OCS Nat Gas – Environment DA
1NC
OCS Nat Gas: 1NC
Offshore drilling kills ocean biodiversity
NRDC 2009, (NDRC National Resources Defense Council, “Protecting Our Ocean and Coastal
Economies: Avoid Unnecessary Risks from Offshore Drilling”
September2009[http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/offshore/files/offshore.pdf])
In addition to environmental damage from oil spills, the routine operations associated with
offshore drilling produce many toxic wastes and other forms of pollution. For
example, each drill well generates tens of thousands of gallons of waste drilling muds
(materials used to lubricate drill bits and maintain pressure) and cuttings.12 Drilling
muds contain toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium that may
bioaccumulate and biomagnify in marine organisms, including in our seafood
supply.13 The water that is brought up from a given well along with oil and gas,
referred to as “produced water,” contains its own toxic brew of benzene, arsenic,
lead, toluene, and varying amounts of radioactive pollutants. Each oil platform can
discharge hundreds of thousands of gallons of this produced water daily,
contaminating both local waters and those down current from the discharge.14 An
average oil and gas exploration well spews roughly 50 tons of nitrogen oxides, 13
tons of carbon monoxide, 6 tons of sulfur oxides, and 5 tons of volatile organic
chemicals.15
Seismic surveys designed to estimate the size of an oil and gas reserve generate their
own environmental problems. To carry out such surveys, ships tow multiple airgun
arrays that emit thousands of high-decibel explosive impulses to map the seafloor.16
The auditory assault from seismic surveys has been found to damage or kill fish
eggs and larvae and to impair the hearing and health of fish, making them
vulnerable to predators and leaving them unable to locate prey or mates or
communicate with each other. These disturbances disrupt and displace important
migratory patterns, pushing marine life away from suitable habitats like nurseries
and foraging, mating, spawning, and migratory corridors.17 In addition, seismic
surveys have been implicated in whale beaching and stranding incidents.18
Ocean biodiversity key to planetary survival.
Robin Kundis Craig, Winter 2003. Associate Dean for Environmental Programs @ Florida State University.
“ARTICLE: Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida
and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review, 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.
Uniqueness
Drilling Restricted
Drilling is currently restricted in the Gulf and the Atlantic
(MATTHEW DALY and BRENDAN FARRINGTON, 12/ 1/10 09:41 PM, “Obama Administration:
No offshore Drilling in Eastern Gulf of Mexico Or East Coast For Seven Years Because of BP Oil Spill “)
the Obama administration reversed
itself Wednesday and promised not to pursue offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of
Mexico or anywhere else along the nation's East Coast. The decision was generally hailed in
Pointing to the BP blowout and risks of a new environmental disaster,
Florida, which depends on tourists drawn by the state's white beaches, but criticized by the oil industry, which said the
administration was stifling crucial U.S. energy production and costing recession-battered jobseekers golden opportunities
for new work. The administration had backed a major expansion of offshore drilling earlier this year, in part to gain support
for comprehensive climate legislation in Congress, one of President Barack Obama's top legislative goals. With that bill
now off the table, the president stands much to gain politically by saying no to powerful oil interests, particularly in Florida,
which is expected to be a crucial swing state in the 2012 election campaign. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar denied politics
played any role, saying the
BP spill taught officials a number of lessons, "most importantly that we need
to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory
regime." The new drilling focus would be on areas with leases that are currently active in the central and western Gulf of
Mexico. "In the Gulf and the Atlantic we are adjusting our strategy," Salazar said. "We believe the most
appropriate course of action is to focus development on areas with existing leases and not expand
to new areas at this time." Under the revised plan, the Interior Department will not propose any new oil drilling in
waters in the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf for at least the next seven years. Already planned lease sales in the Gulf of
Mexico, expected in March and August, will be delayed until late 2011 or early 2012, Salazar said. The administration's
previous plan – announced last March, three weeks before the April BP spill – would have authorized officials to explore the
potential for drilling from Delaware to central Florida, plus the northern waters of Alaska. The new plan allows potential
drilling in Alaska, but officials said they will move cautiously before approving any leases. The
eastern Gulf – an
area stretching from 125 to 300 miles off Florida's coast – was singled out for
protection by Congress in 2006 as part of a deal with Florida lawmakers that made available 8.3 million acres to
oil and gas development in the east-central Gulf. Under that agreement, the protected region is to remain
off limits to energy development until 2022. But the administration had entertained the idea of
expanded drilling until the BP spill that spewed an estimated 172 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. In order to open more of
the eastern Gulf to drilling, the administration would have to ask Congress to lift the drilling moratorium. The new plan does
not affect the
Pacific seaboard, which will remain off-limits to drilling in federal
waters. Lawmakers in Florida praised Wednesday's decision. Drilling in state-controlled waters has long been banned
because of fears that a major spill would damage beaches. Gov. Charlie Crist called the decision "wonderful news" that would
be favorably received by the tourist industry and residents alike. But the head of a prominent industry group said the
Obama administration was cramping domestic oil production and contradicting the will of recession-weary voters. In last
month's midterm elections, "the voters said loud and clear we want economic recovery and good American jobs. The
decision today shuts the door on new development off our nation's coast and effectively makes sure those jobs will not be
realized," said Jack Gerard, president and chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute. A spokeswoman for the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce also criticized the decision, which she said comes on top of a "de facto moratorium" the
administration has imposed on oil production in both deep and shallow waters in the Gulf and Alaska. "By continuing to
keep most of America's abundant oil and natural gas resources under lock and key, the Obama administration is ensuring
that we will continue to increase our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security," said Karen Harbert,
president and chief executive of the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he was
deeply disappointed. "I believe this makes us even more dependent on foreign countries for our energy," said Jindal, a
Republican. The decision to abandon offshore drilling along the East Coast follows questions raised by the president's oil
spill commission as to why some top-level administration officials were not consulted before the expansion was
announced in March. At the time, Obama said he did not make the decision lightly and had looked at it closely for more
than a year with Salazar and other administration officials. But in August, White House Council on Environmental Quality
chairwoman Nancy Sutley and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told the
commission they were not directly involved in the decision. The two women are top environmental officials in charge of
ocean science, coastal restoration, fisheries and other environmental issues. Crist, who once considered opening state
waters to drilling, changed his mind after the BP spill. He said he was not surprised that the administration revised its
offshore plan in response to one of the country's largest environmental disasters. "If that's not a wake-up call, I don't know
what would be," Crist said. "If that doesn't have an impact on your thinking, you must not be thinking." Sen. Bill Nelson, DFla., who has long fought for drilling bans off Florida's Gulf coast, praised Obama for "listening to the people of Florida."
However, Gov.-elect Rick Scott, a Republican, criticized it as an example of government regulation impeding economic
growth.
Link
General Links
OCS WRECKS OCEANS AND THE WILDLIFE
DOW ‘12 (DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, "OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF
DRILLING",
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=vandq=cache:0hRYuUTRu6wJ:www.defenders.org/p
ublications/impacts_of_outer_continental_shelf_drilling.pdf+andhl=enandgl=usandpid=b
landsrcid=ADGEESimvF33YzLvIENzYCceMo6rbZBgGL_qq52L3lPQbQp9oCHvySHbDLITJDlQ61o__xCzITqYc56OWssn5OEjL5C7HATlZWYsBP4Ec9SoxALLnh9
Rk0NY_ANjAdUgfb3vh0C-e31andsig=AHIEtbSgOUGu_Q4pEWJM2fsBDGMuNjtfvA
Ocean Floor. Drilling infrastructure permanently alters ocean floor habitats . Drill
rig footprints, undersea pipelines, dredging ship channels, and dumped drill
cuttings-- the rock material dug out of the oil or gas well-- are often contaminated
with drilling fluid used to lubricate and regulate the pressure in drilling operations. The
fluid contains petroleum products and heavy metals. Strewn on the ocean floor,
contaminated sediments can be carried by currents over a mile from the rig, sharply
reducing populations of small bottom dwelling creatures that are important to the
rest of the food chain and biomagnifying toxic contaminants in fish we eat.
Offshore natural gas drilling threatens the environment
Rochette et al 14 (Julien Rochette, Mattieu Wemaëre, Lucien Chabason, and Sarah Callet. Julien Rochette is the coordinator of the Oceans and Coastal
Zones Programme at IDDRI, and a lawyer specialised in marine and coastal issues. Matthieu Wemaëre is a Senior Lawyer admitted at the Paris and Brussels Bar Associations. He
is the founder and managing partner of the Law Firm Matthieu Wemaëre Association d’Avocats based in Brussels, Belgium. Lucien Chabason holds a masters degree in Public
Law and a DEA in Sociology. After being the Environmental Advisor to the French Prime Minister from 1974 to 1977, he worked as the Director of Mission, Rural and Urban
Environment, at the Ministry of the Environment. After having held several other leading posts at the Ministry of Environment, he joined the United Nations Environment Program
in 1994. Former coordinator for the Mediterranean Action Plan and Secretary for the Barcelona Convention, Chabason acted as Consultant for OECD environmental evaluations of
Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and Poland from 1993 to 2002. Chabason had also worked as Professor of Environmental Policy at the Institute of
Political Sciences, Paris, 1990-1994. Sarah Callet is a trainee responsible for study at Foundation for Research on Biodiversity. Seeing beyond the horizon for deepwater oil and
gas: strengthening the international regulation of offshore exploration and exploitation.)
