V5/N22/COM.php)
Atmospheric CO2 enrichment has long been known to help earth's plants withstand the debilitating effects of various
environmental stresses, such as high temperature, excessive salinity levels and deleterious air pollution, as well as the
negative consequences of certain resource limitations, such as less than optimal levels of light, water and nutrients (Idso
and Idso, 1994). Now, in an important new study, Johnson et al. (2002) present evidence indicating that elevated levels of
atmospheric CO2 do the same thing for soil microbes in the face of the enhanced receipt of solar ultraviolet-B radiation
that would be expected to occur in response to a 15% depletion of the earth's stratospheric ozone layer. In addition, their
study demonstrates that this phenomenon will likely have important consequences for soil carbon sequestration. Johnson
et al. conducted their landmark work on experimental plots of subarctic heath located close to the Abisko Scientific
Research Station in Swedish Lapland (68.35°N, 18.82°E). The plots they studied were composed of open canopies of
Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii and dense dwarf-shrub layers containing scattered herbs and grasses. For a period of
five years, the scientists exposed the plots to factorial combinations of UV-B radiation - ambient and that expected to
result from a 15% stratospheric ozone depletion - and atmospheric CO2 concentration - ambient (around 365 ppm) and
enriched (around 600 ppm) - after which they determined the amounts of microbial carbon (Cmic) and nitrogen (Nmic) in
the soils of the plots. When the plots were exposed to the enhanced UV-B radiation level expected to result from a 15%
depletion of the planet's stratospheric ozone layer, the researchers found that the amount of Cmic in the soil was reduced
to only 37% of what it was at the ambient UV-B level when the air's CO2 content was maintained at the ambient
concentration. When the UV-B increase was accompanied by the CO2 increase, however, not only was there not a decrease
in Cmic, there was an actual increase of fully 37%. The story with respect to Nmic was both similar and different at one and
the same time. In this case, when the plots were exposed to the enhanced level of UV-B radiation, the amount of Nmic in
the soil experienced a 69% increase when the air's CO2 content was maintained at the ambient concentration. When the
UV-B increase was accompanied by the CO2 increase, however, Nmic rose even more, experiencing a whopping 138%
increase. These findings, in the words of Johnson et al., "may have far-reaching implications ... because the productivity of
many semi-natural ecosystems is limited by N (Ellenberg, 1988)." Hence, the 138% increase in soil microbial N observed
in this study to accompany a 15% reduction in stratospheric ozone and a concomitant 64% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration (experienced in going from 365 ppm to 600 ppm) should do wonders in enhancing the input of plant litter
to the soils of these ecosystems, which phenomenon represents the first half of the carbon sequestration process, i.e., the
carbon input stage. With respect to the second stage of keeping as much of that carbon as possible in the soil, Johnson et
al. note that "the capacity for subarctic semi-natural heaths to act as major sinks for fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide is
[also] likely to be critically dependent on the supply of N." Indeed, in a previous essay in this series, wherein we discussed
the findings of the literature review of Berg and Matzner (1997), we found that such is truly the case. With more nitrogen
in the soil, the long-term storage of carbon is significantly enhanced, as more litter is chemically transformed into humic
substances when nitrogen is more readily available; and these resulting more recalcitrant carbon compounds can be
successfully stored in the soil for many millennia. Clearly, earth's biosphere is effectively programmed to engage in a whole
host of different phenomena that may act to slow - or actually stop - the ongoing rise of the air's CO2 content, especially if
there is a chance it might otherwise attain a dangerously high level in terms of its potential to induce global warming, as
we have indicated in earlier essays of this series. Furthermore, as was suggested in yet another related context well over a
decade ago (Idso, 1990), lowly soil microbes may well play a major role in this biologically-mediated regulatory enterprise,
as is so nicely demonstrated in the new and unique study of Johnson et al. in Swedish Lapland.
4. CO2 encouraged bio-aerosols block warming – Volcano data supports.
Idso and idso 1 (Craig, president of CO2 Science, Keith, Vice president of CO2 Science, Yet Another Biophysical
Feedback Mechanism that May Help to Protect the Planet Against Deleterious CO2-Induced Global Warming October 10,
2001, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N41/EDIT.php
How significant is the process? Roderick et al. provide a good estimate based on one of our favorite approaches to
questions of this type: the utilization of a unique "natural experiment," a technique that has been used extensively by Idso
(1998) to evaluate the climatic sensitivity of the entire planet. Specifically, Roderick and his colleagues consider the
volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June of 1991. This event ejected enough gases and fine materials into the atmosphere
that it produced sufficient aerosol particles to greatly increase the diffuse component of the solar radiation reaching the
surface of the earth from that point in time through much of 1993, while only slightly reducing the receipt of total solar
radiation. Based on a set of lengthy calculations, Roderick et al. conclude that the Mt. Pinatubo eruption may well have
resulted in the removal of an extra 2.5 Gt of carbon from the atmosphere due to its diffuse-light-enhancing stimulation of
terrestrial vegetation in the year following the eruption, which would have reduced the ongoing rise in the air's CO2
concentration that year by about 1.2 ppm. Interestingly, this reduction is about the magnitude of the real-world
perturbation that was actually observed (Sarmiento, 1993). What makes this observation even more impressive is the fact
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that the CO2 reduction was coincident with an El Niño event; because, in the words of the authors, "previous and
subsequent such events have been associated with increases in atmospheric CO2." In addition, the observed reduction in
total solar radiation received at the earth's surface during this period would have had a tendency to reduce the amount of
photosynthetically active radiation incident upon earth's plants, which would also have had a tendency to cause the air's
CO2 content to rise, as it would tend to lessen global photosynthetic activity.
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2NC – AT: BioD Impact
CO2 helps the environment, NO GLOBAL WARMING
-- EMPIRICALLY
PROVEN
Wall Street Journal 2013(Wall Street Journal, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” July 4, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html)
Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global
warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something
dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and
engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.
In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly
resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I
cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no
mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security
and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK
to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global
warming is incontrovertible?"
In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon
dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And
the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming
establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we
can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if
one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect
of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the
U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models
have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting
alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our
chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us,
and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators
often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and
animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical
fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part
of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also
have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or
worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to
publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is
not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment
quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his
university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when
Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which
Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were
condemned to death.
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical
Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its
members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a
good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for
government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded
subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable
foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma
and the privileges it brought them.
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Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we
have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to
"decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhousegas control policies are not justified economically.
Princeton physics professor William Happer on why a large number of scientists don't believe that carbon dioxide is
causing global warming.
A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest
benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas
controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the
same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now.
Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest
warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.
If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who
are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and
in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing
nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government
investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.
Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to
back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of
"incontrovertible" evidence.
Warming is Key to Macroalgae Development
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Scienceand Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13,
AK)
Writing as background for their study, Jiang et al. (2010) note ―seagrasses are flowering plants that thrive in
shallow oceanic and estuarine waters around the world, and are ranked as one of the most ecologically
and economically valuable biological systems on earth, citing the work of Beer et al. (2006). They
state Thalassia hemprichii ―is among the most widely-distributed seagrass species in an Indo-Pacific flora, dominating in
many mixed meadows, citing the work of Short et al. (2007). In conducting their analysis, the authors collected intact
vegetative plants of T. hemprichii from Xincun Bay of Hainan Island, Southern China, which they transported to the
laboratory and cultured inflowthrough seawater aquaria bubbled with four different concentrations of CO2 representative
of (1) the present global ocean, with a pH of 8.10, (2) the projected ocean for 2100, with a pH of 7.75, (3) the projected
ocean for 2200, with a pH of 7.50, and (4) the ocean characteristic of ―an extreme beyond the current predictions (a
hundredfold increase in free CO2, with a pH of 6.2). The three researchers report the ―leaf growth rate of CO2-enriched
plants was significantly higher than that in the unenriched treatment, that ―nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) of
T. hemprichii, especially in belowground tissues, increased strongly with elevated CO2, and ―belowground tissues showed
a similar response with NSC. The Chinese scientists identify several implications of their findings that ―CO2 enrichment
enhances photosynthetic rate, growth rate and NSC concentrations of T. hemprichii. With higher atmospheric CO2
concentrations, they note, ―colonization beyond current seagrass depth limits is possible; the extra stored NSC ―can be
used to meet the carbon demands of plants during periods of low photosynthetic carbon fixation caused by severe
environmental disturbance such as underwater light reduction; it can enhance ―rhizome growth, flowering shoot
production and vegetative proliferation; and it ―may buffer the negative effects of transplant shock by increasing rhizome
reserve capacity. They also write, ―the globally increasing CO2 may enhance seagrass survival in eutrophic coastal waters,
where populations have been devastated by algal proliferation and reduced column light transparency, and ―ocean
acidification will stimulate seagrass biomass and productivity, leading to more favorable habitat and conditions for
associated invertebrate and fish species. Also researching the potential effects of ocean acidification
onmacroalgae were Xu et al. (2010), who write, ―Gracilaria lemaneiformis (Bory) Webervan Bosse is an economically
important red seaweed that is cultivated on a large scale in China due to the quantity and quality of agar in its cell walls. In
addition, they state ―much attention has been paid to the biofiltration capacity of the species (Yang et al., 2005, 2006;
Zhou et al., 2006), and that it has thus been suggested to be ―an excellent species for alleviating coastal eutrophication in
China (Fei, 2004). Considering these important characteristics of this seaweed, the authors set out to examine how this
aquatic plant might respond to elevated CO2. In conducting their experiment, plants were grown from thalli—collected at
0.5 m depth from a farm located in Shen‘ao Bay, Nanao Island, Shantou (China)—for 16 days in 3-L flasks of natural
seawater maintained at either natural (0.5 µM) or high (30 µM) dissolved inorganic phosphorus (Pi) concentrations in
contact with air of either 370 or 720 ppm CO2, while their photosynthetic rates, biomass production, and uptake of nitrate
and phosphate were examined. As best as can be determined from Xu et al.‘s graphical representations of their results,
algal photosynthetic rates in the natural Pi treatment were increased only by a non-significant 5 percent as a result of the
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95 percent increase in the air‘s CO2 concentration, and in the high Pi treatment they were increased by approximately 41
percent. In the case of growth rate or biomass production, on the other hand, the elevated CO2 treatment exhibited a 48
percent increase in the natural Pi treatment, whereas in the high Pi treatment there was no CO2-induced increase in
growth, because the addition of the extra 29.5 µM Pi boosted the biomass production of the low-CO2 natural-Pi treatment
by approximately 83 percent, and additional CO2 did not increase growth rates beyond that point. The three Chinese
researchers state ―elevated levels of CO2 in seawater increase the growth rate of many seaweed species despite the variety
of ways in which carbon is utilized in these algae, noting ―some species, such as Porphyra yezoensis Ueda (Gao et al.,
1991) and Hizikia fusiforme (Harv.) Okamura (Zou, 2005) are capable of using HCO3 , but are limited by the current
ambient carbon concentration in seawater, and ―enrichment of CO2 relieves this limitation and enhances growth.
Regarding the results they obtained with Gracilaria lemaneiformis, on the other hand—which they state ―efficiently uses
HCO3 and whose photosynthesis is saturated at the current inorganic carbon concentration of natural seawater (Zou et al.,
2004)—they write, ―the enhancement of growth could be due to the increased nitrogen uptake rates at elevated CO2
levels, which in their experiment were 40 percent in the natural Pi treatment, because ―high CO2 may enhance the
activity of nitrate reductase (Mercado et al., 1999; Gordillo et al., 2001; Zou, 2005) and stimulate the accumulation of
nitrogen, which could contribute to growth. Whatever strategy might be employed, these several
marine macroalgae appear to be capable of benefiting greatly from increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
CO2 Increases Soybean Disease Resistance
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Scienceand Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13,
AK)
Eastburn et al. (2010) note, ―globally, soybean is the most widely planted dicot crop and has economic significance due to
its wide variety of uses, ranging from food and health products to printing inks and biodiesal, but ―little to no work has
evaluated the influence of future atmospheric conditions on soybean diseases. This is particularly surprising given that
―worldwide yield losses to all soybean diseases combined are about 11% (Wrather et al., 1997), which is equivalent to
more than 24 million metric tons based on current production. In an attempt to begin to fill this knowledge
void, Eastburn et al. evaluated the individual and combined effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2, 550 ppm) and ozone
(O3, 1.2 times ambient) on three economically important soybean diseases—downy mildew, Septoria brown spot, and
sudden death syndrome (SDS)—over the three-year period 2005–2007 under natural field conditions at the soybean freeair CO2enrichment (SoyFACE) facility on the campus of the University of Illinois (USA). The five researchers found
―elevated CO2 alone or in combination with O3 significantly reduced downy mildew disease severity by 39–66% across
the three years of the study. On the other hand, they state ―elevated CO2 alone or in combination with O3 significantly
increased brown spot severity in all three years, but ―the increase was small in magnitude. Finally, they state ―the
atmospheric treatments had no effect on the incidence of SDS. Taken in their entirety, these findings thus suggest, on
balance, that elevated CO2 should provide a net benefit to soybean productivity throughout the world, as its concentration
continues to rise in the years and decades to come. In the introduction to another soybean study, Kretzschmar et al.
(2009) write, ―isoflavonoids constitute a group of natural products derived from the phenylpropanoidpathway, which is
abundant in soybeans, and they state ―the inducible accumulation of low molecular weight
antimicrobial pterocarpan phytoalexins, the glyceollins, is one of the major defense mechanisms implicated in soybean
resistance. Thus, in their study, as they describe it, they ―evaluated the effect of an elevated CO2 atmosphere on the
production of soybean defensive secondary chemicals induced by nitric oxide and a fungal elicitor. They did this in a
glasshouse where they grew soybeans from seed for a period of nine days in large, well-watered pots placed
within opentop chambers that were maintained at atmospheric CO2 concentrations of either 380 or 760 ppm, while they
examined changes in the production of phytoalexins and some of their precursors. This work revealed that elevated CO2
―resulted in an increase of intermediates and diverted end products (daidzein by 127%, coumestrol by 93%,genistein by
93%, luteolin by 89% and apigenin by 238%) with a concomitant increase of 1.5–3.0 times in the activity of enzymes
related to their biosynthetic routes. The Brazilian researchers state these findings ―indicate changes in the pool of
defense-related flavonoids in soybeans due to increased carbon availability, which may differentially alter the
responsiveness of soybean plants to pathogens in CO2 atmospheric concentrations such as those predicted for future
decades. Or to put it more simply, the ongoing rise in the air‘s CO2 content will likely increase the ability of soybeans to
withstand the attacks of various plant diseases in the years and decades to come.
Elevated CO2 Levels Key to Stronger Forests
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer,
Director of the Scienceand Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate
Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed
7/5/13, AK)
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Moving up from individual species and small groups of plants to the ecosystem scale, we consider the case of natural and
plantation-type forests, beginning with studies of the latter type, where the air around groups of trees has been
experimentally enriched with CO2, starting with the study of McCarthy et al. (2010). Conducted at the Duke Forest FreeAir CO2Enrichment (FACE) facility, this study is a long-term experiment designed to investigate the effects of an extra
200 ppm of atmospheric CO2 on the growth and development of a plantation of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) trees with an
understory of various broadleaf species, including Liriodendron tulipifera, Liquidambar styraciflua,
Acer rubrum,Ulmus alata, and Cornus florida, plus various other trees, shrubs, and vines. All of these were grown on a soil
that Finzi and Schlesinger (2003) describe as being in ―a state of acute nutrient deficiency that can only be reversed with
fertilization. Many researchers had long thought such fertility deficiency would stifle the ability of the extra aerial supply
of CO2 to significantly stimulate the forest‘s growth on a continuing basis. Working with data for the years 1996–2004,
the team of nine researchers writes, ―net primary productivity [NPP] for pines, hardwoods and the entire stand was
calculated as the sum of the production of coarse wood (stems, branches, coarse roots), leaf litter (lagged for pines), fine
roots and reproductive structures. The results of this protocol indicated ―elevated CO2 increased pine biomass
production, starting in 1997 and continuing every year thereafter, and ―the CO2-induced enhancement remained fairly
consistent as the stand developed. In addition, they found ―elevated CO2 increased stand (pine plus all other species)
biomass production every year from 1997 onwards with no trend over time, while the average yearly increase in NPP
caused by the approximate 54 percent increase in the air‘s CO2 content was 28 percent. Thus, and in spite of the original
belief of many scientists that low levels of soil nitrogen—especially an acute deficiency—would preclude any initial growth
stimulation provided by atmospheric CO2 enrichment from long persisting, the suite of trees, bushes, and shrubs that
constitute the Duke Forest has continued to maintain the extra CO2enabled vitality it exhibited right from the start of the
study, with no sign of it even beginning to taper off. Further extending the results of the Duke Forest FACE study were
Jackson et al. (2009), who describe new belowground data they obtained there, after which they present a synthesis of
these and other results obtained from 1996 through 2008, seeking to determine ―which, if any, variables show evidence
for a decrease in their response to atmospheric CO2 during that time frame. Among many other things, Jackson et al.
report ―on average, in elevated CO2, fine-root biomass in the top 15 cm of soil increased by 24%, and in recent years the
fine-root biomass increase ―grew stronger, averaging ~30% at high CO2. Regarding coarse roots having diameters greater
than 2 mm and extending to a soil depth of 32 cm, they report, ―biomass sampled in 2008 was twice as great in elevated
CO2. We calculate from the graphical representation of their results that the coarse-root biomass was fully 130 percent
greater, which is astounding, particularly given that the extra 200 ppm of CO2 supplied to the air surrounding the CO2enriched trees represented only about a 55 percent increase over ambient conditions. In the concluding sentence of their
paper‘s abstract, Jackson et al. state, ―overall, the effect of elevated CO2 belowground shows no sign of diminishing. In
expanding on this statement, the four researchers note ―if progressive nitrogen limitation were occurring in this system,
we would expect differences in productivity to diminish for trees in the elevated vs. ambient CO2 plots, but they state, ―in
fact there is little evidence from estimates of aboveground or total net primary productivity in the replicated Duke
experiment that progressive nitrogen limitation is occurring there or at other forest FACE experiments, even ―after more
than a decade of manipulation of the air‘s CO2 content, citing in this regard—with respect to the latter portion of their
statement—the report of Finzi et al. (2007). Consequently, there is very good reason to believe the ―aerial fertilization
effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment will continue to benefit Earth‘s forests significantly as long as the atmosphere‘s CO2
concentration continues to rise.
CO2 key to the growth of fungi –takes out your impact – micro-organisms check for any
temperature increases – the risk of CO2 being beneficial outweighs any of your
warming scenarios
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13,
AK)
Andrew and Lilleskov (2009) studied sporocarps (the reproductive structures of fungi), which can be significant carbon
sinks for the ectomycorrhizal fungi that develop symbiotic relationships with plants by forming sheaths around their root
tips, where they are the last sinks for carbon in the long and winding pathway that begins at the source of carbon
assimilation in plant leaves. The researchers note ―it is critical to understand how ectomycorrhizal fungal sporocarpsare
affected by elevated CO2 and ozone, because, they continue, ―sporocarps facilitate genetic recombination, permit longdistance dispersal and contribute to food webs, and we need to know how these important processes will be affected by
continued increases in the concentrations of these two trace constituents of the atmosphere. Accordingly, the two
researchers evaluated sporocarp biomass for a period of four years at the Aspen free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) site near
Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which provided, in their words, a ―unique opportunity to examine the effects of both elevated
CO2 and O3 on a forested ecosystem. The examination was conducted during years four through seven of the aspen and
aspen-birch forests‘ exposures to ambient and enriched concentrations of the two gases: CO2 (350 and 550 ppm) and O3
(33–67 and 50-–00 ppb). The scientists found total mean sporocarp biomass ―was generally lowest under elevated O3
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with ambient CO2, and it ―was greatest under elevated CO2, regardless of O3 concentration. They also found ―a
complete elimination of O3 effects on sporocarp production when [extra] CO2 was added. And they state they ―expect
that the responses seen in the present study were conservative compared to those expected under regional to global
changes in CO2 and O3. Consequently, by itself or in combination with rising ozone concentrations, the ongoing rise in the
atmosphere‘s CO2 content appears destined to enhance the genetic recombination and long-distance dispersal of
the ectomycorrhizal fungi that form symbiotic relationships with the roots of aspen and birch trees, thereby positively
contributing to various food webs that will be found within aspen and aspenbirch forests of the future. In another study
dealing with soil fungi, Alberton et al. (2010) write, ―roots of a very large number of plant species are regularly colonized
by a group of ascomycete fungi with usually dark-pigmented (melanized) septate hyphae (Mandyam and Jumpponen,
2005; Sieber and Grunig, 2006) that are referred to as ―dark septate rootendophytic (DSE) fungi, with ―most species
belonging to the Leotiomycetes (Kernaghan et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2006). To study these fungi, the three researchers
grew Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) plants from seed for 125 days in Petri dishes—both with and without inoculation with
one of seven different species/strains of DSE fungi—within controlled environment chambers maintained at atmospheric
CO2 concentrations of either 350 or 700 ppm, destructively harvesting some of the seedlings at the 98-day point of the
experiment and the rest of them at the experiment‘s conclusion. They found ―across all plants (DSE-inoculated and
control plants) under elevated CO2, shoot and root biomass increased significantly by 21% and 19%, respectively, relative
to ambient, with ―higher values over the final four weeks (increases of 40% and 30% for shoots and roots, respectively).
In addition, they indicate ―on average, shoot nitrogen concentration was 57% lower under elevated CO2, and ―elevated
CO2 decreased root nitrogen concentration on average by 16%. Alberton et al. thus acknowledge their study ―did not
suggest a role for DSE fungi in increased nutrient uptake. In fact, they emphasize that ―under elevated CO2, DSE fungi
even reduced nitrogen content of the pine seedlings. But they also emphasize that ―surprisingly, even under reduced
nitrogen availability, elevated CO2 led to increases in both above-ground and below-ground plant biomass. To explain
how that happened, the Brazilian and Dutch scientists write, ―a potential mechanism for the increase of plant biomass
even when plant nutrient uptake decreases is the production of phytohormones by DSE fungi. They observe that ―earlier
authors noted that DSE fungi enhance plant growth by producing phytohormones or inducing host hormone production
without any apparent facilitation of host nutrient uptake or stimulation of host nutrient metabolism (Addy et al., 2005;
Schulz and Boyle, 2005), further demonstrating that low levels of soil nitrogen availability need not be an insurmountable
impediment to significant CO2-induced increases in plant growth and development. In another study of note, Compant et
al. (2010) write, ―virtually all land plant taxa investigated have well-established symbioses with a large variety of
microorganisms (Nicolson, 1967; Brundrett, 2009), some of which ―are known to support plant growth and to increase
plant tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses (Bent, 2006). Many of these microorganisms colonize
the rhizosphere (Lugtenberg andKamilova, 2009), while others ―enter the root system of their hosts and enhance their
beneficial effects with an endophytic lifestyle (Stone et al., 2000). This is the case, as they put it, ―for plant growthpromoting fungi such asarbuscular mycorrhizae, ectomycorrhizae and other endophytic fungi, as well as for
plant growthpromoting bacteria and the more specialized plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. Many members of the
first two categories, they note, ―are applied as biocontrol agents, biofertilizers and/or phytostimulators in agriculture
(Vessey, 2003; Welbaum et al., 2004) or as degrading microorganisms in phytoremediation applications (Denton, 2007).
Consequently, and in order to determine how beneficial plant growth-promoting microorganisms might be affected by
continued increases in the air‘s CO2 content and by possible concomitant changes in climate, Compant et al. reviewed the
results of 135 studies that investigated the effects of CO2 and changes in various climatic factors on ―beneficial
microorganisms and their interactions with host plants. They found ―the majority of studies showed that elevated CO2
had a positive influence on the abundance of arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi, which, in their words, ―is generally in
agreement with meta-analyses performed by Treseder (2004) and by Alberton et al. (2005). But they also found ―the
effects on plant growth-promoting bacteria and endophytic fungi were more variable. Nevertheless, they state, ―in most
cases, plant-associated microorganisms had a beneficial effect on plants under elevated CO2. In addition, they report
―numerous studies indicated that plant growth promoting microorganisms (both bacteria and fungi) positively affected
plants subjected to drought stress. Temperature effects, on the other hand, were more of a wash, as Compant et al. state
―the effects of increased temperature on beneficial plant-associated microorganisms were more variable, positive and
neutral, and ―negative effects were equally common and varied considerably with the study system and the temperature
range investigated. In concluding, Compant et al. note the stress of drought is disadvantageous for nearly all terrestrial
vegetation, but plant growth-promoting microorganisms should help land plants overcome this potentially negative aspect
of future climate change, as long as the air‘s CO2 content continues to rise. Temperature effects, on the other hand, would
appear to be no more negative than they are positive in a warming world, and when they might be negative, continued
atmospheric CO2 enrichment should prove to be a huge benefit to plants by directly enhancing their growth rates and
water use efficiencies. And under the best of climatic conditions, atmospheric CO2 enrichment should bring out the best of
Earth‘s plants, plus the best of the great majority of plant growth-promoting microorganisms that benefit them
biochemically.
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Uniqueness Debate – Group It
The next agricultural revolution is underway. Absent CO2, food demand will devastate
wild nature.
