Canada Shift to China DA
1nc Canada Shift to China DA
Expanded oil production from Latin America will crowd out Canadian
imports to the U.S. and force them to divert oil to China and India
McKenna 13 (4/28/13, Barrie, The Globe and Mail, “The secret threat to Canada’s oil sands,” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/reporton-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/the-secret-threat-to-canadas-oil-sands/article11597201/)
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver likes to pick on Venezuela when he sells the virtues of Canadian oil to Americans.
Buy from a loyal ally, not from “less friendly, less stable countries” with shoddy environmental records, Mr. Oliver warned bluntly in a speech last week
in Washington.
Unfortunately, Venezuelan oil has a lot more in common with Canadian oil sands
Oliver cares to admit.
Supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez attend a campaign rally in Acarigua in the state of Portuguesa, Sept. 24, 2012.
Streetwise
Oil is a commodity, after all. And price typically trumps virtue and a smiling face.
crude than Mr.
The bottom line is that Canada
and Venezuela produce the same kind of heavy crude that’s
now sought by re-engineered U.S. petroleum refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.
So does Mexico.
In recent years, Canada has been winning the competitive battle to feed those
refineries. Alberta oil has steadily displaced Mexican and Venezuelan crude in the
U.S. market.
But there is no certainty that shift will continue. Indeed, Venezuela and Mexico are showing tentative signs of
getting their energy act together.
Canada has benefited from the ineptitude of its energy producing rivals in the
hemisphere. The state-run oil industries in Venezuela and Mexico are hobbled by inefficiencies, poor technology and under-investment in
exploration. In spite of vast reserves, the two countries are producing less oil now than they did five years ago. U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude, for
example, have dropped to less than a million barrels a day from 1.7 million barrels a day in 1997. Oil imports from Mexico have shrunk nearly 30 cent
since 2006.
New drilling technology and foreign investment cash could change all that.
An often overlooked risk for Canada’s oil patch is the possibility that both these
underperforming competitors could start ramping up production and exports
again. That would exacerbate the already-significant price discount on Canadian
crude in the U.S. market. It would also ratchet up pressure on Canadian
producers to access alternative markets in China and India via pipelines to the
West Coast.
Shift to Chinese-Canadian oil routes will enflame China bashing --collapsing US/China relations and collapsing Chinese climate
negotiations
Tu, 2/10/2012 (Kevin Jianjun – senior associate in the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, China should be cautious about the Canadian Oil
Sands, Phoenix News Group, p. http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/02/10/china-should-be-cautious-about-canadian-oil-sands)
First, Canadian
oil sands exports to China could further strain the already turbulent Sino-
U.S. relationship . In 2012, a presidential election year, the Obama administration rejected
TransCanada’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline. The move stemmed from strong Democratic and
environmentalist opposition to the deal—Obama would have risked losing the pro-environment electorate if he approved the plan. Yet, the Democratic
Party has been unable to reach a consensus on this contentious issue, and the U.S. State Department has agreed to allow TransCanada to reapply for a
Keystone XL permit once an alternative route that avoids particularly environmentally sensitive sites is selected. By comparison, almost all
congressional Republicans strongly support the Keystone XL pipeline. Arguing that turning down the pipeline will harm U.S. energy security, kill U.S.
jobs, and unnecessarily benefit China, they have vigorously attacked Obama’s decision. Any
renewed support for the Northern
Gateway pipeline by Chinese national oil companies would shift the focus of the Keystone XL
debate within the United States from the environment to national security—a prevailing fear, especially among congressional
Republicans, is that without Keystone, China will beat the United States to Canada’s rich oil reserves. A desire to shift the debate to national security in
the United States may even be driving the Canadian government’s public support of the Northern Gateway pipeline. Second, large-scale
Chinese imports of output from Canadian oil sands would come with a high price tag for
China’s future international climate negotiations . According to the revised national
Energy Balance Table, China surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest carbon
emitter as early as 2006. In 2009, emissions from Chinese coal combustion alone exceeded total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
According to the International Energy Agency, China is expected to account for 42 percent of global incremental carbon emissions by 2035.
Nevertheless, under the 2011 Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, China
has already said it will join a legally binding
international climate treaty that will be agreed upon by 2015 and will come into force by 2020. As a result,
during future international climate negotiations, China is expected to face increasingly
higher pressure from the international community to retard its spiking carbon
emissions . According to the Canadian Industrial Energy End-Use Data and Analysis Center, carbon-emission intensities of
upstream oil sands production are generally one to four times higher than conventional oil
extraction. Although recent “well-to-wheels” studies have found that the life-cycle emissions of oil-sands-based products are only 5 to 15 percent
higher than those of conventional oil products, such analyses likely overlook the substantial carbon-emissions potential that is embedded in the large
amount of carbon-intensive oil sands byproducts, such as petroleum coke. According to Environment Canada, oil sands development and the
transportation sector are the primary drivers underlying the growth of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. In
order to allow room for
the emissions that would result from oil sands development, and to save $14 billion in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets, the
Canadian government withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol right after the Durban climate conference, without
adequate consideration of the criticism it would receive from the international community. Large-scale Chinese imports of
Canadian oil sands output would correspond to de facto support of Canada’s
environmentally irresponsible climate policy . Not surprisingly, Chinese imports from
Canada’s oil sands would not only be criticized by the international environmental community but would also make the work of
China’s climate negotiation delegation much more difficult in the future . Finally, strong opposition
to the Northern Gateway pipeline from environmental organizations and Canada’s indigenous community is another important issue that China should
not ignore. As early as 2005, PetroChina, the listed arm of China’s largest national oil company, signed a cooperation agreement with Enbridge to
support the Northern Gateway pipeline. However, after Stephen Harper came into power in 2006, Sino-Canadian relations soon deteriorated. Citing a
lack of support from the Canadian federal government, PetroChina withdrew from the pipeline project in 2007 but forgot to mention the other serious
impediment to the deal—strong opposition from both environmental organizations and indigenous communities along the pipeline route. Although the
Canadian government now seems to be supportive of the pipeline, it will still be unable to address environmental concerns and the indigenous
community’s opposition to pipeline construction in the near future. Consequently, Enbridge’s application for the pipeline is expected to be a prolonged
process, which will inevitably increase the financial risks of the project. To enhance China’s energy security, Chinese national oil companies have
significantly expanded their overseas presence in recent years. But, due to the monopoly status they have long enjoyed domestically, these companies
often evaluate overseas projects primarily on the basis of energy security and corporate bottom line. However, many other factors are at play, and such
practices have made securing a return on some Chinese overseas investments problematic at most. Importing
output from Canadian
oil sands is likewise complicated. Chinese leaders should prohibit national oil companies’
involvement in the Northern Gateway pipeline, at least during a U.S. presidential election year, or they risk stirring up a national security
debate in the United States and inflaming Sino-U.S. relations . After the conclusion of the Chinese political power transition by
the end of 2012, the new Chinese leadership should not only fundamentally reform China’s energy-oversight mechanism, which has so far failed to
adequately regulate Chinese national oil companies, but also significantly improve intergovernmental coordination. This would lead Chinese national
oil companies to, in addition to focusing on national energy security and their corporate bottom line, take other important factors such as Sino-U.S.
relations, environmental governance, and the host country’s internal politics into consideration when they make future overseas investment decisions.
Chinese cooperation is a pre-requisite for solving global warming.
Bush III, 10/11/2011 (Richard – director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, The United States and China: A G-2 in the Making, p.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2011/10/11-china-us-g2-bush)
Now there are a couple of “germs of reality” in the Brzezinski-Bergsten G-2 idea. In the sixth month of his presidency, President Barack Obama laid
out a grand vision for bilateral relations between the two countries. On the occasion of the first Strategic and Economic Dialogue, he said,
“The
relationship between the U.S. and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as
important as any bilateral relationship in the world.... If we advance [our mutual] interests through cooperation,
our people will benefit and the world will be better off—because our ability to partner with each other is a prerequisite for progress on many of the most
pressing global challenges.” President Obama and President Hu Jintao have repeatedly stated their “commitment to building a positive, cooperative,
and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century, which serves the interests of the American and Chinese peoples and of the global
community.” Moreover, there
are some “ pressing global challenges ” that stem from the policies of
the two countries. Global macroeconomic imbalances are the result, primarily of the bilateral
economic imbalance between the U nited S tates and China and the related domestic policies. China saves too much and
the United States consumes too much. That asymmetry leads to a large bilateral trade imbalance and the necessity for China to recycle its export
earnings, usually by purchasing American debt. This
bilateral imbalance affects the stability of the global
economy , and the only way to reduce this instability is for China to consume more and the United States to save more. The problem
of climate change is similar. China and the U nited S tates are the two largest emitters of
greenhouse gases. Unless they are willing to tackle the problem, global warming will
continue to endanger the planet.
Unchecked global warming causes extinction.
Tickell 8 (Oliver, Climate Researcher, The Guardian, “On a Planet 4C Hotter, All We Can Prepare for is Extinction”, 8-11,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange)
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the
climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global
warming on this scale
would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of
survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction . The collapse of the polar ice caps would
become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete
with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The
world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel,
the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather
would become extreme and unpredictable, with more
frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced.
Billions would undoubtedly die. Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David
King, who warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable
understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice
melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane –
a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years – captured under melting permafrost is already under way. To see how far this
process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release
of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew
in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many
scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming
could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth.
caused by human emissions
Uniqueness
Canada Will Import Oil to U.S.