[http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Collections/Analyses/ST0114_JR%20et%20al._offshore%20EN.pdf]
Drilling more and deeper unquestionably means increasing the threats to the
environment and natural resources. Impacts of offshore drilling on the environment
are numerous, including the disturbance of fish stocks9 and marine mammals study
01/20148IddrISeeing beyond the horizon for deepwater oil and gas: strengthening the
international regulation of offshore exploration and exploitation during seismic surveys
(CEF Consultants, 2008; Gordon et al., 2003), carbon dioxide and methane emissions
through gas flaring and venting (Buzcu-Guven and Harris, 2012; Gerner et al., 2004)
and pollution of the marine environment through the discharge of various substances
(Figure2), drilling fluids and cuttings in particular (Qunjie et al., 2012). Worst-case
scenario occurs when the well blows out. Contrary to common thought and even if
techniques slightly differ, the type of risks is actually similar when drilling is made inland
or in deep waters (Rochette, 2012). The real difference comes from the remediation
aspects: fixing a problem in deep waters is more complex, as has been illustrated in
many recent accidents on offshore platforms. For instance, the Montara rig leaked in
2009 for 74days (Australian maritime safety authority, 2010) and the Deepwater
Horizon released nearly 5million barrels of oil into the sea over 87days before it was
possible, on 15July 2010, to cap the well (National Commission on the BP Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, 2010).Because recent accidents on offshore
platforms had transboundary impacts, discussions were reopened on the suitability of the
current international framework to regulate offshore oil and gas activities.
OCS Drilling affects the air, water, marine life, climate, and economy
(Sandra Purohit, Government Relations Associate, Bachelors Degree in Economics and
Environmental policy, American University, Defenders of Wildlife, “Outercontinental
Shelf Drilling: Impacts to air, water, wildlife, coastal economies, and climate”)
There are over 5600 offshore oil and gas platforms in the United States and over 27,000 miles of pipelines in the areas
of the Gulf of Mexico already open to drilling. These major industrial facilities have tremendous impacts on the ocean
floor, water and air quality, and fragile marine ecosystems. Ocean Floor. Drilling
infrastructure
permanently alters ocean floor habitats. Drill rig footprints, undersea pipelines,
dredging ship channels, and dumped drill cuttings-- the rock material dug out of the oil or gas
well-- are often contaminated with drilling fluid used to lubricate and regulate the pressure in drilling
operations. The fluid contains petroleum products and heavy metals. Strewn on the ocean floor , contaminated
sediments can be carried by currents over a mile from the rig, sharply reducing
populations of small bottom- dwelling creatures that are important to the rest of the
food chain and biomagnifying toxic contaminants in fish we eat. Spills, Leaks and Catastrophes. Even with safety
protocols in place, leaks and spills are inevitable— each year U.S. drilling operations send
an average of 880,000 gallons of oil into the ocean. Then there are the unanticipated catastrophes. In
2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 of the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and damaged 457 pipelines.
Hurricane damage caused at least 124 different spills, totaling over 17,700 barrels (743,000 gallons) of petroleum
products. Oil is toxic to the plants and microscopic animals that form the basis of the marine food chain. It also poisons
birds, mammals and fish. Those not killed outright can suffer a slow death from debilitating illness and injury. Coastal
Economies. Even
a medium sized spill can be a major economic disaster in coastal
areas dependent on tourism or fishing as a major economic driver. Hundreds of thousands of existing jobs
and billions of dollars of economic activity depend on clean coasts and healthy coastal waters. Routine air and
water pollution from offshore rigs, coupled with industrialization in sensitive areas,
can quickly undermine local economies. Air Pollution. A 2004 inventory of air pollution in the Gulf of
Mexico found that OCS oil and gas activities account for the overwhelming majority of air pollutants: 89% of carbon
monoxide, 77% of NOx emissions, 72% of volatile organic compounds emissions, 69% of particulate matter emissions,
and 66% of sulfur dioxide. Invasive Species. Ships, drilling equipment and even rigs are used and relocated all around
Animals that colonize a rig surface in one area essentially get a “free ride” to
a new habitat, where they can easily become invasive. The brown mussel (a marine species with
the world.
impacts similar to zebra mussels), several species of jellyfish, barnacles and other nuisance organisms can be spread by
drilling equipment. Birds. Spills pose direct mortality dangers through oiling and poisoning by ingestion as animals try
to clean themselves and as toxins build up in fish-eating birds. In addition, over 200,000 birds die annually in collisions
with oil and gas platforms. Construction of new pipelines will damage sensitive coastal habitats and marshes. Marine
Mammals. Seismic surveys conducted during oil and gas exploration cause temporary or permanent hearing loss,
induce behavioral changes, and even physically injure marine mammals such as whales, seals and dolphins.
Construction noise from new facilities and pipelines is also likely to interfere with
foraging and communication behaviors of birds and mammals. Risk of collisions with
vessels and exposure to pollutants will also increase. Exposure to petroleum causes tissue damage
in the eyes, mouth, skin and lungs of marine mammals. Because they are at the top of the food
chain, many marine mammals will be exposed to the dangers of bioaccumulation of organic
pollutants and metals. Expansion of offshore drilling activities would further threaten imperiled species like the
manatee. Sea Turtles. Dredging of nesting beaches, collisions, and noise disruptions are all potential threats to sea
turtles. Hatchlings are also particularly susceptible to oiling because they spend much of their time near the water
surface, where spilled oil or tar accumulates. Climate Change. In
the face of the climate crisis, the U.S.
needs to look for ways to decrease petroleum consumption, not for ways to increase
it.
Seismic Testing Link
Seismic Testing destroys biodiversity
O’Connor 06 (Oonagh O'Connor is a times columnist. Insignificant threat to whom?
August 9, 2006 Wednesday. [http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?])
It is surprising to have a scientist from the University of British Columbia trivialize the
potential for impacts from seismic testing. His conclusion contrasts with the
opinions of scientists with an expertise in seismic research in the United States and
Australia. Chris Clarke, director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University, has said
that " seismic air guns represent the most severe acoustic insult to the marine
environment that I can imagine short of naval warfare ." Robert McCauley, one of the few
scientists to conduct peer-reviewed research on the impacts of seismic testing on fish, determined that the
blasting damages the hearing of some species. The area of the coast where University of B.C. scientist Ron
Clowes and associates plan to shoot seismic guns supports a diversity of marine life including five species
of salmon, rock fish, eulachon, halibut, humpback whales and killer whales. Humpback whales and
migrating salmon are abundant at the time of year the scientists propose to shoot the seismic guns. If this
project proceeds, the air guns will be blasting high-pressure sound waves into coastal waters every 20
seconds, 24 hours a day for three weeks. Scientists are just beginning to study some of the
behavioural and physical impacts
of seismic testing but there is already convincing
evidence that seismic testing harms marine life. Scientific information about the impacts of
seismic testing is on the Internet at www.oilfreecoast.org. We appreciate Clowes' curiosity about the
formation of the coastal mountains but satisfying that curiosity could be costly to coastal marine life.
The seismic air guns key to gas exploration kill off Biodiversity
Prendergast 14 Laura Prendergast is the Senior Science Editor at Guardian Liberty
Voice, Seismic Air Guns for Oil Exploration: Impact on Marine Life 2014
[http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/seismic-air-guns-for-oil-exploration-impact-on-marinelife/#P5ZR3rMeb7Ituz1o.99 ]
First, exactly how loud are seismic air guns really? The air guns produce a sound measured at
190 dB. For comparison, the sound of a motorcycle shredding the air down your block comes in at
100dB. A jet engine lets off 140dB of noise. It should be noted that loudness is measured on a
logarithmic scale; each 10 dB increase is a ten-fold increase in power. Thus, the air
guns are a staggering one billion times louder than that irritating motorcycle .
Furthermore, because the sounds generated by the seismic air guns propagate through
marine water, the sound is approximately 63 dB louder than a sound with the same
intensity in air. That means six more zeros need to be appended to that billion, turning it into an
unimaginably loud quadrillion times louder than the motorcycle. Now imagine that a noise that
unpleasant is being repeated every 12 to 16 seconds, for up to 24 hours at a time, for
weeks or months. Who would be a whale?¶ Two, how does oceanic noise pollution affect marine life,
and how large an area is affected? ¶ Because a numerical analysis cannot quite convey the subjective
experience of being anywhere near something that loud, one needs to turn to available published reports on
how this technology will affect marine life. According to the National Resource Defense Council, ongoing
research indicates that noise pollution in the ocean negatively impacts at least 55 marine
species, including several endangered whale species and 20 species of commercially valuable fish.