Idso squared, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, ‘01
(Craig and Keith, The Most Important Global Change, February 2001, Volume 4, Number 8: 21,
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N8/EDIT.php)
It thus behooves us to seriously consider the findings of Tilman et al. (2001), reported just four days later in the pages of Science, which Leo and Gergen
had obviously not the advantage of seeing when they composed their essays. In an analysis of the global environmental impacts of
agricultural expansion that will likely occur over the next 50 years, which was based upon projected increases in population and
concomitant advances in technological expertise, the group of ten respected researchers concluded that the task of meeting the
doubled global food demand they calculated to exist in the year 2050 will likely exact an environmental toll that "may rival climate
change in environmental and societal impacts." What are the specific problems? For starters, Tilman and his colleagues note that "humans
currently appropriate more than a third of the production of terrestrial ecosystems and about half of usable freshwaters, have
doubled terrestrial nitrogen supply and phosphorus liberation, have manufactured and released globally significant
quantities of pesticides, and have initiated a major extinction event." Now, think of doubling those figures. In fact, do even more; for the scientists
calculate global nitrogen fertilization and pesticide production will likely rise by a factor of 2.7 by the year 2050.
Agricultural demand will triple by 2050—only increased CO2 emissions can solve
Idso Cubed 5 (Craig, president of CO2 Science, Keith, Vice president of CO2 Science, Sherwood, Will Farming Destroy
Wild Nature? APRIL 13TH 2005 http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N15/EDIT.php)
In an article in Science entitled "Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature," Green et al. (2005) address a looming problem of incredible
proportions and significance: how to meet the two- to three-fold increase in food demand that will exist by 2050 (Tilman et al.,
2002; Bongaarts, 1996) without usurping for agriculture all the land that is currently available to what they call "wild nature." The
four scientists demonstrate the immediacy of the problem by discussing the relationship between farming and birds . They
begin by noting that "farming (including conversion to farmland and its intensifying use) is the single biggest source of threat to bird
species listed as Threatened (accounting for 37% of threats) and is already substantially more important for species in developing countries than those
in developed countries (40% and 24% of threats, respectively)," and by reporting that "for developing and developed countries alike, the
scale of the threat posed by agriculture is even greater for Near-Threatened species (57% and 33% of threats,
respectively)." Clearly, a little more taking of land by agriculture will likely be devastating to several species of birds; and a lot more
usurpation (using words employed by climate alarmists the world over) will likely be catastrophically deadly to many of them, and numerous
other animals as well. So how does one solve the problem and keep from driving innumerable species to extinction (using
more words that climate alarmists relish) and still feed the masses of humanity that will inhabit the planet a mere 45 years hence? The answer
is simple: one has to raise more food without appreciably increasing the amounts of land and water used to do it. The problem is
that it is getting more and more difficult to do so. Already, in fact, Green et al. report that annual growth in yield is now higher in the developing world
than it is in the developed world, which suggests we may be approaching the upper limits of the benefits to be derived from the types of technology that
served us so well over the last four decades of the 20th century, when global food production outstripped population growth and kept us largely ahead of
the hunger curve, at least where political unrest did not keep food from reaching the tables of those who needed it. This is also the conclusion of Green et
al., who report that "evidence from a range of taxa in developing countries suggests that high-yield farming may allow more species to persist." But will
the high-yield farming we are capable of developing in the coming years be high enough to keep the loss of wild nature's land at an acceptable minimum?
This question was addressed by Idso and Idso (2000), who developed a supply-and-demand scenario for food in the year
2050. Specifically, they identified the plants that currently supply 95% of the world's food needs and projected historical trends in the productivities of
these crops 50 years into the future. They also evaluated the growth-enhancing effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on these
plants and made similar yield projections based on the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration likely to occur by that future
date. This work indicated that world population would be 51% greater in the year 2050 than it was in 1998, but that world food production would be only
37% greater, if its enhanced productivity were solely a consequence of anticipated improvements in agricultural technology and expertise. However,
they determined that the consequent shortfall in farm production could be overcome - but just barely - by the additional
benefits anticipated to accrue from the aerial fertilization effect of the expected rise in the air's CO2 content, assuming no
Kyoto-style cutbacks in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
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1. CO2 fertilization increases agriculture output while reducing water use– increases
plant yields while utilizing water more efficiently.
Thousands of studies prove.
Idso squared, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, ‘01
(Craig and Keith, The Most Important Global Change, February 2001, Volume 4, Number 8: 21,
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N8/EDIT.php)
But how would allowing anthropogenic CO2 emissions to take their natural course help to ameliorate future hunger? The answer resides
in the fact that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 tend to reduce plant transpiration while simultaneously enhancing plant
photosynthesis, which two phenomena enable earth's vegetation to produce considerably more food per unit of water used in
the food production process. Literally thousands of laboratory and field experiments - and that is no exaggeration - have verified this
fact beyond any doubt whatsoever. Indeed, this atmospheric CO2-derived blessing is as sure as death and taxes and as dependable as a mother's
love. But what do the climate-alarmist ideologues do about it? They spurn it. They deny it. And they try to reverse it, in fact. And they do it to the
detriment of all mankind.
2. Empirically proven -- CO2 increases total global biodiversity—NASA study.
Solomon, Financial Post, ‘08 (Lawrence, In Praise of CO2, Don Mills, June 7, 2008
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/)
The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA
satellite data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful a whopping
6.2%. by About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only
7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost
500 grams of greenery per year. Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the
planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature’s fertilizer, bathing the biota with its lifegiving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up — carbon is the building block of life — and release the oxygen, which
along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000
U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: “Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in
drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal
life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.”
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2NC – Quals
Not a reason to reject – Even if they’re unqualified, the aff should be able to provide
warranted arguments to disprove our claims. Privilege debate over ad homs.
The Idso’s are qualified.
A. Scholastic background
Hayashi, Managing Director at The Dillard Anderson Group, ‘05
(Stuart, July 1, “When Hot Tempers – Not Hot Temperatures – Create a Harsh Climate” available at
http://50thstar.blogspot.com/2005/07/whenhot-tempers-not-temperatures.html)
When Robinson’s paper cites a scientist who is not a climatologist, such as Sherwood B. Idso, it is done in a reasonable fashion. When
Idso, for example, was going for his Ph.D., his focus was on soil sciences while his minor was meteorology, and he served as
an adjunct professor of geology, geography, and botany in the past So it makes sense that the 56th note of Robinson’s paper cites
Idso about how increases in carbon dioxide can benefit the growth of plants. As far as professional credentials go, Idso is
qualified to make that assessment.
B. The Economist confirms quals.
Kjos, Author of “Brave new schools”, ‘08
(Berit, February 8, 2008 “Saving the Earth”, http://www.crossroad.to/Books/BraveNewSchools/5-Earth.htm, Ch5)
In spite of the world's fear of carbon dioxide, science shows that a rise in CO2, the major "greenhouse gas", would help food production.
In a CFACT report on the Greenhouse Effect, Dr. Sherwood B. Idso, President of the Institute for Biospheric Research, explains that "a simple
doubling of the air's CO2 concentration, increases the productivity of essentially all plants by about one-third, while decreasing the
amount of water they lose through evaporation by an equal amount . These effects essentially double the water use efficiencies of all
plants, making them more productive and drought resistant ."[35] (Notice, all green plants, not just trees, use CO2 for photosynthesis.) The
editors of The Economist seems to agree. "Environmentalists are dismayed," they wrote in an April 1995 issue. "Their efforts to
scare the world over global warming seems not to have worked.... Some areas of the world would benefit from a warmer
climate”.
C. ICSC coalition recognizes the Idso’s as qualified experts.
ICSC 8
(International Climate Science Coalition, ellipse removes the alphabetical listing of other qualified scientists,
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=1)
QUALIFIED ENDORSERS NOT AT CONFERENCE: The following individuals, all well-trained in science and technology or climate
change-related economics and policy, have allowed their names to be listed as endorsing the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change: …
Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A
And they’re a leading and respected group in the global warming debate.
Exchange Morning Post 8 (An intelligent discussion about climate change, Exchange, April 23rd,
http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2008/week17/Wednesday/0423016.html)
The International Climate Science Coalition is an association of scientists, economists and energy and policy experts working to
promote better public understanding of climate change . ICSC is committed to providing a highly credible alternative to the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thereby fostering a more rational, open discussion about climate issues.
All sides of the climate debate receive funding from interested parties and Idso reached
and published his conclusion before and funding controversy arose.
Idso, President Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, ‘06
(Sherwood, President Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, “What Motivates the Center for the
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change?” September 27th 2006,
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V9/N39/EDIT.php)
In this regard, as I mentioned earlier, there are many scientists on both sides of the climate change debate who receive funds from
people that admire their work and who continue to maintain their intellectual and moral integrity. Likewise, there are probably
some on both sides of the controversy who do otherwise. So how does one differentiate between them? Clearly, each researcher's case is unique. In my
case, I feel that a significant indication of what motivates me to do what I do can be gleaned from my publication record,
which demonstrates that I studied and wrote about many of the topics we currently address on our website a full quarter-century
ago in a host of different peer-reviewed scientific journals - as well as in a couple of books (Idso, 1982, 1989) that I self-
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published and for which I personally paid the publication costs - all of which happened well before I, or probably anyone else, had ever even
contemplated doing what we now do and actually receiving funds to sustain the effort. What is more, many of these things occurred
well before there was any significant controversy over the climate change issue, which largely began with the publication of
one of my early contributions to the topic (Idso, 1980). Hence, it should be readily evident that my views about the potential impacts of
the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration from that time until now have never been influenced in even the slightest degree by
anything other than what has appeared in the scientific literature. And my sons are in their father's image.
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CO2 Good – Helps C3 and C4 Plants
C3 Plants benefit from an increase in CO2¶
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011
(Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7,
http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13, AK)
We begin our review of atmospheric CO2 enrichment effects on Earth‘s vegetation with a consideration
of C3 plants—those in which the enzyme RuBisCO is involved in the uptake of CO2 and the subsequent
photosynthetic process, which results in its incorporation into a 3-carbon compound—starting with the
study of Norikane et al. (2010). They focused on the genus Cymbidium, which comprises about 50 species
distributed throughout tropical and subtropical Asia and Oceania. The four researchers worked with shoots of
Music Hour ‗Maria,‘ a type of orchid, possessing two to three leaves, which they obtained from a mass of protocorm-like
bodies they derived from shoot-tip culture. They grew them in vitro on a modified Vacin and Went medium in air
augmented with either 0, 3,000, or 10,000 ppm CO2 under two photosynthetic photon flux densities (either 45 or 75 µmol
m -1 s -1 ) provided by cold cathode fluorescent lamps for a period of 90 days. They then transferred the plants to ex vitro
culture for 30 more days. Relative to plants grown in vitro in ambient air, the percent increases in shoot and
root dry weight due to enriching the air in which the plants grew by 3,000 ppm CO2 were, respectively,
216 percent and 1,956 percent under the low-light regime and 249 percent and 1,591 percent under the
high-light regime, while corresponding increases for the plants grown in air enriched with an extra
10,000 ppm CO2 were 244 percent and 2,578 percent under the low-light regime and 310 percent and
1,879 percent under the high-light regime. Similarly, in the ex vitro experiment, the percent increases in
shoot and root dry weight due to enriching the air in which the plants grew by 3,000 ppm CO2 were 223
percent and 436 percent under the low-light regime and 279 percent and 469 percent under the highlight regime, while corresponding increases for the plants grown in air enriched with an extra 10,000
ppm CO2 were 271 percent and 537 percent under the low-light regime and 332 percent and 631 percent
under the high-light regime. Consequently, the Japanese scientists concluded, ―super-elevated CO2
enrichment of in vitro-cultured Cymbidium could positively affect the efficiency and quality of
commercial production of clonal orchid plantlets.Turning from ornamental plants to food crops, Vanaja et al.
(2010) note grain legumes ―provide much needed nutritional security in the form of proteins to the predominant
vegetarian populations of India and also the world. They further state that legumes—of which pigeon peas are an
important example—―have the potential to maximize the benefit of elevated CO2 by matching stimulated
photosynthesis with increased N2 fixation, citing Rogers et al. (2009). Therefore, they grew pigeon peas
(Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.) from seed to maturity outdoors at Hyderabad, India within open-top chambers
maintained at atmospheric CO2 concentrations of either 370 or 700 ppm. They then harvested the plants and
measured pertinent productivity parameters. This work revealed, according to the team of nine Indian scientists, that in
the higher of the two CO2 concentrations, ―total biomass recorded an improvement of 91.3%, grain yield 150.1% and
fodder yield 67.1%. They also found ―the major contributing components for improved grain yield under
elevated CO2 were number of pods, number of seeds and test weight, with these items exhibiting
increases of 97.9 percent, 119.5 percent, and 7.2 percent, respectively. In addition, they found there was ―a
significant positive increase of harvest index at elevated CO2 with an increment of 30.7% over ambient
values, which they say was due to the crop‘s ―improved pod set and seed yield under enhanced CO2
concentration. These multiple positive findings, according to the scientists from India‘s Central Research
Institute for Dryland Agriculture, illustrate the importance of pigeon peas for ―sustained food with
nutritional security under a climate change scenario. In much the same vein, Yang et al. (2009) declared, ―rice
is unequivocally one of the most important food crops that feed the largest proportion of the world‘s
population, that ―the demand for rice production will continue to increase in the coming decades,
especially in the major rice-consuming countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and that ―accurate
predictions of rice yield and of the ability of rice crops to adapt to high CO2 environments are therefore
crucial for understanding the impact of climate change on the future food supply. In fact, they forcefully
state—and rightly— that ―there is a pressing need to identify genotypes which could optimize
harvestable yield as atmospheric CO2 increases.¶
C4 plants also benefit- sugarcane is key for world health
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer,
Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011
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(Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter
7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13, AK)Moving on to C4 plants—where the
enzyme PEP carboxylase allows CO2 to be taken in very quickly and delivered directly to RuBisCO for
photosynthetic incorporation into a 4-carbon compound—Vu and Allen (2009) note such vegetation
represents ―fewer than 4% of all angiosperm species, yet ―their ecological and economic significance is
substantial. On a global basis, for example, they write, ―up to onethird of terrestrial productivity is provided
by C4 plants, citing Cerling et al. (1997), Ghannoum et al. (1997), and Brown et al. (2005), and they note ―in many
tropical regions, the food source is primarily based on C4 crops, among [which] maize, millet, sorghum
and sugarcane are the most agriculturally important monocots in terms of production (Brown, 1999), with
―up to 75% of the world sugar production provided by sugarcane (De Souza et al., 2008). In addition, they
indicate the emerging ―use of sugarcane as a source for biofuel production has been highly recognized,
citing Goldenberg (2007). So what will happen to the productivity of this important crop as the air‘s CO2 content
continues its upward climb, especially if global air temperatures rise along with it? Historically, C4 crops have been
thought to be relatively unresponsive to atmospheric CO2 enrichment, as they possess a CO2concentrating mechanism that allows them to achieve a greater photosynthetic capacity than C3 plants at
the current atmospheric CO2 concentration, particularly at high growth temperatures (Matsuoka et al.,
2001). Thus, simple reasoning might suggest C4 plants may be little benefited, if at all, in a CO2-enriched
and warmer world of the future. However, in the case of sugarcane, as the research of Vu and Allen
demonstrates, simple reasoning would be incorrect, especially with respect to the most important
measure of sugarcane‘s economic value: stem juice production. The two researchers with the USDA‘s
Agricultural Research Service, who hold joint appointments in the Agronomy Department of the University of Florida
(USA), grew two cultivars of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) for a period of three months in pairedcompanion, temperature gradient, sunlit greenhouses under daytime CO2 concentrations of 360 and 720 ppm and air
temperatures of 1.5°C (near ambient) and 6.0°C higher than outside ambient temperature, after which they measured
several different plant properties. ―On a main stem basis, Vu and Allen write, ―leaf area, leaf dry weight,
stem dry weight and stem juice volume were increased by growth at doubled CO2 [as well as at] high
temperature, and they state these increases were even greater under the combination of doubled CO2
and high temperature, with plants grown under these conditions averaging ―50%, 26%, 84% and 124%
greater leaf area, leaf dry weight, stem dry weight and stem juice volume, respectively, compared with
plants grown at [the] ambient CO2/near-ambient temperature combination. In addition, they write,
―plants grown at [the] doubled CO2/high temperature combination were 2- to 3-fold higher in stem
soluble solids than those at [the] ambient CO2/near-ambient temperature combination. Consequently, as
Vu and Allen conclude, ―sugarcane grown under predicted rising atmospheric CO2 and temperature in the
future may use less water, utilize water more efficiently, and would perform better in sucrose
production. This bodes well for tropical-region agriculture, especially, as they note, ―with the worldwide
continued increase in demand for sugarcane as a source of food and biofuel. Last, they add that
significant ―improvements in stem sucrose and biomass through classical breeding and/or new
biotechnology may also be achieved; and, hence, they state, ―studies to identify the cultivars with high
efficiency in water use and stem sucrose production under future changes in CO2 and climate are of
great importance and should be initiated and explored. Working hand-in-hand with the benefits
provided by the ongoing rise in the air‘s CO2 content, therefore, as well as those provided by the
possibility of still higher air temperatures to come, we may yet be able to meet the increasing food needs
of our expanding numbers without taking vast amounts of land and freshwater resources from Earth‘s
natural ecosystems. Also studying sugarcane, Gouvea et al. (2009) used the agrometeorological model
of Doorenbos and Kassam(1994) ―to estimate sugarcane yield in tropical southern Brazil, based on future A1B climatic
scenarios presented in the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. They first calculated potential
productivity, which considers ―the possible impacts caused by changes in temperature, precipitation,
sunshine hours and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, as well as technological advances, and then
actual productivity, which additionally accounts for the yield-reducing effects of water stress. Based on
their calculations, Gouvea et al. determined ―potential productivity will increase by 15% in relation to the present
condition in 2020, by 33% in 2050 and by 47% in 2080, and ―actual productivity will increase by 12% in relation to the
present condition in 2020, by 32% in 2050 and by 47% in 2080. They further indicate expected technological advances,
including the development of new varieties and best-management practices, will account for 35 percent of the yield gains
in 2020, 51 percent in 2050, and 61 percent in 2080. Consequently, and in spite of the gloomy prognostications of the
IPCC and its followers, this modeling exercise suggests there will be, in the words of the four researchers,
―a beneficial effect of forecasted climate changes on sugarcane productivity, due to the expected
increases in temperature and CO2 concentration.
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CO2 Good – Helps Microalgae
Warming is Key to Macroalgae Development
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer,
Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011
(Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7,
http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13, AK)
Writing as background for their study, Jiang et al. (2010) note ―seagrasses are flowering plants that thrive in shallow
oceanic and estuarine waters around the world, and are ranked as one of the most ecologically and economically valuable
biological systems on earth, citing the work of Beer et al. (2006). They state Thalassia hemprichii ―is among the
most widely-distributed seagrass species in an Indo-Pacific flora, dominating in many mixed meadows, citing the work of
Short et al. (2007). In conducting their analysis, the authors collected intact vegetative plants of
T. hemprichii from Xincun Bay of Hainan Island, Southern China, which they transported to the laboratory and cultured
in flow through seawater aquaria bubbled with four different concentrations of CO2 representative of (1) the present
global ocean, with a pH of 8.10, (2) the projected ocean for 2100, with a pH of 7.75, (3) the projected ocean for 2200, with
a pH of 7.50, and (4) the ocean characteristic of ―an extreme beyond the current predictions (a hundredfold increase in
free CO2, with a pH of 6.2). The three researchers report the ―leaf growth rate of CO2-enriched plants was significantly
higher than that in the unenriched treatment, that ―nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) of T. hemprichii, especially in
belowground tissues, increased strongly with elevated CO2, and ―belowground tissues showed a similar response with
NSC. The Chinese scientists identify several implications of their findings that ―CO2 enrichment enhances photosynthetic
rate, growth rate and NSC concentrations of T. hemprichii. With higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, they note,
―colonization beyond current seagrass depth limits is possible; the extra stored NSC ―can be used to meet the carbon
demands of plants during periods of low photosynthetic carbon fixation caused by severe environmental disturbance such
as underwater light reduction; it can enhance ―rhizome growth, flowering shoot production and vegetative proliferation;
and it ―may buffer the negative effects of transplant shock by increasing rhizome reserve capacity. They also write, ―the
globally increasing CO2 may enhance seagrass survival in eutrophic coastal waters, where populations have been
devastated by algal proliferation and reduced column light transparency, and ―ocean acidification will
stimulate seagrass biomass and productivity, leading to more favorable habitat and conditions for associated invertebrate
and fish species. Also researching the potential effects of ocean acidification on macroalgae were Xu et al. (2010), who
write, ―Gracilaria lemaneiformis (Bory) Webervan Bosse is an economically important red seaweed that is cultivated on a
large scale in China due to the quantity and quality of agar in its cell walls. In addition, they state ―much attention has
been paid to the biofiltration capacity of the species (Yang et al., 2005, 2006; Zhou et al., 2006), and that it has thus been
suggested to be ―an excellent species for alleviating coastal eutrophication in China (Fei, 2004). Considering these
important characteristics of this seaweed, the authors set out to examine how this aquatic plant might respond to elevated
CO2. In conducting their experiment, plants were grown from thalli—collected at 0.5 m depth from a farm located
in Shen‘ao Bay, Nanao Island, Shantou (China)—for 16 days in 3-L flasks of natural seawater maintained at either natural
(0.5 µM) or high (30 µM) dissolved inorganic phosphorus (Pi) concentrations in contact with air of either 370 or 720 ppm
CO2, while their photosynthetic rates, biomass production, and uptake of nitrate and phosphate were examined. As best
as can be determined from Xu et al.‘s graphical representations of their results, algal photosynthetic rates in the natural Pi
treatment were increased only by a non-significant 5 percent as a result of the 95 percent increase in the air‘s CO2
concentration, and in the high Pi treatment they were increased by approximately 41 percent. In the case of growth rate or
biomass production, on the other hand, the elevated CO2 treatment exhibited a 48 percent increase in the natural Pi
treatment, whereas in the high Pi treatment there was no CO2-induced increase in growth, because the addition of the
extra 29.5 µM Pi boosted the biomass production of the low-CO2 natural-Pi treatment by approximately 83 percent, and
additional CO2 did not increase growth rates beyond that point. The three Chinese researchers state ―elevated levels of
CO2 in seawater increase the growth rate of many seaweed species despite the variety of ways in which carbon is utilized
in these algae, noting ―some species, such as Porphyra yezoensis Ueda (Gao et al., 1991) and Hizikia fusiforme (Harv.)
Okamura (Zou, 2005) are capable of using HCO3 , but are limited by the current ambient carbon concentration in
seawater, and ―enrichment of CO2 relieves this limitation and enhances growth. Regarding the results they obtained
with Gracilaria lemaneiformis, on the other hand—which they state ―efficiently uses HCO3 and whose photosynthesis is
saturated at the current inorganic carbon concentration of natural seawater (Zou et al., 2004)—they write, ―the
enhancement of growth could be due to the increased nitrogen uptake rates at elevated CO2 levels, which in their
experiment were 40 percent in the natural Pi treatment, because ―high CO2 may enhance the activity of
nitrate reductase (Mercado et al., 1999; Gordillo et al., 2001; Zou, 2005) and stimulate the accumulation of nitrogen,
which could contribute to growth. Whatever strategy might be employed, these several marine macroalgae appear to be
capable of benefiting greatly from increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
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CO2 Good – Helps Soybeans
CO2 Increases Soybean Disease Resistance
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer,
Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate
Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed
7/5/13, AK)
Eastburn et al. (2010) note, ―globally, soybean is the most widely planted dicot crop and has economic significance due to
its wide variety of uses, ranging from food and health products to printing inks and biodiesal, but ―little to no work has
evaluated the influence of future atmospheric conditions on soybean diseases. This is particularly surprising given that
―worldwide yield losses to all soybean diseases combined are about 11% (Wrather et al., 1997), which is equivalent to
more than 24 million metric tons based on current production. In an attempt to begin to fill this knowledge
void, Eastburn et al. evaluated the individual and combined effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2, 550 ppm) and ozone
(O3, 1.2 times ambient) on three economically important soybean diseases—downy mildew, Septoria brown spot, and
sudden death syndrome (SDS)—over the three-year period 2005–2007 under natural field conditions at the soybean freeair CO2enrichment (SoyFACE) facility on the campus of the University of Illinois (USA). The five researchers found
―elevated CO2 alone or in combination with O3 significantly reduced downy mildew disease severity by 39–66% across
the three years of the study. On the other hand, they state ―elevated CO2 alone or in combination with O3 significantly
increased brown spot severity in all three years, but ―the increase was small in magnitude. Finally, they state ―the
atmospheric treatments had no effect on the incidence of SDS. Taken in their entirety, these findings thus suggest, on
balance, that elevated CO2 should provide a net benefit to soybean productivity throughout the world, as its concentration
continues to rise in the years and decades to come. In the introduction to another soybean study, Kretzschmar et al.