Canada importing oil to U.S. now
Krauss and Rosenthal 10 (5/18/10, Clifford and Elizabeth, NY Times, “Reliance on Oil Sands Grows Despite
Environmental Risks,” http://www.imrltd.ca/news/reliance%20on%20%Sands%20Grows%20Despite%20Environmental%20Risks.pdf)
Canadian oil sands are expected to become America’s top source of imported oil
this year, ¶ surpassing conventional Canadian oil imports and roughly equaling the combined imports from ¶ Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,
according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a ¶ consulting firm. ¶ In a new report, it projects that oil sands production
could make up as much as 36 percent of ¶ United States oil imports by 2030. “The
uncertainty and the slowdown in drilling permits in the ¶ gulf really underscores
the growing importance of Canadian oil sands, which over the last ¶ decade have gone from being a fringe energy
source to being one of strategic importance,” said ¶ Daniel Yergin, an oil historian and chairman of IHS CERA. “Looking ahead, its
importance is ¶ only going to get bigger.”
Links / Internal Links
Canada Can Shift to China
Canada can shift and start exporting to China
Madhani ’12, Aamer, National correspondent at Chicago Tribune, “Canada seeks alternative route for Keystone XL pipeline”, Jan. 9th,
2012.
(http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/01/obama-canada-alternative-route-keystone-xl/1#.T-MBgbWcATZ.)
While President Obama
wants to delay a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline until
after the 2012 election, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is stepping up efforts to
explore an alternative pipeline that would allow Canada to ship their tar sands oil
to China . On Tuesday, an independent federal panel in Canada will begin its review of a
proposed western pipeline that would carry the oil from Alberta to the coast of
British Columbia. From British Columbia, the oil would be shipped on tankers to
oil-hungry China. "I think it's essential , based on what's occurred with Keystone XL,
that this country does diversify its energy-export markets," Harper said in a radio interview on
Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Canada will send the oil to China
Broder and Frosch 12/23/2011 (John M.- Reporter at The New York Times, and Dan- Reporter at The New York
Times, Politics Stamps Out Oil Sands Pipeline, Yet It Seems Likely to Endure, New York Times p. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/us/provisionmay-halt-keystone-pipeline-but-oil-is-still-likely-to-flow.html?_r=1)
It is only after 2020, when production of Canadian crude is expected to double from today’s 1.5 million barrels a day, that the pipeline crunch becomes
severe. Canadian
companies are already planning to expand current pipelines and build new
ones to carry oil to the coast of British Columbia for export to Asia. Notably, however, one such proposed project,
Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia, has been stopped for at least a year by the Canadian government
because of strong opposition on environmental grounds from local landowners and indigenous populations. Nonetheless, Stephen Harper, the
Canadian prime minister, said in a television interview this week that if
the United States blocked the Keystone
pipeline, Canada would look to China as a market for its oil. “I am very serious about selling our
oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to China, ” Mr. Harper said.
Impacts
2nc Ocean Ecosystems Impact
China-Canada oil tankers will kill the ocean environment --- including
plankton and sea lions
Byers, 5/17/2012 (Michael – professor at the University of British Columbia, and Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International
Law, Canada’s oil-sands bonanza could mean disaster for Alaska’s coastline, The Seattle Times, p.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018232475_guest18byers.html)
Twenty-three years after the Exxon Valdez spilled more than half a million barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, another
threat looms
over Alaska's remote and beautiful coastline — in the form of heavy oil exports from Canada to
China. Since the Earth is a sphere, the shortest shipping route from Western Canada to China passes
through the Aleutian Islands at a narrow strait called Unimak Pass. Two pipeline companies want to dilute tar-like bitumen from the
Alberta oil sands with natural gas condensate so that it can be pumped west to the coast of British Columbia. The first plan — a new pipeline called
"Northern Gateway" — would carry 525,000 barrels per day to a terminal just south of the Alaska Panhandle, where it would be loaded onto
supertankers that would sail westward toward Unimak Pass. The second plan involves tripling the capacity of an existing pipeline to Vancouver so it
can carry 850,000 barrels per day, and adding compressor stations so it can handle the diluted but still heavy bitumen. The oil from this "Trans
Mountain Pipeline" would also be shipped through Unimak Pass. Unimak Pass is just 10 miles wide. Five thousand ships already use it each year, most
of them large container and bulk-cargo vessels. The
tidal mixing of cold nutrient-rich waters in and around
Unimak Pass supports massive amounts of plankton , the basis of a rich food chain .
The area is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to 40 million
seabirds . It's also home to a wealth of marine mammals , including endangered Steller sea
lions, northern fur seals, sea otters and numerous species of whales. This ecosystem has considerable economical value.
The Bering Sea just north of Unimak Pass supports the largest commercial fishery in the United States, worth $1 billion annually. Severe
weather and sea conditions are common in Unimak Pass, along with powerful tidal flows. In
December 2004, the Selendang Ayu, a 738-foot-long Malaysian cargo ship, had just cleared the pass when it lost power in a storm. The vessel was
blown aground and broke apart, spilling 335,000 gallons of fuel oil. Almost none of the oil was recovered due to the remote location, bad weather and
the near-complete absence of oil-spill-cleanup equipment and personnel in the Aleutians. Complicating
matters, the U.S. State
Department has long accepted that Unimak Pass is an "international strait" that foreign vessels can enter
without permission or regulatory restriction. As a result, there are no shipping lanes, or notification or pilotage
requirements. There are a few steps the federal government could take. It could station a large rescue tug and
several oil-spill-cleanup vessels at nearby Dutch Harbor. It could ask the International Maritime Organization to designate Unimak Pass as a
"particularly sensitive sea area," which would enable the U.S. to require advance notification of passage and adherence to vessel traffic separation rules.
It could seek to persuade shipping companies to voluntarily route oil tankers well south of the Aleutians, though this would increase both distance and
none of these steps is likely to prevent hundreds of oil tankers from
transiting Unimak Pass each year. For the root of the problem is not the tankers, but Canada's disregard for the
environmental impacts of developing and selling its oil sands to China — impacts that include the
near-inevitability of another Exxon Valdez-type spill in U.S. waters , this time in Unimak Pass.
cost. In the end, however,
Plankton losses trigger ecosystem collapse that risks extinction
Alois and Cheng 7 (Paul and Victoria, The Arlington Institute, “Keystone Species Extinction Overview”, July,
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/wbp/species-extinction/443)
The most recent paradigm in ecological sciences posits that environmental change happens in a rapid, non-linear fashion. This paper will examine
certain species of organisms that have the potential, once their numbers are low enough, to trigger a sudden
collapse in the cycles that provide human beings with food. 1. Aquatic Systems 1.1. Plankton Plankton is a blanket term
for many species of microorganisms that drift in open water and make up the base of the aquatic food chain. There are two types of
plankton, phytoplankton and zooplankton. Phytoplankton make their own food through the process of photosynthesis, while zooplankton feed on
phytoplankton. Zooplankton are in turn eaten by larger animals. In this way these tiny organisms sustain all life in the oceans .
According to the NASA, phytoplankton populations in the northern oceans have declined by as much as 30% since 1980.[4] While the cause of this
decline remains uncertain, there are several theories. [Continues] The
preservation of the fundamental cornerstones of
the ecosystem must become a foremost goal in human advancement, and it is clear that their destruction must be stopped.
Plankton supporting abundant sea life are dying, fish that is a staple part of the diet of many people around the world are being
fished to extinction, bees pollinating crops are threatened by many factors, and topsoil sustaining agriculture is disappearing. To solve these problems,
people must also address bigger problems caused by human activity such as climate change, the destruction of habitats, and the depletion of resources
due to careless use. If any of these
species examined should be reduced to a low enough level, consequences for
our own survival would be profound. The loss of these actors is happening rapidly, and it is crucial that this be stopped and reversed
as soon as possible.
Sea lions are a keystone species --- loss causes ocean biodiversity
collapse
Carnegie Mellon 2003 (Biodiversity, p. http://telstar.ote.cmu.edu/environ/m3/s5/02biodiversity.shtml)
There are certain species whose role in maintaining the balance of an ecosystem is so
significant that they are known as the "keystone species." A keystone is the stone at the summit of an arch that
supports all the other stones and keeps the entire arch from collapsing. Therefore, the keystone species in an ecosystem is a species that supports many
other species in that ecosystem. The
removal of the keystone species would result in quick
and noticeable change or
degradation of an ecosystem. The sea otter has been referred to as a keystone species in western
Alaskan coastal ecosystems by the US Department of the Interior and the US Geological Survey. Because of a decline in the
population of Steller sea lions and harbor seals in Alaskan waters, killer whales have been feeding on sea
otters. The sea otter is considered keystone because it feeds on sea urchins, who in turn feed on
kelp. Without the sea otter, sea urchin populations would rise, leading to probable destruction of
the kelp forests, disrupting large portions of that coastal community . Without the otters to keep
the sea urchin population in check, the habitat of the entire community would be altered significantly.
Extinction --- precautionary principle is a side constraint
Craig, Winter 2003 (Robin – associate professor of law at the Indiana University School of Law, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, p. lexis)
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 ecosystems provide. 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.” 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.” Coral reef ecosystems are particularly
dependent on their biodiversity. 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. Thus,
maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Nonuse 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 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, 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.” 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, slowly at first, then collapsed with 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. 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.
Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the U nited S tates should protect fullyfunctioning marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result
--- XT: Shipments to China Kill Biodiversity
China-Canada oil connection causes spills and leaks – Kills biological
diversity
Romm ‘12, Edited by Joe Romm, we cover climate science, solutions and politics. Columnist Tom Friedman calls us "the indispensable blog"
and Time magazine named us one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010.", “Pipeline or Pipe Dream? A China-Bound Alterntaive to Keystone XL is No Easy
Feat,” Mar 23, 2012.
(http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/23/450615/pipeline-or-pipe-dream-a-china-bound-alternative-to-keystone-xl-is-no-easyfeat/?mobile=nc. JMC.) Accessed 7/11/12.
But on
inspection the China-bound alternative to the Keystone XL—the Enbridge “Northern
Gateway” pipeline—faces hurdles as big if not bigger than Keystone XL. Some groups in Canada call the fight over its
approval the “defining environmental battle” of modern times, potentially determining which limits will be placed on the Canadian federal
government’s energy and environment policies. The pipeline is now in the midst of a Canadian federal environmental assessment that will go at least to
late 2013. This is later than the original approval process the U.S. State Department would have taken before Congress forced the Obama
administration’s hand to reject the Keystone XL last January.¶ Here’s
a look at the rough road ahead for the project.¶
pipeline would
need to cross the Rockies west from Alberta to British Columbia going 1,172
kilometers up and down steep rock faces to ports where it will hook up to oceangoing oil tankers on the coast. This rugged terrain makes a rupture even more
likely than in Keystone XL’s pipeline, which would have traversed a relatively flat terrain. A spill would put
British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, an ecological gem, as well as healthy
wild salmon rivers and a diverse ocean ecosystem at risk.¶ From there the tar sands
oil would be loaded onto supertankers, each one carrying eight times the volume
of the entire Exxon Valdez oil spill. The tankers would need to navigate through
treacherous waters like the Hecate Straight and Queen Charlotte Sound, part of
which is considered the fourth-most dangerous body of water in the world, a
region prone to hurricane-force winds and waves several stories high.¶ Putting
coastal jobs at risk with little in return¶ But nature isn’t the only thing a spill
would jeopardize, and this brings us to the second big hurdle facing the project: money. According to the British Columbia
government the seafood industry and ocean-based tourism together create 45,000
jobs. Those 45,000 jobs depend on a clean and healthy ocean ecosystem. An oil
spill could ruin this coastal economy as the Gulf states affected by BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster know only too well.¶
Crossing the Rockies¶ First, there are some pretty big physical hurdles. As big as mountains, you could say. The
And what is Enbridge offering in return? Apparently 217 long-term jobs for northern British Columbia—104 operating the pipeline and 113 in
associated marine services. That means 200 jobs would be at risk in the region for every one job created by the project according to Enbridge’s own
numbers.¶ Further, Enbridge estimates only 1,150 long-term jobs “throughout the Canadian economy” as a result of the project. Given those figures we
can imagine the fight for approval through British Columbia to be an even heavier lift than we saw in the United States where fewer jobs were at risk
against a larger number of jobs that could have been created by Keystone XL.
The alternative to Keystone is oil tankers to China --- increases the
risk of oil spills and environmental damage.
Faulkner, 5/7/2012 (Chris – founder, president and CEO of Breitling Oil and Gas, Bringing the Keystone Pipeline Debate Back into
Focus, Oil Online, p. http://www.oilonline.com/blog/main.asp?Tid=45&id=252&cat )
You say neither, I say nyther: killing Keystone won’t be a win for the environment
Another hotly contested element of the Keystone Pipeline is the potential environmental impact. It amazes me that so much coverage
of the
environmental concerns fails to mention that the US Department of State Bureau of Oceans and
International Environmental and Scientific Affairs has stated that the project will be safer
than any other domestic pipeline under current regulations. (There’s already a network of
more than 100,000 miles of crude trunk and gathering pipeline in the US; the Keystone pipeline will
add about 1,700 miles more.) What many in the media also fail to consider is that the alternatives
to the pipeline—tankers and trains—are far more destructive from an emissions standpoint and just as
dangerous in relation to potential spills. And let’s not forget this simple fact: whether or not we allow this pipeline, Canada
will be increasing production from its tar sands and shipping that oil by whatever method is available. Those
hoping to stop the continued exploitation of the Canadian tar sands by blocking the pipeline will only
succeed in keeping that oil from reaching US refineries, with the likely result of China taking
advantage
course, creating
of our nation’s short-sightedness. And how
will Canada’s oil reach China? Overseas tankers, of
a greater risk of oil spills as well as additional emissions. Once again, the environment loses, as
do American workers and consumers.
New oil sands tankers will reduce biodiversity, cause oil spills, and
create cancer¶
Weyler 5/8 (2013. Rex. “Why more tar sands pipelines will only bring disaster for B.C. and Canada” Rex Weyler is an American / Canadian
author, journalist and ecologist. He has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher at newspapers and magazines, and occasionally as a commentator on
Canadian television.)¶ http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/why-more-tar-sands-pipelines-will-only-bring-disaster-bc-and-canada¶
Canada once had a vibrant manufacturing sector, growing economy and about 20 oil tankers per year passing through Burrard Inlet in B.C., mostly
delivering refined products to coastal communities. Today, Canada has a declining manufacturing sector, growing unemployment, and over 70 crude
oil tankers per year transiting Burrard Inlet. What happened?¶ The tar sands happened. Canada took the lure of globalization and raw resource export.
Over a decade ago, the world's
largest oil companies decided to exploit the black bitumen tar buried under
Alberta's boreal forest, and to ship it from Canada with minimal local economic benefit.¶ Since
then, the number of oil tankers has tripled and meanwhile, B.C. lost three of its four oil refineries. If American billionaire Richard Kinder gets his way,
oil tanker traffic will increase to some 400 tankers per year through Burrard Inlet, more than one per day, shipping crude oil to refineries in the U.S.
and China.¶ Canadian citizens are asking: What does this do for our economy and our ecological integrity?¶ Tankers and tar sands ¶ Consider the
ecological impact: The 700,000-barrel Aframax tankers now traversing Vancouver harbour and Georgia Strait carry the world's dirtiest, most toxic,
most carbon-intensive crude oil, heavy bitumen tar diluted with petroleum condensate. The diluted bitumen or "dilbit," travels from the Alberta tar
sands, through the Trans-Mountain pipeline, to Kinder Morgan's Westridge Terminal in Burnaby.¶ To mine the tar sands, oil companies first remove
the boreal forest "overburden." Some 150,000 square-kilometers of forest are already gone. Each day, the tar sands miners draw over 300 million
gallons of water from the Athabasca River and aquifers, and boil the water to blast bitumen from the sand. They return about 10 percent to the river.
The rest is toxic sludge.¶ ¶ ¶ They send the black sludge waste into "tailings" lakes that cover more surface area than the combined cities of Vancouver
Richmond, and Burnaby. In the last decade, the tar sands have produced over 8 billion tons of toxic waste. In 2008, 1,600 migrating ducks landed in
the sludge pits, suffocated, and drowned. The
impact.¶ Tar sands bitumen
oil companies want to quadruple this production and
is considered dirty because it is carbon-intensive to produce and toxic in the
environment. Tar sands mining burns about a third of the energy it produces, seven-times the energy and carbon cost of a conventional oil well. The
heavy bitumen is then diluted so it will flow through pipes.¶ The pipelines
invariably rupture and spill. In the US, between 2010 and 2013, an average of 1.6 pipeline spills
occurred every day . Dilbit contains sulphur, asphaltics and benzenes, a thick toxic tar that sinks in water
and suffocates and poisons bottom-dwelling plants and animals. The lighter polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs) dissolve in the water and kill off the micro organisms at the foundation of the food chain. The dilutants -- solvents such as
condensate or naphtha -- separate in the marine environment; volatile gases rise into the air, causing headaches nausea, lung disease and cancer.¶ The
Indigenous populations in Alberta -- Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikisow, Lubicon Cree, and other First Nations -- have complained of these symptoms and
deadly ailments. In February of 2009, the Alberta Cancer Board published "Cancer Incidence in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta 1995-2006," showing
deformed fish downstream from the tar sands, declining waterbird counts, and rising human cancer rates.¶ Finally, the oil that does not spill onto the
land or water spills into our atmosphere when the bitumen oil and coke are burned. Besides releasing more carbon in the mining stage, the bitumen
coke produces 4-5-times the carbon of conventional oil or coal when it is burned.¶ Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon-dioxide (CO2) in Earth's
atmosphere -- which averaged about 230 parts-per-million (ppm) for the last 800,000 years -- is now approaching 400ppm, already heating Earth's
atmosphere by about 1-degree-celsius. The tar sands contain enough carbon -- 240 gigatons -- to add another 120 ppm, melt Earth's permafrost and
poles, raise sea levels, and send Earth into runaway heating.¶ One may imagine that there exists some terrific economic benefit for us to so willingly
destroy our forests, poison our air and water, poison our citizens, and bake the Earth.¶ Economy of the tar sands ¶ Digging up a natural resource and
selling it for cash might sound like a good idea, but it is never that simple.¶ The first financial blow to any resource colony arrives with the now-famous
economic "Dutch disease," named in the Netherlands during the North Sea oil boom. Dutch disease is simple: When a nation with a healthy
manufacturing sector exploits a cheap resource for cash, its national currency rises in value. This increase in exchange-rates makes all of its exports
more expensive to customers, who turn elsewhere. The former manufacturing sector erodes. The country loses jobs and economic stability, so when the
resource boom is over, or when commodity prices drop, the nation is worse off, not better. That's Dutch disease. And Canada has it bad.¶ The tar sands
boom over the last decade pushed up the Canadian dollar value, and right on cue, Canadian manufacturing declined. Last year, the global trade
watchdog, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the tar sands boom and commodity price fluctuations
has left Canada with a floundering economy. "The export-oriented manufacturing sector had by 2011 shrunk sharply," the OECD reported.¶ The OECD
encouraged Canada to restore its non-resource economy to maintain high employment and equitable wealth distribution. They noted that while Alberta
was making money from the tar sands, the rest of Canada suffered from a hollowed-out manufacturing and export sector. Now however, since
commodity prices have dropped, even Alberta is suffering the curse of Dutch disease.¶ In March this year, the Alberta government announced that it
would cut spending and borrow billions to cope with declining revenues, due to falling crude oil prices, exactly as Dutch disease warns. Alberta -- only a
decade after former premier Ralph Klein paid off the province's $23-billion debt -- is in debt again and going deeper. Alberta expects to borrow $12.7billion over the next three years.¶ In the same month that Alberta promised more debt, Canada lost 54,500 jobs, the biggest job decline in four years.