Whales and dolphins rely on their hearing to find food, communicate, and
reproduce, thus being able to hear critically affects their survival. The use of seismic air guns has
been shown to affect animals in an area of more than 100,000 square nautical miles. For
an understanding of how huge this is, if 100,000 square nautical miles were centered over Washington DC,
it would extend from the northern edge of New Jersey to the middle of North Carolina, covering two thirds
of Pennsylvania, all of Maryland, and a large chunk of Virginia. ¶ Exactly which species are threatened and
in what way? Marine life is far too diverse and complex to make a realistic assessment of all the possible
ramifications of the use of the air guns. However, research from NOAA and Cornell, indicates
that one of the most vulnerable is the critically endangered North Atlantic right
whale – of which only 400-500 individuals survive – whose calving grounds off Florida and
Georgia would be directly impacted by the proposed survey. Airguns have also been shown to affect a
broad range of other marine mammal species including sperm whales, whose foraging appears to decline
significantly on exposure to even moderate levels of airgun noise. Harbor porpoises have been observed
engaging in strong avoidance responses as far as fifty miles from a seismic array. Seismic surveys
have also been found at fault for long-term loss of marine mammal biodiversity off
the coast of Brazil. Seismic air guns kill larvae and fish eggs and cause declines of 40 to 80
percent in the catch rates of haddock and cod areas up to thousands of miles away. Beyond
the environmental considerations and the effects on marine mammals, the decline in catch rates of
commercial fish has a strongly negative economic impact; fishermen in some parts of the world have begun
to seek industry compensation for their losses.¶ And finally, despite all the already available information on
the impact of oceanic noise pollution, not all the facts are in yet. The National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS), a division of NOAA, is completing a 15-year research program gathering information on how
marine mammals are disturbed and damaged by sound. Last week, a group of more than 100 scientists
wrote to Obama urging him not to finalize the Environmental Impact Study until the latest marine mammal
acoustic guidance is available.
Renewables Links
Natural Gas Drilling destroys the environment and co-ops renewable energy
Suzuki and Hanington 11 (Dr. Suzuki is a geneticist. He graduated from Amherst College (Massachusetts) in 1958
with an Honours BA in Biology, followed by a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He held a research
associateship in the Biology Division of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Lab (1961 – 62), was an Assistant Professor in Genetics at
the University of Alberta (1962 – 63), and since then has been a faculty member of the University of British Columbia. He is now
Professor Emeritus at UBC. Ian Hanington Senior Editor at David Suzuki Foundation [http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/sciencematters/2011/07/natural-gas-is-not-a-solution-for-climate-change/] )
It’s not that simple, though, especially when we consider the impacts of
unconventional natural gas, along with extraction methods such as hydraulic fracturing,
or "fracking". A report by the David Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute, "Is natural gas a climate
change solution for Canada?" examines the key issues around natural gas and reaches surprising
conclusions.¶ Extracting gas from shale deposits, for example, requires up to 100 times the
number of well pads to get the same amount of gas as conventional sources. Imagine
the disruption in farm or cottage country of one well pad (comprising multiple wells) roughly every
2.5 square kilometres. Each well pad occupies an area of about one hectare, and also requires
access roads and pipeline infrastructure.¶ The method known as fracking has also been in the
news a lot. Fracking has been used to extract gas since the late 1940s, although producers only began
combining it with horizontal drilling to exploit unconventional gas resources in the past decade. With
this process, water, sand, and chemicals are pumped at high pressure into rock
formations deep in the Earth to fracture the rock, allowing the gas to escape and flow into the
wells.¶ Fracking requires enormous amounts of water and uses chemicals that can be
toxic. Companies are not required to disclose the chemicals they use for fracking in Canada and some
parts of the U.S. The process can also release methane , a greenhouse gas more
powerful than carbon dioxide, into the air.¶ The non-climate environmental impacts of gas
extraction alone are enough to give us pause. But the natural gas study also concludes that it is
not a good way to fight climate change.¶ To begin, although it is cleaner than oil and coal,
burning natural gas still produces greenhouse gas emissions, as does the industrial
activity required to get it out of the ground. Greater investments in natural gas
development may also slow investment in renewable energy. Would owners of gas-fired
power plants built in the next few years willingly cease to operate them — or accept the costs of capturing
and storing carbon emissions — as the push for deeper greenhouse gas reductions increases? ¶ The real
solutions to climate change lie with conservation and renewable energy, such as solar, wind, tidal, and
geothermal power.
Impact
Impact: 2NC
Marine biodiversity is key to human survival
Davidson 3 (Founder – Turtle House Foundation and Award-Winning Journalist, Fire in
the Turtle House, p. 47-51)
But surely the Athenians had it backward; it’s the land that rests in the lap of the sea. Thalassa, not Gaia, is the guardian of life on
the blue planet. A simple, albeit apocalyptic, experiment suggests Thalassa’s power. Destroy
all life on land; the
ocean creatures will survive just fine. Given time, they’ll even repopulate the land. But
wipe out the organisms that inhabit the oceans and all life on land is doomed.
“Dust to dust,” says the Bible, but “water to water” is more like it, for all life comes
from and returns to the sea. Our ocean origins abid within us, our secret marine
history. The chemical makeup of our blood is strikingly similar to seawater. Every
carbon atom in our body has cycled through the ocean many times. Even the human
embryo reveals our watery past. Tiny gill slits form and then fade during our
development in the womb. The ocean is the cradle of life on our planet, and it remains
the axis of existence, the locus of planetary biodiversity, and the engine of the
chemical and hydrological cycles that create and maintain our atmosphere and climate.
The astonishing biodiversity is most evident on coral reefs, often called the “rain forests of the sea.” Occupying less than onequarter of 1 percent of the global ocean, coral reefs are home to nearly a third of all marine fish species and to as many as nine
million species in all. But life exists in profusion in every corner of the ocean, right down to the hydrothermal vents on the
seafloor (discovered only in 1977), where more than a hundred newly described species thrive around superheated plumes of
sulfurous gasses. The abundance of organisms in the ocean isn’t surprising given that the sea was, as already mentioned, the
crucible of life on Earth. It is the original ecosystem, the environment in which the “primordial soup” of nucleic acids (which can
self-replicate, but are not alive) and other molecules made the inexplicable and miraculous leap into life, probably as simple
bacteria, close to 3.9 billion years ago. A spectacular burst of new life forms called the Cambrian explosion took place in the
oceans some 500 million years ago, an evolutionary experiment that produced countless body forms, the prototypes of virtually
all organisms alive today. It wasn’t until 100 million years later that the first primitive plants took up residence on terra firma.
Another 30 million years passed before the first amphibians climbed out of the ocean. After this head start, it’s not surprising that
evolution on that newcomer-dry land-has never caught up with the diversity of the sea. Of the thirty-three higher-level groupings
of animals (called phyla), thirty-two are found in the oceans and just twelve on land.
Biodiversity Impacts
Loss of biodiversity leads to extinction
ENS 5 — Environment News Service exists to provide late-breaking news of the environment
from across the United States and around the world. With the wish to spotlight environmental situations
everywhere on Earth, ENS encourages journalists from around the world to contribute their reports. With
the conviction that ignorance is responsible for degradation of Earth’s ecosystems and knowledge can
result in planetary health, ENS strives to provide news that is factual and presented without bias.
(“Humans Undermining the Very Biodiversity Needed for Survival.” Environment News Service, May 24,
2005. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2005/2005-05-24-01.html Accessed March 19, 2014) TH
In the last 50 years, humans have changed the diversity of life on the planet more
than at any other time in history. Human activities have lifted many people out of
poverty, but at a price - the loss of biodiversity. A new assessment of biodiversity and human well being by
top scientists from throughout the world shows that if humanity continues down this road, biological
diversity will be depleted with life-threatening consequences for all, including
human beings . "Biodiversity is where the human hunger for resources is taking its
heaviest toll, and the inclusion of 15,589 species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the clearest sign that we need
to change the way we produce and consume, said Jeff McNeely, chief scientist of the IUCN-World Conservation Union and
contributor to the report. The assessment, launched as part of the celebrations for the International Day for Biological Diversity on
May 22, was conducted by a panel of the Millenium Assessment, a partnership involving some 1,360 scientists who are experts in
their fields. It is supported by 22 of the world’s scientific bodies, including The Royal Society of the United Kingdom and the Third
World Academy of Sciences. The panel defined biodiversity as "the variability among living organisms from all sources, including
terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part."