(2009) write, ―isoflavonoids constitute a group of natural products derived from the phenylpropanoidpathway, which is
abundant in soybeans, and they state ―the inducible accumulation of low molecular weight
antimicrobial pterocarpan phytoalexins, the glyceollins, is one of the major defense mechanisms implicated in soybean
resistance. Thus, in their study, as they describe it, they ―evaluated the effect of an elevated CO2 atmosphere on the
production of soybean defensive secondary chemicals induced by nitric oxide and a fungal elicitor. They did this in a
glasshouse where they grew soybeans from seed for a period of nine days in large, well-watered pots placed within open
top chambers that were maintained at atmospheric CO2 concentrations of either 380 or 760 ppm, while they examined
changes in the production of phytoalexins and some of their precursors. This work revealed that elevated CO2 ―resulted
in an increase of intermediates and diverted end products (daidzein by 127%, coumestrol by 93%,genistein by
93%, luteolin by 89% and apigenin by 238%) with a concomitant increase of 1.5–3.0 times in the activity of enzymes
related to their biosynthetic routes. The Brazilian researchers state these findings ―indicate changes in the pool of
defense-related flavonoids in soybeans due to increased carbon availability, which may differentially alter the
responsiveness of soybean plants to pathogens in CO2 atmospheric concentrations such as those predicted for future
decades. Or to put it more simply, the ongoing rise in the air‘s CO2 content will likely increase the ability of soybeans to
withstand the attacks of various plant diseases in the years and decades to come.
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CO2 Good – Helps Forests
Elevated CO2 Levels Key to Stronger Forests
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer,
Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011
(Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7,
http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13, AK)
Moving up from individual species and small groups of plants to the ecosystem scale, we consider the case of natural and
plantation-type forests, beginning with studies of the latter type, where the air around groups of trees has been
experimentally enriched with CO2, starting with the study of McCarthy et al. (2010). Conducted at the Duke Forest FreeAir CO2Enrichment (FACE) facility, this study is a long-term experiment designed to investigate the effects of an extra
200 ppm of atmospheric CO2 on the growth and development of a plantation of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) trees with an
understory of various broadleaf species, including Liriodendron tulipifera, Liquidambar styraciflua,
Acer rubrum,Ulmus alata, and Cornus florida, plus various other trees, shrubs, and vines. All of these were grown on a soil
that Finzi and Schlesinger (2003) describe as being in ―a state of acute nutrient deficiency that can only be reversed with
fertilization. Many researchers had long thought such fertility deficiency would stifle the ability of the extra aerial supply
of CO2 to significantly stimulate the forest‘s growth on a continuing basis. Working with data for the years 1996–2004,
the team of nine researchers writes, ―net primary productivity [NPP] for pines, hardwoods and the entire stand was
calculated as the sum of the production of coarse wood (stems, branches, coarse roots), leaf litter (lagged for pines), fine
roots and reproductive structures. The results of this protocol indicated ―elevated CO2 increased pine biomass
production, starting in 1997 and continuing every year thereafter, and ―the CO2-induced enhancement remained fairly
consistent as the stand developed. In addition, they found ―elevated CO2 increased stand (pine plus all other species)
biomass production every year from 1997 onwards with no trend over time, while the average yearly increase in NPP
caused by the approximate 54 percent increase in the air‘s CO2 content was 28 percent. Thus, and in spite of the original
belief of many scientists that low levels of soil nitrogen—especially an acute deficiency—would preclude any initial growth
stimulation provided by atmospheric CO2 enrichment from long persisting, the suite of trees, bushes, and shrubs that
constitute the Duke Forest has continued to maintain the extra CO2enabled vitality it exhibited right from the start of the
study, with no sign of it even beginning to taper off. Further extending the results of the Duke Forest FACE study were
Jackson et al. (2009), who describe new belowground data they obtained there, after which they present a synthesis of
these and other results obtained from 1996 through 2008, seeking to determine ―which, if any, variables show evidence
for a decrease in their response to atmospheric CO2 during that time frame. Among many other things, Jackson et al.
report ―on average, in elevated CO2, fine-root biomass in the top 15 cm of soil increased by 24%, and in recent years the
fine-root biomass increase ―grew stronger, averaging ~30% at high CO2. Regarding coarse roots having diameters greater
than 2 mm and extending to a soil depth of 32 cm, they report, ―biomass sampled in 2008 was twice as great in elevated
CO2. We calculate from the graphical representation of their results that the coarse-root biomass was fully 130 percent
greater, which is astounding, particularly given that the extra 200 ppm of CO2 supplied to the air surrounding the CO2enriched trees represented only about a 55 percent increase over ambient conditions. In the concluding sentence of their
paper‘s abstract, Jackson et al. state, ―overall, the effect of elevated CO2 belowground shows no sign of diminishing. In
expanding on this statement, the four researchers note ―if progressive nitrogen limitation were occurring in this system,
we would expect differences in productivity to diminish for trees in the elevated vs. ambient CO2 plots, but they state, ―in
fact there is little evidence from estimates of aboveground or total net primary productivity in the replicated Duke
experiment that progressive nitrogen limitation is occurring there or at other forest FACE experiments, even ―after more
than a decade of manipulation of the air‘s CO2 content, citing in this regard—with respect to the latter portion of their
statement—the report of Finzi et al. (2007). Consequently, there is very good reason to believe the ―aerial fertilization
effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment will continue to benefit Earth‘s forests significantly as long as the atmosphere‘s CO2
concentration continues to rise.
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CO2 Good – Solves BVOC’s
More CO2 means more BVOCs- they are key to cloud formation and cooling- this turns
the case.
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/5/13,
AK)
Still other secondary carbon compounds comprise what are known as biogenic volatile organic compounds or BVOCs.
Plants re-emit a substantial portion of their assimilated CO2 back to the atmosphere as BVOCs, and these substances
affect both the chemical and physical properties of the air, where they generate large quantities of organic aerosols that
can affect the planet‘s climate by forming cloud condensation nuclei that may lead to increased cooling during the day by
reflecting a greater portion of the incoming solar radiation back to space. In addition, many BVOCs protect plants from a
host of insect pests. But not all BVOCs are so helpful.
CO2 solves isoprene BVOCs
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/8/13,
AK)
The scientists found that between 1901 and 2002, climate change at the global scale was responsible for a 7% increase in
isoprene emissions, but rising atmospheric CO2 caused a 21% reduction, and by the end of the 20th century,
anthropogenic cropland expansion had the largest impact, reducing isoprene emissions by 15%, so that overall, these
factors combined to cause a 24% decrease in global isoprene emissions during the 20th century. These findings represent
good news, as the factors identified should reduce the undesirable consequences of increases in tropospheric ozone and
methane concentrations. The three scientists warn, however, that ―the possible rapid expansion of biofuel production
with high isoprene-emitting plant species (e.g., oil palm, willow and poplar) may reverse the trend by which conversion of
land to food crops leads to lower isoprene emissions. This provides yet another reason not to force use of biofuels as
replacements for fossil fuels.
CO2 produces BVOCs – that increases cloud formation which resolves warming and
prevents future pest attacks
Idso, Founder for Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Carter, Marine Geologist, and Singer, Director
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 2011 (Craig D., Robert, and S. Fred, 2011, NIPCC, “Climate Change
Reconsidered,” 2011 Interim Report, Chapter 7, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html, accessed 7/8/13,
AK)
Still other secondary carbon compounds comprise what are known as biogenic volatile organic compounds or BVOCs.
Plants re-emit a substantial portion of their assimilated CO2 back to the atmosphere as BVOCs, and these substances
affect both the chemical and physical properties of the air, where they generate large quantities of organic aerosols that
can affect the planet‘s climate by forming cloud condensation nuclei that may lead to increased cooling during the day by
reflecting a greater portion of the incoming solar radiation back to space. In addition, many BVOCs protect plants from a
host of insect pests. But not all BVOCs are so helpful.
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AFF – 2AC – CO2 Ag
Benefits are short-term – can’t act as a sufficient negative feedback and warming kills
other resources needed to sustain agriculture
Mann 4 (Michael E, PHD in Geology and Geophysics from Yale, member of the Penn State University faculty, holding
joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute
(EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), "CO2 Fertilization,"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/co_2-fertilization/)
It has sometimes been argued that the earth’s biosphere (in large part, the terrestrial biosphere) may have the capacity to sequestor
much of the increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere associated with human fossil fuel burning. This effect is known as “CO2
fertilization” because, in the envisioned scenario, higher ambient CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere literally “fertilize” plant growth. Because
plants in turn, in the process of photosynthesis, convert CO2 into oxygen, it is thus sometimes argued that such “co2 fertilization” could potentially
provide a strong negative feedback on changing CO2 concentrations. Recent experiments and model calculations, however, suggest that this
is unlikely to be the case. A set of controlled experiments known as FACE (“Free Air CO2 Enrichment”) experiments have been performed in
which ambient CO2 levels are elevated in forest stands and changes in various measures of productivity are made over
several years. Experiments of this sort that have been done at Duke Forest indicate (in agreement with models), that any elevation of productivity
is likely to be short-lived and is unlikely to significantly offset any gradual, long-term increases in co2 due to human
activity. This is due in part to the fact that other conditions (e.g. availability of nutrients such as Nitrogen and Phosphorus) appear to
quickly become limiting, even when carbon availability is removed as a constraint on plant growth when ambient CO 2
concentrations are sufficiently increased. A few simple calculations indicate that any hypothesized co2 fertilization response is unlikely to
offset a significant fraction of projected increases in atmospheric co2 concentration over the next century. At present, about 600 billion tons of
carbon are tied up in the above-ground vegetation. About 2-3 times this much is tied up in roots and below ground carbon,
which is a more difficult carbon pool to augment. By comparison, scenarios for fossil fuel emissions for the 21st century
range from about 600 billion tons (if we can keep total global emissions at current levels) to over 2500 billion tons if the world increases its
reliance on combustion of coal as economic growth and population increase dramatically. These numbers clearly indicate that sequestering a
significant fraction of projected emissions in vegetation is likely to be very difficult, especially as forests are cleared to make way for agriculture
and communities. While there are possibilities of storage in wells and deep in the ocean, stabilizing the atmospheric CO 2 concentration
would require gathering up the equivalent of 1 to 2 times the world’s existing above ground vegetation and putting it down
abandoned oil wells or deep in the ocean. While CO2 fertilization could help to increase above ground vegetation a bit, storing more than a few
tens of percent of the existing carbon would be quite surprising, and this is likely to be more like a few percent of global carbon emissions projected for
the 21st century.
Multiple reasons warming kills agriculture
William Cline, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global
Development, 3-2008, “Global warming and agriculture” Finance and Development, the quarterly publication of the IMF
March 2008,. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/03/cline.htm
For that reason, this study (Cline, 2007) was undertaken both to get a better long-term fix on overall world effects under
current policies (the so-called baseline or business-as-usual scenario) and to understand the likely impact on individual
countries and regions. The time frame stretched out to the average for 2070–99, what is called the "2080s." Climate
model projections are available on a comparable basis for this period, which is far enough in the future to allow sizable
warming and potential damage to materialize but close enough to the present to elicit public concern. The study, which is
explored in this article, suggests that there is good reason not to downplay the risks to agriculture from
global warming. How climate affects agriculture Climate change can affect agriculture in a variety of
ways. Beyond a certain range of temperatures, warming tends to reduce yields because crops
speed through their development, producing less grain in the process. And higher
temperatures also interfere with the ability of plants to get and use moisture. Evaporation from
the soil accelerates when temperatures rise and plants increase transpiration—that is, lose more
moisture from their leaves. The combined effect is called "evapotranspiration." Because global warming is likely to
increase rainfall, the net impact of higher temperatures on water availability is a race between higher evapotranspiration
and higher precipitation. Typically, that race is won by higher evapotranspiration. But a key culprit in climate change—
carbon emissions—can also help agriculture by enhancing photosynthesis in many important, so-called C3, crops (such as
wheat, rice, and soybeans). The science, however, is far from certain on the benefits of carbon
fertilization. But we do know that this phenomenon does not much help C4 crops (such as sugarcane and maize), which account for about one-fourth of all crops by value.
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CO2 is net worse for food
Justin Gillis June 4, 2011 is an assistant business editor at The New York Times, in charge of the paper's coverage of food, agriculture and energy. He
joined the Times last year after a dozen years as an editor and reporter at The Washington Post, and before that, a dozen years at The Miami Herald. A
Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/science/earth/05harvest.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Now, the latest scientific research suggests that a previously discounted factor is helping to destabilize the food system: climate
change. Many of the failed harvests of the past decade were a consequence of weather disasters, like floods in the United States,
drought in Australia and blistering heat waves in Europe and Russia. Scientists believe some, though not all, of those events were caused or
worsened by human-induced global warming. Temperatures are rising rapidly during the growing season in some of the
most important agricultural countries, and a paper published several weeks ago found that this had shaved several percentage points off
potential yields, adding to the price gyrations. For nearly two decades, scientists had predicted that climate change would be relatively
manageable for agriculture, suggesting that even under worst-case assumptions, it would probably take until 2080 for food prices to double. In
part, they were counting on a counterintuitive ace in the hole: that rising carbon dioxide levels, the primary contributor to global warming,
would act as a powerful plant fertilizer and offset many of the ill effects of climate change . Until a few years ago, these assumptions
went largely unchallenged. But lately, the destabilization of the food system and the soaring prices have rattled many leading
scientists. “The success of agriculture has been astounding,” said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a researcher at NASA who helped pioneer the study of
climate change and agriculture. “But I think there’s starting to be premonitions that it may not continue forever .” A scramble is on to
figure out whether climate science has been too sanguine about the risks. Some researchers, analyzing computer forecasts that are used to advise
governments on future crop prospects, are pointing out what they consider to be gaping holes. These include a failure to consider the
effects of extreme weather, like the floods and the heat waves that are increasing as the earth warms. A rising unease about the future of the
world’s food supply came through during interviews this year with more than 50 agricultural experts working in nine countries. These experts say that
in coming decades, farmers need to withstand whatever climate shocks come their way while roughly doubling the
amount of food they produce to meet rising demand. And they need to do it while reducing the considerable
environmental damage caused by the business of agriculture.
Heat capacity, financial and tech constraints outweigh CO2 benefits
James McCarthy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001, Full Text of Third Assessment WG #2, 1.2.1.1,
http://www.ipcc.ch
Human production factors notwithstanding, food production is influenced mostly by the availability of water and nutrients, as well as by
temperature. Increases in temperatures could open new areas to cultivation, but they also could increase the risk
of
heat or drought stress in other areas. Livestock (e.g., cattle, swine, and poultry) are all susceptible to heat
stress and drought (Gates, 1993). The effects of climatic changes—even smooth trends will not be uniform in space or time. For smoothly
evolving climatic scenarios, recent literature (see Chapter 5) tends to project that high latitudes may experience increases in productivity for global
warming up to a 1°C increase, depending on crop type, growing season, changes in temperature regimes, and seasonality of precipitation. In the
tropics and subtropics -where some crops already are near their maximum temperature
tolerance and where dry land, no irrigated agriculture predominates the literature suggests
that yields will tend to decrease with even nominal amounts of climate change (IPCC, 1998; Chapter 5).
Moreover, the adaptive capacity of less developed countries in the tropics is limited by financial
and technological constraints that are not equally applicable to more temperate. developed
countries. This would increase the disparity in food production between developed and
developing countries, For global warming greater than 2.5°c Chapter 5 reports that most studies agree that
world food prices –a key indicator of overall agricultural vulnerability would increase. Much of
the literature suggests that productivity increases in middle to high latitudes will diminish, and yield
decreases in the tropics and subtropics are expected to be more severe (Chapters 5 and 19). These
projections are likely to be. underestimates, and our confidence in them cannot be high because they are
based on scenarios in which significant changes in extreme events such as droughts and
floods are not fully considered or for which rapid nonlinear climatic changes have not been,
assumed (Section 2.3.4 notes that vulnerability to extreme events generally is higher than vulnerability to changing mean conditions).
Weeds accelerate with warming – kills plants
Hatfield et. al. 11—Laboratory Director @ National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment (Ames, IA)—AND
K.J. Boote, Professor of Agronomy @ UFlorida—AND B.A. Kimball, worker @ USDA-ARS, U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural
Research Center—AND L.H. Ziska, worker @ USDA Crop Systems and Global Change Lab—AND R. C. Izaurralde,
Professor @ Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Lab @ UMaryland—AND D. Ort,
USDA/ARS, Photosynthesis Research Unit and Professor @ UIllinois—AND A.M. Thomson, Joint Global Change
Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Lab. @ UMaryland—AND D. Wolfe, Professor of Horticulture @ Cornell
University (J.L, “Climate Impacts on Agriculture: Implications for Crop Production,” Agronomy Journal, Vol. 103, Iss. 2,
March 2k11, American Society of Agronomy)
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Along with precipitation, temperature is a primary abiotic variable that affects invasive weed biology. The probable impact of rising
temperatures on the expansion of invasive weeds into higher latitudes is of particular concern. Many of the worst invasives for
warm season crops in the southern U nited S tates originated in tropical or warm temperature areas; consequently, northward
expansion of these invasives may accelerate with warming (Patterson, 1993). For example, itchgrass (Rottboelliia cochinchinensis), an
invasive weed associated with significant yield reductions in sugarcane for Louisiana (Lencse and Griffin, 1991), is also highly
competitive in corn, cotton, soybean, grain sorghum, and rice systems (e.g., Lejeune et al., 1994). The response of this species to a
3°C increase in average temperature stimulated biomass by 88% and leaf area by 68% (Patterson et al., 1979), projecting
increases in growth for the middle Atlantic states (Patterson et al., 1999). Northward migration of other invasive weeds, such as
cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) and witchweed (Striga asiatica), is also anticipated (Patterson, 1995a). Conversely, additional warming could also restrict the
southern range of other invasive weeds, for example, wild proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) or Canada thistle (Ziska and Runion, 2007).
Warming increases Pests – kills agriculture
WRI 99 (World Resource Institute, "Climate change will affect plant pests and diseases in the same way it affects
infectious disease agents." wri.org, http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8486)
Climate change will affect plant pests and diseases in the same way it affects infectious disease agents. In other words, the
range of many insects will expand or change, and new combinations of pests and diseases may emerge as natural ecosystems
respond to altered temperature and precipitation profiles . Any increase in the frequency or severity of extreme weather
events, including droughts, heat waves, windstorms, or floods, could also disrupt the predator-prey relationships that
normally keep pest populations in check. An explosion of the rodent population that damaged the grain crop in Zimbabwe in
1994, after 6 years of drought had eliminated many rodent predators, shows how altered climate conditions can intensify pest
problems. The effect of climate on pests may add to the effect of other factors such as the overuse of pesticides and the loss of biodiversity that already
contribute to plant pest and disease outbreaks [300]. The ingenuity of farmers, breeders, and agricultural engineers, and the natural
resilience of biological systems, will help buffer many of the negative effects of climate change on agriculture. However,
experts believe that over the longer term, the accumulated stresses of sustained climate change stand a good chance of
disrupting agro-ecosystems and reducing global food productivity.
CO2 kills ocean biodiversity
Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, “Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It
Threatens Humanity’s Ability to Feed Itself,” 3/2/2012, http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/02/436193/scienceocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-to-feeditself/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogre
The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last
300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record
for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period. “What we’re doing today really stands out,” said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia
University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new species evolved to replace those that died
off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about —coral reefs, oysters,
salmon.” That’s the news release from a major 21-author Science paper, “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification” (subs. req’d). We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience
study that the oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over
300 million and found that “the
unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place” has put marine life at risk in a
frighteningly unique way: … the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a
combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history,
raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell
marine biological meltdown “by end of century” as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved
oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones “devoid of
fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.“ And remember, we just learned from a 2012 new Nature Climate Change
study that carbon dioxide is “driving fish crazy” and threatening their survival . Here’s more on the new study: The oceans act like a sponge to draw
down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if
CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for
reef and shell-building.
Extinction
Craig 3 (Robin Kundis, Indiana University,Winter, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, p. 264-266)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political
debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other
environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef
"ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all
the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen,
ecosystems provide. More generally,
oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." In a very real and direct sense,
therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life.
Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems.
Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of
disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more
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stable." Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. Most ecologists agree that the
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complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is
higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem
functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many
otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system.
Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to
maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems
have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value,
or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." At the forefront
of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to
protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation
or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing
to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in
if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take
most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies,
the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much:
"starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The
The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial
discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands destruction, the introduction of an alien species.
The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with shocking suddenness. The lessons of this tragedy should
Black Sea is a microcosm of what is happening to the ocean systems at large.
not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly,
was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging crisis. Oxygen-starved "dead zones" appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals
the United States should protect fully-functioning
marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result.
to flee and killing all that cannot. Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that
Their studies are flawed – they were done in greenhouses rather than open fields
Mittelstaedt 9 (Martin, The Globe and Mail’s environment reporter, The Globe and Mail, 3-31,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/archives/article743395.ece, 7-3-11)
Scientists have made another worrisome discovery, this time about carbon dioxide itself, the main
greenhouse gas, which is vital for plant development. It had been assumed in the 1980s, based on greenhouse experiments, that an
atmosphere richer in carbon dioxide would stimulate plant growth, raising some crop yields by as much as
30 per cent. That is part of the reason why, up until now, few people worried much about agriculture and global warming. It was thought that, while
climate change might wreak havoc on ice-dependent polar bears and low-lying coastal cities, it held a verdant lining for farmers. But new
research published last year based on experiments in the U.S., Japan, Switzerland and New Zealand
found the beneficial effects of carbon dioxide were vastly overrated when crops were grown in
the more realistic setting of open farm fields, rather than in greenhouses. Corn yields didn't rise at
all, and the rise in wheat and rice yields was less than half previous estimates.
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***Russia DA***
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Arctic warming is key to Russia’s economy
Mahoney ’11 (Honor Mahony, is editor of the EUobserver in Brussels and has also written for The Irish Times, Sunday Business Post and Spiegel
Online, 6/7/11, Ocnus.net, http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Business_1/Arctic-Shipping-Routes-Unlikely-to-be-Suez-of-the-North.shtml
Late last year a cargo ship made maritime history. It became the first foreign bulk carrier to make a commercial trip across
Russian Arctic waters.¶ Carrying over 40,000 tonnes of iron ore, the MV Nordic Barents left Kirkenes port in Norway on 4
September.¶ It sailed the North Sea route, a path that runs eastwards from northern Europe, along Russia's north coast
and through the Bering Strait. Some three weeks later, it docked in Xingang, northern China. ¶ The North Sea route has
become freer of ice, but the navigation season is still just two-four months¶ "The whole trip went very well. There were no
big delays and it was a lot cheaper. Just compared to going via the Cape of Good Hope, the savings for fuel alone was
around $550,000," said Christian Bonfils, CEO of Nordic Bulk Carriers, operator of the ship.¶ The Russians have been
using Arctic waters all year round for decades. Retreating sea ice due to global warming in recent years has seen foreign
shipping companies start to look northwards for the possibility of commercial shipping routes. But until recently the area
has been closed to foreign ships wanting to get to hungry Asian markets.¶ Instead companies use the Suez Canal - a trip
which, counted from Norway, is almost twice as long.¶ Last year Tschudi Shipping, which owns a mine in Kirkenes,
approached the Russians about the possibility of using the North Sea route to get to China, the mine's biggest customer. ¶
"We got a very clear message from the Russians. It was: 'We want to compete with Suez'," said CEO Felix Tschudi. The
Norwegian company hooked up with Nordic Bulk Carriers, who had the right type of ice ship, to make the trip. ¶ Until then
uncertainty about how much the Russians would charge for the mandatory use of their ice-breakers meant the trip was not
economically viable.¶ "The rate we paid last year [$210,000] for ice-breaker services was very comparable with the Suez
Canal," said Bonfils.¶ Getting Russian natural resources out¶ So what prompted the Russian thaw? According to Professor
Lawson Brigham, an expert on Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, it comes down to Russia wanting to
exploit natural resources in the area.¶ "The bottom line is that Russia's GNP is tied to Arctic natural resources
development.¶ The real driver is building up a transport system to move the cargoes of natural resources to global markets
and one of the big global markets sitting there is China," he said.¶ The region has a wealth of natural resources including
nickel, iron ore, phosphate, copper and cobalt. There are huge reserves of gas in the Shtokman gas field, while a 2008
report by the US Geological Survey suggested oil in the Arctic circle could amount to 13 percent of the world's
undiscovered supply.¶ Tschudi and Bonfils have an additional, more prosaic explanation. The obligation to use Russian
ice-breakers is a money spinner.¶ "If they can employ their icebreakers in the summer season, then it's good business for
them," said Bonfils.¶ Problems¶ Several more such trans-arctic trips are planned this year. According to Tschudi the North
Sea route "will be important for those who are shipping from fairly high north."¶ "It will be quite important for mines in
the Kola Peninsula [in north west Russia], mines in Finland. You can also save by shipping from Rotterdam." ¶ But for all
the buzz it has been creating - shipping companies are also thrilled at the prospect of pirate-free waters – caveats
abound.¶ Good trade depends on predictability¶ Global warming has meant the North Sea route has become freer of ice.