Half those lost jobs disappeared from the manufacturing sector, once again, just as Dutch disease predicts.¶ Meanwhile, to ship oil to China and
America, Canada risks oil spills that would cost billions of dollars to clean up, destroy the $14-billion annual west coast tourism industry, obliterate a
healthy fishing industry, and shut down our ports. A single oil spill near Vancouver or Victoria harbours could cost this region $40 billion dollars.¶
Such a deal¶ So there you have it: Canada's Conservative government -- and B.C.'s Liberal government -- appear willing to destroy Canada's boreal
forest, poison its water tables,
pollute its rivers, kill its wildlife, cause cancer in the population,
risk a devastating oil spill, destroy tourism and fishing, erode its manufacturing
sector, lose jobs, and hollow out its economy
companies and pipeline companies. What a great a deal.
in exchange for … what? Big profits for a few international oil
AT: Environment Defense / Oil Spills Defense
Oil Sands Spills Impossible to Clean, Destroys Environment, stops
biodiversity, and causes health problems
Greenwald 2013 (Noah. Endangered Species Director, directs the Center’s efforts to protect new species under the Endangered
Species Act, to ensure that imperiled species receive effective protections and that we have the strongest Endangered Species Act possible. He also
works to educate the public about the importance of protecting biodiversity and about the multitude of threats to the survival of North American
wildlife. He holds a bachelor of science in ecology from the Evergreen State College and a master's in forest ecology and conservation from the
University of Washington. Before he joined the Center in 1997, Noah worked as a field biologist.June 25. “New Study of Tar Sands Pipeline Spills Fails
to Evaluate Cleanup Questions” http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2013/tar-sands-06-25-2013.html)¶
A National Academy of Sciences report released today on tar sands pipelines fails to evaluate the
difficulty of cleaning tar
sands spills, instead focusing only on whether tar sands crude is more likely to cause spills than
other heavy crude oil. The study did not consider the safety record of currently operating tar sands pipelines or investigate the
difficulty of cleaning up inevitable spills. ¶ “The National Academy of Sciences study sidestepped the most important question about tar sands pipeline
spills: How
do we clean them up?” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“The truth is, we can’t . We’ve seen it in the Kalamazoo River and in Arkansas: Tar sands spills have
disastrous consequences and can’t be fixed. Comparing tar sands spills with other oil spills is apples and oranges. It
doesn’t make sense.” ¶ The study comes at a time when approval of the Keystone XL pipeline is hotly contested, yet avoids the question of the
probability of whether that pipeline will spill. The State Department’s own analysis shows that Keystone is likely to spill an average of 1.9 times per
year. An already existing tar sands pipeline called Keystone 1, billed as the safest pipeline in history when it was built in 2010, spilled 12 times in its first
year of operation, more than any pipeline in U.S. history. ¶ Other tar sands pipelines have also spilled with disastrous consequences. The ongoing cost
of cleaning up the massive Kalamazoo, Mich. spill is now approaching $1 billion, and experts are not sure whether habitat there will ever be restored.
Three months ago a tar sands oil spill in a Mayflower, Ark. neighborhood forced residents to abandon their homes and made residents sick by exposing
the community to carcinogenic benzene. Conventional
crude floats on the surface of water but when
tar sands oil spills the heavy bitumen sinks and the benzene containing diluents evaporate,
rendering traditional spill clean-up technology useless, and exposing people
nearby to dangerous vapors. ¶ “We’ve already seen that moving tar sands oil is anything but safe,” said Greenwald. “Spills are
only one of many reasons President Obama should reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The continued development of tar sands is a terrible idea and is
sure to have disastrous impacts on our climate, freshwater, land and air.Ӧ The National Academy of Sciences study was mandated by Congress in
response to the disastrous spill of tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River. Rather than evaluating the safety record of TransCanada or the relative safety of
Keystone XL, the study only considered whether pipelines moving tar sands oil are more likely to spill than those carrying heavy crude.¶ The report was
released just before the president’s speech on climate change, in which he said that Keystone XL will only be approved if it does not increase
greenhouse gas emissions. Extraction and refinement of tar sands oil produces 2 to 3 times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil and
gas operations, and the tar sands as a whole represent a massive new source of fossil fuels; there is no question that Keystone XL will fuel further
development of Alberta’s tar sands, with disastrous consequences for the climate.¶ “If President Obama is serious about battling climate change, his
first step must be to say no to Keystone XL,” said Greenwald. “Tar
climate and our planet.”
sands oil causes unacceptable harm to our
2nc Iran Prolif Impact
Shifting exports to China breaks the U.S.-Iran sanctions and leads to
Iran nuclear proliferation and U.S.-Iran war.
Glavin 12—columnist with the OttawaCitizen, author of Come From the Shadows: The long and lonely struggle for peace in Afghanistan
(“Canada’s oil: implications for Iran sanctions, China, and the United States,” The Sentry, 9/28/12, http://jinsa.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/canadasoil-implications-for-iran-sanctions-china-and-the-united-states/)
A bid by a massive Chinese government-owned energy conglomerate for one of
Canada’s largest energy extraction companies threatens to radically undermine
U.S.-led sanctions on Iran.¶ Lost in the dust-up over the Obama administration’s decision to delay approval of a portion of the
Keystone XL pipeline from the Alberta oil patch to the Texas Gulf coast, in July the China National Offshore Oil
Corporation (CNOOC) tendered a jaw-dropping $15.1 billion for the $6.5 billion
Calgary-based Nexen Inc., a major Canadian energy extraction firm with holdings in Alberta, the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and
elsewhere. Few in Washington are paying attention to the national security implications.¶ Canada’s official review of the CNOOC bid is expected to
conclude next month. Because of Nexen’s minor American holdings, the White House also has to approve the deal. No Chinese government entity has
attempted anything as audacious as this since CNOOC’s failed 2005 attempt to devour Unocal for $18.5 billion.¶ The Oil and Gas Journal puts Canada’s
crude oil reserves at 173 billion barrels, ranking behind only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Almost all that oil comes in the form of bitumen, in Alberta’s
oil sands. Canada’s National Energy Board reckons bitumen production will triple over the next 25 years and crude oil available for export will more
than triple. Canada’s Conservative government intends to exceed even those expectations, and Ottawa knows full well it will need Beijing’s money to
make that happen.¶ The CNOOC jumble should be understood in light of a dangerous confabulation making the rounds in Canada and the United
States, which goes something like so:
The American-led campaign of sanctions on the oil-rich
Khomeinist regime in Iran is posing an effective encumbrance upon the
ayatollahs’ efforts to acquire nuclear-weapons capability ; thus, any Israeli
consideration of unilateral military action against Tehran is just crazy talk. ¶ The most
Obama administration has
issued Iran-sanctions oil waivers to Japan, India, Taiwan, Turkey, Malaysia, South
Africa, ten European countries, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and to China. If it seems a
mystery that American sanctions aren’t making any difference, it shouldn’t. The
main reason is Beijing. China is Iran’s main trading partner. Beijing is Tehran’s
biggest oil buyer. Oil is the Tehran regime’s main source of revenue.¶ If it seems a mystery that
obvious fly in that ointment is that Tehran hasn’t stopped trying, and sanctions aren’t biting. The
American sanctions aren’t making any difference, it shouldn’t. The main reason is Beijing. China is Iran’s main trading partner. Beijing is Tehran’s
biggest oil buyer. Oil is the Tehran regime’s main source of revenue.¶ CNOOC’s Nexen bid has even ended up contributing to another urban legend
making the rounds – the one that would have us believe that Obama is recklessly disregarding his oil-rich Canadian suitors. But the hard truth of it is
that Canada
decided to grant Beijing the privilege of developing Alberta’s oil sands
years before Obama’s non-decision on Keystone. Ottawa has given fervent and
concurrent support for the proposed $6 billion Enbridge Inc. pipeline from
Alberta to Canada’s west coast. Prime Minister Harper has called the Enbridge plan Canada’s gateway to energy prosperity in
Asia, even though Enbridge is all about multi-billion-dollar intimacies with the same Chinese state-owned enterprises that are Tehran’s gateway to a
nuclear bomb.¶ Inconveniently for everyone concerned, what all this is likely to mean is that the s plendid
Canadian oil that
Americans are expected to buy will have to be purchased from Beijing-owned
multinationals that also happen to be deeply embedded in Tehran’s secrecyshrouded energy sector, which could fatally weaken North American and
European sanctions.¶ Before its way-above-market bid for Nexen Inc., CNOOC Ltd. was already entrenched in Canada’s oil patch
while its parent company, the CNOOC Group, was pursuing arrangements with Tehran to develop Iran’s North Pars gas fields. Petro-China is doing a
roaring business in Alberta while a sister subsidiary is attending to multi-billion-dollar arrangements with the National Iranian Gas Export Company.