Loss of
biodiversity is a major barrier to achieving development goals, and poses increasing
risks for future generations, said Dr. Walter Reid, director of the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment. The second Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, "Biodiversity and Human Well-being: A Synthesis Report
for the Convention on Biological Diversity," finds that although biodiversity is the foundation for human
well-being, all of the likely future scenarios in the report lead to a further decline in biodiversity, contrary to the agreed global
target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The diversity of life provides the materials humans
need for food, clothing and shelter, and also bestows security, health and freedom
of choice . But, the assessment found, "the current pace and rhythm of human activities are harming ecosystems, consuming
biological resources and putting at risk the well-being of future generations.
Loss of hotspots causes extinction to all life.
Mittermeier 11 Dr. Russell Alan Mittermeier, a primatologist, herpetologist and biological
anthropologist. He holds Ph.D. from Harvard in Biological Anthropology and as conducted fieldwork for
over 30 years on three continents and in more than 20 countries in mainly tropical locations and he is
considered an expert on biological diversity. Mittermeier has formally discovered several monkey species.
From Chapter One of the book Biodiversity Hotspots – F.E. Zachos and J.C. Habel (eds.), DOI 10.1007/9783-642-20992-5_1, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 – available at:
http://www.academia.edu/1536096/Global_biodiversity_conservation_the_critical_role_of_hotspots) TH
Global changes, from habitat loss and invasive species to anthropogenic¶ climate change, have initiated the
sixth great mass extinction event
in Earth’s¶ history. As
species become threatened and vanish, so
too do the broader ecosystems¶ and myriad benefits to human well-being that depend
upon biodiversity . Bringing¶ an end to global biodiversity loss requires that limited available
resources be guided¶ to those regions that need it most. The biodiversity hotspots do this
based on the¶ conservation planning principles of irreplaceability and vulnerability. Here, we¶
review the development of the hotspots over the past two decades and present an ¶ analysis of their biodiversity, updated to the current
set of 35 regions. We then¶ discuss past and future efforts needed to conserve them, sustaining their
fundamental¶
role both as the home of a substantial fraction of global biodiversity and as the¶ ultimate source
of many ecosystem services upon which humanity depends.
Environment Impact
Environmental destruction leads to extinction
Coyne and Hoekstra 7
(Jerry Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the
University of Chicago. Jerry obtained a PhD in Biology from Harvard University. He is the author of the text
Speciation and the bestselling non-fiction book Why Evolution Is True. Coyne maintains a website also called Why
Evolution Is True. Hopi E. Hoekstra is John L. Loeb Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic and
Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and curator of mammals at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology.
She received her PhD in Evolutionary Biology and Genetics from Harvard University. Available at:
http://www.truthout.org/article/jerry-coyne-and-hopi-e-hoekstra-the-greatest-dying, Accessed on July 2, 2014)
Every year, up to 30,000 species disappear due to human activity alone. At this rate,
we could lose half of Earth's species in this century. And, unlike with previous
extinctions, there's no hope that biodiversity will ever recover, since the cause of the
decimation - us - is here to stay. To scientists, this is an unparalleled calamity, far more
severe than global warming, which is, after all, only one of many threats to biodiversity. Yet global
warming gets far more press. Why? One reason is that, while the increase in temperature is easy to
document, the decrease of species is not. Biologists don't know, for example, exactly how many species
exist on Earth. Estimates range widely, from three million to more than 50 million, and that doesn't count
microbes, critical (albeit invisible) components of ecosystems. We're not certain about the rate of
extinction, either; how could we be, since the vast majority of species have yet to be described? We're
even less sure how the loss of some species will affect the ecosystems in which they're embedded, since
the intricate connection between organisms means that the loss of a single species can ramify
unpredictably. But we do know some things. Tropical rainforests are disappearing at a rate of 2 percent
per year. Populations of most large fish are down to only 10 percent of what they were in 1950. Many
primates and all the great apes - our closest relatives - are nearly gone from the wild. And we know that
extinction and global warming act synergistically. Extinction exacerbates global warming: By
burning rainforests, we're not only polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide (a
major greenhouse gas) but destroying the very plants that can remove this gas from
the air. Conversely, global warming increases extinction, both directly (killing corals) and indirectly
(destroying the habitats of Arctic and Antarctic animals). As extinction increases, then, so does global
warming, which in turn causes more extinction - and so on, into a downward spiral of destruction. Why,
exactly, should we care? Let's start with the most celebrated case: the rainforests. Their
loss will worsen global warming - raising temperatures, melting icecaps, and flooding
coastal cities. And, as the forest habitat shrinks, so begins the inevitable contact
between organisms that have not evolved together, a scenario played out many
times, and one that is never good. Dreadful diseases have successfully jumped species
boundaries, with humans as prime recipients. We have gotten aids from apes, sars
from civets, and Ebola from fruit bats. Additional worldwide plagues from unknown
microbes are a very real possibility. But it isn't just the destruction of the rainforests
that should trouble us.Healthy ecosystems the world over provide hidden services like
waste disposal, nutrient cycling, soil formation, water purification, and oxygen
production. Such services are best rendered by ecosystems that are diverse. Yet, through both
intention and accident, humans have introduced exotic species that turn biodiversity into monoculture.
Fast-growing zebra mussels, for example, have outcompeted more than 15 species of native mussels in
North America's Great Lakes and have damaged harbors and water-treatment plants. Native prairies are
becoming dominated by single species (often genetically homogenous) of corn or wheat. Thanks to these
developments, soils will erode and become unproductive - which, along with temperature change, will
diminish agricultural yields. Meanwhile, with increased pollution and runoff, as well as
reduced forest cover, ecosystems will no longer be able to purify water; and a
shortage of clean water spells disaster. In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of
all. As overfishing eliminates major predators, while polluted and warming waters kill off phytoplankton,
the intricate aquatic food web could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which so many
humans depend, will be a fond memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the
oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by
phytoplankton, with the rest coming from land plants.) Species extinction is also imperiling coral
reefs - a major problem since these reefs have far more than recreational value: They
provide tremendous amounts of food for human populations and buffer coastlines
against erosion. In fact, the global value of "hidden" services provided by ecosystems - those services,
like waste disposal, that aren't bought and sold in the marketplace - has been estimated to be as much as
$50 trillion per year, roughly equal to the gross domestic product of all countries combined. And that
doesn't include tangible goods like fish and timber. Life as we know it would be impossible if
ecosystems collapsed. Yet that is where we're heading if species extinction continues at its current
pace. Extinction also has a huge impact on medicine. Who really cares if, say, a worm in the
remote swamps of French Guiana goes extinct? Well, those who suffer from cardiovascular disease. The
recent discovery of a rare South American leech has led to the isolation of a powerful
enzyme that, unlike other anticoagulants, not only prevents blood from clotting but
also dissolves existing clots. And it's not just this one species of worm: Its wriggly relatives
have evolved other biomedically valuable proteins, including antistatin (a potential anticancer agent),
decorsin and ornatin (platelet aggregation inhibitors), and hirudin (another anticoagulant). Plants, too, are
pharmaceutical gold mines. The bark of trees, for example, has given us quinine (the first cure for
malaria), taxol (a drug highly effective against ovarian and breast cancer), and aspirin . More than a
quarter of the medicines on our pharmacy shelves were originally derived from plants.
The sap of the Madagascar periwinkle contains more than 70 useful alkaloids, including vincristine, a
powerful anticancer drug that saved the life of one of our friends. Of the roughly 250,000 plant species on
Earth, fewer than 5 percent have been screened for pharmaceutical properties. Who knows what
life-saving drugs remain to be discovered? Given current extinction rates, it's
estimated that we're losing one valuable drug every two years. Our arguments so far
have tacitly assumed that species are worth saving only in proportion to their
economic value and their effects on our quality of life, an attitude that is strongly
ingrained, especially in Americans. That is why conservationists always base their case
on an economic calculus. But we biologists know in our hearts that there are deeper
and equally compelling reasons to worry about the loss of biodiversity: namely, simple
morality and intellectual values that transcend pecuniary interests. What, for example, gives us the right
to destroy other creatures? And what could be more thrilling than looking around us, seeing that we are
surrounded by our evolutionary cousins, and realizing that we all got here by the same simple process of
natural selection? To biologists, and potentially everyone else, apprehending the genetic kinship
and common origin of all species is a spiritual experience - not necessarily religious,
but spiritual nonetheless, for it stirs the soul. But, whether or not one is moved by
such concerns, it is certain that our future is bleak if we do nothing to stem this sixth
extinction. We are creating a world in which exotic diseases flourish but natural
medicinal cures are lost; a world in which carbon waste accumulates while food
sources dwindle; a world of sweltering heat, failing crops, and impure water. In the
end, we must accept the possibility that we ourselves are not immune to extinction.