But this is the case only for about four months a year at most, sometimes only two. An impact study on Arctic marine
shipping by the Arctic Council notes that the navigation season for the North Sea route is expected to be 90-100 days only
by 2080.¶ "Despite all of the change, the Arctic Ocean is ice-covered for most of the year." said Brigham, adding: "The
global maritime industry works on just-in-time cargoes and the regular nature of marine traffic."¶ "There is a little bit of a
misperception that this is a new global regime with new global shipping lanes that will replace Panama and Suez
[canals]."¶ In addition, businesses need to feel less that they are subject to Russia's whim when it comes to tariffs. "We
need predictability [on prices] in order to plan," said Tschudi.¶ There are a host of other problems too. There is little
infrastructure in Arctic territory. If a ship gets into trouble, help is far away. There are also no clear rules on standards for
ships sailing in the area.¶ The waters are not as well chartered as elsewhere. More oceangraphic and meterological data is
needed as well as information on icebergs. At the political level, there is a dispute over the waters. Russia considers the
Northern Sea route as national territory, so it makes the rules. The US disagrees.
Russian econ decline causes global nuclear wars
Filger 9 (Sheldon, Author and Writer @ the Huffington Post, Former VP for Resource Development at New York’s United Way, “Russian Economy
Faces Disastrous Free Fall Contraction,” http://www.globaleconomiccrisis.com/blog/archives/356)
In Russia historically, economic health and political stability are intertwined to a degree that is rarely encountered in other
major industrialized economies. It was the economic stagnation of the former Soviet Union that led to its political
downfall. Similarly, Medvedev and Putin, both intimately acquainted with their nation’s history, are unquestionably
alarmed at the prospect that Russia’s economic crisis will endanger the nation’s political stability, achieved at great cost
after years of chaos following the demise of the Soviet Union. Already, strikes and protests are occurring among rank and
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file workers facing unemployment or non-payment of their salaries. Recent polling demonstrates that the once supreme
popularity ratings of Putin and Medvedev are eroding rapidly. Beyond the political elites are the financial oligarchs, who
have been forced to deleverage, even unloading their yachts and executive jets in a desperate attempt to raise cash.¶ Should
the Russian economy deteriorate to the point where economic collapse is not out of the question, the impact will go far
beyond the obvious accelerant such an outcome would be for the Global Economic Crisis. There is a geopolitical dimension
that is even more relevant then the economic context. Despite its economic vulnerabilities and perceived decline from
superpower status, Russia remains one of only two nations on earth with a nuclear arsenal of sufficient scope and
capability to destroy the world as we know it. For that reason, it is not only President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin
who will be lying awake at nights over the prospect that a national economic crisis can transform itself into a virulent and
destabilizing social and political upheaval. It just may be possible that U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security
team has already briefed him about the consequences of a major economic meltdown in Russia for the peace of the world.
After all, the most recent national intelligence estimates put out by the U.S. intelligence community have already
concluded that the Global Economic Crisis represents the greatest national security threat to the United States, due to its
facilitating political instability in the world.¶ During the years Boris Yeltsin ruled Russia, security forces responsible for
guarding the nation’s nuclear arsenal went without pay for months at a time, leading to fears that desperate personnel
would illicitly sell nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations. If the current economic crisis in Russia were to deteriorate
much further, how secure would the Russian nuclear arsenal remain? It may be that the financial impact of the Global
Economic Crisis is its least dangerous consequence.
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Russian economic decline outweighs and turns the affOur filger evidence says econ decline would destroy Russia’s stability, causes nuke
prolif and warIt’s the only extinction level war
Bostrom 2 (Nick, PhD and Professor of Philosophy @ Oxford, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” The
Journal of Evolution and Technology, March)
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear
war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that mighthave been persistent enough to
qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the
time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human
civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either
accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note
however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would
not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities
most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere
preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.
Russian economic weakness causes nuclear war, prolif, disease, terrorism, CBW use,
and US intervention
Oliker and Charlick-Paley ‘2 ( (Olga and Tanya, OLIKER AND CHARLICK-PALEY 2002 RAND Corporation Project Air
Force, “Assessing Russia’s Decline,” www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1442/)
The preceding chapters have illustrated the ways in which Russia’s decline affects that country and may evolve into
challenges and dangers that extend well beyond its borders. The political factors of decline may make Russia a less stable
international actor and other factors may increase the risk of internal unrest. Together and separately, they increase the
risk of conflict and the potential scope of other imaginable disasters. The trends of regionalization, particularly the
disparate rates of economic growth among regions, combined with the politicization of regional economic and military
interests, will be important to watch. The potential for locale, or possibly ethnicity, to serve as a rallying point for internal
conflict is low at present, but these factors have the potential to feed into precisely the cycle of instability that political
scientists have identified as making states in transition to democracy more likely to become involved in war. These factors
also increase the potential for domestic turmoil, which further increases the risk of international conflict, for instance if
Moscow seeks to united a divided nation and/or demonstrate globally that its waning power remains something to be
reckoned with. Given Russia’s conventional weakness, an increased risk of conflict carries with it an increased risk of
nuclear weapons use, and Russia’s demographic situation increases the potential for a major epidemic with possible
implications for Europe and perhaps beyond. The dangers posed by Russia’s civilian and military nuclear weapons
complex, aside from the threat of nuclear weapons use, create a real risk of proliferation of weapons or weapons materials
to terrorist groups, as well as perpetuating an increasing risk of accident at one of Russia’s nuclear power plants or other
facilities. These elements touch upon key security interests, thus raising serious concerns for the United States. A
declining Russia increases the likelihood of conflict—internal or otherwise—and the general deterioration that Russia has
in common with “failing” states raises serious questions about its capacity to respond to an emerging crisis. A crisis in
large, populous, and nuclear-armed Russia can easily affect the interests of the United States and its allies. In response to
such a scenario, the United States, whether alone or as part of a larger coalition, could be asked to send military forces to
the area in and around Russia. This chapter will explore a handful of scenarios that could call for U.S. involvement. A wide
range of crisis scenarios can be reasonably extrapolated from the trends implicit in Russia’s decline. A notional list
includes: Authorized or unauthorized belligerent actions by Russia troops in trouble-prone Russian regions or in
neighboring states could lead to armed conflict. Border clashes with China in the Russian Far East or between Russia and
Ukraine, the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, or another neighbor could escalate into interstate combat. Nuclear-armed
terrorists based in Russia or using weapons or materials diverted from Russian facilities could threaten Russia, Europe,
Asia, or the United States. Civil war in Russia could involve fighting near storage sites for nuclear, chemical, or biological
weapons and agents, risking large-scale contamination and humanitarian disaster. A nuclear accident at a power plant or
facility could endanger life and health in Russia and neighboring states. A chemical accident at a plant or nuclear or
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nuclear-related facility could endanger life and health in Rusisa and neighboring states. Ethnic pogrom in south Russia
could force refugees into Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and/or Ukraine. Economic and ethnic conflicts in Caucasus could
erupt into armed clashes, which would endanger oil and gas pipelines in the region. A massive ecological disaster such as
an earthquake, famine, or epidemic could spawn refugees and spread illness and death across borders. An increasingly
criminalized Russian economy could create a safe haven for crime or even terrorist-linked groups. From this base,
criminals, drug traders, and terrorists could threaten the people and economies of Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Accelerated Russian weapons and technology sales or unauthorized diversion could foster the proliferation of weapons
and weapon materials to rogue states and nonstate terrorist actors, increasing the risk of nuclear war.
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2NC- Russia- Warming Key to Russia’s Economy- Oil/Gas
Arctic warming is crucial to Russia’s economy- prevents collapse from peak oil
CSM ‘8 (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 5282008 (lexis)
¶ The Kremlin often touts Russia's image as an "energy superpower," but now the country's oil production is declining.
Some say Russia may have already reached peak oil output.¶ Related stories¶ ¶ The Monitor's View Untapped oil,
overtapped politics¶ Risks of rising oil nationalism¶ Each oil crisis spells a new energy future¶ ¶ Underscoring the
urgency of the issue, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's new cabinet made its first order of business on Monday the approval
of a package of measures to relieve the oil-production crisis.¶ ¶ "It's a good first step," says Natalia Milchakova, an oil and
gas analyst for Otkritiye, a Moscow-based brokerage firm. But she adds that "rapidly slowing" oil production, which was
growing by more than 10 percent five years ago, isn't "something that can be quickly fixed with political declarations." ¶ ¶ As
the world's second-largest oil exporter, Russia joins a growing number of top oil suppliers wrestling with how to address
declining or peaking production. Like Venezuela and Mexico, Russia is heavily dependent on oil, which accounts for more
than two-thirds of government revenue and 30 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Now, Moscow is trying to
remedy a situation caused in part by outdated technology, heavy taxation of oil profits, and lack of investment in oil
infrastructure.¶ ¶ The Presidium of the Cabinet, as it is officially known, in its inaugural meeting Monday approved tax
holidays of up to 15 years for Russian companies that open new oil fields and proposed raising the threshold at which
taxation begins from the current $9 per barrel to $15. Oil companies welcomed the measures, but experts say that after
almost two decades of post-Soviet neglect, which have seen little new exploration, it may be too little, too late.¶ ¶ After
rising steadily for several years to a post-Soviet high of 9.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in October, Russian oil
production fell by 0.3 percent in the first four months of this year, while exports fell 3.3 percent – the first Putin-era drop.
Russia's proven oil reserves are a state secret, but the Oil & Gas Journal, a US-based industry publication, estimates it has
about 60 billion barrels – the world's eighth largest – which would last for 17 years at current production rates.¶ ¶ Energy
Minister Viktor Khristenko recently admitted the decline, but suggested it might be overcome by fresh discoveries in
underexplored eastern Siberia or in new Arctic territories recently claimed by Russia. "The output level we have today is a
plateau, or stagnation," he said.
Arctic warming is key to Russia’s economy
Technocrat '7 [March 29th, http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/29/17033, “Global Climate Change Spurs Arctic
Economic Boom”]
“It's not all doom and gloom with the Arctic warming up, for a lot of people and companies it means an economic boom.
So much so, that there are now some long simmering territorial disputes back on the high burner. ..."The U.S. Geological
Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Moscow reportedly sees the
potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion."....more bucks there, and all this new Arctic
boom is going to require technicians, engineers, scientists, and many workers of the sturdy yeoman sort....a new frontier.
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2NC- Russia- Warming Key to Econ- General
Warming is key to Russian growth
Korepin ‘11 (Serge Korepin, research intern at the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS, “Might Russia Welcome Global
Warming?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 11 2011, Online @ http://csis.org/blog/might-russiawelcome-global-warming)
Russia pays a price for this cold. Hill and Gaddy demonstrate that there is an accelerating drop in the efficiency of human
and machine work as the temperature drops from freezing to -40 °C;2 in fact, sometimes it is too cold to work at all. In
addition, as the temperature drops, wind has an increasingly negative effect: at -15 °C, a 20 mph wind quadruples the
amount of time to perform a task.3 Writing on this topic in 1983, Victor Mote concluded “In an average year, total losses
to the cold comprise 33% of all possible working time in the Soviet north.”4 Furthermore, cold causes damage to
industries, human health, buildings, equipment, and infrastructure; at -15 °C high carbon steel breaks, at -25-30 °C
unalloyed steel breaks, frost-resistant rubber is required. When temperatures hit -35-40 °C tin-alloy steel components
shatter, all compressors stop work, standard steels and structures rupture en mass.5 These climate effects result in high
maintenance and replacement costs.¶ ¶ In addition to these efficiency costs, it is also expensive to live in the cold climates;
for example, there are high heating and snow and ice removal costs. These costs affect Russia more so than other areas
because communist planners have populated cities and built industries that are too big to be economically viable in the
relative coldness of their locations.6 Thus, there is economic pressure because of the cold for many Russian cities to shrink
(which has been difficult given the existing infrastructure of these cities). Russia’s increasing temperatures (which are
probably the result of global warming) could relieve some the economic pressures that result from the cold climate.
Warming will directly reduce the effects of cold on work efficiency in Russia and reduce adaptation costs. In fact, this is
already happening. Rosgidromet (Russia’s Hydro-meteorology agency) stated in 2008 that average annual temperature in
Russia has risen by 1.3 °C over the past 30 years and that winter temperatures in Siberia have increased 2-3 °C over the
past 120-150 years.7 This is reflected in the agency’s estimate that there will be five fewer days that require heat in 2015
than in 2000. The agency also estimates that Russians could reduce heating costs by as much as 10 % by 2050. ¶ ¶ Russia
will further gain from the warming of the ground and water in and around its territory. The UN sponsored
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted in 2001 that if average air temperature increased by 2-3.5 degrees,
a quarter of the earth’s permafrost would melt.8 This is already happening; Greenpeace’s 2009 report on Russia states
that over the past 35 years the southern boundary of permafrost has moved north by 18-25 miles in European Russia and
50 miles near the Urals. Rosgidromet predicts that by 2050 the permafrost boundary would shift north by another 95-125
miles. The retreat of permafrost will make extraction of raw materials easier; Victor Mote wrote; “In Siberia standard
mining and excavation machinery may be used for only three to four months a year in northern Siberian tin and gold
operations.9 In addition, most of Russia’s gas and oil comes from Arctic regions, as well as “considerable quantities of the
world’s nickel, cobalt, copper and diamonds.” Observers are tracking additional warming trends like the spread of trees
and shrubs northward, which implies an increase of habitable land. Warming will also allow agriculture to spread north,
extend the growing seasons, and perhaps increase overall agricultural yields—Russia has recently marked yield records.¶ ¶
In addition, Russia’s chief forecaster, Alexander Frolov, said that the North Pole may be completely ice-free in the summer
within a few decades. The retreat of Arctic ice will reduce the cost of extracting natural resources from Arctic waters, which
contain large reserves of oil, gas, gold, diamonds, nickel and tungsten. One concern for such extraction has been icebergs.
A reduction in Arctic ice is also opening up a trade route which would be an alternative to the Suez Canal; the distance
between Rotterdam and Yokohama is about one-third shorter via the Northern Sea Route—along Russia’s north coast and
then south through the Bering Strait. Rosgidromet has stated that Russia is close to opening “almost the entire Northern
Sea Route to icebreaker-free shipping [from August to September].” In fact, representatives of the eight Arctic powers are
already discussing the development of the route. The Northern Sea Route’s freight consisted of about 110,000 tons this
year. By 2020, some predict freight will increase to 64 million tons. Additionally, Siberia contains eleven of the world’s
fifty longest rivers—all of them flowing into the Arctic Ocean, except the Amur that flows to the Sea of Okhotsk (to a port
that is unusable for five months out of the year because of the ice). As the Arctic sea-ice retreats, the settlements along
these rivers will no longer be on waterways that essentially come to a dead end. It will become possible to transport cargo
from these rivers to ports around the globe, which could lead to a decrease in transport costs and an increase in trade
volume from the interior of Siberia. David Lempert and Hue Nhu Nguyen write in The Ecologist that “the biggest winner
from global warming is going to be Russia.Ӧ
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2NC- Russia- AT: Euro Crisis Alt Cause
Euro crisis doesn’t hurt Russia’s economy
Vaisman ’11 (Euro cloud has silver lining for Russia November 30, 2011 Andrei Vaisman Russia is not immune to the effects of the eurozone crisis, but
investors may see the country’s markets as a shelter from the storm.
Opinions among Russian experts vary, however. Mikhail Kozakov, financial markets director with investment company
Grandis Capital, says: “In the medium term, Russia is a more attractive investment destination than the developed
markets. And besides, we have a trump card in the shape of our commodities. With the currency exchange situation as
uncertain as the outlook for the economically developed countries, the commodity market is also becoming more
interesting, at least for speculative capital.”¶ Some other positive factors will not escape investors’ notice. In spite of the
overall mood of recession in Russia, the country’s economy is performing in a moderately positive manner. According to
the State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat), industrial output increased by 5.1pc from January to October and GDP in the
third quarter is expected to grow by an estimated 4.8pc.¶ “When times are hard, investors always look for alternative
markets”, says Georgy Aksyonov, an analyst with the Net Trader company. “I think the Russian market, which is part of
Brics and is still growing, albeit at a slower pace in recent years, may be promising in this situation.Ӧ Another cause for
optimism is that, in the current situation, the single European currency did not go into a tailspin, as many predicted: at
the time of going to press, the euro/dollar rate has not once dropped below 1.30 since January of this year.¶ It should also
be noted that the European debt crisis is changing the attitude to protective mechanisms such as government bonds.
Investors today are clearly shifting their focus from sovereign to corporate debt. This is good news for Russia, because
Russian corporations are much cheaper than their Western counterparts.¶ Russia’s financial authorities appear to be
optimistic. Sergey Shevtsov, vice-president of the Central Bank, does not anticipate any serious threats to the domestic
economy, though he admits that the crisis might lead to a shortage of liquidity. ¶ “We expect it to peak in mid-December
and, thereafter, the budget will be disbursing actively,” he said on the fringes of an international financial conference
sponsored by Sberbank.¶ “The liquidity deficit will grow but it will not, on the whole, create problems for the banking
sector and the economy in general.”
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2NC- Russia- Oil Key to Econ
Russian budget projects are premised on oil - decline causes total collapse
Busvine 7/20 (Douglas, Russia Writer @ Reuters, “ Analysis: Russia's biggest contingent liability: oil,” 2011,
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20/us-russia-risks-idUKTRE76J2KY20110720, EMM)
(Reuters) - With a sovereign debt of just 10 percent of GDP and half a trillion dollars in reserves, Russia has a balance
sheet that the United States and Europe can only envy as they battle their debt crises. ¶ But a closer look at Finance
Minister Alexei Kudrin's latest fiscal plans reveals two concerns: he is betting that oil prices will stay high for years; and
even if he is right, the pace of budget consolidation will slow significantly.¶ By his own reckoning, the books would only
balance with oil at $125 per barrel next year, reflecting the impact on the public finances of the global slump that put an
end to years of surpluses generated at much lower oil prices.¶ Kudrin has only managed to keep the projected deficit below
3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the three-year budget horizon by hiking his oil price forecast to the mid$90s from the high $70s previously.¶ Even then, the fiscal strategy abandons a previous goal of balancing the budget by
2015. After stripping out energy revenues -- which account for nearly half of the tax take -- the deficit will stay over 10
percent of GDP.¶ "Given the very high oil price forecast, the slow fiscal consolidation is disappointing," said Ivan
Tchakarov, chief economist at Renaissance Capital. "The oil sensitivity of the budget has increased dramatically." ¶ "It's a
retrograde step," agreed Edward Parker, sovereign analyst at Fitch Ratings in London. The biggest risk for Russia remains
"a sharp and sustained" drop in oil prices.¶ LOCKED IN¶ In rough terms, a $10 fall in the oil price would translate into an
increase of one percentage point in the deficit for the world's largest oil and gas producer.¶ "With oil at $95 everybody's
happy," said Sergei Guriev, rector of Moscow's New Economic School. "But at $70, borrowing becomes hard for both
companies and the government."¶ On the spending side, the government has locked itself into higher pension outlays,
increasing budget transfers from 1.5 percent of GDP in 2008 to 5.2 percent in 2010, Yevsei Gurvich, head of the Economic
Expert Group, wrote in a recent study.¶ An offsetting hike in payroll taxes will be partly unwound next year on the orders
of President Dmitry Medvedev, who is likely to run for a second term next March if Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chooses
not to return to Russia's highest office.¶ That will swell the largest budget item, social spending, which will rise in 2012 by
20 percent to 3.8 trillion roubles ($135 billion), accounting for 31 percent of federal outlays. ¶ Put another way, Russia will
spend four-fifths of its energy revenues on welfare. The cost of the pension system, if left unreformed, could "completely
undermine the stability of the budget system," Gurvich wrote.¶ Kudrin will present his budget to parliament in the
autumn.¶ DOWNSIDE ACCELERATORS¶ Even if those costs are bearable under a sanguine view on oil, they would become
difficult to sustain in the event of a sharp and sustained oil price crash due to other contingent liabilities that are,
effectively, derivatives on the oil price.¶ Chief of those are debts owed by large state-controlled firms, such as energy
majors Gazprom and Rosneft and banks Sberbank and VTB.¶ Economists at Deutsche Bank have estimated that a
contingent liability shock caused by such "quasi-sovereign" entities could add 10 percentage points to Russia's national
debt by 2020.¶
Past recessions prove
Pirani 10 — researcher and journalist, senior research fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy studies (Simon, 05/10/10, “RUSSIAN ECONOMY:
Russia's oil problem” http://www.emergingmarkets.org/Article/2682714/RUSSIAN-ECONOMY-Russias-oil-problem.html)
The recession was a devastating reminder of Russia’s economic dependence on natural resources, mainly oil. And the
differing interpretations of the recovery often rest on contrasting views about how easy it will be to escape that
dependence. ¶ The enthusiasts focus on the fruit that government efforts to marshal oil funds to diversify the economy will
bear. But the doubters worry that oil dependence will not be conquered without stronger policies to ensure sufficient
private investment flows, properly targeted. ¶ Clemens Grafe, economist at UBS and firmly in the optimist camp, says fears
that Russian domestic demand will fall behind that in the other Brics are “misplaced”. He argues that a structural shift in
fiscal policy means that oil revenues were not just used for the 2008–09 crisis rescue package, but will be shifted onshore
longer term, boosting domestic demand and investment. ¶ This shift, together with structurally lower inflation rates,
means that private-sector savings and domestic leverage are likely to expand rapidly and drive the economy forward, he
says. While Russia will continue to be dependent on volatile commodity prices, domestic savings will grow and interest
rates can stay low, which will fuel “a trend growth rate significantly higher than that of the world economy”.
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2NC- AT: Diversification Good
Slow diversification is inevitable but massive diversification wrecks the Russian
economy – comparative advantage is key to overall growth, which makes
diversification a terrible idea.
Gaddy 11 — Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, economist specializing in Russia (Clifford G., 06/16/11, “Will the Russian
economy rid itself of its dependence on oil?” http://en.rian.ru/valdai_op/20110616/164645377.html)
To ask whether the Russian economy will rid itself of its “dependence on oil” is to ask whether ideology will trump
economics. Many people in Russia—including President Medvedev—seem to believe Russia should de-emphasize the role
of oil, gas, and other commodities because they are “primitive.” Relying on them, they argue, is “degrading.” From the economic
point of view, this makes no sense. Oil is Russia’s comparative advantage. It is the most competitive part of the economy.
Oil and gas are something everyone wants, and Russia has more of them than anyone else. It is true that the Russian
economy is backward, and that oil plays a role in that backwardness. But oil is not the root cause. The causes of Russia’s
backwardness lie in its inherited production structure. The physical structure of the real economy (that is, the industries, plants, their location,
work forces, equipment, products, and the production chains in which they participate) is predominantly the same as in the Soviet era. The
problem is that it is precisely the oil wealth (the so-called oil rent) that is used to support and perpetuate the inefficient
structure. For the sake of social and political stability, a large share of Russia’s oil and gas rents is distributed to the
production enterprises that employ the inherited physical and human capital. The production and supply chains in that
part of the economy are in effect “rent distribution chains.” A serious attempt to convert Russia’s economy into something
resembling a modern Western economy would require dismantling this rent distribution system. This would be both
highly destabilizing, and costly in terms of current welfare. Current efforts for “diversification” do not challenge the
rent distribution system. On the contrary, the kinds of investment envisioned in those efforts will preserve and reinforce the rent distribution
chains, and hence make Russia more dependent on oil rents. Even under optimal conditions for investment, any dream of creating a
“non-oil” Russia that could perform as well as today’s commodity-based economy is unrealistic. The proportion of GDP
that would have to be invested in non-oil sectors is impossibly high. Granted, some new firms, and even entire sectors, may
grow on the outside of the oil and gas sectors and the rent distribution chains they support. But the development of the
new sectors will be difficult, slow, and costly . Even if successful, the net value they generate will be too small relative to oil and gas to change
the overall profile of the economy. Thus, while it is fashionable to talk of “diversification” of the Russian economy away from oil
and gas, this is the least likely outcome for the country’s economic future . If Russia continues on the current course of
pseudo-reform (which merely reinforces the old structures), oil and gas rents will remain important because they will be critical to
support the inherently inefficient parts of the economy. On the other hand, if Russia were to somehow launch a genuine
reform aimed at dismantling the old structures, the only realistic way to sustain success would be to focus on developing
the commodity sectors. Russia could obtain higher growth if the oil and gas sectors were truly modern. Those sectors need to be opened to new
entrants, with a level playing field for all participants. Most important, oil, gas, and other commodity companies need to be freed from the requirement
to participate in the various informal schemes to share their rents with enterprises in the backward sectors inherited from the Soviet system. Certainly,
there are issues with oil. It is a highly volatile source of wealth. But there are ways to hedge those risks. A bigger problem is that oil will eventually lose its
special status as an energy source and therefore much of its value. But that time is far off. It will not happen suddenly. In the meantime, sensible policies
can deal with the problems. Otherwise, the approach should be to generate the maximum value possible from the oil and protect that value through
prudent fiscal policies. Russia should not, can not, and will not significantly reduce the role of oil and gas in its economy in the
foreseeable future. It will only harm itself by ill-advised and futile efforts to try.