Sinopec (the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp.), Iran’s biggest oil customer, took possession of a $4.65 billion veto-holding position on the board of
Canadian oil sands giant Syncrude before the Keystone pipeline was much more than a glimmer in Prime Minister Harper’s eye.¶ There are only two
clear Canadian voices of opposition on the subject. One is Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who objects to China’s undemocratic and Tehranbankrolling government exacerbating Canada’s already-overheated oil sands expansion (which will only further accelerate greenhouse gas emissions).
The other is the former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler, a prominent international champion of the proposition that the way to avoid war with
Iran is to enforce crippling sanctions against the Khomeinist regime. “To the extent that we’ve now got sanctions-violating companies here in Canada
that are doing business in Iran, the implications are serious,” Cotler says. “They are very, very serious.” There are also members of Prime Minister
Harper’s own cabinet who aren’t happy with any of this, but they’re not complaining in public.¶ Canada’s
sanctions laws are
easily evaded. There is nothing to stop Beijing from setting up one state subsidiary
to do business in Calgary and another to do business in Tehran. And what to do
when the United States doesn’t take its own ideas seriously? “You can do business
with Tehran or with Texas” is the way American sanctions on Iran are supposed to
work. But they’re not working that way.¶ The “unmistakable message” the Canadian government is giving the United
States: “You’re yesterday, China is today, and if you want to do any oil business with us then you’ll have to be prepared to do business with the Canadian
subsidiaries of Beijing’s overseas acquisitions arms, which also happen to be the most notorious Iran sanctions-busters in the world.”¶ “The Obama
administration’s decision earlier this summer to exempt all 20 of Iran’s major oil customers from biting new sanctions has sent the unmistakable
message to Asian nations that—despite the official bluster emanating out of the White House—it is still possible to do business with both Washington
and Tehran simultaneously.” That’s how Iran expert Ilan Berman put it, writing in the Wall Street Journal.¶ And here’s the “unmistakable message” the
Canadian government is giving the United States: “You’re
yesterday, China is today, and if you want to do
any oil business with us then you’ll have to be prepared to do business with the
Canadian subsidiaries of Beijing’s overseas acquisitions arms, which also happen
to be the most notorious Iran sanctions-busters in the world.”¶ Here’s how this state of affairs has
come to pass. Before the crash of 2008, American demand for Canadian crude had already reached its peak. American markets were already taking
more than 90 per cent of Canada’s oil exports – more than two million barrels a day, roughly double what it had been 20 years earlier. Canada is still
the United States’ largest foreign oil supplier and the United States still takes the bulk of Canada’s production. But a technological revolution in
hydrological fracturing and the sudden accessibility of huge domestic American shale oil deposits have further dampened U.S. appetites for Canadian
crude.¶ For Canada, the “emerging economies” were always where the growth was going to be. India and China eclipse everything else. But Beijing has
something more than merely a voracious appetite for energy: money.¶ Five years before the White House delayed its approval of TransCanada’s
Keystone XL pipeline and two years before the crash of 2008, Canada’s Conservative government had already settled on a policy predicated on the
obvious: the American economy isn’t big enough to accommodate any serious expansion of Canada’s oil sands. It will have to be Chinese markets, and it
will have to be Beijing’s money. In fact, the whole point of the Keystone XL pipeline is to transport Canadian crude to energy terminals on the U.S. Gulf
Coast for export to the world market and not to bring the price of gasoline down for American consumers.¶ The whole point of the Keystone XL pipeline
is to transport Canadian crude to energy terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast for export to the world market and not to bring the price of gasoline down for
American consumers.¶ It was back in 2006 that Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared his intention to turn Canada into an “energy superpower.” It
was going to take a lot of money to get all that bitumen out of the ground and it would take high oil prices to make the whole thing work. Conveniently,
Beijing happened to be sitting on an immense pile of foreign-exchange reserves. The latest data suggests that Beijing holds about $1.73 trillion in U.S.
securities alone.¶ Canada’s oil companies have been largely foreign-owned for decades, but since 2004, Beijing’s state-owned enterprises have been
easily outpacing American companies in their investments in Canada’s oil sands. Petro-China, Sinopec, CNOOC and their sister corporations – all run
by the Chinese Communist Party, which is adamantly opposed to U.S. led sanctions – have acquired at least $30 billion in Canadian energy-sector
properties.¶ These takeovers include Canadian companies operating mainly overseas. The China National Petroleum Corporation got its hands around
the throat of Petro-Kazakhstan by taking over a Canadian exploration company in 2005 – last December, the repression of a strike by Kazakh oil
workers left 14 protestors dead. Sinopec Syria, which is a key means by which Bashar al-Assad finances his ongoing slaughter of Syrian rebels, gained
its foothold in Syria’s Oudeh oilfields by purchasing a Canadian company for a mere $2 billion in 2008. And so on.¶ Beijing’s buying spree in Canada’s
oil fields is a function of the “going out (zouchuqu) strategy” adopted by the Chinese Communist Party in 2000. CNOOC’s $15.1 billion bid for Nexen
Inc. would be Beijing’s biggest takeover attempt to date. U.S. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi’s cautious expressions of concern about the deal
contain far more gravitas than anything Prime Minister Harper’s ostensibly pro-American government has had to say on the subject.¶ Canadians and
Americans are perfectly entitled to circulate amusing urban legends amongst themselves if that’s what it takes to make politics interesting. But
if
it’s a war with Iran we’d rather avoid and a nuclear-armed Khomeinist tyranny
we’d prefer not to have to confront, the CNOOC-Nexen bid might present an
opportunity to stop telling ourselves fairy tales and start getting serious for once
about sanctions, and about Beijing.
2nc Turns Hegemony
Canadian oil will rapidly spur Chinese growth over the US
Kelly 3-9-13 (Stephen Kelly, professor of public policy and Canadian studies at Duke Sanford, “China Vs Keystone In Canadian Oil Sands,
http://news.sanford.duke.edu/news-type/commentary/2013/china-keystone-showdown-over-pipeline)
A Chinese oil company last week bought a small but significant player in the Canadian oil sands, the third largest deposit of accessible oil in the world
and source of more than a quarter of U.S. oil imports.ｶ The sale of Nexen Inc. to the Chinese National Offshore Oil Co. for $15.1 billion was the largest
Chinese overseas acquisition ever, and continues a patient, strategic Chinese campaign to secure energy assets in North America.ｶ Also last week, the
U.S. State Department issued its latest environmental report on the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring more of that oil sands crude
from Canada to Nebraska and on to the U.S. Gulf Coast.ｶ Americans
have a love-hate relationship with
Canadian oil, as thousands of anti-Keystone demonstrators in Washington
recently showed. The Chinese are clearly not so conflicted.ｶ What last week’s events
made obvious is that if anyone thinks Canadian oil will stay in the ground if we just
don’t build Keystone XL, they are wrong.ｶ National oil companies like Chinese
National Offshore Oil, which is 70 percent owned by the People’s Republic of
China, already control more than 80 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Of the 20
percent that remain open to market-based development, 60 percent are in Canada,
almost all in the oil sands region of Alberta.ｶ That fact has not escaped the
attention of China, whose rapid growth has been fueled by quantum leaps in oil
consumption .ｶ Until 1993, China was self-sufficient in oil. Today it has to import almost 60 percent of the oil it consumes, and is the
world’s second largest oil user after the United States. By 2035, the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects China to import 75 percent of its
oil needs.ｶ This
voracious thirst for petroleum has driven the Chinese to sign long-term
oil contracts with countries such as Venezuela, another traditional U.S. oil
supplier, and aggressively explore opportunities in energy-rich and investmentfriendly Canada.As one Canadian energy executive who has worked closely with Chinese oil companies explained, China has
piles of cash locked in U.S. treasury notes that it regards as declining assets.
Investing this cash in energy resources abroad is a no-brainer, both for their
intrinsic value and for the technological expertise Chinese companies can gain.ｶ In
fact, said this executive, the only question Chinese companies have asked him was how many Canadian assets they could buy before eliciting a negative
reaction, as Chinese National Offshore Oil did in the United States in 2005 when it tried unsuccessfully to acquire the U.S. energy company Unocal for
$18.5 billion.ｶ Since then, Chinese companies have avoided scrutiny by purchasing only minority interests in Canadian energy companies —
PetroChina, for example, bought a partial stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Co. in 2010 — or buying only the smallest operators.ｶ The Nexen deal
represents a shift in that strategy. Nexen is the biggest Canadian energy company to fall entirely under Chinese ownership. While it is not the largest
player in the oil sands, its takeover means Chinese
national oil companies now own about 10 percent
of Canadian oil sands operations.ｶ And few expect their buying spree to stop there.ｶ
Meanwhile, the 875-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would bring that same Canadian oil to the United States remains under review in the U.S. State
Department, which must grant it a presidential permit because it crosses an international border.ｶ The State Department released its latest
environmental report on a rerouted Keystone XL. The 2,000-page report concluded “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the
proposed route.”ｶ The report did note that producing oil sands product releases anywhere from 5 to 19 percent more greenhouse gases than production
of an average conventional barrel of oil in the United States.ｶ These higher greenhouse gas emissions have led opponents to argue against the pipeline
on the grounds that if the U.S. didn’t buy so much oil sands oil, less would eventually be produced, releasing fewer greenhouse gases.ｶ Judging
from Chinese National Offshore Oil’s massive investment, these concerns aren’t
keeping the Chinese up at night. If anyone here seriously thinks blocking Keystone
XL will stop oil sands production, perhaps they should get more sleep.