Arctic Impact: 2NC
Plan causes Arctic drilling – destroys the fragile environment there
Conley, 13; July; Heather A. CSIS (Center for strategic and international studies)
“Artic Economies in the 21st Century: The Benefits of Cost and Cold”
http://csis.org/files/publication/130710_Conley_ArcticEconomics_WEB.pdf
Heather A. Conley is senior fellow and director of the Europe Program at CSIS. Prior to joining CSIS, Ms.
Conley was a senior adviser to the Center for European Policy Analysis. From 2001 to 2005, she served as
deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for
U.S. bilateral relations with the 15 countries of northern and central Europe.
Concerns over Drilling in the Arctic Region
A wide range of stakeholders, from governmental agencies and environmental
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to insurance groups and oil corporations, have
voiced concerns over the environmental risks associated with Arctic offshore
drilling. The most cited risk is that of an oil spill incident in the fragile Arctic
ecosystem. Serious questions remain as to whether companies and public authorities
are sufficiently prepared and equipped to prevent, respond to, contain, or clean up an
oil spill in icy waters. In April 2012 Lloyd’s, a large U.K.- based insurance market, and
Chatham House , a British think tank, issued a report that concluded that oil spill
response in the Arctic would present “multiple obstacles, which together constitute a
unique and hard- to- manage risk.” 20 Companies drilling for resources in the “highly
sensitive to damage” Arctic environment also face high reputational risk.21 The report
cites concerns such as logistical and operational challenges due to the harsh and
unpredictable Arctic conditions, the weak resilience of ecosystems to withstand risk
events, and the potentially severe and long term environmental consequences of disasters.
Given the high political and corporate sensitivity to disaster in the fragile Arctic
ecosystem, the report recommended that companies operating in the Arctic adopt and
implement “robust and comprehensive” risk management strategies that encompass not
only best practices, but also “worst case scenarios, crisis response plans and full- scale
exercises.”22 Within a week of this report being issued, German bank WestLB became
the first financial institution to issue a new policy for financing offshore drilling that
precluded funding for companies seeking to conduct exploration or production activities
in the Arctic. The bank concluded that the “risks and costs are simply too high,” citing
hard to manage risks, in particular the difficult and costly remediation of spills in icy
waters.23 Companies diverge in their assessment of risks and opportunities in the Arctic.
Shell argues that it has adequate technology and extensive expertise to “tackle extreme
conditions safely and to operate responsibly in this sensitive environment.”24
Conversely, Total’s chief executive officer (CEO), Christophe de Margerie, admitted
that the risk of an oil spill in the Arctic was simply too high, concluding that such an
incident in the environmentally sensitive region “would do too much damage to the
image of the company.”25 Statoil has been extremely active in the Arctic, with eightynine exploration wells drilled in the Norwegian Barents Sea at present and nine more
planned for 2013.26 BP, however, has backed off its ambitions for drilling in the Arctic,
deciding not to place a bid to obtain an exploration license in Greenland.
Methane Release 2NC
Drilling causes methane hydrate release—leads to dissociation,
pressurization, and oil leaks—April 20th blowout proves
Folger 10 [“Gas Hydrates: Resource and Hazard,” May 25, Congressional Research
Service, http://www.cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/10Jun/RS22990.pdf, Peter Folger, A.B
from Dartmouth College, M.S. Montana, Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines,
specialist in Energy and Natural Resources Policy at the Congressional Research Service,
Congressional Science Fellow with Senator Pete V. Domenici, Senior Fellow at the
Center for the New West, Director of Outreach at American Geophysical Union,
geological engineering consultant, Manager of the Geochemical Programs Group at
Rocky Flats Plant/PMG]
Gas hydrates are a significant hazard for drilling and production operations.12 Gas
hydrate production is hazardous in itself, as well as for conventional oil and gas
activities that place wells and pipelines into permafrost or marine sediments. For
activities in permafrost, two general categories of problems have been identified: (1)
uncontrolled gas releases during drilling; and (2) damage to well casing during and
after installation of a well. Similar problems could occur during offshore drilling
into gas hydrate-bearing marine sediments. Offshore drilling operations that
disturb gas hydrate-bearing sediments could fracture or disrupt the bottom
sediments and compromise the wellbore, pipelines, rig supports, and other
equipment involved in oil and gas production from the seafloor. Problems may
differ somewhat between onshore and offshore operations, but they stem from the
same characteristic of gas hydrates: decreases in pressure and/or increases in
temperature can cause the gas hydrate to dissociate and rapidly release large
amounts of gas into the well bore during a drilling operation. Oil and gas wells
drilled through permafrost or offshore to reach conventional oil and gas deposits
may encounter gas hydrates, which companies generally try to avoid because of a lack of detailed understanding of
the mechanical and thermal properties of gas hydrate-bearing sediments. Unless precautions are taken,
continued drilling may heat up the sediments surrounding the wellbore, causing
gas from the dissociated hydrates to leak and bubble up around the casing. Once
oil production begins, hot fluids flowing through the well could also warm hydratebearing sediments and cause dissociation. The released gas may pool and build up
pressure against the well casing, possibly causing damage. 15 Some observers suggest that
exploiting the gas hydrate resources by intentionally heating or by depressurization
poses the same risks—requiring mitigation—as drilling through gas hydrates to
reach deeper conventional oil and gas deposits.16 On April 20, 2010, a well drilled
by the Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible oil platform “blew out,” igniting a fire
on board the platform, which eventually sank. The blowout has resulted in an
uncontrolled leak of oil and gas from the broken off pipe, or “riser,” that led from
the top of the well to the drilling platform. In one of the early attempts to plug the
well, a heavy steel and concrete box was lowered atop the leaking riser in an attempt
to capture the oil and gas and siphon it to the surface. The attempt failed because
hydrates clogged the valves and pipes leading to the surface from the steel box as
methane converted from a gas phase to solid phase methane hydrate. The Deepwater Horizon
had drilled an “ultradeep” exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico in approximately 5,000 feet of water. At 5,000 feet below the
surface, seawater is approximately 40o F (4.4o C), and the pressure is approximately 2,500 pounds per square inch (psi). Gas hydrates
are stable at that depth and pressure, and can form as long as sufficient quantities of natural gas and water are present—as was the case
If a sufficient
amount of methane were present in the seafloor sediments, gas hydrates could have
formed at the temperatures and pressures in the sediments 1,000 or perhaps 1,500
feet below the seafloor at the Deepwater Horizon drill site (depending on the
geothermal gradient—how rapidly the earth changes temperature with depth in
that part of the Gulf of Mexico). As discussed in the text of this report, drilling and well
completion activities may have disturbed hydrate-bearing sediments, resulting in
depressurization or heating that could have caused the hydrate to dissociate into a
gas. If the gas were able to enter the wellbore through some defect in the casing or
cement, it may have contributed to the anomalous gas pressure inside the wellbore
that led to the April 20 blowout.
for the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Indeed, gas hydrates may have had some role in the original blowout.
Methane release increases global warming
Foley 14 [“Methane Emissions to Increase with Global Warming,” Nature World News,
March 27th 2014, http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6457/20140327/methaneemissions-to-increase-with-global-warming.htm/PMG]
The amount of methane released from microorganisms dwelling in lakes and
freshwater beds will increase severalfold for each degree Celsius the Earth's
temperature rises, according to a new study. While much attention is given to
climate change-linked rises in carbon dioxide, methane is roughly 30 times
more potent as a heat-trapping gas, and as temperatures rise, methane output
from freshwater sources - the primary methane emissions source - will will
outpace carbon dioxide output. In freshwater systems , methane is produced
as a digestive byproduct of microorganisms that eat organic matter. This process,
known as methanogenesis, is a complex amalgamation of temperature, chemical, physical and ecological
the journal
factors. Writing in
Nature , the scientists suggest that methane emissions from freshwater sources will likely rise with the global
temperature. However, the multiple processes that fuel methanogenesis has made it difficult for scientists to account for this
phenomenon when creating climate models. Previously, omitted methane emissions from bodies of freshwater such as lakes,
swamps, marshes and rice paddies rendered inaccuracies in climate projections." The freshwater systems we talk about in our
paper are an important component to the climate system ," said study co-author Cristian Gudasz from Princeton University.
"There is more and more evidence that they have a contribution to the methane emissions. Methane
produced
from natural or manmade freshwater systems will increase with
temperature."Gudasz and his colleagues analyzed nearly 1,600 temperature
and methane-emissions measurements from 127 freshwater ecosystems
around the world. The common theme running through the analysis is that
methane generation thrives in high temperatures. The scientists learned that
the state of methane emissions at a 0 degree Celsius scenario would rise 57
times higher when the temperature hit 30 degrees Celsius."We all want to
make predictions about greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on global
warming," Gudasz said. "Looking across these scales and constraining them as
we have in this paper will allow us to make better predictions."