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2NC- AT: Adventurism Turn
Russia won’t expand - population problems
Zeihan, Director of Global Analysis @ STRATFOR, 2010 (Peter, June 15, “One fight Russia can’t afford,”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100614_kyrgyzstan_crisis_and_russian_dilemma)
But it is no longer the 17th century, and this strategy does not necessarily play to Russia's strengths anymore. The second
prong of the strategy -- flooding the region with ethnic Russians -- is no longer an option because of Russia's demographic
profile. The Russian birth rate has been in decline for a century, and in the post-Cold War era, the youngest tranche of the
Russian population simply collapsed. The situation transformed from an academic debate about Russia's future to a policy
debate about Russia's present. The bust in the birth rate in the 1990s and 2000s has generated the smallest population
cohort in Russian history, and in a very few years, those post-Cold War children will themselves be at the age where they
will be having children. A small cohort will create an even smaller cohort, and Russia's population problems could well
evolve from crushing to irrecoverable. Even if this cohort reproduces at a sub-Saharan African birthrate, even if the
indications of high tuberculosis and HIV infections among this population cohort are all wrong, and even if Russia can
provide a level of services for this group that it couldn't manage during the height of Soviet power, any demographic
bounce would not occur until the 2050s -- once the children of this cohort have sufficiently aged to raise their own
children. Until 2050, Russia simply has to learn to work with less. A lot less. And this is the best-case scenario for Russia
in the next generation. Simply put, Russia does not have the population to sustain the country at its present boundaries.
As time grinds on, Russia's capacity for doing so will decrease drastically. Moscow understands all this extremely well, and
this is a leading rationale behind current Russian foreign policy: Russia's demographics will never again be as "positive" as
they are now, and the Americans are unlikely to be any more distracted than they are now. So Russia is moving quickly
and, more important, intelligently. Russia is thus attempting to reach some natural anchor points, e.g., some geographic
barriers that would limit the state's exposure to outside powers. The Russians hope they will be able to husband their
strength from these anchor points. Moscow's long-term strategy consistently has been to trade space for time ahead of the
beginning of the Russian twilight; if the Russians can expand to these anchor points, Moscow hopes it can trade less space
for more time. Unfortunately for Moscow, there are not many of these anchor points in Russia's neighborhood. One is the
Baltic Sea, a fact that terrifies the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Another is the Carpathian Mountains. This
necessitates the de facto absorption not only of Ukraine, but also of Moldova, something that makes Romania lose sleep at
night. And then there are the Tien Shan Mountains of Central Asia -- which brings us to the crisis of the moment. The
Crisis in Kyrgyzstan The former Soviet Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan is not a particularly nice piece of real estate.
While it is in one of those mountainous regions that could be used to anchor Russian power, it is on the far side of the
Eurasian steppe from the Russian core, more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) removed from the Russian heartland.
The geography of Kyrgyzstan itself also leaves a great deal to be desired. Kyrgyzstan is an artificial construct created by
none other than Stalin, who rearranged internal Soviet borders in the region to maximize the chances of dislocation,
dispute and disruption among the indigenous populations in case the Soviet provinces ever gained independence. Stalin
drew his lines well: Central Asia's only meaningful population center is the Fergana Valley. Kyrgyzstan obtained the
region's foothills and highlands, which provide the region's water; Uzbekistan gained the fertile floor of the valley; and
Tajikistan walked away with the only decent access to the valley as a whole. As such, the three states continuously are
jockeying for control over the only decent real estate in the region. Arguably, Kyrgyzstan has the least to work with of any
of the region's states. Nearly all of its territory is mountainous; what flat patches of land it does have on which to build
cities are scattered about. There is, accordingly, no real Kyrgyz core. Consequently, the country suffers from sharp internal
differences: Individual clans hold dominion over tiny patches of land separated from each other by rugged tracts of
mountains. In nearly all cases, those clans have tighter economic and security relationships with foreigners than they do
with each other. (click here to enlarge image) A little more than five years ago, Western nongovernmental organizations
(and undoubtedly a handful of intelligence services) joined forces with some of these regional factions in Kyrgyzstan to
overthrow the country's pro-Russian ruling elite in what is known as a "color revolution" in the former Soviet Union.
Subsequently, Kyrgyzstan -- while not exactly pro-Western -- dwelled in a political middle ground the Russians found
displeasing. In April, Russia proved that it, too, can throw a color revolution and Kyrgyzstan's government switched yet
again. Since then, violence has wracked the southern regions of Jalal-Abad, Batken and Osh -- strongholds of the previous
government. In recent days, nearly 100,000 Kyrgyz residents have fled to Uzbekistan. The interim government of Prime
Minister Roza Otunbayeva is totally outmatched. It is not so much that her government is in danger of falling -- those
same mountains that make it nearly impossible for Bishkek to control Osh make it equally difficult for Osh to take over
Bishkek – but that the country has de facto split into (at least) two pieces. As such, Otunbayeva -- whose government only
coalesced due to the Russian intervention -- has publicly and directly called upon the Russians to provide troops to help
hold the country together. This request cuts to the core weakness in the Russian strategy. Despite much degradation in the
period after the Soviet dissolution, Russia's intelligence services remain without peer. In fact, now that they have the
direct patronage of the Russian prime minister, they have proportionally more resources and influence than ever. They
have proved that they can rewire Ukraine's political world to expunge American influence, manipulate events in the
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Caucasus to whittle away at Turkey's authority, cause riots in the Baltics to unbalance NATO members, and reverse
Kyrgyzstan's color revolution. But they do not have backup. Were this the 19th century, there would already be scads of
Russian settlers en route to the Fergana to dilute the control of the locals (although they would certainly be arriving after
the Russian army), to construct a local economy dependent upon imported labor and linked to the Russian core, and to
establish a new ruling elite. (It is worth noting that the resistance of Central Asians to Russian encroachment meant that
the Russians never seriously attempted to make the region into a majority-Russian one. Even so, the Russians still
introduced their own demographic to help shape the region more to Moscow's liking.) Instead, Russia's relatively few
young families are busy holding the demographic line in Russia proper. For the first time in Russian history, there is no
surplus Russian population that can be relocated to the provinces. And without that population, the Russian view of the
Fergana -- to say nothing of Kyrgyzstan -- changes dramatically. The region is remote and densely populated, and reaching
it requires transiting three countries. And one of these states would have something to say about that. That state is
Uzbekistan. The Uzbek Goliath After the Russians and Ukrainians, the Uzbeks are the most populous ethnicity in the
former Soviet Union. They are a Turkic people who do not enjoy particularly good relations with anyone. Uzbekistan's
ruling Karimov family is roundly hated both at home and abroad; the Central Asian country boasts one of the most
repressive governing systems in modern times. Uzbekistan also happens to be quite powerful by Central Asian standards.
There are more Uzbeks in Central Asia than there are Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Tajiks and Russians combined. The Uzbek
intelligence services are modeled after their Russian counterparts, interspersing agents throughout the Uzbek population
to ensure loyalty and to root out dissidents. It is the only country of the five former Soviet states in the region that actually
has a military that can engage in military action. It is the only one of the five that has most of its cities in logical proximity
and linked with decent infrastructure (even if it is split into the Tashkent region and the Fergana region by Stalinesque
cartographic creativity). It is the only one of the five that is both politically stable (if politically brittle) and that has the
ability to project power. And it is also the only Central Asian state that is self-sufficient in both food and energy. To top it
all off, some 2.5 million ethnic Uzbeks reside in the other four former Soviet Central Asian states, providing Tashkent a
wealth of tools for manipulating developments throughout the region. And manipulate it does. In addition to the odd
border spat, Uzbekistan intervened decisively in Tajikistan's civil war in the 1990s. Tashkent is not shy about noting that it
thinks most Tajik, and especially Kyrgyz, territory should belong to Uzbekistan, particularly the territory of southern
Kyrgyzstan, where the current violence is strongest. Uzbekistan views many of the Russian strategies to expunge Western
interests from Central Asia as preparation for moves against Uzbekistan, with the Russian-sponsored coup in Kyrgyzstan
an excellent case in point. From March through May, Uzbekistan began activating its reserves and reinforcing its Fergana
border regions, which heightened the state of fear in Bishkek from shrill to panic mode. Given Uzbek means, motive and
opportunity, Moscow is fairly confident that sending Russian peacekeepers to southern Kyrgyzstan would provoke a direct
military confrontation with an angry and nervous Uzbekistan. In STRATFOR's view, Russia would win this war, but this
victory would come neither easily nor cheaply. The Fergana is a long way from Russia, and the vast bulk of Russia's
military is static, not expeditionary like its U.S. counterpart. Uzbek supply lines would be measured in hundreds of meters,
Russian lines in thousands of kilometers. Moreover, Uzbekistan could interrupt nearly all Central Asian natural gas that
currently flows to Russia without even launching a single attack. (The Turkmen natural gas that Russia's Gazprom
normally depends upon travels to Russia via Uzbek territory.) Yet this may be a conflict Russia feels it cannot avoid. The
Russians have not forward-garrisoned a military force sufficient to protect Kyrgyzstan, nor can they resettle a population
that could transform Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, the Russian relationship with Kyrgyzstan is based neither on military strategy
nor on economic rationality. Instead, it is based on the need to preserve a certain level of credibility and fear -- credibility
that the Russians will protect Kyrgyzstan should push come to shove, and Kyrgyz fear of what Russia will do to it should
they not sign on to the Russian sphere of influence. It is a strategy strongly reminiscent of the U.S. Cold War containment
doctrine, under which the United States promised to aid any ally, anytime, anywhere if in exchange they would help
contain the Soviets. This allowed the Soviet Union to choose the time and place of conflicts, and triggered U.S.
involvement in places like Vietnam. Had the United States refused battle, the American alliance structure could have
crumbled. Russia now faces a similar dilemma, and just as the United States had no economic desire to be in Vietnam, the
Russians really do not much care what happens to Kyrgyzstan -- except as it impacts Russian interests elsewhere. But even
victory over Uzbekistan would not solve the problem. Smashing the only coherent government in the region would create a
security vacuum. Again, the Americans provide a useful corollary: The U.S. "victory" over Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the
Taliban's Afghanistan proved that "winning" is the easy part. Occupying the region over the long haul to make sure that
the victory is not worse than the status quo antebellum is a decade-to-generational effort that requires a significant
expenditure of blood and treasure. Russia desperately needs to devote such resources elsewhere -- particularly once the
United States is no longer so preoccupied in the Middle East. Russia is attempting to finesse a middle ground by talking
the Uzbeks down and offering the compromise of non-Russian troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a
Russian-led military organization, as an alternative to Russian forces. This may resolve the immediate crisis, but neither
the Uzbeks nor the challenges they pose are going anywhere. And unlike Russia, Uzbekistan boasts very high demographic
growth. The bottom line is this: Despite all of Russia's recent gains, Moscow's strategy requires tools that the Russians no
longer have. It requires Moscow delving into the subregional politics of places that could well bleed Russia dry -- and this
is before any power that wishes Russia ill begins exploring what it and the Uzbeks might achieve together.
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2NC-Russia- AT: No investment
Polar melting will create massive influx of investment to Russia
Der Spiegel ‘6 (March 10, http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,405320,00.html)
Global warming isn't necessarily the catastrophe it's made out to be -- at least not for multinational oil companies.
Shrinking ice caps would reveal the Arctic's massive energy sources and shorten tanker routes by thousands of miles. AFP
This NASA handout satellite image shows the minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice in 2005, when the sea ice extent
dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. Ice-cap melting may be bad news for the polar bears in Manitoba, Canada, but it
is great news for Pat Broe of Denver. When the ice melts in the Arctic, the polar predators have to search for new hunting
grounds or starve -- but Broe doesn't mind. He figures global warming will make him around $100 million a year. His
friends laughed at him when he bought the run-down port in Churchill -- a tiny outpost of a thousand souls on the Hudson
Bay. What could he possibly want with a harbor in one of the most deserted places on the planet that's frozen over a big
chunk of the year? Wait and see, said Broe. He only paid a symbolic price of seven dollars -- not a bad price for a port. He
knew that time was on his side. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are rising twice as fast as in the southern half.
The summers are getting longer and the pack ice is getting thinner. By 2015 the North Pole is expected to be navigable for
normal ships six months out of the year. It's then that a golden age will dawn upon Churchill. Via Arctic waterways, an oil
tanker only needs a week to make it from the Russian port city Murmansk on the Barents Sea to the east coast of Canada.
That's only half the time it takes from Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf to Galveston, Texas. And from Churchill to Chicago
on the Hudson Bay Railway, it's not much further than from Texas to the Windy City. Tankers from Venezuela to Japan
can even save some 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) by traveling over the pole. Of course, with rising ocean temperatures
comes an increased danger of icebergs, but at least the Arctic oil fields aren't in a region plagued by political instability. No
suicide bombers, no kidnappings, no explosions. What risk there is up north, is nothing big oil companies aren't happy to
take on. The first cargo likely to be transported via the Northwest Passage is Russian oil from Siberia destined for North
America. The melting ice will also make it easier to get to oil and natural gas fields that are still blocked by pack ice. The
Arctic is a giant treasure trove for energy multinationals. A quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves are estimated to be
hidden underneath its rapidly shrinking ice. At current market values they would be worth $1.5 to $2 trillion. There are
even proven oil deposits at the North Pole itself.
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2NC Russia Relation
Arctic melting key to US-Russian relations
Abelsky, written about Russian politics, art and architecture for The Baltimore Sun, Chicago
Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, 2007 (Paul, writer, Russia Profile, June,
http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=resources-arctic)
“In particular, within our lifetimes and possibly in less than a single generation, we may witness the opening up of Arctic
sea lanes that are fully navigable year round,” he added. “The economic and military impact will be enormous, and the
social impacts could also be both powerful and positive. I imagine a world where international shipping can take the direct
northern route linking Asian markets to Europe, cutting consumption of fuel and reducing carbon emissions from the
shorter shipping routes; the potential for maritime commerce to stimulate the economic development of Arctic ports, from
James Bay to the High Arctic; secure sea lanes for the shipping of strategic commodities, enabling northern oil producers
to deliver product to market without having to navigate through chokepoints vulnerable to terrorism.” Among other likely
benefits, Zellen mentions an emergence of a more efficient military supply distribution network, enabling NATO, the
United States and allied Asian nations to operate securely across the top of the world to bolster military bases and troops
deployed in distant military theaters. Ultimately, he says, the most positive outcome of the thawing ocean could be “a true
reconciliation between Russia, the United States and the West, and the full integration of Russia into a Western security
alliance.” Even with the increasing security and economic strains, Russia prioritized the social aspect of development in
the Arctic during its chairmanship of the Arctic Council from 2004 to 2006. Alexander Ignatiev, an official at Russia’s
Foreign Ministry who served as head of Senior Arctic Officials at the Arctic Council, says the socio-economic plight in the
country’s northern regions prompted Russia to put emphasis on this dimension of the institution’s agenda.
Relations solve extinction
Allison, Director – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy
School, 2011 (10-31 -- Graham, Director – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy
School, and Former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Robert D. Blackwill, Senior Fellow – Council on Foreign
Relations, “10 Reasons Why Russia Still Matters”, Politico, 2011, http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=161EF28272F9-4D48-8B9C-C5B3396CA0E6)
That central point is that Russia matters a great deal to a U.S. government seeking to defend and advance its national interests. Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin’s decision to return next year as president makes it all the more critical for Washington to manage its relationship with
Russia through coherent, realistic policies. No one denies that Russia is a dangerous, difficult, often disappointing state to do business with. We should
not overlook its many human rights and legal failures. Nonetheless, Russia is a player whose choices affect our vital interests in nuclear
security and energy. It is key to supplying 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ten realities
require U.S. policymakers to advance our nation’s interests by engaging and working with Moscow. First, Russia remains the only nation that can
erase the United States from the map in 30 minutes. As every president since John F. Kennedy has recognized, Russia’s cooperation is
critical to averting nuclear war. Second, Russia is our most consequential partner in preventing nuclear terrorism. Through a
combination of more than $11 billion in U.S. aid, provided through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, and impressive Russian
professionalism, two decades after the collapse of the “evil empire,” not one nuclear weapon has been found loose. Third, Russia plays an
essential role in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile-delivery systems. As Washington seeks to stop Iran’s
drive toward nuclear weapons, Russian choices to sell or withhold sensitive technologies are the difference between failure and the
possibility of success. Fourth, Russian support in sharing intelligence and cooperating in operations remains essential to
the U.S. war to destroy Al Qaeda and combat other transnational terrorist groups. Fifth, Russia provides a vital supply line to
100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan. As U.S. relations with Pakistan have deteriorated, the Russian lifeline has grown ever more important
and now accounts for half all daily deliveries. Sixth, Russia is the world’s largest oil producer and second largest gas producer. Over
the past decade, Russia has added more oil and gas exports to world energy markets than any other nation. Most major energy transport routes from
Eurasia start in Russia or cross its nine time zones. As citizens of a country that imports two of every three of the 20 million barrels of oil that fuel U.S.
cars daily, Americans feel Russia’s impact at our gas pumps. Seventh, Moscow is an important player in today’s international system . It
is no accident that Russia is one of the five veto-wielding, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as well as a member of the G-8 and G-20. A
Moscow more closely aligned with U.S. goals would be significant in the balance of power to shape an environment in which China
can emerge as a global power without overturning the existing order. Eighth, Russia is the largest country on Earth by land area, abutting China on
the East, Poland in the West and the United States across the Arctic. This territory provides transit corridors for supplies to global markets
whose stability is vital to the U.S. economy. Ninth, Russia’s brainpower is reflected in the fact that it has won more Nobel Prizes for
science than all of Asia, places first in most math competitions and dominates the world chess masters list. The only way U.S. astronauts can now travel
to and from the International Space Station is to hitch a ride on Russian rockets. The co-founder of the most advanced digital company in the world,
Google, is Russian-born Sergei Brin. Tenth, Russia’s potential as a spoiler is difficult to exaggerate. Consider what a Russian
president intent on frustrating U.S. international objectives could do — from stopping the supply flow to Afghanistan to selling
S-300 air defense missiles to Tehran to joining China in preventing U.N. Security Council resolutions.
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2NC Econ Impact
Warming causes arctic melting- this is key to the global economy
Mayer, a veteran of the banking industry, specifically in the area of corporate lending, 2007 [Daily Reckoning
Australia, October 10th, “Northwest Passage Reopens Shipping Routes With Global Economic Impact”, Mayer is a veteran of the banking industry,
specifically in the area of corporate lending. A financial writer since 1998, Mr. Mayer's essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications, from the
Mises.org Daily Article series to here in The Daily Reckoning. He is the editor of Mayer's Special Situations and Capital and Crisis - formerly the Fleet
Street Letter, http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/northwest-passage/2007/10/10/]
It started with a Russian expedition planting the Russian flag in a polar seabed. Though largely symbolic, it touched off a scramble among a handful of
nations, all trying to lay claim to the Arctic. Among these claimants: the U.S., Canada, Russia and Denmark. Why the sudden interest in the Arctic?
There are two big reasons. First, thanks to global warming, deposits of natural resources once layered over in impenetrable ice
are now easier to get at. Second, thanks to melting ice, some previously icebound shipping lanes like the Northwest
Passage are opening up. The available resources are still a long way from being developed. The climate is incredibly harsh, and easier-to-get-at
resources still exist on the fringes of the Arctic. As an oil and gas story, this one has a long fuse. The Arctic thaw’s more immediate and bigger impact will
be as a shipping lane. Since Aug. 21, the Northwest Passage has been open to navigation and free of ice for the first time.
“Analysts… confirm that the passage is almost completely clear and that the region is more open than it has ever been since the advent of
routine monitoring in 1972,” reports the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. The fabled passage through the Arctic Ocean connects the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans along the northern coast of North America. To pass through here from China on your way to Europe is about 5,000 miles shorter than
going through the Panama or Suez canals. As the Financial Times observes, “A ship traveling at 21 knots between Rotterdam and Yokohama takes 29
days if it goes via the Cape of Good Hope, 22 days via the Suez Canal and just 15 days if it goes across the Arctic Ocean.” An oil tanker could make
the trip from the Russian port city of Murmansk to the east coast of Canada in a week by crossing the Arctic Ocean. That is about half the time it
takes to get an oil tanker from Abu Dhabi to Galveston, Texas. In the early 1900s, it took the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team
nearly two years to pick their way through the ice and narrow waterways. Now the Northwest Passage could revolutionize shipping. More than 90%
of all goods in the world, measured by tonnage, make their way by sea. And as I’ve noted in the past, the rapid surge in trade with China
and India is putting a lot of strain on ports around the world. In recent years, the volume of container shipments has grown 5-7% annually - basically,
doubling every 10-15 years. The ships carrying those containers are getting bigger, and the old canals can’t hold these new seafaring beasts of burden as
they once did. The Suez Canal can still handle the largest current container ships, but not the next generation. The Panama Canal is even smaller. It’s too
small for ships that are now common on longer shipping routes. Panama plans to deepen its channels and make them wider. But even so, the new
Panama Canal won’t be able to service the next generation of ships. So it looks like the world will have a new navigable ocean with the Northwest
Passage. The effects on trade could be immense. Much shorter shipping distances and quicker shipping times will lower the
cost of doing business. It could lead to big increases in trade and, certainly, a major shift in sea lanes. A freer-flowing Arctic
Ocean would also bring fish stocks north - with fishing fleets not far behind. It could mean a new boom in fishing for salmon, cod,
herring and smelt. It could also mean that sleepy old ports could become important new hubs in international
trade. As the Financial Times recently wrote, “Leading world powers have an unprecedented chance to win navigation rights and ownership of
resources in the Arctic seabed untouched since its emergence during the twilight of the dinosaurs.” The U.S. alone could lay claim to more
than 200,000 square miles of additional undersea territory. The specific investment implications of this are still too early to say. But the
cracking open of new trade routes or reopening of old ones - and their impact on global trade - always has ripple effects
across financial markets. As for the Arctic, the Northwest Passage has got to be one of the most important new
developments on that front in a long time.
Economic growth is key to prevent major wars
Royal , Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense,
2010 (Jedediah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, “Economic
Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal
and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has
contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defense behavior of interdependent states. Research
in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008)
advances Modelski and Thompson’s (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with
the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks
such as economic crisis could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about
power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could
lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Seperately, Pollins (1996) also
shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers,
although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic
level, Copeland’s (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that ‘future expectation of trade’ is a significant variable in
understanding economic conditions and security behavious of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain
pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations , However, if the expectations of
future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be
inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crisis could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its
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own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered
the link between economic decline
and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal
conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn . They write, The linkages between internal and
external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor.
Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflict self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg &
Hess, 2002. P. 89) Economic decline has been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has
the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
‘Diversionary theory’ suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have
increase incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a ‘rally around the flag’ effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995),
and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for
democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from
office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States,
and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively
correlated economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with
external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels. This implied connection between integration, crisis and armed conflict has not featured
prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
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2NC Trade Impact
Arctic melting key to free trade
Borgerson, International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former
Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, 2008 (Scott G, March/April 2008,“Arctic Meltdown: The
Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63222/scott-g-borgerson/arctic-meltdown#)
Arctic shipping could also dramatically affect global trade patterns. In 1969, oil companies sent the S.S. Manhattan
through the Northwest Passage to test whether it was a viable route for moving Arctic oil to the Eastern Seaboard. The
Manhattan completed the voyage with the help of accompanying icebreakers, but oil companies soon deemed the route
impractical and prohibitively expensive and opted instead for an Alaskan pipeline. But today such voyages are fast
becoming economically feasible. As soon as marine insurers recalculate the risks involved in these voyages, trans-Arctic
shipping will become commercially viable and begin on a large scale. In an age of just-in-time delivery, and with
increasing fuel costs eating into the profits of shipping companies, reducing long-haul sailing distances by as much as 40
percent could usher in a new phase of globalization. Arctic routes would force further competition between the Panama
and Suez Canals, thereby reducing current canal tolls; shipping chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca would no longer
dictate global shipping patterns; and Arctic seaways would allow for greater international economic integration. When the
ice recedes enough, likely within this decade, a marine highway directly over the North Pole will materialize. Such a route,
which would most likely run between Iceland and Alaska's Dutch Harbor, would connect shipping megaports in the North
Atlantic with those in the North Pacific and radiate outward to other ports in a hub-and-spoke system. A fast lane is now
under development between the Arctic port of Murmansk, in Russia, and the Hudson Bay port of Churchill, in Canada,
which is connected to the North American rail network.
Trade solves Nuclear War
Copley News Service, privately held newspaper business, founded in Illinois, but later based in La Jolla,
California.Its flagship paper was The San Diego Union-Tribune,99 (December 1)
For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear war. The specter of
nuclear winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists protesting the World Trade Organization's
meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that threat. The truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not
just to further their own prosperity, but also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the
threat of a worldwide nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle protesters clearly fancy
themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past. But they're not.
They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or paranoia about global government.
Actually, most of the demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John
Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father of the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people
and nations to work together rather than strive against each other. These and other war protesters would probably
approve of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have been settled by
bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports to other countries,
they have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so
important. As exports to the United States and the rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases
demand for the goods we produce, the threat of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only
multinational corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just
plain wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies that make high-tech goods.
And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many people have good jobs at
Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000
people who work at Boeing would lose their livelihoods without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent
of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of jobs for everyday workers. Growing global prosperity has helped counter the
specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and work together, like the singers of anti-war songs
once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world trade. They should be celebrating it.