Aff Answers
2ac Venezuela Specific
No link and Impact --- Venezuela production will just be sent to China
and China will inevitably get oil
Krauss 13—writer for the NY Times (Clifford, “Dwindling Production has led to lesser role for Venezuela as a Major Oil Power,”
TheNewYorkTimes, 3/8/13, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/world/americas/venezuelas-role-as-oil-power-diminished.html?_r=0)
In a fundamental geopolitical turn, Venezuela now relies far more on the United States than the United States relies on Venezuela.¶ Venezuela depends
on the United States to buy 40 percent of its exports because Gulf of Mexico refineries were designed to process low-quality Venezuelan and Mexican
crudes that most refineries around the world cannot easily handle. But in
recent years, the U nited S tates has been
replacing its imports of Latin American crudes with oil from Canadian oil sands
fields, which is similarly heavy.¶ American imports of Venezuelan oil have declined to just under a million barrels a day, from
1.7 million barrels a day in 1997, according to the Energy Department. And while Venezuelan exports of oil are in decline, its dependency on American
refineries for refined petroleum products has grown to nearly 200,000 barrels a day because of several recent Venezuelan refinery accidents.¶
Experts expect Venezuela to send barrels no longer needed in the United States to
China, as payments in kind under oil-for-loans contracts. Venezuela’s broken refinery sector has left
shortages of gasoline and diesel in parts of Latin America, opening the door for valuable markets to American refiners.
No Internal Link
China will only have limited interest in Canadian oil
Welsh 13 (4/30/13, Edward Welsh, Bloomberg, “Canada Can’t Depend on China Export Demand, Husky Executive Says,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/canada-can-t-depend-on-china-export-demand-husky-executive-says.html)
China’s Interest
China’s interest in shipments of Canadian oil and gas will be limited to hedging
some of their geographic risk from other sources of supply in Africa, South
America, the Middle East and Russia, Chen said. Chen is a former oil trader for Nexen
Inc. and former adviser to the Alberta government on Asian oil demand. The majority of
Husky Energy’s shares are owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (13) and its billionaire chairman, Li Ka-Shing.
U.S. oil production is expected to increase by 2.5 million barrels a day by 2019, according to the Energy Information Administration’s 2013 Annual
Energy Outlook. That will lower U.S. oil imports, freeing them up for other buyers, Chen said.
Canadian production is also predicted to rise sharply this decade, by 46 percent to 4.7 million barrels a day by 2020, according to a forecast from the
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“Canadian oil and gas is a nice thing to have, but it’s not a must-have” for China,
Chen said.
Canadian oil that reaches the coast on new pipelines will probably find its way to
buyers along the U.S. West Coast, as well as in India, Japan and developing
countries in Southeast Asia, he said.
China can get oil from many other sources, including Venezuela --Canada would have to compete for even a piece of that market
Welsh 13 (4/30/13, Edward Welsh, Bloomberg, “Canada Can’t Depend on China Export Demand, Husky Executive Says,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/canada-can-t-depend-on-china-export-demand-husky-executive-says.html)
Canadian oil producers can’t depend on Chinese demand for exports , a Husky
Energy Inc. (HSE) executive said at a conference in Calgary.
Canada will have to compete for Chinese business with growing exports from Iraq
and Venezuela , as well as oil cargoes displaced by increasing U.S. domestic
production, said J.J. Chen, manager of business development and origination for the Calgary-based oil producer.
“There is no shortage of oil for China,” Chen said at the Canadian Energy Research Institute Oil Conference
today. “With U.S. shale oil producing so much every day, you’ll have all these
traditional imports to the U.S. being diverted to Asia, and Canadian cargoes are
going to have to compete.”
AT: Oil Spills Impacts
Oil spills don’t damage ecosystems – more likely to trigger
revitalization
Siegel 10 (Alan Siegel, journalist, “Is an Oil Spill Ever Good for Animals?” Slate, July 8, 2010,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.html)
¶ Yes. Scientists don't know what makes it so resilient to the health effects of oil, but the blood-red-colored bristle worm known as Capitella capitata
seems able to survive in a polluted environment. Indeed, it thrives. The worm's natural predators—shrimp, fish, and crabs—start to die off after a spill,
leaving room for what's called ecological succession: The
population of one species grows to fill a gap left
by damage to another.¶ Advertisement¶ At up to 10 centimeters in length and about the width of a human hair, Capitella capitata may
seem like the oil spill's tiny grim reaper. In fact, it could help to restore the Gulf
ecosystem. The animals burrow into the sea floor to feed on organic matter deposited there. This movement circulates
new water into the sediments and addresses one of the major problems after an oil
spill—the depletion of oxygen in the ocean by the hungry bacteria that are working to break down pollutants. By
churning up mud at the bottom of the Gulf, the worms release and recycle pockets
of anoxic water, which in turn allows sediment bacteria to degrade more oil. (The
flourishing micro-organisms also serve as food for the bristle worms.) The ecological interplay between worms and bacteria paves the way for the return
of other species. Bolstered
by higher oxygen levels and more worms to eat, the
populations of fish, crab, and shrimp begin to increase.¶ While the environmental consequences are
staggering, there could also be some benefits to the gulf. Should the ban on commercial fishing in the Gulf
continue for the duration of the cleanup and/or longer, the fish and shrimp population
may increase. Thomas Shirley, of Texas A&M, along with other professors and scientists have begun
viewing the spill as an opportunity for conservation and replenishing the fish
supply. With all the bottom trawling and ever sky-rocketing demand for fresh fish, the fish population and diversity have drastically reduced.
While the oil is another stressor on the marine habitat and animals, Daniel Pauly, a professor athe the Fisheries Institute are the University of British
Columbia states, ” It
is possible that a massive rebound of the fish population will occur
because we are not fishing them. If the fishing is discontinued for a month or two,
or a season, we may see massive changes in the Gulf”
Public reaction to oil spills solves
Greene 10 (Jasmine Greene, environmental journalist, “How the Oil Spill Might Benefit Gulf Marine Animals,” Care 2, May 17, 2010,
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-oil-spill-and-our-food.html)
While the environmental effects of the oil
spill are devastating, it has forced changes in the government as
well. Chris Oynes, head of the oil and drilling program, announced that he would retire by June 2010 [Source: Huffington Post]. Drilling in
the gulf has also been indefinitely banned, and many future drilling ventures, such
as the one Shell planned in the Arctic, are beginning to see much stronger
opposition [Source: Associated Press]. In the wake of such disaster, the horror and public outcry
might force oil companies and governments to restrategize for a greener future.
Oil spills result in greater attentiveness to overall interactions with
nature
Kho 2010 ( Jennifer Kho 05/05/10 http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/05/oil-spills-impact-bad-for-the-environment-good-for-cleanener/ reporter and editor in The New York Times' Green Inc. blog, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, AOL's DailyFinance, MIT's Technology
Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Reuters.com, Earth2Tech)
As Ron Pernick, principal of research firm Clean Edge, puts it, the
spill "has the potential to be a watershed
moment" that could end up changing the way oil and other fossil fuels are
developed and paving the way for cleaner energy.¶ While the story is still unfolding and the full extent of the
damage remains unclear, the spill already has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of our reliance on
oil, including ever-fluctuating prices based on accidents, military actions and many other variables, Pernick says. ¶ "The volatility of fossil fuels is
exactly what makes it untenable for our long-term energy supply -- we're one disaster away from pretty significant disruptions in pricing," he says.¶
Galvanizing Political Will¶ Awareness
about the hazards of oil could, in turn, boost political
support for renewables, Browning says. For example, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is considering calling a special
legislative session to discuss renewable energy and other topics after the legislature ended its regular session Friday without approving a bill that would
enable utilities to buy more renewable energy.
AT: Biodiversity Impacts
Species adapt – gene diversity
Ian Thompson
et al., Canadian Forest Service,
Brendan Mackey, The Australian National University, The Fenner School of Environment
and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Steven McNulty, USDA Forest Service, Alex Mosseler, Canadian Forest Service, 2009,
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity “Forest Resilience, Biodiversity, and Climate Change” Convention on Biological Diversity
Concerns have been expressed that predicted cli- mate changes (IPCC 2007) may occur too quickly for
species to adapt (Huntley 1991, Davis and Shaw 2001, Jump and Penuelas 2005), but genetically di- verse species are
capable of rapid evolution (Geber and Dawson 1993). Many species have adapted to rapid changes and
have done so repeatedly over geo- logical time through dispersal and genetic changes based on
the extant genetic diversity within local or regional gene pools, suggesting long-term geneticbased resilience to change. There is considerable evidence for adaptation in the geological and
fossil record (Bernabo and Webb 1977, Webb 1981, Davis 1983, Huntley and Birks 1983, and review by Geber and Dawson 1993). Such
adaptation has been demonstrated by forest plants during or following past glacial and interglacial
episodes, which were characterized by relatively rapid climate change (Huntley and Webb 1988).