Methane  Warming Ext
Methane gas release spurs global warming
Kvenvolden 93
(Keith A. Kvenvolden is a graduated from Mines at the top of his class in 1952 as a
geophysical engineer. He currently holds the position of senior scientist for the United States Geological Survey's
Coastal and Marine Geology Team. During his career he has published more than 500 papers and abstracts dealing
with a variety of subjects in organic geochemistry, often related to fossil-fuel energy and the environment. Available
at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/93RG00268/asset/rog1407.pdf?v=1&t=hx4xvj0r&s=68759933da78fe9f
01e0f4ff3b6be6c3c397c29b. Accessed on July 2nd, 2014)
Methane is an important trace components of the atmosphere, having a current
concentration of about 4.9 x 10 •5 g (3.7 x 10 •5 g methane carbon), approximately
one half of the minimum amount of methane estimated by the Potential Gas
Committee [1981] to occur in gas hydrates of Arctic permafrost regions. The
concentration of atmospheric methane is increasing at a rate of almost 1.0% yr-•
[Watson et al., 1990]. Because methane is radioactively active, it is a "green- house"
gas that has a global warming potential 20 times larger than an equivalent weight of
carbon dioxide when integrated over a 100-yr span of time [Shine et al., 1990]. The
Earth's atmosphere has a wide variety of sources and sinks for methane [Cicerone and
Oreroland, 1988], including gas hydrates, which exist in metastable equilibrium with
their environment and are affected by changes in pressure and temperature. The
amount of methane that is trapped in gas hydrates onshore and offshore is perhaps
3000 times the amount in the atmosphere ; a large release of methane from this
source could have a significant impact on atmospheric composition and thus on the
radioactive properties of the atmosphere that affect global climate [MacDonald,
1990b]. Warming and cooling. Pleistocene global climate changes likely caused methane
release from gas hydrate deposits as suggested previously in Figure 12. However, the
opposite may also be true. Methane released from gas hydrates may in turn have
caused changes in global climate.
Methane release extends global warming
Ruppel and Noserale 12 (Carolyn Ruppel is a U.S. Geological Survey, for Woods Hole Field Center. She has
a PhD in Solid Earth geophysics (continental) and geology from MIT, masters in geophysics from MIT, and is the chief
of the USGS Gas Hydrates Project. Diane Noserale is part of the USGS Communications team. The USGS is a science
organization that provides impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, the natural
hazards that threaten us, the natural resources we rely on, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the core
science systems that help us provide timely, relevant, and useable information. Available at:
file:///Users/Tripp/Desktop/130315_USGS_about_under_sea_bed_methane.pdf. Accessed on July 2, 2014)
Gas hydrate researchers are examining the link between climate change and the stability of methane-hydrate
deposits.
Warming climate could cause gas hydrates to break down (dissociate),
releasing the methane that they now trap. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. For a
given volume, methane causes 15 to 20 times more greenhouse-gas warming than
carbon dioxide , and so the release of large volumes of methane to the atmosphere
could, in theory, exacerbate climate warming and cause more gas hydrates to
destabilize. Some research suggests that such large scale, climate driven dissociation
events have occurred in the past. For example, extreme warming during the Paleocene
Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55 million years ago may have been related to a
large-scale release of methane from global methane hydrates. Some scientists have also
advanced the clathrate-gun hypothesis to explain observations that may be consistent with repeated, catastrophic
dissociation of gas hydrates and triggering of submarine landslides during the late Quaternary (400,000 to 10,000
years ago). The atmospheric concentration of methane, like that of carbon dioxide, has increased since the onset of
the Industrial Revolution. Methane in the atmosphere comes from many sources, including wetlands, rice cultivation,
termites, cows and other ruminants, forest fires, and fossil-fuel production.
Some researchers have
estimated that as much as 2 percent of atmospheric methane may originate with
dissociation of global gas hydrates. Currently, scientists do not have a tool to say with certainty how
much, if any, atmospheric methane comes from hydrates. Although methane is a potent green- house gas, it does not
remain in the atmosphere for long; within about 10 years, it reacts with other compounds in the atmosphere to form
carbon dioxide and water. Thus, methane
that is released to the atmosphere ultimately adds
to the amount of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas
Disturbing methane hydrate reserves will cause an environmental
disaster
(Michael Richardson, The Japan Times, “Untapped energy source fuels a paradox,”9-25-08.)
Ice that burns? It sounds like a magician's trick. So do some of the exotic names given to gas hydrate - "flammable sorbet,"
"crystal gas" and "burning ice." But recent scientific surveys and test drilling in Asia and elsewhere have proven that this
substance exists in massive, potentially recoverable quantities and that it could be an important commercial energy source for
the future. Indeed, some of the
world's biggest economies and energy users, including the
United States, Japan, China, India, South Korea and Canada, are racing to develop
production techniques and equipment to tap gas hydrate and bring it to market
within the next decade. For all of them, except energy self-sufficient Canada, the ability to tap new domestic
sources of natural gas offers the prospect of substantially reducing dependence on expensive gas imports. Hydrate deposits up
to several hundred meters thick are generally found in two places: on or beneath the deep ocean floor, or underground close
to the Arctic permafrost layer, where high pressure and cold temperatures turn natural gas (methane, ethane and propane)
into semi-solid form. Gas hydrate looks like ordinary ice, although it is sometimes discolored. But when brought to the surface
and allowed to warm, it can be lit with a match. It then burns with a soft orange flame. One cubic meter of gas hydrate releases
as much as 164 cubic meters of natural gas, in which methane is usually the chief constituent. While global estimates vary
considerably, the U.S. government's energy department says that the energy content of methane in hydrate form is "immense,
The
presence of hydrates has been inferred from seismic surveys and subsea sampling
possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels," meaning coal, oil and conventional gas.
along most of the world's continental shelf margins. Some of the biggest deposits so far found are on the ocean floor off Japan,
South Korea, India and China, and on and off U.S. and Canadian Arctic land territory. Japan's economy, trade and energy
ministry announced last year that there were over 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane hydrates in a Pacific Ocean trench,
called the Nankai Trough, some 50 kilometers from the coast of Honshu, the main Japanese island. This reserve is equivalent to
14 years of gas use by Japan, which imports nearly all the oil, gas and coal needed to run its vast economy, the world's secondlargest after the United States. Three years ago, the Japanese government said it believed commercial exploitation of methane
hydrate was economically viable when oil traded above Dollars 54 a barrel, less than half its present price. In November 2007,
the government in Seoul said it had found enough gas hydrates in the sea between South Korea and Japan to meet 30 years of
demand. Six months earlier, China announced that it had for the first time managed to tap into seabed sediment containing gas
hydrates in the northern part of the South China Sea. It said initial estimates indicated that the find contained the equivalent of
more than 100 million metric tons of oil - about one-third of China's annual oil consumption. In doing so, China became the
fourth country after the U.S., Japan and India to achieve this technological breakthrough in the deep sea search for energy.
India announced in 2006 that it had made several huge discoveries of gas hydrates off its east and west coasts. Since last April,
the U.S. has signed separate agreements with India, South Korea and Japan to cooperate in hydrate research, exploration and
production. Japan, the U.S. and Canada, working in close collaboration, have achieved several days of continuous extraction of
hydrate reserves in the Arctic permafrost. Large-scale production tests are planned in
the Canadian Arctic this winter and in the U.S. Arctic next year. Test production from offshore Arctic finds are
expected to lag by three to five years, because marine deposits are less well
documented than those on land. Sea sampling and drilling are also much more expensive. Japan said
methane from underground
recently it plans to start test drilling in the Nankai Trough in 2012, possibly leading to commercial production by 2016. Korea
However, apart from the high costs and technical challenge,
all the hydrate explorers face another possible danger - environmental disaster.
While governments are attracted to an abundant clean fuel, scientists are concerned
that drilling when combined with global warming risks disturbing the seabed and
triggering an uncontrolled release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The British
government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, warned recently that one big unknown about
global warming is the stage at which dangerous tipping points may be reached that
lead to runaway heating of the planet. He cited as an example the release of methane hydrate deposits in
the Arctic. Some evidence suggests that a catastrophic release of methane from the ocean 55
million years ago, possibly caused by undersea volcanic explosions and landslides, was responsible for
making the earth much warmer. The modern hydrate quest is built on a paradox. When released to
the air, methane is a greenhouse gas that traps around 20 times more solar heat in
the earth's atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. But when
has a similar production timetable.
burned, methane releases up to 25 percent less carbon dioxide than combustion of the same amount of coal. It also emits no
nitrogen and sulfur oxides, which poison the air and human health when coal is burned without effective filters. The world's
abundant methane hydrate deposits have been safely stored for thousands of years in the ocean depths and Arctic permafrost.
Those who now seek to exploit what is probably the world's greatest reserve of new fossil fuel must therefore be sure that in
doing so they improve, not harm, the global environment.