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AFF – 2AC At Russia Warming turn
Arctic melting is natural – we don’t stop it.
Sydney Morning Herald, “Natural causes behind Arctic warming,” 1/6/2008,
http://news.smh.com.au/world/natural-causes-behind-arctic-warming-20080106-1kdm.html
A natural cause may account for much of the recent dramatic thawing of the Arctic region, in addition to man-made global
warming, a new study finds. New research indicates a natural and cyclical increase in the amount of energy in the atmosphere
that moves from south to north around the Arctic Circle, according to the study published in the journal Nature
Too late
Connor, degree in zoology from the University of Oxford,2008( Steve, 12/16/2008,The
Independent, “Has the Arctic melt passed the point of no return?”, http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climatechange/arctic-melt-passes-the-point-of--no-return-1128197.html
Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the
world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen. Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in
the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer
Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be
seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the
climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover. The Arctic is considered one of the
most sensitive regions in terms of climate change and its transition to another climatic state will have a direct impact on
other parts of the northern hemisphere, as well more indirect effects around the world. Although researchers have
documented a catastrophic loss of sea ice during the summer months over the past 20 years, they have not until now
detected the definitive temperature signal that they could link with greenhouse-gas emissions. However, in a study to be
presented later today to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, scientists will show that
Arctic amplification has been under way for the past five years, and it will continue to intensify Arctic warming for the
foreseeable future. Computer models of the global climate have for years suggested the Arctic will warm at a faster rate
than the rest of the world due to Arctic amplification but many scientists believed this effect would only become
measurable in the coming decades. However, a study by scientists from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre
(NSIDC) in Colorado has found that amplification is already showing up as a marked increase in surface air temperatures
within the Arctic region during the autumn period, when the sea ice begins to reform after the summer melting period.
Julienne Stroeve, of the NSIDC, who led the study with her colleague Mark Serreze, said that autumn air temperatures this
year and in recent years have been anomalously high. The Arctic Ocean warmed more than usual because heat from the
sun was absorbed more easily by the dark areas of open water compared to the highly reflective surface of a frozen sea.
"Autumn 2008 saw very strong surface temperature anomalies over the areas where the sea ice was lost," Dr Stroeve told
The Independent ahead of her presentation today. "The observed autumn warming that we've seen over the Arctic Ocean,
not just this year but over the past five years or so, represents Arctic amplification, the notion that rises in surface air
temperatures in response to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will be larger in the Arctic than
elsewhere over the globe," she said. "The warming climate is leading to more open water in the Arctic Ocean. As these
open water areas develop through spring and summer, they absorb most of the sun's energy, leading to ocean warming.
"In autumn, as the sun sets in the Arctic, most of the heat that was gained in the ocean during summer is released back to
the atmosphere, acting to warm the atmosphere. It is this heat-release back to the atmosphere that gives us Arctic
amplification." Temperature readings for this October were significantly higher than normal across the entire Arctic
region – between 3C and 5C above average – but some areas were dramatically higher. In the Beaufort Sea, north of
Alaska, for instance, near-surface air temperatures were more than 7C higher than normal for this time of year. The
scientists believe the only reasonable explanation for such high autumn readings is that the ocean heat accumulated
during the summer because of the loss of sea ice is being released back into the atmosphere from the sea before winter sea
ice has chance to reform. "One of the reasons we focus on Arctic amplification is that it is a good test of greenhouse
warming theory. Even our earliest climate models were telling us that we should see this Arctic amplification emerge as we
lose the summer ice cover," Dr Stroeve said. "This is exactly what we are not starting to see in the observations. Simply
put, it's a case of we hate to say we told you so, but we did," she added. Computer models have also predicted totally icefree summers in the Arctic by 2070, but many scientists now believe that the first ice-free summer could occur far earlier
than this, perhaps within the next 20 years.
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Climate change internally link turns the DA
C2ES, world’s top environmental think tank, 2011 (Center for Climate and Energy Solutions - successor to the Pew
Center on Global Climate Change, and recently named the world’s top environmental think tank, "Science FAQs,"
http://www.c2es.org/global-warming-basics/faq_s/glance_faq_science.cfm)
Some people argue that cold countries are likely to be climate change “winners.” For example, warmer temperatures in
Russia could reduce heating fuel consumption, lengthen the agricultural growing season, and open up transportation
routes and access to mineral and energy deposits in the Arctic. But these types of analyses inevitably focus on a few
simplistic variables, while neglecting a plethora of more complex and likely negative impacts. Consider the many negative
effects of the extreme heat wave Russia experienced in summer 2010. That single event destroyed a third of Russia’s wheat
crop, prompting Russia to suspend grain exports, which caused food prices to rise globally. The heat wave killed 15,000
people and shaved $123 billion off Russia’s GDP. Results of a recent peer-reviewed scientific study “suggest that we may
be on the cusp of a period in which the probability of such events increases rapidly, due primarily to the influence of
projected increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.” If these events do become common in future decades, it is hard to
see Russia being a climate-change winner.
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***SO2 Screw***
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1NC – SO2 Screw
CUTTING EMISSIONS WASHES SULFATE AEROSOLS OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE –
CAUSES RAPID WARMING
Connor, Science Editor of the Independent London, 1990
[Steve, Science Editor of The Independent (London), “Carbon dioxide cuts 'may heat up earth'”, The Independent
(London), August 19, 1990, pg. 7]
MAN'S attempts to halt the greenhouse effect by cutting carbon dioxide emissions could make the world
even hotter, scientists have warned. The latest research challenges the conventional wisdom about the best
way to stop global warming: to burn less coal and oil and thus release smaller amounts of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. Scientists say that, if fewer fossil fuels were burnt, there would be a reduction in the
release of sulphur dioxide as well as of carbon dioxide - and their research suggests that sulphur dioxide
has been keeping the world cooler than it would otherwise have become as a result of the Industrial
Revolution. Professor Tom Wigley, of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, says in the
current issue of Physics World that sulphur dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter time
than carbon dioxide. Cutting both gases would thus remove sulphur dioxide more quickly . ''The first
response of the climate system to a fossil-fuel cutback might therefore be a warming rather than a
cooling,'' he says. Professor Wigley, one of the world's leading experts on climate, reached this conclusion
after a new study of the role of sulphur emissions by a team of researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California. Factories and power stations release thousands of tons of sulphur dioxide over land in
the northern hemisphere by burning fossil fuels. Some of this falls back to Earth in the form of acid rain, and
some wafts out to sea where it is converted into sulphates. Once over the sea, sulphates act as tiny particles
for water vapour to condense, and so are important in the formation of clouds which block sunlight and
keep the oceans cool. Without sulphates, fewer clouds would form and sea temperatures would rise . The
suggestion was first made nearly 20 years ago, but with little evidence to support it. It was revived more
recently, but researchers thought that sulphates could result from marine algae rather than industrial sources.
So important is sulphur dioxide in the formation of clouds that the Lawrence Livermore researchers believe
man-made emissions of sulphur dioxide could account for the fact that global warming since the Industrial
Revolution has been less than predicted from known increases in carbon dioxide emissions over the past 100
years.''A 1C rise is indicated but we've only seen about 0.5C,'' said Dr Joyce Penner of the Lawrence Livermore
laboratory. ''Man- made emissions of sulphur dioxide may explain why we haven't seen the magnitude of
warming we expected.''
The loss of sulfate aerosols will have a rapid impact on climate change
Henson 98, Director at University Coperation for Atmospheric Research, 1998
[Bob, National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Particles of Doubt”, April 10,
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/highlights/1998/particles.html]
Sulfates are sprinters in the climate race: they stay in the atmosphere only a few days to weeks before
falling or raining out. In contrast, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are marathon runners,
remaining airborne for years, even centuries. Because they have so little time to roam, sulfates tend to
affect the climate mainly over regions where they're emitted. Their short lifespan also means
that any big change in sulfur emissions might have a relatively prompt impact on local climate
(although weather patterns would likely create too much "noise" for scientists to directly detect such a link). In the United
States, where concern over acid rain led to stringent regulation in the 1970s and 1980s, sulfur emissions have gradually
stabilized. However, they are rising quickly in regions like China, India, and Southeast Asia.
Aerosols guarantee slow warming, but rapid warming will CAUSE EXTINCTION
Freedman, senior science writer for Climate Central, 2005
[Andrew, “Keep warming below threshold to avert 'runaway climate change,' report says”, Greenwire, January 25, 2005]
Industrialized nations must join developing countries to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius -- or 3.6
degrees Farenheit -- above pre-industrial levels, according to a report released yesterday by the International
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Climate Change Task Force. Temperature increases beyond that level would increase the risk for
disruption of human societies and natural systems, and potentially bring about abrupt or "runaway
climate change," the report says. The task force, led by former British cabinet Secretary Stephen Byers and
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), was established under the auspices of the Institute for Public Policy Research
in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States, and the Australia Institute. Calling itself a
"unique international cross-party, cross-sector collaboration," the task force says its goal is to propose ways to
bring the United States and Australia, which both rejected the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas
emissions, back into multilateral negotiations on climate change. It is also meant to inform the next meeting of
the group of eight nations, which will be led by Blair and feature climate change as a key topic. The report
"provides ambitious but achievable policy solutions that reach across partisan lines and national boundaries to
build momentum for a new global energy agenda that can make important progress on this critical problem,"
said Center for American Progress President and Chief Executive Officer John Podesta in a statement. The
1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which led to the Kyoto agreement, committed
signatories to averting "dangerous" human interference with the climate system but left open the question of
what would constitute such interference. "Scientific evidence suggests that there is a threshold of
temperature increase above which the extent and magnitude of the impacts of climate change
increase sharply," the report states. The 2 degrees Celsius threshold has been increasingly discussed in
scientific and policy circles during the past few years and has been adopted as official policy by the European
Union, which represents the largest bloc of countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing
greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, the United States has steered clear of any such predictions of a threshold level
that would constitute dangerous human interference under the UNFCCC. "No one can say with certainty what
that threshold is, but it is important that we make an educated judgment at this time based on the best
available science," the task force report states. It found that a net warming of about 2 degrees Celsius likely
would be associated with carbon dioxide concentrations above 400 parts per million, a level that is likely to be
surpassed on a business as usual emissions scenario as early as the next few decades. The emissions picture
is a complicated one, in part because some of the warming effects of the CO2 are blunted by
atmospheric particles such as sulfate aerosols, which exert a cooling influence on the climate.
Decreases in sulfur emissions will cause warming due to an increase in methane
emissions from wetlands and a decrease in radiative forcing
Gauci, Professor of Earth Sciences, Open University, 2004 [Vincent Gauci, Department of Earth Sciences, Open
University, “Sulfur pollution suppression of the wetland methane source in the 20th and 21st centuries”, Environmental
Sciences, http://cepsar.open.ac.uk/pers/v.gauci/pics/d39285.pdf]
Our estimates of the combined effects of climate change, sulfate aerosol radiative effects, and SDEP (GHGAEROSDEP) on
CH4 emissions show that anthropogenic SDEP may have been sufficient to have decreased the global wetland CH4 source
to a level below preindustrial estimates by 10–15 Tg during the second half of the 20th century (Fig. 3). The combined
effect of SO4 2 aerosols (cooling) and SO4 2-deposition (limiting methane production at the source by microbial
competition) are predicted to offset the effect of GHG warming on CH4 emissions by 26 Tg in 2030 and by 15 Tg in 2080.
In this scenario, CH4 emissions will exceed preindustrial emissions by 14 Tg by 2080. The influence of
production and deposition of oxidized sulfur compounds through economic growth in North America and Europe between
1960 and 1980, followed by increases in the economic growth in South America, Africa, and (primarily) Asia, are
responsible for this pattern. Beyond 2030, however, a decline is predicted in sulfur pollution because of anticipated
cleaner technologies. Together with the additional effect of enhanced greenhouse warming, we predict this reduction in
sulfur pollution will result in a rapid increase in CH4 emission (15% enhancement between 2030 and 2080) that may
exacerbate climate warming during that time.
This evidence is particularly devastating for them, not only is it a link to both of our
climate turns, but it proves that the turns function simultaneously and are consistent.
If they appear in the literature and the studies together, there is no inconsistency
between them. Also, we only need to win one of these scenarios to access our rapid
warming impacts.
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2NC – Overview
DECREASING EMISSIONS AS A WHOLE CAUSES Loss of sulfate – they wash out of the
environment within days and cause massive warming. Happens literally centuries
before your warming impact – THAT’S HENSON
Anthropogenic sulfate aerosols cool the earth and cancel out global warming, but they
are extremely short-lived
NASA Atmospheric Sciences Division, 1996 [“Atmospheric Aerosols: What Are They, and Why Are They So Important?”,
NASA.gov, August 1996, http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/Aerosols.html]
The third type of aerosol comes from human activities. While a large fraction of human-made aerosols come in
the form of smoke from burning tropical forests, the major component comes in the form of sulfate aerosols
created by the burning of coal and oil. The concentration of human-made sulfate aerosols in the
atmosphere has grown rapidly since the start of the industrial revolution. At current production levels,
human-made sulfate aerosols are thought to outweigh the naturally produced sulfate aerosols. The
concentration of aerosols is highest in the northern hemisphere where industrial activity is centered. The
sulfate aerosols absorb no sunlight but they reflect it, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
the Earth's surface. Sulfate aerosols are believed to survive in the atmosphere for about 3-5 days.
The sulfate aerosols also enter clouds where they cause the number of cloud droplets to increase but make the
droplet sizes smaller. The net effect is to make the clouds reflect more sunlight than they would without the
presence of the sulfate aerosols. Pollution from the stacks of ships at sea has been seen to modify the low-lying
clouds above them. These changes in the cloud droplets, due to the sulfate aerosols from the ships, have been
seen in pictures from weather satellites as a track through a layer of clouds. In addition to making the clouds
more reflective, it is also believed that the additional aerosols cause polluted clouds to last longer and
reflect more sunlight than non-polluted clouds.
Climatic Effects of Aerosols
The additional reflection caused by pollution aerosols is expected to have an effect on the climate
comparable in magnitude to that of increasing concentrations of atmospheric gases. The effect of the
aerosols, however, will be opposite to the effect of the increasing atmospheric trace gases - cooling
instead of warming the atmosphere.
NEW LINK – Decreases in sulfur emissions will cause warming due to an increase in
methane emissions from wetlands and a decrease in radiative forcing
Gauci, Professor of Earth Sciences, Open University, 2004 [Vincent Gauci, Department of Earth Sciences, Open
University, “Sulfur pollution suppression of the wetland methane source in the 20th and 21st centuries”, Environmental
Sciences, http://cepsar.open.ac.uk/pers/v.gauci/pics/d39285.pdf]
Our estimates of the combined effects of climate change, sulfate aerosol radiative effects, and SDEP (GHGAEROSDEP) on
CH4 emissions show that anthropogenic SDEP may have been sufficient to have decreased the global wetland CH4 source
to a level below preindustrial estimates by 10–15 Tg during the second half of the 20th century (Fig. 3). The combined
effect of SO4 2- aerosols (cooling) and SO4 2-deposition (limiting methane production at the source by microbial
competition) are predicted to offset the effect of GHG warming on CH4 emissions by 26 Tg in 2030 and by 15 Tg in 2080.
In this scenario, CH4 emissions will exceed preindustrial emissions by 14 Tg by 2080. The influence of production and
deposition of oxidized sulfur compounds through economic growth in North America and Europe between 1960 and 1980,
followed by increases in the economic growth in South America, Africa, and (primarily) Asia, are responsible for this
pattern. Beyond 2030, however, a decline is predicted in sulfur pollution because of anticipated cleaner technologies.
Together with the additional effect of enhanced greenhouse warming, we predict this reduction in sulfur pollution will
result in a rapid increase in CH4 emission (15% enhancement between 2030 and 2080) that may exacerbate climate
warming during that time.
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Natural wetlands and rice paddies are a potentially huge source of methane, a potent
greenhouse gas. Sulfate aerosols prevent methane production by keeping the wetlands
cool and encouraging sulfur-reducing bacteria, preventing a massive spike in global
warming
Gauci, Professor of Earth Sciences, Open University, 2004 [Vincent Gauci, Department of Earth Sciences, Open
University, “Sulfur pollution suppression of the wetland methane source in the 20th and 21st centuries”, Environmental
Sciences, http://cepsar.open.ac.uk/pers/v.gauci/pics/d39285.pdf]
Natural wetlands form the largest source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. Emission of this powerful
greenhouse gas from wetlands is known to depend on climate, with increasing temperature and rainfall
both expected to increase methane emissions. This study, combining our field and controlled environment
manipulation studies in Europe and North America, reveals an additional control: an emergent pattern of
increasing suppression of methane (CH4) emission from peatlands with increasing sulfate (SO4 2 -S)
deposition, within the range of global acid deposition. We apply a model of this relationship to demonstrate the
potential effect of changes in global sulfate deposition from 1960 to 2080 on both northern peatland and global
wetland CH4 emissions. We estimate that sulfur pollution may currently counteract climate-induced growth in
the wetland source, reducing CH4 emissions by 15 Tg or 8% smaller than it would be in the absence of global
acid deposition. Our findings suggest that by 2030 sulfur pollution may be sufficient to reduce CH4 emissions
by 26 Tg or 15% of the total wetland source, a proportion as large as other components of the CH4 budget that
have until now received far greater attention. We conclude that documented increases in atmospheric CH4
concentration since the late 19th century are likely due to factors other than the global warming of wetlands.
Atmospheric methane (CH4) is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) that is responsible for an estimated
22% of the present anthropogenically enhanced greenhouse effect (1). Natural (nonrice agriculture)
wetlands are the world’s largest single CH4 source and are estimated to currently contribute between 110
and 260 Tg (Tg 1012 g) to the global methane budget (2), of which one-third is derived from temperate and
boreal northern wetlands (3). CH4 emissions from wetlands are climatesensitive, responding positively to
increases in temperature and rainfall as microbial activity and anaerobic conditions increase and
negatively to cool temperatures and drought (4, 5). Like many other ecosystems, wetlands are also
subject to the effects of aerial pollution and increasing CO2 levels. The stimulatory effects of increased
atmospheric CO2 concentrations on CH4 emission (by enhancement of net primary productivity) is well
reported (6–8), although a similar stimulatory effect of nitrogen pollution on wetland CH4 emission has not
always been identified (8–10) because of differing effects nitrogen has on the ecosystem, e.g., plant species
composition is an important factor in determining the effect of experimental N additions on CH4 fluxes (10).
CH4 is produced by two different groups of methanogenic archaea (MA); one group obtains energy by the
fermentation of simple organic compounds, such as acetate to CO2 and CH4, and the other obtains energy by
oxidizing molecular hydrogen to H2 O by using CO2, which is reduced to CH4. Acetate-fermenting MA tend to
dominate in more nutrient-rich peatlands and in summer, when the supply of labile organic carbon is relatively
high. However, it has been recently demonstrated that climate, depth of the acrotelm, and acetate
concentrations add a fair degree of plasticity over controls on acetate-fermenting MA198198198198198198 (11).
Both groups of microorganisms are strictly anaerobic, and both are suppressed by another group of anaerobic
microorganisms, sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) (12).
SRB have a higher affinity for both hydrogen and acetate than MA, which, under ideal conditions, enables them
to maintain the pool of these substrates at concentrations too low for MA to use (13, 14). In wetlands, however,
the balance between sulfate reduction and methanogenesis is affected by factors such as the temperature
[warmer temperatures favor methanogenesis (15)], the rate of SO4 2
and acetate
supply [lower concentrations of sulfate or higher concentrations of acetate reduce the intensity of competition
(13)], and the availability of noncompetitive substrates [some low molecular weight hydrocarbons may be
preferentially used over acetate by SRB (16, 17) and some substrates such as methanol, methanethiol, and
dimethyl sulfide may be used by MA but are poorly used by SRB (18, 19)]. As a consequence, sulfate
reduction in wetlands partially, rather than completely, inhibits methane production (19). Stimulation of
sulfate reduction has been exploited as a mechanism to reduce GHG emissions from rice paddies; in field trials,
CH4 emissions have been reduced by as much as 72% with doses of gypsum (CaSO4) ranging from several
hundred to thousands of kilograms of SO4 2
per hectare (ha) (20, 21).198
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2NC – Aerosols Solve Warming
Aerosol cooling is valid science, Nobel laureates in atmospheric physics agree
Connor, Science Editor of The Independent (London), 2006 [Steve, Science Editor of The Independent (London),
“Scientist publishes escape route from global warming”, Belfast Telegraph, July 31, 2006]
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has drawn up an emergency plan to save the world from global warming, by altering the
chemical makeup of Earth's upper atmosphere. Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the
hole in the ozone layer, believes that political attempts to limit man-made greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical
contingency plan is needed. In a polemical scientific essay to be published in the August issue of the journal Climate
Change, he says that an "escape route" is needed if global warming begins to run out of control. Professor Crutzen has
proposed a method of artificially cooling the global climate by releasing particles of sulphur in the upper atmosphere,
which would reflect sunlight and heat back into space. The controversial proposal is being taken seriously by scientists
because Professor Crutzen has a proven track record in atmospheric research. A fleet of high-altitude balloons could be
used to scatter the sulphur high overhead, or it could even be fired into the atmosphere using heavy artillery shells, said
Professor Crutzen, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany. The effect of scattering sulphate
particles in the atmosphere would be to increase the reflectance, or "albedo", of the Earth, which should cause an overall
cooling effect.
Aerosols counter global warming, the claims that it is only regional or insufficient to
counter warming are based on old and discarded data
Berreby 93 (David, Staff Writer, “The parasol effect - sulfate aerosols block sun's rays and may cause cooling”, Science,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n7_v14/ai_13923194/print)
Indeed, Charlson himself, with his longtime collaborator Bert Bolin of Stockholm University, wrote a paper in the mid1970s that said aerosols could not have much impact on global climate. We had made a mistake, Charlson says now. We
didn’t have the global chemical model. We were guessing as to numbers. We didn’t get the geographical extent of sulfates
right. Then, in the 1980s, sulfate haze began to register as more than a technical problem for tourists and bomber pilots.
Sulfate aerosols were recognized as the key culprit in the acid rain that is killing lake fish, stunting forests, and corroding
buildings and equipment in Europe and North America. The acid rain problem led to more support for research into
sulfates. Out of this focus on the problem came better techniques for measuring emissions, as well as new and more
accurate computer models of wind patterns and chemical mixing in the lower atmosphere and of the dispersal of particles
on those winds. In early 1990 this led to a big break. Charlson was attending a meeting on sulfates in a huge nineteenthcentury faux-medieval castle in Bavaria. Many other climate experts were there also, of course, including two other
collaborators and old friends of Charlson’s from Stockholm University, Henning Rodhe and Joakim Langner, who were
showing off one of these improved computer models. The new Swedish model was the first devised to process data about
industrial activity and weather, and it yielded a crucial variable in acid rain--the distribution of sulfur in the air after it
leaves the pollution centers that create it. Fortunately, Charlson recalls, one of the talks after theirs was very boring. His
mind wandered back to the Swedes’ model, which--not surprisingly--predicted strikingly high concentrations of sulfates
throughout the heavily industrialized Northern Hemisphere and related that finding to acid rain. But they hadn’t related
such levels of sulfates to one of Charlson’s areas of expertise--optical scattering. Charlson won his first patent for
measuring such scattering nearly 30 years ago, with an invention dubbed the nephelometer (nephelos is the Greek word
for cloud). The prototype still sits on a bookshelf in his office. It’s gunmetal gray, roughly the size and shape of a bazooka.
Through an inlet on the bottom, a tiny pump sucks aerosol-laden air into a chamber. On one side of the cylindrical
chamber, about halfway down its length, is a halogen movie-projector lamp. At one end of the chamber is an electric light
detector--the technologically more sophisticated great- grandson, Charlson says, of those electric eyes that open doors and
set off alarms. By determining how much light makes it through an air sample to the light detector, Charlson can
accurately measure how much light is being deflected by aerosols in the sample. It gives you the ‘scattering efficiency,’
Charlson says. You might think of it as the amount of a light beam that a particle blocks out per gram of material. To get a
complete measure of optical scattering, Charlson explains, you make a measurement with a nephelometer; simultaneously
you filter the air, get the particles out of it, and do a chemical analysis of the material. That gives you an amount of sulfate
per cubic meter of air. Then you take the ratio of the scattering to the concentration of material. That’s what allows you to
say that given X amount of sulfate in the air, there will be Y amount of scattering. As he sat in the Bavarian castle, listening
to the high figures for sulfates that the Swedish model yielded, Charlson realized that he knew how to make the optical
calculations, to get the amount of scattering in meters squared per gram of material in the air. He took out a pencil and did
some rough math on a scrap of paper. It was much bigger than I thought, he recalls. So after the boring talk was over, at
the coffee break, I grabbed Langner and Rodhe and said, ‘Look at this!’ That was the light bulb, right there. That was a
Thursday. I was due to see them in Stockholm the next week. When I got there on Monday, a new model, with my light-
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scattering calculations incorporated, was sitting on a desk waiting for me. The computer model confirmed his rough
calculation. The aerosol umbrellas over the Northern Hemisphere, he saw, are keeping, on average, about a watt of solar
energy per square meter from reaching Earth’s surface. That may not sound like much--very roughly, Charlson says, it’s
perhaps a fifth of the amount of heat put out by a Christmas-tree light bulb, spread out over an average desktop. But that’s
enough to cool Earth substantially. It’s also, on average, equal to the amount of heat added to the planet by man-made
greenhouse gases, according to some estimates.