Environment impacts are exaggerated
Gordon ‘95 - a professor of mineral economics at Pennsylvania State University
[Gordon, Richard, “Ecorealism Exposed,” Regulation, 1995, http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv18n3/reg18n3-readings.html
Easterbrook's argument is that although
environmental problems deserve attention, the environmental
movement has exaggerated the threats and ignored evidence of improvement. His discontent causes him to
adopt and incessantly employ the pejoratively intended (and irritating) shorthand "enviros" to describe the leading environmental organizations and
their admirers. He proposes-and overuses-an equally infelicitous alternative phrase, "ecorealism," that seems to mean that most
environmental initiatives can be justifited by more moderate arguments. Given the mass, range, and defects of
the book, any review of reasonable length must be selective. Easterbrook's critique begins with an overview of environmentalism from a global
perspective. He then turns to a much longer (almost 500- page) survey of many specific environmental issues. The overview section is a shorter, more
devastating criticism, but it is also more speculative than the survey of specific issues. In essence, the overview argument is that human
impacts on the environment are minor, easily correctable influences on a world affected by far
more powerful forces. That is a more penetrating criticism than typically appears in works expressing skepticism about environmentalism.
Easterbrook notes that mankind's effects on nature long predate industrialization or the white
colonization of America, but still have had only minor impacts. We are then reminded of the
vast, often highly destructive changes that occur naturally and the recuperative power of natural
systems.
Even if you win a risk of ecosystem collapse, the time frame is
incredibly long
Kay 01 – The San Francisco Chronicle (Jane, 7-26, “Study takes historical peek at plight of ocean ecosystems”
The collapse of ecosystems often occur over a long period.
In one example, when Aleut hunters killed the Alaskan sea otter about 2,500 years ago, the population
of their natural prey, the sea urchin, grew larger than its normal size. In turn, the urchins grazed down the kelp
forests, important habitat for a whole host of ocean life.
Then, when fur traders in the 1800s hunted the otters and sea cows almost to extinction, the
kelp forests disappeared and didn't start to regenerate until the federal government protected
the sea otters in the 20th century. In California, the diversity of spiny lobsters, sheephead fish and abalone kept down the urchin
numbers.
At present in Alaska, the kelp beds are declining again in areas where killer whales are preying
on sea otters. Biologists think the killer whales switched to otters for food because there are
fewer seals and sea lions to eat.
No impact to environment - 99.9% can die and no impact
Sagoff 97
Mark, Senior Research Scholar – Institute for Philosophy and Public policy in School of Public Affairs – U. Maryland, William and
Mary Law Review, “Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law Symposium Defining Takings: Private Property And The Future Of Government Regulation: Muddle
Or Muddle Through? Takings Jurisprudence Meets The Endangered Species Act”, 38 Wm and Mary L. Rev. 825, March, L/N
Although one may agree with ecologists such as Ehrlich and Raven that the earth stands on the brink of an episode of massive
extinction, it may not follow from this grim fact that human beings will suffer as a result. On the contrary, skeptics
such as science writer Colin Tudge have challenged biologists to explain why we need more than a tenth of the 10 to 100 million species that grace
the earth. Noting that "cultivated systems often out-produce wild systems by 100-fold or more," Tudge
declared that "the argument that
of all
but a tiny minority of our fellow creatures does not affect the material well-being of humans one iota." n344 This skeptic
humans need the variety of other species is, when you think about it, a theological one." n343 Tudge observed that "the elimination
challenged ecologists to list more than 10,000 species (other than unthreatened microbes) that are essential to ecosystem productivity or
functioning. n345 "The human species could survive just as well if 99.9% of our fellow creatures went extinct, provided only
that we retained the appropriate 0.1% that we need." n346 [*906] The monumental Global Biodiversity Assessment ("the Assessment")
identified two positions with respect to redundancy of species. "At one extreme is the idea that each species is unique and important, such that its
removal or loss will have demonstrable consequences to the functioning of the community or ecosystem." n347 The authors of the Assessment, a
panel of eminent ecologists, endorsed this position, saying it is "unlikely that there is much, if any, ecological redundancy in communities over
time scales of decades to centuries, the time period over which environmental policy should operate." n348 These eminent ecologists rejected the
opposing view, "the notion that species overlap in function to a sufficient degree that removal or loss of a species will be compensated by others,
with negligible overall consequences to the community or ecosystem." n349 Other biologists believe, however, that species
are so
fabulously redundant in the ecological functions they perform that the life-support systems and processes of the planet and ecological
processes in general will function perfectly well with fewer of them, certainly fewer than the millions and millions we can expect
to remain even if every threatened organism becomes extinct. n350 Even the kind of sparse and miserable world
depicted in the movie Blade Runner could provide a "sustainable" context for the human economy as long as people forgot their aesthetic and
moral commitment to the glory and beauty of the natural world. n351 The Assessment makes this point. "Although any ecosystem contains
hundreds to thousands of species interacting among themselves and their physical environment, the emerging consensus is that the system is
driven by a small number of . . . biotic variables on whose interactions the balance of species are, in a sense, carried along." n352 [*907] To make
up your mind on the question of the functional redundancy of species, consider an endangered species of bird, plant, or insect and ask how the
ecosystem would fare in its absence. The fact that the creature is endangered suggests an answer: it is already in limbo as far as ecosystem
processes are concerned. What crucial ecological services does the black-capped vireo, for example, serve? Are any of the species threatened with
extinction necessary to the provision of any ecosystem service on which humans depend? If so, which ones are they? Ecosystems and the species
that compose them have changed, dramatically, continually, and totally in virtually every part of the United States. There is little ecological
similarity, for example, between New England today and the land where the Pilgrims died. n353 In view of the constant reconfiguration of the
biota, one may wonder why Americans have not suffered more as a result of ecological catastrophes. The cast of species in nearly every
environment changes constantly-local extinction is commonplace in nature-but the crops still grow. Somehow, it seems, property values keep
going up on Martha's Vineyard in spite of the tragic disappearance of the heath hen. One might argue that the sheer number
and
variety of creatures available to any ecosystem buffers that system against stress. Accordingly, we should be concerned if the
"library" of creatures ready, willing, and able to colonize ecosystems gets too small. (Advances in genetic engineering may well permit us to write a
large number of additions to that "library.") In the United States as in many other parts of the world, however, the
number of species
has been increasing dramatically, not decreasing, as a result of human activity. This is because the hordes of exotic species coming into
ecosystems in the United States far exceed the number of species that are becoming extinct. Indeed, introductions may outnumber extinctions by
more than ten to one, so that the United States is becoming more and more species-rich all the time largely as a result of human action. n354
[*908] Peter Vitousek and colleagues estimate that over 1000 non-native plants grow in California alone; in Hawaii there are 861; in Florida, 1210.
n355 In Florida more than 1000 non-native insects, 23 species of mammals, and about 11 exotic birds have established themselves. n356 Anyone
who waters a lawn or hoes a garden knows how many weeds desire to grow there, how many birds and bugs visit the yard, and how many fungi,
creepy-crawlies, and other odd life forms show forth when it rains. All belong to nature, from wherever they might hail, but not many homeowners
would claim that there are too few of them. Now, not all exotic species provide ecosystem services; indeed, some may be disruptive or have no
instrumental value. n357 This also may be true, of course, of native species as well, especially because all exotics are native somewhere. Certain
exotic species, however, such as Kentucky blue grass, establish an area's sense of identity and place; others, such as the green crabs showing up
around Martha's Vineyard, are nuisances. n358 Consider an analogy [*909] with human migration. Everyone knows that after a generation or two,
immigrants to this country are hard to distinguish from everyone else. The vast majority of Americans did not evolve here, as it were, from
hominids; most of us "came over" at one time or another. This is true of many of our fellow species as well, and they may fit in here just as well as
we do. It is possible to distinguish exotic species from native ones for a period of time, just as we can distinguish immigrants from native-born
Americans, but as the centuries roll by, species, like people, fit into the landscape or the society, changing and often enriching it. Shall we have a
rule that a species had to come over on the Mayflower, as so many did, to count as "truly" American? Plainly not. When, then, is the cutoff date?
Insofar as we are concerned with the absolute numbers of "rivets" holding ecosystems together, extinction seems not to pose a general problem
because a far greater number of kinds of mammals, insects, fish, plants, and other creatures thrive on land and in water in America today than in
prelapsarian times. n359 The Ecological Society of America has urged managers to maintain biological diversity as a critical component in
strengthening ecosystems against disturbance. n360 Yet as Simon Levin observed, "much of the detail about species composition will be
irrelevant in terms of influences on ecosystem properties." n361 [*910] He added: "For net primary productivity, as is likely to be the case for any
system property, biodiversity matters only up to a point; above a certain level, increasing
biodiversity is likely to make
little difference." n362 What about the use of plants and animals in agriculture? There is no scarcity foreseeable. "Of an estimated 80,000
types of plants [we] know to be edible," a U.S. Department of the Interior document says, "only about 150 are extensively cultivated." n363 About
twenty species, not one of which is endangered, provide ninety percent of the food the world takes from plants. n364 Any new food has to take
"shelf space" or "market share" from one that is now produced. Corporations also find it difficult to create demand for a new product; for example,
people are not inclined to eat paw-paws, even though they are delicious. It is hard enough to get people to eat their broccoli and lima beans. It is
harder still to develop consumer demand for new foods. This may be the reason the Kraft Corporation does not prospect in remote places for rare
and unusual plants and animals to add to the world's diet. Of the roughly 235,000 flowering plants and 325,000 nonflowering plants (including
mosses, lichens, and seaweeds) available, farmers ignore virtually all of them in favor of a very few that are profitable. n365 To be sure, any of the
more than 600,000 species of plants could have an application in agriculture, but would they be preferable to the species that are now dominant?