Seismic Testing Impact
Seismic testing alone destroys biodiversity
Greenberg 13 (Paul Greenberg is the author of the James Beard Award-winning Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild
Food and is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Book Review, and Opinion Page. He has also written for National
Geographic Magazine, GQ, The Times (of London), Vogue, and many other publications. In the last five years he has been both a
National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow and a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow.
[http://e360.yale.edu/feature/proposed_energy_exploration_sparks_worry_on_ocean_canyons/2610/])
The beginning of the beginning of continental shelf energy exploration is seismic
testing. John Filostrat, a spokesman with Interior’s Bureau of Offshore Energy
Management, told me in an email that an environmental review is now underway “that
could support approval of new seismic and other survey activity in the Mid- and South
Atlantic planning areas as early as 2013.” And while full-on Atlantic shelf development
is still at least four years away (the current leasing plan does not include the Atlantic and
expires in 2017), contractors understand that offshore prospecting is a long but
potentially very profitable haul. John Young, a retired ExxonMobil seismic exploration
expert who now consults for the Florida-based Continental Shelf Associates, says that
“environmental impact statements are already being prepared and seismic companies are
getting ready to submit permits. The chances are pretty good that at least some areas of
the north and mid-Atlantic will soon be opened to exploration.” Environmental
organizations see seismic testing as a slippery slope. Brad Sewell, a Natural Resources
Defense Council senior attorney, calls this kind of exploration “the gateway drug to fullfledged oil and gas development.” And though the public focuses on accidents such as
BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, Sewell and others worry that the seismic testing phase,
which is done well before any drilling, poses considerable risks all by itself. In seismic
testing, guns filled with compressed air are dragged over a target area and fired
repeatedly. These mini explosions create high-impact sound pulses that echo deep into
the earth’s crust, giving oil and gas prospectors ¶ The scientific literature on the effects of
seismic testing on marine mammals and fish is sparse.¶ an acoustically derived image of
the deposits below. While this may be good for the prospectors, saving them many
millions on test wells, the noise from seismic testing can reach 230 decibels, well
above the threshold of 180 decibels that federal researchers have set as a safe level
for marine mammals. “ Imagine dynamite exploding in your living room every 10
seconds for days, weeks or even months on end,” Oceana’s president, Andrew
Sharpless, wrote in a recent USA Today editorial.
Warming Impact
Global Warming o/w all other impacts
Powers 2012 [Ann Powers is an Associate Professor of Law at Pace Law School's Center for Environmental Legal Studies. She
thanks Nicholas Curtiss-Rowlands and Sarah Mielke for their research assistance. Copyright (c) 2012 Louisiana Law Review
Louisiana Law Review Fall, 2012 Louisiana Law Review 73 La. L. Rev. 151
http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/?]
Of the myriad crises facing the world, none has more potential for global damage and
long-term impacts as climate change. From coastal land loss in the Gulf of Mexico, to
rising waters in the Netherlands, to drowning Pacific Islands, the impacts of a warming
climate and rising seas are obvious. Although skeptics remain, most nations recognize the
problems posed by a warming world, and many are actively working to address them.
Mitigation [*152] measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are being pursued, and efforts to
adapt to changing conditions are debated and sometimes implemented. Few countries are more concerned
with making progress in this regard than countries with low-lying coastal regions and island nations, which
are directly threatened by a warming climate and concomitant rise in sea levels. Many are developing
countries and small island developing states (SIDS) where tourism and fishing are usually key industries;
climate change, and sea-level rise in particular, may gravely impact such areas. Unfortunately, these states
also often have the least capacity, financing, or support for mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
Though the extent of sea-level rise and other consequences of climate change are
uncertain, global sea level rose 16 centimeters (cm) in the twentieth century, and the rate
of rise is rapidly accelerating. n1 In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels to rise between 18 cm to 59 cm in the next
century. n2 For many states, infrastructure and settlements built along coasts will become
uninhabitable or even vanish, and a few nations face the real possibility of disappearance
beyond the next century mark. n3 Developing countries are expected to suffer the earliest and to
the greatest degree because of their geographical location, low incomes, weak
institutional capacities, and greater reliance on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture.
n4
[*153] The threat to these areas from sea-level rise is often compounded by other
changing climate patterns, leading to coastal wetlands losses, groundwater salinization,
loss of arable land, and increased storm activity. For the SIDS, even slight sea-level rise could be
dangerous to the health of their economies, people, and environments. SIDS especially have a variety of
factors that aggravate their inability to cope with the effects of rising sea levels and climate change. These
factors include their limited physical size and natural resources; their often fragile economies and social
and institutional structures; and their susceptibility to natural hazards, such as tsunamis and storms. n5
Aff Answers
Link
Tech Solves
New technology has greatly reduced the chance of accidents
(IER, no date, “Policy Area: Outer Continental Shelf,”
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/policy/ocs/)
What is the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)? The Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is the submerged area between a continent and
the deep ocean. America’s OCS encompasses 1.76 billion acres of submerged, taxpayer-owned lands. In 1953, Congress
designated the Secretary of the Interior to administer mineral exploration and development of the entire OCS through the Outer
Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). The OCSLA was amended in 1978 directing the secretary to develop oil and gas in a timely
manner to help meet the energy needs of the nation. How Much Energy Does the OCS Contain? The Minerals Management Service
(MMS) estimates that the outer continental shelf contains 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
These estimates are likely to be very conservative, as bans on offshore leasing have made it illegal to explore. Offshore Energy
Bans American oil and gas leasing has been prohibited on most of the OCS since the 1982. Today, 97 percent of America’s offshore
OCS lands are not leased for energy exploration or production. The U.S. is now the only developed nation in the World that restricts
access to its offshore energy resources. There were two federal bans that kept the U.S. from producing its vast offshore energy
resources: an executive ban and a legislative ban. On July 14, 2008 President George W. Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore
drilling, and the Congressional ban was allowed to expire on September 30, 2008, the end of the federal FY2008 fiscal year. Prior to
this year, the Congressional Moratorium had been renewed every year since 1981. The Executive Moratorium was instituted by the
President in 1990. Ending the moratorium will allow energy exploration and production to move forward, but there are many activities
that need to occur for actual production to take place. Cleaner, Safer Oil Production Technology The memory of offshore oil spills,
like the 1969 blowout on Union Oil’s Platform A offshore from Santa Barbara, may deter some individuals from supporting
offshore drilling. Opponents of domestic energy production on the OCS prey on the public’s fears that such an event will occur
again, even though advances
in exploration and production technology have greatly
diminished the risks. The pursuit of safety has led to innovative technologies and
modern methods that are more efficient and environmentally sound. For example:
Advanced 3-D seismic and 4-D time imaging technologies enable offshore operators
to locate oil and gas resources far more accurately, resulting in less drilling and
greater resource recovery. [2] All offshore wells have storm chokes that detect damage to surface valves and shut
off the well in emergencies to prevent spills. [2] Blowout preventers – devices that would have prevented the Santa Barbara
accident had they existed in 1969 – are installed beneath the seafloor. Sensors
continuously monitor the
subsurface and subsea-bed conditions to prevent spills in the event of unexpected
changes in well pressure. [2] Drill cuttings, a waste product of rock pieces and
drilling fluids produced when drilling a well, are now finding new uses as raw material for
bricks, roads, and even rebuilding Louisiana’s wetlands. [2] The Environmental Benefits of Advanced
Technology According to the U.S. Department of Interior, offshore operators
produced 7 billion barrels of oil from 1985 to 2001 with a spill rate of only .001% [4]
In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 115 Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms and damaged 535 pipeline segments,
all Outer Continental Shelf
operators are collaborating with the Minerals Management Service and other
federal agencies to implement Safety and Environmental Management Programs
but there were no major oil spills attributed to either storm. [4] Today, nearly
(SEMP); voluntary, nonregulatory strategies designed to identify and reduce risks and occurrences of offshore accidents,
injuries, and spills [2] Less
than 1 percent of all oil found in the marine environment comes
from offshore oil and gas development. According to the National Academy of
Sciences, the majority – 62 percent - is the result of natural seeps through the ocean floor.
Natural Oil Seeps Oil seeps are underwater cracks in the Earth’s crust that release naked crude oil into the sea. As the graph
below illustrates, offshore production accounts for the smallest fraction of petroleum that is leaked into North American
waters. Source: National Academy of Sciences Natural seepage of crude oil from geologic formations below the seafloor is
estimated to exceed 47,000,000 gallons in North American waters and180,000,000 gallons globally every year. [3] Natural
oil seeps are responsible for over 60 percentof the petroleum entering North American waters, and over 45 percent of the
petroleum entering the marine environment worldwide. [3] Petroleum contamination from oil seeps in North American
waters is about60 times greater than the amount released through oil exploration and production. Coal Oil Point
The marine seepfield offshore from Coal Oil Point, Santa Barbara, California is one of the largest natural oil seeps in the world.