The cooling effect of aerosols is balancing 90% of the warming expected from
greenhouse gas emissions, the best data and studies support our aerosols argument
World Climate Report 1 (“Smoking Out UN-Science”, World Climate Report, Feb 19, 2001,
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol6/v6n11/feature1.htm)
The upshot of the addition of Jacobson's findings is that the amount of warming we should currently be observing
increases. Using the estimates of NASA climatologist James Hansen, if there were no indirect sulfate cooling, and if the
oceans weren't holding back warming, the total rise in temperature of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) should be
around 2.3 to 3.3°C by now, with the majority in recent decades. Yet according to surface, satellite and weather balloon
records, the observed warming averaged over the troposphere since the three histories became concurrently available
(since January 1979), is only around 0.07°C or about one-tenth of what should have happened. Something has got to give
here. The ocean isn't holding back that much Hansen says he believes about 60 percent of the ultimate warming for
today's atmospheric changes should already have been realized. The only way a person can explain the profound
difference between observations and projections is to assume that the sulfate cooling effect is massive.
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2NC – Our Method Good
The latest climate models and large scientific studies conclude that aerosols from fossil
fuel consumption are balancing the warming effects of greenhouse gases
Dyba, Geosciences, Environmental Research & Education at the NSF, 1995
[Cheryl, Geosciences, Environmental Research & Education at the NSF,National Science Foundation, “NSF Scientists to
Study Airborne Particles that May Be Cooling Earth”, October 1995,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pfsf/is_199510/ai_1404523332/print]
Scientists now suspect that increasing numbers of small particles of sulfur compounds and other pollutants floating in the
atmosphere may affect so-called greenhouse warming in heavily industrialized regions. By reflecting sunlight back to
space, these tiny airborne particles, called aerosols, can cool the earth beneath. To learn more about "background"
aerosols -- the naturally occurring counterparts to these pollutants - researchers from eight universities and the National
Science Foundation (NSF)-supported National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado are flying
to the remote skies of Tasmania, with stops in Alaska, Hawaii, and other sites along the way. Flight operations for detailed
studies of "clean" ocean air in the Southern Hemisphere will be based at Hobart, Tasmania, and take place from
November 15 to December 14, 1995. More than 100 scientists from 57 institutions representing Australia, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States are
participating in this major study of airborne particles. "Existing theories suggest that it should be very hard to create new
particles in the lower atmosphere, yet they keep showing up," says researcher Barry Huebert of the University of Hawaii at
Honolulu. "We're deploying state of- the-art instruments to the remote marine atmosphere for the first time to seek the
source of these new particles. This is the largest and most comprehensive experiment on natural background aerosols that
we have ever done." Among the high- tech instrumentation will be NCAR's dual wavelength airborne lidar, which will map
the vertical extent of aerosol layers in the atmosphere. Experiments will be conducted from a fully equipped C-130
research airplane owned by NSF and operated by NCAR. Researchers aboard the C-130 will spend as many flight hours
taking measurements during the two-week trip from the north Alaska coast to south of New Zealand as they will during
the operations in Tasmania. In Alaska, they will begin their research measurements with a flight toward the North Pole
and back. While in Hawaii November 5 and 6, the C-130 will fly through the Kilauea volcano plume to study how its
particles form and how much sunlight they reflect. After arrival at Hobart, a flight toward the South Pole will complete the
study's nearly pole-to-pole measurements. Called ACE-1, the study is the first of the Aerosol Characterization
Experiments, a series of international field programs to help scientists understand the chemical, physical, and optical
properties of aerosols; how they form and grow; and their effect on radiation and climate. Like carbon dioxide, sulfate
aerosols are produced by human activity, mainly the burning of fossil fuels. They also exist naturally as sulfur emissions
from living organisms and volcanoes. By scattering incoming solar energy back to space, both the natural and pollutant
aerosols directly affect the amount of radiation entering the earth's atmosphere. They also serve as tiny sites on which
water vapor can condense, allowing more small droplets to form within a cloud. This change in the droplets' size
distribution makes the cloud more reflective, bouncing more solar radiation back to space and cooling the earth below. In
ACE-1, scientists will study the natural marine system -distant from Northern Hemisphere sulfate aerosols produced by
human activity. ACE-2, scheduled for 1997, will focus on the marine atmosphere near European industrialized areas. As
scientists learn more about aerosols naturally occurring in the undisturbed atmosphere, they can better assess the growing
influence of human produced sulfate aerosols on climate. "Until recently all climate models have supposed that the only
human activity driving climate change was the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases," explains
scientist Tom Wigley of NCAR. "We now believe that other factors, particularly sulfate aerosols, may be as important as
greenhouse gases."
THE OBSERVED DATA ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE SUPPORTS THE CONCLUSION THAT AEROSOL
COOLING IS TRUE
Hartmann and Mouginis, UW Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Hawaii Institute Director of Geophysics and
Planetology, 1996
[Dennis. L., P., UW Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Hawaii Institute Director of Geophysics and
Planetology, NASA Earth Observation Systems Group EOS Science Plan #339, “Volcanoes and
Climate Effects of Aerosols,” http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/science_plan/Ch8.pdf, 7/12/13, JZ]
Modeling of tropospheric aerosols present a greater challenge, because of the large number of heterogeneously distributed
aerosols and the evidence that aerosols can alter cloud properties. The predominant anthropogenic aerosol is probably
sulfate originating from the burning of fossil fuels. The regional distribution of these aerosols can be estimated from
aerosol formation models (Langner and Rodhe 1991) and used to calculate an approximate anthropogenic sulfate climate
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forcing (Kiehl and Briegleb 1993). There is a qualitative consistency among the regions of heavy aerosol amounts (Eastern
United States, Europe, and China), calculated aerosol coolings (Taylor and Penner 1994), and the observed temperature
change of the past century (Karl et al. 1995).
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2NC – Links – Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuel consumption produces aerosols that counteract greenhouse gases, even the
IPCC concedes that aerosols provide cooling to counteract warming
Miller and Koch, scientists at NASA 6 (Ron Miller and Dorothy Koch, NASA GISS Atmospheric Study Group, “An
Aerosol Tour de Forcing”, February 8, 2006, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/an-aerosol-tour-
de-forcing/)
Scientists have confidence in a result to the extent that it can be derived by different investigators. Their confidence is
increased if different techniques lead to the same conclusion. Concurrence provides evidence that the conclusion does not
depend upon assumptions that occasionally are insufficiently supported. In contrast, two articles published last December
on the same day arrive at very different and incompatible estimates of the effect of human-made aerosols on the radiative
budget of the planet (Bellouin et al., 2005; Chung et al., 2005). They follow an earlier estimate published last year, (which
included Dorothy as a co-author) that was in the middle (Yu et al., 2005). Aerosols are important to climate partly because
their concentration is increased by the same industrial processes that increase the atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gases; yet aerosols generally oppose greenhouse warming. Because aerosols cause respiratory and other health
problems and acid rain, they have been regulated more aggressively than greenhouse gases. Concentrations of some
aerosols have decreased over the United States and Europe in recent decades as a result of environmental laws, although
an increase has been observed in many thrid world regions, where economic development is a priority. In the twenty-first
century, aerosol levels are anticipated to drop faster than greenhouse gases in response to future emission reductions,
which will leave greenhouse warming unopposed and unmoderated. Each published calculation of aerosol radiative
forcing was a tour de force for integrating a wide variety of measurements ranging from absorption of radiation by
individual particles to satellite estimates of aerosol amount. The disparate results emphasize the complexity and difficulty
of the calculation. But let’s start at the beginning…. Aerosols are solid particles or liquid droplets that are temporarily
suspended within the atmosphere. Naturally occurring examples are sea spray or sulfate droplets, along with soil particles
(dust) eroded by the wind. During the twentieth century, natural sources of sulfate aerosols were overwhelmed by the
contribution from pollution, in particular from the burning of fossil fuels. The number of soot particles in the atmosphere
was increased by industry and the burning of forests to clear land for agriculture. Sulfate aerosols are reflective and act to
cool the planet. Soot particles are also reflective, but can absorb sunlight and cause warming. Soot production is greater if
combustion occurs at low temperatures, as with cooking fires or inefficient power generation. Aerosols also scatter
longwave radiation, although this is significant only for larger aerosols like soil dust, and is neglected by all three of the
studies discussed here. In addition to their ability to scatter radiation and change the net energy gain at the top of the
atmosphere (the ‘direct’ effect), aerosols modify the reflectance and lifetime of clouds (the ‘indirect’ radiative effects).
Aerosols act as nuclei for the condensation of water vapor, resulting in the distribution of water over a larger number of
cloud droplets compared to condensation in clean air. This increases the cloud’s ability to reflect sunlight, while increasing
the number of droplet collisions required to form a raindrop large enough to fall out of the cloud, effectively increasing the
cloud lifetime. Observations and models provide a weaker constraint upon the size of the indirect effects, so the studies
discussed here confine themselves to calculating only the direct radiative effect of anthropogenic aerosols. According to the
latest (2001) IPCC report, direct radiative forcing by anthropogenic aerosols cools the planet, but the forcing magnitude is
highly uncertain, with a global, annual average between -0.35 and -1.35 W/m2 at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The
uncertainty of the total indirect effect is even larger. Aerosols eventually fall out of the atmosphere or are washed out by
rainfall. The smaller particles having the largest radiative effect typically reside in the atmosphere for only a few days to a
few weeks. This time is too short for them to be mixed uniformly throughout the globe (unlike CO2), so there are large
regional variations in aerosol radiative forcing, with the largest effects predictably downwind of industrial centers like the
east coast of North America, Europe, and East Asia. Consequently, aerosol effects upon climate are larger in particular
regions, where they are key to understanding twentieth century climate change. Aerosol concentrations have been
measured downwind of sources over the past few decades, but the number of observing sites is limited and the analysis is
laborious. Since the late 1970′s, satellite instruments have detected aerosols routinely with nearly global coverage.
However, only the combined effect of all aerosols upon radiation impinging upon the satellite was originally measured.
The original instruments couldn’t distinguish between dust and sulfate aerosols where both were present, over the
Mediterranean or East Asia, for example. Recent instruments, like the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) measure radiation at multiple wavelengths. This allows particle size to be distinguished with greater
confidence, which can be used with some assumptions to infer the aerosol species. The new generation of satellite
instruments is at the heart of recent attempts to reduce the large uncertainty of direct radiative forcing by aerosols.
Each of these studies provides an estimate of the most likely value, along with a range of uncertainty. Bellouin et al.
(2005) in Nature arrive at TOA forcing of -0.8 ± 0.1 W/m2. While near the center of the range published by the IPCC, this
estimate is noteworthy for its comparatively small uncertainty. Yet on the same day, Chung et al. (2005) published an
article in the JGR, estimating based upon similarly extensive calculations that the forcing by aerosols at TOA is -0.35 ±
0.25 W/m2. A few months earlier, Yu et al. (2005) had estimated a more conciliatory value of -0.5 ± 0.33 W/m2. The wide
range of estimates give some indication the difficulty of the problem. Forcing estimates differ not only at TOA but also at
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the surface: Bellouin et al. predict that aerosols reduce the net radiation incident upon the surface by 1.9 ± 0.2 W/m2
compared to 3.4 ± 0.1 W/m2 for Chung et al. (2005). That is, Chung et al. estimate much greater atmospheric absorption.
Because radiation into the surface is mainly balanced by evaporation, except within extremely arid regions, the
discrepancy has implications for the supply of moisture to the atmosphere. Chung et al. estimate a much larger reduction
in global rainfall by aerosols. What are the sources of disagreement and uncertainty? Ideally, one would know the threedimensional distribution of each aerosol species and its evolution throughout the year. One would also be able to
distinguish natural and human fractions of each species. For sulfate aerosols, this means distinguishing droplets created
by industrial sources, compared to biogenic sources. In addition, the ability of each particle to scatter radiation would be
known as a function of its age and aggregation with other species (in the way that dust can be coated with sulfates when
passing over industrial areas, for example). Many of these processes are included in aerosol models, but some of the key
parameters are uncertain given limited observations. Bellouin et al. attempt an empirical end-run around this uncertainty
by dividing the planet into six regions where aerosol concentration is high, and using a ‘typical’ value of particle
absorption based on surface measurements. The measured absorption is a single value that reflects the combined effect of
both anthropogenic and natural aerosols, although the six representative sites were chosen where contribution by the
former dominates. Regions with a preponderance of sulfates, such as the eastern coast of North America and downwind,
were assigned greater reflectance and lesser absorption than particles over the Indian Ocean where dark soot particles are
more common. This is based upon contrasting surface measurements at Washington DC and the Maldive Islands in the
Indian Ocean. The total aerosol mass was inferred from MODIS estimates of the aerosol optical thickness (AOT), which
measures attenuation of a light beam passing through an aerosol layer. To estimate the anthropogenic fraction of aerosols,
Bellouin et al. made use of the fact that anthropogenic aerosols such as sulfate and soot are generally smaller than natural
aerosols such as soil dust and sea salt. MODIS provides not only the total AOT but also the fractional contribution
corresponding to smaller particles whose diameter is less than one micron (a thousandth of a millimeter). Bellouin et al.
attributed the total AOT to human influence in regions where the fine fraction AOT exceeds 85% of the total. Conversely,
regions where larger particles make the predominant contribution to AOT were excluded from the anthropogenic total.
While MODIS is able to make this distinction between small and large particles over ocean, the distinction is more
uncertain over land, and here Bellouin et al. resorted to the anthropogenic fraction computed by five aerosol models, a
number chosen to reduce the uncertainty associated with any single model. Despite their different result compared to
Bellouin et al., the calculations by Chung et al. and Yu et al. are similar. Chung et al. assign the total AOT using MODIS,
and adjust this value using local measurements by the AERONET array of sun photometers. (These instruments point
toward the sun and record incident radiation at various wavelengths.) The main difference is that Chung et al. compute
the anthropogenic fraction over both land and ocean using a single aerosol model, and they use this model along with
AERONET measurements to specify the radiative properties of the combined aerosol population within each column.
Consequently, these properties vary within each region as opposed to the regionally averaged values used by Bellouin et al.
based upon a single putatively representative site. Yu et al. use an even broader array of measurements and models. Why
do similar methods result in forcing estimates whose uncertainty ranges don’t overlap? This is difficult to know, although
here we speculate upon the effect of some of the differing assumptions. Chung et al. specify greater particle absorption
compared to all but one of the six regional values used by Bellouin et al. Because the TOA forcing becomes less negative as
absorption increases, this accounts for some of the difference. Similarly, Chung et al.’s replacement of their model
estimate of anthropogenic particle fraction over the ocean with the MODIS estimate (following Bellouin et al.) narrows the
difference. Treatment of aerosol forcing over cloudy regions also contributes to the difference. Both studies estimate nearly
identical forcing at the surface in the absence of clouds. While aerosol absorption and reflection have opposing effects at
TOA, they both reduce sunlight beneath the aerosol layer, contributing to negative forcing at the surface. Thus, forcing at
the surface is less sensitive to the relative strength of absorption versus reflection. When cloudy regions are included,
Chung et al. calculate a much larger reduction of surface radiation than Bellouin et al., who assume that aerosol forcing in
these regions is zero. At TOA, Chung et al. calculate positive aerosol forcing within cloudy regions, accounting for some of
the global disagreement with Bellouin et al. TOA forcing depends strongly upon the relative position of the cloud and
aerosol layer. An absorbing soot layer above a bright cloud absorbs more radiation than if the layer were beneath the
cloud. Unlike AOT, the vertical distribution of aerosols is not measured routinely, and is comparatively uncertain. The
disagreement among forcing estimates raises the more general point of whether any study really captures the full range of
uncertainty. The number of calculations needed to sample the uncertainty can increase exponentially with the number of
uncertain parameters. While parametric uncertainty is straightforward to estimate, the dearth of observations makes it
difficult to estimate the effect of assuming a bulk absorption that represents an ‘average’ aerosol rather than computing
absorption by each species separately. The latter is an example of a structural uncertainty that is typically difficult to
characterize. Given the difficulty of measuring the aerosol mass over the entire planet, along with myriad aspects of the
aerosol life cycle that are poorly measured and impossible to model precisely, the most reliable estimate of forcing
uncertainty may be derived by combining the central forcing estimate from a number of studies, as opposed to taking the
uncertainty range of any single study. Yu et al. seem to acknowledge the large outstanding uncertainty by relegating their
estimate of anthropogenic aerosol forcing to a table, rather than highlighting it in the abstract or conclusions. Progress will
come by more systematic comparisons among studies to identify key uncertainties. The unambiguous distinction between
individual aerosol species within models will eventually become possible by direct observation as a result of more
discerning instruments. Nonetheless, models will remain valuable for their ability to distinguish natural and
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anthropogenic sources of the same aerosol species. While Bellouin et al. assume that all soot particles over the ocean are
anthropogenic, naturally occurring forest fires contribute as well. As consensus emerges regarding the global aerosol
forcing, attention will turn to regional values that cause local changes to climate and heat redistribution by the
atmosphere. Because of the added complexity of cloud physics, the aerosol indirect effect may be even more resistant to
consensus. Aerosol forcing remains a crucial problem because its offset of greenhouse warming is expected to decrease
with time as governments address the health problems associated with aerosols. Because of their comparatively short
lifetimes, the concentration of aerosols decreases much faster than that of CO2 given a reduction in fossil fuel use.
Regardless of the absolute amount of the forcing, future reductions in aerosol emissions will be a positive forcing,
amplifying the warming effects of increasing greenhouse gases.
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2NC – Links – Pollution
Reduction of air pollution will cause a rapid and catastrophic global warming
World Climate Report, scientific views on anthropogenic climate activities, 1 (World Climate Report “Smoking Out
UN-Science”, World Climate Report, Feb 19, 2001,
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol6/v6n11/feature1.htm)
World Climate Report was up in arms about the United Nations' preposterous pronouncement of a possible 11°F warming
this century, as predicted in a future projection they called a "storyline." In that particular storyline, the cooling of sulfate
aerosols, which some theorize has countered the warming we should have been seeing, abruptly comes to an end as
antipollution measures curtail their emission. Their absence then rapidly jacks up the warming. It also supposes those
particles were cooling the earth twice as much as it has warmed in the last 100 years. Well, this is how that story ends.
Nature magazine just published a seemingly obscure article that has shot the U.N.'s storyline dead. For good measure, it
probably also kills any other big warming in this century that would be driven by increasing concentrations of carbon
dioxide in our atmosphere. In the article, Stanford engineer Mark Jacobson asserts that common black soot in the
atmosphere the stuff that goes up the smokestack along with other products of combustion, such as sulfate aerosols exerts
a whopping warming effect. The net direct warming that soot produces is greater than that from any other emission with
the exception of carbon dioxide, Jacobson writes. That warming is almost exactly equal to the putative cooling directly
caused by sulfate aerosol. If true, Jacobson's calculation has a number of neat effects. After all, sulfate aerosol and soot go
hand in hand. Their combination is colloquially known as "smoke." Particles of both are about the same size. So any
attempt to remove one (often done with electrostatic precipitators) will remove the other. If the size of the prevented
warming then equals the size of the prevented cooling, the result is no net change in temperature as sulfates drop out. End
of 11° story. You might ask how the U.N.'s original storyline garnered any credibility. After all, the global effect of sulfate
cooling has never been measured. For that matter, neither has the global effect of soot aerosols. There's another sulfate
cooling that is even more hypothetical, called the "indirect" effect. Here, sulfates serve as tiny condensation points for
water. As a result, the story goes, clouds have more fine droplets and become whiter, reflecting away more solar radiation.
Like the "direct" effect of sulfates, that capacity has never been measured, either. But if clouds are enhanced by sulfate
aerosol, it's also likely that they are evaporated by the warming effect of black soot. Again, the result is a push�remove the
sulfates and the aerosols together, and the net climate effect is near zero. Again, end of 11° story. In all of the hype
surrounding the 11° storyline, reports failed to mention that the U.N. itself has very little confidence that the storyline, if it
actually occurred, would generated that much warming. At least that's what we take from Figure 1, reproduced from the
"Policymakers Summary" of the new report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That was the
document approved in Shanghai as the Clinton Administration clock ran down on Jan. 20. It represents the state of the
science that underlies all the projections, including the 11° story. And it shows how little confidence surrounds this hype.
What Figure 1 shows is the relative warming and cooling the IPCC hypothesizes for various human activities and
emissions. At the insistence of some members, the uncertainty range within each category was added. (The IPCC's current
best estimate of the magnitude is shown by the rectangular bars and the range of uncertainty is shown by the vertical
lines.) Those members also directed the IPCC to place the effects of the various emissions along a continuum of "scientific
understanding." Note that there is no bar for the "Aerosol Indirect Effect." That is the hypothesized cloud-brightening
from sulfate aerosols. The reason there is no bar? According to the IPCC, "A vertical line without a rectangular bar denotes
a forcing for which no best estimate can be given owing to large uncertainties." "Large" is an understatement here.
According to the IPCC, the indirect cooling effect ranges from zero to two Watts per square meter. That translates roughly
from zero to 1.5°C for surface temperature. Superimposed upon this broad range of possible effects is a "Level of Scientific
Understanding" rated as "very low." We have modified the IPCC's original illustration to include the new calculation for
the direct effect of soot�of the same magnitude, but opposite in sign, to the direct cooling effect of sulfates.
Parenthetically, it is worth noting that the IPCC even lists the understanding of the direct sulfate effect as "low." The
upshot of the addition of Jacobson's findings is that the amount of warming we should currently be observing increases.
Using the estimates of NASA climatologist James Hansen, if there were no indirect sulfate cooling, and if the oceans
weren't holding back warming, the total rise in temperature of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) should be around
2.3 to 3.3°C by now, with the majority in recent decades. Yet according to surface, satellite and weather balloon records,
the observed warming averaged over the troposphere since the three histories became concurrently available (since
January 1979), is only around 0.07°C�or about one-tenth of what should have happened. Something has got to give here.
The ocean isn't holding back that much�Hansen says he believes about 60 percent of the ultimate warming for today's
atmospheric changes should already have been realized. The only way a person can explain the profound difference
between observations and projections is to assume that the sulfate cooling effect is massive. Rational folks would think
that something so large as this putative cloud enhancement would be pretty darned obvious by now. The fact that it is not
most likely means it is not very big. Think about it: We have had weather satellites circling the globe for decades. Under
the hypothesis that sulfate cooling balances greenhouse warming, the amount of sulfates has to have increased
dramatically in this period; otherwise there would be a profound and obvious acceleration in the rate of warming. And
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despite a new Science paper that shows major increases in south Asian aerosol emissions�corroborating the notion that
sulfates are rising�no one can find evidence for cloud brightening in the satellite data! Summing up: Jacobson finds that
soot causes more warming and cancels the cooling from sulfates. Even after making liberal assumptions about oceanic
thermal inertia, the planet should have warmed tremendously, unless cooling from the sulfate-induced brightening of
clouds is massive. And yet no one can find those brightened clouds. That leaves one other excuse for the dearth of
warming, and it is the one that scares the pants off of just about every climate scientist who has banged the gong of
disastrous global warming: We may simply have overestimated the sensitivity of tropospheric temperature to changes in
atmospheric carbon dioxide. That's the bottom line. By process of elimination, we have smoked out the truth behind the
U.N.'s melodramatic "storyline" entertaining an 11°F warming in this century.
Attempts to reduce air pollution will cause global warming by eliminating the cooling
effects of sulfate aerosols
Health and Energy 7 (“Sulfur Dioxide cuts may allow Increased Global Warming”, February 20,
http://healthandenergy.com/sulfur_dioxide.htm)
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Sulfur dioxide emissions from the burning of coal and oil react with water and oxygen in the air to form
; acidic compounds that fall to the Earth in the form of
acid rain. Global warming and acid rain are two environmental
problems the world will be forced to reckon with in the 21st
century. Unfortunately, efforts to mitigate acid rain may actually increase regional warming,
according to a university professor. "It is ironic, in a sense, that in working to solve one environmental
sulfate aerosols
problem you exacerbate another problem", said Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric
. Sulfur dioxide emissions
from the burning of coal and oil react with water and oxygen in
the air to form sulfate aerosols — acidic compounds that fall to
the Earth in the form of acid rain, wreaking havoc on the world’s
forests and streams. Sulfate aerosols also reflect sunlight back into space. "This acts as a
sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
negative radiative forcing which partially compensates for the positive radiative forcing due to
greenhouse gases", said Schlesinger. Take away the sulfur dioxide — a gas that doesn’t stray too far from
its source of emission — and all of a sudden something that used to mitigate the effects of carbon dioxide
"In recent studies, we found that
decreasing the sulfur dioxide emissions led to significant regional
warming in North America, Europe and Asia", said Schlesinger.