In fact, all of the tar found on Santa Barbara’s beaches and 55% of the tar on Los Angeles County’s beaches is derived from the
Coal Oil Point seeps. [5] With roughly 1 billion barrels of oil in place in the Monterey Formation offshore from Coal Oil Point, it
will take an estimated 18,000 years to drain naturally at the current oil seepage rate. [5] According to former Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) physicist Bruce Allen, the tectonically active zone is estimated to have leaked some 800 million barrels of oil
over the last 10,000 years. [6] There is potential to drill the equivalent of 1.85 billion barrels of oil from the Santa Barbara
Channel from already discovered, but undeveloped fields. The production of these fields would bring tax revenues of at least
$1.05 billionper year to the State of California and $210 million per year to Santa Barbara County. [9] The reactive organic
gases (ROG) emission rates from the Coal Oil Point natural seeps was about twice the emission rate for all the on-road vehicle
traffic in the county in 1990. [5] In spite of vigilant regulation of industrial sources of ROGs and large reductions in automobile
emissions over the past decade, Santa Barbara County has had difficulty reaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air
quality standards because of the gasses emitted through natural seeps. [5]
Warming Ans.
Warming Inevitable
Global emissions make warming inevitable
Smith 13 — Noah Smith, Assistant Professor of Finance at Stony Brook University, holds a Ph.D. in Economics
from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University, 2013 (“What can we do to put a stop
to global warming?,” Noahpinion—Noah Smith’s blog, February 1st, Available at
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-can-we-do-to-put-stop-to-global.html, Accessed July 2, 2014)
First, the good news. Here is an infographic about the U.S. contribution to global
warming:
[graph omitted]
U.S. total energy-related carbon emissions are down 13% since 2007. That's huge.
Although the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, we managed about 70% of the
emissions reductions mandated by that treaty (which is much better than most of the
actual signatories!).
Renewable energy now provides 12.1% of U.S. energy. That is big .
Energy demand has fallen 6.4% since 2007, even though GDP is slightly higher.
Hence, energy efficiency is responsible for the reduction in demand. That is good.
Gas is replacing coal. That is good, provided that wellhead methane emissions are not
making up the difference.
Bottom line: If the U.S. were the world, the fight against global warming would be
going well .
OK, now for the bad news : The U.S. is not the world . Global warming is global .
The only thing that matters for the world is global emissions. And global emissions
are still going up , thanks to strong increases in emissions in the developing world ,
notably China .
Figures released this week show skyrocketing Chinese coal use . China now burns
almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined :
[graph omitted]
Meanwhile, Indian coal use is also increasing strongly .
If China and the other developing nations cook the world , the world is cooked , no
matter what America or any other country does . China et al. can probably cook the
world without our help , because global warming has "threshold effects" (tipping
points), and because carbon stays in the air for thousands of years.
Bottom line: We will only save the planet if China (and other developing countries)
stop burning so much coal . Any policy action we take to avert global warming will
be ineffective unless it accomplishes this task.
Biodiversity Ans.
BioD Loss Inevitable
Changes in biodiversity are inevitable – the impact can be managed
Ellis 13(Erle C. Ellis, Associate professor of geography and environmental systems, University of Maryland, PhD at Cornell
University, Jon Moen;editor, Umea University, Sweden, “All Is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene”, PLOS ONE is an
international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication and welcomes reports on primary research from any scientific discipline,
1/17/13, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0030535, ACCESSED 7/17/13, KSM)
In the Anthropocene, anthropogenic
changes in biodiversity are neither
temporary nor fully avoidable: they are the inevitable, predictable
and potentially manageable consequences of sustained human
residence and use of land together with the interactive effects of
global climate change[2], [4], [7], [22], [23]. This study presents the first spatially
explicit integrated assessment of the anthropogenic global patterns of vascular plant
species richness created by the sustained actions of human populations and their use of
land at regional landscape scale [24]. To accomplish this,
a set of basic global
models and estimates of anthropogenic species gains and losses
were used to predict contemporary global patterns of plant species
richness within regional landscapes, which we define here by stratifying
Earth's ice-free land surface into equal-area hexagonal grid cells of 7800 km2, a spatial scale
well within the size range of the regional landscape units generally used to characterize
regional and subregional patterns in biodiversity at the global scale [24]. We then use these
modeled and estimated richness data to explore what these can tell us about the global
patterns of plant species richness created by human populations and their use of land
across biomes, anthromes, biogeographic realms, and biodiversity hotspots.
Tek Solves
Investment in protecting biodiversity now
IUCN 13(IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, “France and IUCN Enhance Their Efforts To Protect Global
Diversity”, icun.org, 6/13/13, http://www.iucn.org/?uNewsID=13119, ACCESSED 7/18/13, KSM)
Yesterday IUCN signed a new partnership agreement with France, which aims to
support the Union's global biodiversity conservation work, focusing on sub-Saharan
Africa, oceans and global governance of natural resources. Delphine Batho, Minister of
Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Victorin Lurel, Minister of Overseas France,
Pascal Canfin, Deputy Minister for Development and Anne Paugam, CEO of the French
Development Agency signed the agreement with IUCN, represented by Julia Marton-Lefèvre,
its Director General. The partnership
aims to bring significant progress
in biodiversity conservation that is expected to be achieved by
2016. Initially signed in 2005 and renewed in 2009, the partnership agreement
between France and IUCN has thus been extended for another four years,
thereby strengthening France's commitment to protecting
biodiversity, in accordance with its international engagements
regarding the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD). France will invest
almost 8 million Euros in order to support actions in three major
areas aimed at protecting global biodiversity: The conservation of
biodiversity and the sustainable management of natural resources
in sub-Saharan Africa; The governance of the Oceans and the protection
of the marine, coastal and insular ecosystems, the EU overseas entities;
Global biodiversity governance.
No Impact
No impact – previous mass extinctions prove
NatGeo, ’12 (National Geographic, “Mass Extinctions, What Causes Animal Die
Offs?”, science.nationalgeographic.com, 2012,
https://science.nationalgeographic.com/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction, ACCESSED
7/18/13, KSM)
More than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are
extinct. As new species evolve to fit ever changing ecological niches,
older species fade away. But the rate of extinction is far from constant. At
least a handful of times in the last 500 million years, 50 to more than 90
percent of all species on Earth have disappeared in a geological blink of
the eye. Though these mass extinctions are deadly events, they open up the planet
for new life-forms to emerge. Dinosaurs appeared after one of the
biggest mass extinction events on Earth, the Permian-Triassic extinction about
250 million years ago. The most studied mass extinction, between the Cretaceous and
Paleocene periods about 65 million years ago, killed off the dinosaurs and
made room for mammals to rapidly diversify and evolve.
Mandell ’12 – Erik Mandell is an intern for Global Envision and a current graduate student at Portland State University. He
graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont and has traveled extensively to numerous countries and six of the seven continent,
September 11, 2012, Global Envision, DON'T PANIC, ENVIRONMENTALISTS: A RICHER WORLD CAN BE A BETTER ONE,
http://www.globalenvision.org/2012/09/11/dont-panic-environmentalists-richer-world-can-be-better-one, jj
threatening pollution trends have halted. Specific pollutants,
including DDT, lead, mercury and pesticides, which were predicted to spike in the report,
“haven’t gotten more deadly, and the risk of death from air
pollution is predicted to continue to drop” due to environmental
regulations, Lomborg says. The second problem with “Limits to Growth,” Lomborg argues, is that while its three
primary predicted drivers of collapse have proven incorrect, it shaped how
3. Certain
¶
people think about environmental policy and behavior in a way that led to responses that actually do little to help, and in fact
Supposed solutions are often just
“feel-good gestures that provide little environmental benefit at a
significant cost,” writes Lomborg. Recycling paper cuts demand for tree farming, he says, tree farming which replants
exacerbate problems by focusing away from economic growth.¶
trees because it's profitable to do so. Without that demand, those forests are more likely to be turned into slash-and-burn farming
tracts. Organic farming is less efficient and so drives up agricultural costs, which lowers consumption of healthy produce for those
who can't afford it.¶ What should we have chosen to focus on for well-being instead? Lomborg puts it in simple terms, writing that
“poverty is one of the greatest of all killers, and economic growth is one of the best ways to prevent it.” Painting growth as the
antithesis of improved well-being, as he argues that “Limits to Growth” did, caused people to see growth as the core problem, rather
than an important part of the solution.¶ Alarmism, he said, creates a lot of attention but makes realistic policy solutions hard to
achieve. For example, “Limits to Growth” and other publications directed significant attention to specific pesticides like DDT, but led
He compares the alarmism triggered by “Limits to Growth”
to crying wolf: real, dangerous wolves exist, but they are often overlooked due to false cries. For much of
the world, the wolf at the door isn't environmental cataclysm—it's oldto little action on the broader issue of air pollution.
fashioned poverty.