Schlesinger and his colleagues based their study on four
scenarios for emissions of greenhouse gases that are being
produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for
the panel’s Third Assessment Report scheduled for completion in
2001. In these scenarios, sulfur dioxide emissions have been decoupled from carbon dioxide emissions. Even though the burning
of coal and oil produces both carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide
emissions, technologies exist that allow for both low-sulfur fuels
and "scrubbers" placed in smoke stacks that clean emissions of
sulfur dioxide. Therefore, in each of the scenarios that
Schlesinger and his colleagues examined, sulfur dioxide
emissions either leveled off early in the next century or decreased
while carbon dioxide emissions continued to rise. "Thus it appears that
is lost, resulting in regional warming.
mitigation of the acid-rain problem by future reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions exacerbates the
greenhouse-warming problem by enhancing the warming in and near the regions where the sulfur
dioxide emissions are reduced
", he said.
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2NC – Links – Coal
Tropospheric sulfate aerosols from coal combustion cancel out anthropogenic global
warming
Hartmann and Mouginis, NASA Earth Observation Systems Group, EOS Science Plan #339, 96
(D. L. Hartmann and P. Mouginis, , “Volcanoes and Climate Effects of Aerosols”,
http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/science_plan/Ch8.pdf)
Aerosols in the troposphere are also important for global climate. A wide variety of aerosol types exist, including sea salt
and dust carried from the surface into the atmosphere by wind, and aerosols formed by chemical transformation from
gaseous compounds to molecules that exist in solid or liquid form. In the upper troposphere, a significant fraction of the
aerosol burden can come from advection or sedimentation from the stratosphere. The sources of aerosols can be natural,
directly associated with industrial activity, or a combination. Although the lifetime of aerosols in the troposphere is only a
few weeks, the sources are strong enough to maintain a significant aerosol burden. The aerosols contributed by humans
have been increasing, particularly those associated with SO2 released during the combustion of coal, petroleum, and
biomass. It is estimated that the anthropogenic source of sulfuric acid aerosols in the troposphere is currently greater than
the natural source. The primary effect of these aerosols is to cool Earth by reflecting solar radiation, either directly, or by
becoming incorporated into small cloud droplets or ice crystals. It is estimated that the direct effect of sulfate aerosols
produced by humans on Earth’s energy balance is currently about 0.5 W m-2, compared to the forcing associated with the
change in greenhouse gases during the industrial age of about 2 W m-2. The indirect effect of human-produced aerosols
on the properties of clouds may be of the same order, making tropospheric aerosols one of the major uncertainties in
understanding climate change.
Coal-fired power plants are uniquely powerful sources of sulfate aerosol emissions
Schnapp Department of Energy, “Environmental Aspects”, Electric Power Industry Overview
no date given (Robert, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/prim2/chapter6.html)
When fossil fuels are burned in the production of electricity, a variety of gases and particulates are formed. If these gases
and particulates are not captured by some pollution control equipment, they are released into the atmosphere. This
section provides a brief summary of the gaseous emissions from U.S. electric utilities and the methods employed to reduce
or eliminate their release into the atmosphere. Among the gases emitted during the burning of fossil fuels are sulfur
dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon dioxide (CO2). Coal-fired generating units produce
more SO2 and NOx than other fossil-fuel units for two reasons. First, because coal generally contains more sulfur than
other fossil fuels, it creates more SO2 when burned. Second, there are more emissions from coal-fired plants because more
coal-fired capacity is used compared with other fossil-fueled capacity.
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AFF – 2AC – SO2 Screw
Warming outpaces cooling
Y.J Kaufman, et al, USRA resident scientist at NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center, 1991, (Y.J
Kaufman “Fossil Fuel and Biomass Burning Effect on Climate—Heating or Cooling?” Journal of
Climate, 4, 578–588, http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=getabstract&doi=10.1175%2F15200442(1991)004%3C0578%3AFFABBE%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1).
Emission from burning of fossil fuels and biomass (associated with deforestation) generates a radiative forcing on the
atmosphere and a possible climate chaw. Emitted trace gases heat the atmosphere through their greenhouse effect, while
particulates formed from emitted SO2 cause cooling by increasing cloud albedos through alteration of droplet size
distributions. This paper reviews the characteristics of the cooling effect and applies Twomey's theory to
cheek whether the radiative balance favors heating or cooling for the cases of fossil fuel and biomass
burning. It is also shown that although coal and oil emit 120 times as many CO2 molecules as SO2 molecules, each
SO2molecule is 50–1100 times more effective in cooling the atmosphere (through the effect of aerosol particles on cloud
albedo) than a CO2 molecule is in heating it. Note that this ratio accounts for the large difference in the aerosol
(3–10 days) and CO2 (7–100 years) lifetimes. It is concluded, that the cooling effect from coal and oil
burning may presently range from 0.4 to 8 times the heating effect. Within this large uncertainty, it is presently
more likely that fossil fuel burning causes cooling of the atmosphere rather than heating. Biomass burning associated
with deforestation, on the other hand, is more likely to cause heating of the atmosphere than cooling since
its aerosol cooling effect is only half that from fossil fuel burning and its heating effect is twice as large.
Future increases in coal and oil burning, and the resultant increase in concentration of cloud condensation
nuclei, may saturate the cooling effect, allowing the heating effect to dominate. For a doubling in the
C02 concentration due to fossil fuel burning, the cooling effect is expected to be 0.1 to 0.3 of the heating
effect.
Black aerosols outweigh reflective particles
Science Daily, Breaking science news and articles on global warming, extrasolar planets, stem
cells, bird flu, autism, nanotechnology, dinosaurs, evolution -- the latest
10 (Best Hope for Saving Arctic Sea Ice Is Cutting Soot Emissions, Say Researchers, July 30,
2010, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728092617.htm)
The quickest, best way to slow the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice is to reduce soot emissions from the burning of fossil fuel,
wood and dung, according to a new study by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson. His analysis shows that soot is second
only to carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming. But, he said, climate models to date have mischaracterized the
effects of soot in the atmosphere. Because of that, soot's contribution to global warming has been ignored in national and
international global warming policy legislation, he said. "Controlling soot may be the only method of significantly slowing
Arctic warming within the next two decades," said Jacobson, director of Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy Program. "We
have to start taking its effects into account in planning our mitigation efforts and the sooner we start making changes, the
better." To reach his conclusions, Jacobson used an intricate computer model of global climate, air pollution and weather
that he developed over the last 20 years that included atmospheric processes not incorporated in previous models. He
examined the effects of soot -- black and brown particles that absorb solar radiation -- from two types of sources. He
analyzed the impacts of soot from fossil fuels -- diesel, coal, gasoline, jet fuel -- and from solid biofuels, such as wood,
manure, dung, and other solid biomass used for home heating and cooking in many locations. He also focused in detail on
the effects of soot on heating clouds, snow and ice. What he found was that the combination of both types of soot is the
second-leading cause of global warming after carbon dioxide. That ranks the effects of soot ahead of methane, an
important greenhouse gas. He also found that soot emissions kill more than 1.5 million people prematurely worldwide
each year, and afflicts millions more with respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease and asthma, mostly in the developing
world where biofuels are used for home heating and cooking. Jacobson's study will be published in Journal of Geophysical
Research (Atmospheres). Reducing soot could have immediate impact It is the magnitude of soot's contribution, combined
with the fact that it lingers in the atmosphere for only a few weeks before being washed out, that leads to the conclusion
that a reduction in soot output would start slowing the pace of global warming almost immediately. Greenhouse gases, in
contrast, typically persist in the atmosphere for decades -- some up to a century or more -- creating a considerable time lag
between when emissions are cut and when the results become apparent. Mark Jacobson found that eliminating soot
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produced by the burning of fossil fuel and solid biofuel could reduce warming above parts of the Arctic Circle in the next
15 years by up to 1.7 degrees Celsius. Jacobson found that eliminating soot produced by the burning of fossil fuel and solid
biofuel could reduce warming above parts of the Arctic Circle in the next 15 years by up to 1.7 degrees Celsius. For
perspective, net warming in the Arctic has been at least 2.5 degrees Celsius during the last century and is expected to
warm significantly more in the future if nothing is done. The most immediate, effective and low-cost way to reduce soot
emissions is to put particle traps on vehicles, diesel trucks, buses, and construction equipment. Particle traps filter out
soot particles from exhaust fumes. Soot could be further reduced by converting vehicles to run on clean, renewable electric
power. Jacobson found that although fossil fuel soot contributed more to global warming, biofuel-derived soot caused
about eight times the number of deaths as fossil fuel soot. Providing electricity to rural developing areas, thereby reducing
usage of solid biofuels for home heating and cooking, would have major health benefits, he said. Soot from fossil fuels
contains more black carbon than soot produced by burning biofuels, which is why there is a difference in impact. Black
carbon is highly efficient at absorbing solar radiation in the atmosphere, just like a black shirt on a sunny day. Black
carbon converts sunlight to heat and radiates it back to the air around it. This is different from greenhouse gases, which
primarily trap heat that rises from the Earth's surface. Black carbon can also absorb light reflecting from the surface,
which helps make it such a potent warming agent. First model of its type Jacobson's climate model is the first global model
to use mathematical equations to describe the physical and chemical interactions of soot particles in cloud droplets in the
atmosphere. This allowed him to include details such as light bouncing around inside clouds and within cloud drops,
which he said are critical for understanding the full effect of black carbon on heating the atmosphere. "The key to modeling
the climate effects of soot is to account for all of its effects on clouds, sea ice, snow and atmospheric heating," Jacobson
said. Because of the complexity of the processes, he said it is not a surprise that previous models have not correctly treated
the physical interactions required to simulate cloud, snow, and atmospheric heating by soot. "But without treating these
processes, no model can give the correct answer with respect to soot's effects," he said. Jacobson argues that leaving out
this scale of detail in other models has led many scientists and policy makers to undervalue the role of black carbon as a
warming agent. The strong global heating due to soot that Jacobson found is supported by recent findings of
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and atmospheric science at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who
measures and models the climate effects of soot. "Jacobson's study is the first time that a model has looked at the various
ways black carbon can impact climate in a quantitative way," said Ramanathan, who was not involved in the study. Black
carbon has an especially potent warming effect over the Arctic. When black carbon is present in the air over snow or ice,
sunlight can hit the black carbon on its way towards Earth, and also hit it as light reflects off the ice and heads back
towards space. "It's a double-whammy over the ice surface in terms of heating the air," Jacobson said. Black carbon also
lands on the snow, darkening the surface and enhancing melting. "There is a big concern that if the Arctic melts, it will be a
tipping point for the Earth's climate because the reflective sea ice will be replaced by a much darker, heat absorbing, ocean
below," said Jacobson. "Once the sea ice is gone, it is really hard to regenerate because there is not an efficient mechanism
to cool the ocean down in the short term."
Global dimming causes millions of deaths – prevents rainfall
Ramanathan, : Professor of Applied Ocean Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Climate and
Atmospheric Sciences, Director, Center for Clouds, Chemistry & Climate (C4), Chief Scientist,
Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment (Veerabhadran Ramanathan 1-15-2005, “Global
Dimming,” BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml
Basically the Global Dimming we saw in the North Indian Ocean, it was contributed on the one hand by the particles
themselves shielding the ocean from the sunlight, on the other hand making the clouds brighter. So this insidious soup,
consisting of soot, sulphates, nitrates, ash and what have you, was having a double whammy on the Global Dimming.
NARRATOR: And when he looked at satellite images, Ramanathan found the same thing was happening all over the
world. Over India. Over China, and extending into the Pacific. Over Western Europe... extending into Africa. Over the
British Isles. But it was when scientists started to investigate the effects of Global Dimming that they made the most
disturbing discovery of all. Those more reflective clouds could alter the pattern of the world's rainfall. With tragic
consequences. NEWS REPORT - MICHAEL BUERK VOICE OVER: Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill
of night on the plain outside Korum it lights up a biblical famine, now in the 20th Century. This place say workers here is
the closest thing to hell on earth. NARRATOR: The 1984 Ethiopian famine shocked the world. It was partly caused by a
decade's long drought right across sub-Saharan Africa - a region known as the Sahel. For year after year the summer rains
failed. At the time some scientists blamed overgrazing and poor land management. But now there's evidence that the real
culprit was Global Dimming. The Sahel's lifeblood has always been a seasonal monsoon. For most of the year it is
completely dry. But every summer, the heat of the sun warms the oceans north of the equator. This draws the rain belt that
forms over the equator northwards, bringing rain to the Sahel. But for twenty years in the 1970s and 80s the tropical rain
belt consistently failed to shift northwards - and the African monsoon failed. For climate scientists like Leon Rotstayn the
disappearance of the rains had long been a puzzle. He could see that pollution from Europe and North America blew right
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across the Atlantic, but all the climate models suggested it should have little effect on the monsoon. But then Rotstayn
decided to find out what would happen if he took the Maldive findings into account. DR LEON ROTSTAYN (CSIRO
Atmospheric Research): What we found in our model was that when we allowed the pollution from Europe and North
America to affect the properties of the clouds in the northern hemisphere the clouds reflected more sunlight back to space
and this cooled the oceans of the northern hemisphere. And to our surprise the result of this was that the tropical rain
bands moved southwards tracking away from the more polluted northern hemisphere towards the southern hemisphere.
NARRATOR: Polluted clouds stopped the heat of the sun getting through. That heat was needed to draw the tropical rains
northwards. So the life giving rain belt never made it to the Sahel. DR LEON ROTSTAYN: So what our model is suggesting
is that these droughts in the Sahel in the 1970s and the 1980s may have been caused by pollution from Europe and North
America affecting the properties of the clouds and cooling the oceans of the northern hemisphere. NARRATOR: Rotstayn
has found a direct link between Global Dimming and the Sahel drought. If his model is correct, what came out of our
exhaust pipes and power stations contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more. But
this could be just of taste of what Global Dimming has in store. PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: The Sahel is
just one example of the monsoon system. Let me take you to anther part of the world. Asia, where the same monsoon
brings rainfall to three point six billion people, roughly half the world's population. My main concern is this air pollution
and the Global Dimming will also have a detrimental impact on this Asian monsoon. We are not talking about few millions
of people we are talking about few billions of people. NARRATOR: For Ramanathan the implications are clear. PROF
VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: There is no choice here we have to cut down air pollution, if not
eliminate it altogether.
SO2 isn’t sufficient to offset increasing CO2
NewScientist.com, Weekly science and technology news magazine, considered by some to be
the world's best, with diverse subject matter, 2004, (2004 “Climate Change,”
www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climatefaq.jsp)
Right again. One of the nice ironies of this story is that burning coal and oil produces sulphate particles - which make acid
rain. These particles help to shield the more industrialised countries from the full impact of global warming. In some
places, such as central Europe and parts of China, they may have overwhelmed the warming, producing a net cooling.
Other aerosols, such as dust from soil erosion and “desertification”, can also curb warming. But even if you find the idea of
using one form of pollution to protect us from another, there is a problem. Whereas the average C02 molecule in the
atmosphere lasts for about a century, sulphates and other aerosol molecules persist for only a few days. This means two
things. First, if you turned down the power stations, the world would get much hotter within a few days. Secondly, aerosols
do not accumulate in the atmosphere in the way that C02 does. If you carry on burning a given amount of fossil fuel, the
cooling effect of the sulphates will remain constant, while the warming effect of C02 will keep on increasing. So sulphates
are not a solution.
Volcanoes solve aerosols
United States Geological Survey June 11, 2o1o Volcanic Gases and their effects ( 6/11/10
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php)
Magma contains dissolved gases that are released into the atmosphere during eruptions. Gases are also released from
magma that either remains below ground (for example, as an intrusion) or is rising toward the surface. In such cases,
gases may escape continuously into the atmosphere from the soil, volcanic vents, fumaroles, and hydrothermal systems. At
high pressures deep beneath the earth's surface, volcanic gases are dissolved in molten rock. But as magma rises toward
the surface where the pressure is lower, gases held in the melt begin to form tiny bubbles. The increasing volume taken up
by gas bubbles makes the magma less dense than the surrounding rock, which may allow the magma to continue its
upward journey. Closer to the surface, the bubbles increase in number and size so that the gas volume may exceed the melt
volume in the magma, creating a magma foam. The rapidly expanding gas bubbles of the foam can lead to explosive
eruptions in which the melt is fragmented into pieces of volcanic rock, known as tephra. If the molten rock is not
fragmented by explosive activity, a lava flow will be generated. Together with the tephra and entrained air, volcanic gases
can rise tens of kilometers into Earth's atmosphere during large explosive eruptions. Once airborne, the prevailing winds
may blow the eruption cloud hundreds to thousands of kilometers from a volcano. The gases spread from an erupting vent
primarily as acid aerosols (tiny acid droplets), compounds attached to tephra particles, and microscopic salt particles.
Volcanic gases undergo a tremendous increase in volume when magma rises to the Earth's surface and erupts. For
example, consider what happens if one cubic meter of 900°C rhyolite magma containing five percent by weight of
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dissolved water were suddenly brought from depth to the surface. The one cubic meter of magma now would occupy a
volume of 670 m3 as a mixture of water vapor and magma at atmospheric pressure (Sparks et. al., 1997)! The one meter
cube at depth would increase to 8.75 m on each side at the surface. Such enormous expansion of volcanic gases, primarily
water, is the main driving force of explosive eruptions. The most abundant gas typically released into the atmosphere from
volcanic systems is water vapor (H2O), followed by carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Volcanoes also release
smaller amounts of others gases, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen
chloride (HCL), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and helium (He). The volcanic gases that pose the greatest potential hazard to
people, animals, agriculture, and property are sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen fluoride. Locally, sulfur
dioxide gas can lead to acid rain and air pollution downwind from a volcano. Globally, large explosive eruptions that inject
a tremendous volume of sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere can lead to lower surface temperatures and promote
depletion of the Earth's ozone layer. Because carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air, the gas may flow into in low-lying
areas and collect in the soil. The concentration of carbon dioxide gas in these areas can be lethal to people, animals, and
vegetation. A few historic eruptions have released sufficient fluorine-compounds to deform or kill animals that grazed on
vegetation coated with volcanic ash; fluorine compounds tend to become concentrated on fine-grained ash particles,
which can be ingested by animals. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) The effects of SO2 on people and the environment vary widely
depending on (1) the amount of gas a volcano emits into the atmosphere; (2) whether the gas is injected into the
troposphere or stratosphere; and (3) the regional or global wind and weather pattern that disperses the gas. Sulfur dioxide
(SO2) is a colorless gas with a pungent odor that irritates skin and the tissues and mucous membranes of the eyes, nose,
and throat. Sulfur dioxide chiefly affects upper respiratory tract and bronchi. The World Health Organization recommends
a concentration of no greater than 0.5 ppm over 24 hours for maximum exposure. A concentration of 6-12 ppm can cause
immediate irritation of the nose and throat; 20 ppm can cause eye irritation; 10,000 ppm will irritate moist skin within
minutes. Emission rates of SO2 from an active volcano range from <20 tonnes/day to >10 million tonnes/day according to
the style of volcanic activity and type and volume of magma involved. For example, the large explosive eruption of Mount
Pinatubo on 15 June 1991 expelled 3-5 km3 of dacite magma and injected about 20 million metric tons of SO2 into the
stratosphere. The sulfur aerosols resulted in a 0.5-0.6°C cooling of the Earth's surface in the Northern Hemisphere. The
sulfate aerosols also accelerated chemical reactions that, together with the increased stratospheric chlorine levels from
human-made chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) pollution, destroyed ozone and led to some of the lowest ozone levels ever
observed in the atmosphere.
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AFF – 1AR – SO2 – Aerosols increase warming
Anthropogenic aerosols offset cooling from natural aerosols
Allen and Sherwood, Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Steven C. Sherwood,
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia ’10 (Robert J. Allen, , “The impact of
natural versus anthropogenic aerosols on atmospheric circulation in the Community Atmosphere Model,” Clim Dyn (2011)
36:1959–1978)
Due to the predominance of northern-hemisphere sources for both aerosol types considered, anthropogenic aerosols
warmed the troposphere (and natural aerosols cooled it) more in the northern hemisphere than in the southern, with
changes of order 0.1–0.3 K in the lower troposphere. Anthropogenic aerosols consequently shifted the ITCZ northward
while natural aerosols shifted it southward. The northward shift is associated with a weakening of the DJF mean
meridional mass circulation and strengthening of the JJA one, with opposite changes for the southward shift; all are
consistent with the radiatively forced changes to inter-hemispheric temperature gradients. This behavior is consistent with
other aerosol studies focusing on the direct effects of BC aerosols (Roberts and Jones 2004; Wang 2004, 2007; Chung and
Seinfeld 2005; Yoshimori and Broccoli 2008), and the direct (Yoshimori and Broccoli 2008) and indirect (Rotstayn et al.
2000; Williams et al. 2001) effects of sulfate aerosols. Changes in Hadley cell strength were smaller in the fixed-SST
experiments because inter-hemispheric temperature gradients were not able to change as much. These results support
previous findings that aerosols affect the variability of precipitation at low latitudes, for example in the Amazon (Cox et al.
2008) and the Sahel (Rotstayn and Lohmann 2002). Aerosol forcing is also associated with meridional shifts of the
subtropical jets. In the slab-ocean experiments, anthropogenic aerosols move the subtropical jets poleward by
0.2
–0.3
each, leading to expansion of the tropics.
Natural aerosols produce the opposite effect. Global emissions of black carbon have generally increased over the latter half
of the twentieth century, although they remain quite uncertain and have probably fallen somewhat since 1990 (Novakov et
al. 2003; Ito and216m Penner 2005; Bond et al. 2007). Global emissions of sulfate aerosols, however, have been declining
since the 1970s (van Aardenne et al. 2001; Smith et al. 2004). Our results indicate that both of these trends should have
contributed to poleward migration of the subtropical jet in the NH, and possibly in the SH, hence contributing to the
observed widening of the tropics from the 1970s through 1990 or so. In fact such widening has been observed (or inferred
from stratospheric cooling and tropospheric warming trends), and is larger than predicted by models forced with GHGs
and other forcings (Fu et al. 2006; Seidel et al. 2008; Johanson and Fu 2009). Although some of these models include
aerosol forcing, aerosol absorption is likely underestimated (Sato et al. 2003; Koch et al. 2009). The observed widening of
2.0
–4.8
over 25 years, however, is much larger than
reported here for either aerosol forcing (*0.5
) and does not appear to have stopped in the
last decade or two. Nonetheless, aerosols may have contributed non-negligibly to this widening and, as discussed above,
impacts from past changes in anthropogenic aerosol composition could exceed those simulated here for the current
composition. Arctic oscillation-like changes result from altered tropospheric temperature gradients, which affect the
vertical propagation of wave activity. We argue that this is because anthropogenic aerosols decrease temperature gradients
between low and mid-latitudes, decreasing the vertically propagating wave activity and increasing equatorward refraction,
with opposite impacts from natural aerosols. The increased refraction causes acceleration of the stratospheric zonal winds,
which eventually propagates back down through the troposphere (Haynes et al. 1991; Shindell et al. 2001; Stenchikov et al.
2002; Song and Robinson 2004) where it manifests itself at the surface as sealevel pressure and temperature anomalies.
The result is zonal winds near 60
N increasing by*1 m s -1 , temperatures in the highlatitude stratosphere decreasing by (*1 K) and high-latitude sea-level pressure decreasing by*2 hPa, with anthropogenic
aerosol forcing. Similar impacts occur in the simulation of Chung and Ramanathan (2003) for absorbing aerosols over
India only. We found that changes were significant only with fixed SSTs, apparently because longer wavelength planetary
waves— which are better able to penetrate into the stratosphere—are preferentially excited by the imposed net aerosol
forcing in this case due to the land–ocean distribution in the northern hemisphere. Regionally restricted forcings could
excite a similar response even with interactive oceans. Because the high-latitude AO impacts are strong only with fixed
SSTs, they do not appear to be robust to variations in ocean behavior, and fixed-SST results are unlikely to represent very
well the impacts of trends in aerosols where the ocean has plenty of time to respond to flux changes at the surface.
Moreover, the observed changes are significantly larger than those reported here even with fixed SST: from 1965 to 1995,
mean sea-level pressure north of 45
N dropped by 2.5 hPa relative to that from
45
N to the equator (Gillett 2005), compared with a peak response here of 0.4 hPa.
Similarly, zonal wind increased by 7 m s-1 at 60
N and 50 hPa (Scaife et al. 2005),
compared to roughly 1ms-1 here. Thus, we find wind and pressure changes that occur in roughly the same ratio as those of
recent hard-toexplain trends, but at much smaller magnitudes. Nonetheless, the decadal variability in aerosol forcing (e.g.,
SE Asian haze Ramanathan et al. 2001b; e.g., Chung and Ramanathan 2003)—as opposed to, say, the more monotonically
changing forcing by greenhouse gases— makes it an interesting possibility for explaining variations in the AO, which also
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have a strong decadal nature (Feldstein 2002). Given the cancellation found here between absorbing and scattering
aerosol impacts, it is possible that decadal changes in the ratio of black carbon to sulfate could have exerted large effects. It
is also possible that shifts of emissions from one region to another (Streets et al. 2009) may have affected the AO by
influencing rTand the wavelength of perturbations to the midlatitude flow. It would appear worthwhile to include more
realistic aerosol forcing changes in climate models, or at least to consider more seriously the possible impacts of unknown
variations in the distribution and type of aerosols as an additional source of forcing uncertainty in model experiments.