Has anyone found any consumer demand for any of these half-million or more plants to replace rice or wheat in the human diet? There are reasons
that farmers cultivate rice, wheat, and corn rather than, say, Furbish's lousewort. There are many kinds of louseworts, so named because these
weeds were thought to cause lice in sheep. How many does agriculture really require? [*911] The species on which agriculture relies are
domesticated, not naturally occurring; they are developed by artificial not natural selection; they might not be able to survive in the wild. n366 This
argument is not intended to deny the religious, aesthetic, cultural, and moral reasons that command us to respect and protect the natural world.
These spiritual and ethical values should evoke action, of course, but we should also recognize that they are spiritual and ethical values. We should
recognize that ecosystems and all that dwell therein compel our moral respect, our aesthetic appreciation, and our spiritual veneration; we should
clearly seek to achieve the goals of the ESA. There is no reason to assume, however, that these goals have anything to do with human well-being or
welfare as economists understand that term. These are ethical goals, in other words, not economic ones. Protecting the marsh may be the right
thing to do for moral, cultural, and spiritual reasons. We should do it-but someone will have to pay the costs. In the narrow sense of promoting
human welfare, protecting nature often represents a net "cost," not a net "benefit." It is largely for moral, not economic, reasons-ethical, not
prudential, reasons- that we care about all our fellow creatures. They are valuable as objects of love not as objects of use. What is good
for [*912] the marsh may be good in itself even if it is not, in the economic sense, good for mankind. The most valuable things are quite useless.
No Extinction –
a.) Scientifically disproven
Dodds 2K - M.S. P.E., President of North Pacific Research (Donald, “The Myth of Biodiversity”)
Biodiversity is a corner stone of the environmental movement. But there is no proof that biodiversity is important to the
environment. Something without basis in scientific fact is called a Myth. Lets examine biodiversity through out the history of
the earth. The earth has been a around for about 4 billion years. Life did not develop until about 500
million years later. Thus for the first 500 million years bio diversity was zero. The planet somehow
survived this lack of biodiversity. For the next 3 billion years, the only life on the planet was microbial and
not diverse. Thus, the first unexplainable fact is that the earth existed for 3.5 billion years,
87.5% of its existence, without biodiversity. Somewhere around 500 million years ago life began to diversify and multiple
celled species appeared. Because these species were partially composed of sold material they left better geologic records, and the number of species and
genera could be cataloged and counted. The number of genera on the planet is a indication of the biodiversity of the planet. Figure 1 is a plot of the
number of genera on the planet over the last 550 million years. The little black line outside of the left edge of the graph is 10 million years. Notice the
left end of this graph.
Biodiversity has never been higher than it is today.
b.) Empirically denied
Moore 98 – (Thomas Gale, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, Climate of Fear, 98-99)
Nevertheless, the loss of a class of living beings does not typically threaten other species. Most animals and plants can derive
their nutrients or receive the other benefits provided by a particular species from more than a
single source. If it were true that the extinction of a single species would produce a cascade of
losses, then the massive extinctions of the past should have wiped out all life. Evolution forces
various life forms to adjust to change. A few may not make the adaptation but others will mutate to meet the new conditions. Although a particular
chain of DNA may be eliminated through the loss of a species, other animals or plants adapting to the same environment often produce similar genetic
It is almost impossible to imagine a single species that, if eliminated, would
threaten us humans. Perhaps if the E. coli that are necessary for digestion became extinct, we could no longer exist. But those bacteria live
in a symbiotic relationship with man and, as long as humans survive, so will they . Thus any animal that hosts a symbiotic
species need not fear the loss of its partner. As long as the host remains, so will parasites and
symbiotic species.
solutions with like proteins.
The Environment is adaptable
a.) Redundancy
Maser 92 – Internationally recognized expert in forest ecology and governmental consultant (Chris, “Global Imperative: Harmonizing Culture
and Nature”, p. 40)
Redundancy means that more than one species can perform similar functions. It’s a type of ecological
insurance policy, which strengthens the ability of the system to retain the integrity of its basic relationships. The insurance of
redundancy means that the loss of a species or two is not likely to result in such severe functional
disruptions of the ecosystem so as to cause its collapse because other species can make up for the functional loss.
b.) Innovation solves
DOREMUS 2k – Professor of Law at UC Davis, (Holly, Washington & Lee Law Review, "The Rhetoric and Reality of Nature Protection:
Toward a New Discourse," 57 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 11, Winter 2000)
In recent years, this discourse frequently has taken the form of the ecological horror story . That too
is no mystery. The ecological horror story is unquestionably an attention-getter, especially in the hands of skilled writers [*46] like Carson and the
Ehrlichs. The image of the airplane earth, its wings wobbling as rivet after rivet is carelessly popped out, is difficult to ignore. The
apocalyptic
depiction of an impending crisis of potentially dire proportions is designed to spur the political
community to quick action . Furthermore, this story suggests a goal that appeals to many nature lovers: that virtually everything must
be protected. To reinforce this suggestion, tellers of the ecological horror story often imply that the relative importance of various rivets to the
ecological plane cannot be determined. They offer reams of data and dozens of anecdotes demonstrating the unexpected value of apparently useless
parts of nature. The moth that saved Australia from prickly pear invasion, the scrubby Pacific yew, and the downright unattractive leech are among the
uncharismatic flora and fauna who star in these anecdotes. n211 The
moral is obvious: because we cannot be sure which
rivets are holding the plane together, saving them all is the only sensible course.
Notwithstanding its attractions, the material discourse in general, and the ecological horror story in particular, are not likely to generate policies that
will satisfy nature lovers. The ecological horror story implies that there is no reason to protect nature until catastrophe looms. The Ehrlichs' rivetpopper account, for example, presents species simply as the (fungible) hardware holding together the ecosystem. If we could be reasonably certain that
a particular rivet was not needed to prevent a crash, the rivet-popper story suggests that we would lose very little by pulling it out. Many
environmentalists, though, would disagree. n212
Reluctant to concede such losses, tellers of the ecological horror story highlight how close a catastrophe might be, and how little we know about what
actions might trigger one. But the
apocalyptic vision is less credible today than it seemed in the 1970s.
Although it is clear that the earth is experiencing a mass wave of extinctions, n213 the complete
elimination of life on earth seems unlikely. n214 Life is remarkably robust. Nor is human
extinction probable any time soon. Homo sapiens is adaptable to nearly any environment. Even
if the world of the future includes far fewer species, it likely will hold people. n215
One response to this credibility problem tones the story down a bit, arguing not that humans
will go extinct but that ecological disruption will bring economies, and consequently
civilizations, to their knees. n216 But this too may be overstating the case. Most ecosystem
functions are performed by multiple species. This functional redundancy means that a high
proportion of species can be lost without precipitating a collapse. n217
AT: U.S.-China Relations --- Relations Resilient
Trade ties means there will never be a complete breakdown, but
tensions are inevitable
Carpenter 11-9-2012
(Ted Galen, Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history from the University of Texas, “China-Bashing Season Over, But Frictions Will Persist”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/chinabashing-season-over-frictions-will-persist)
Obama's re-election makes such a stance less likely. However, complacency about the bilateral relationship is unwarranted and could prove dangerous.
During Obama's nearly four years in office the US has taken a number of measures
that Chinese leaders and the Chinese people could interpret as less than friendly.
During his re-election campaign he highlighted his decisions to impose punitive
tariffs on Chinese tires and to file complaints with the World Trade Organization over
alleged unfair subsidies on auto parts and other products. One of the congressional leaders seeking to
impose penalties on China for its supposed currency manipulation is Charles Schumer, a close ally of Obama in the US Senate.
The administration's conduct on security issues has not been especially friendly
toward China either. Despite Beijing's objections, Washington approved another arms-sale
package to Taiwan, including upgrades to F-16 fighter jets. The timing of that decision was unhelpful, given that tensions between the
mainland and Taiwan had noticeably diminished since the election of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's leader in 2008.
Most important, it
was the Obama administration that proclaimed the so-called US
strategic pivot to East Asia. Although the president, as well as the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Secretary of Defense
Leon Panetta, insisted that the pivot, which includes redeploying more US air and naval forces to the western Pacific, is not directed against China,
US policy hawks laud the move as a way of containing Beijing's growing power and
influence.
The emergence of a de facto containment policy directed at China is also suggested
in Washington's stance on territorial disputes in the South China and East China
seas. Although administration officials insist that Washington remains neutral
regarding the substance of those disputes, US conduct suggests otherwise. Indeed, the
administration's backing of Japan in the recent tensions involving the Diaoyu
Islands has been anything but subtle. And Washington's deepening involvement in South China Sea controversies has a
pronounced tilt in favor of the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries that challenge China's territorial claims.
Finally, the
administration has engaged in vitriolic criticism of Beijing's position on
the Iran and Syria crises. The attitude of Clinton, the US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice,
and other officials is that China is engaging in immoral behavior if it does not back
the approach of the US and its allies in dealing with those problems.
All of this suggests that relations between the US and China may be surprisingly
tense during the second Obama administration. The extensive trade and
investment ties between the two countries will almost certainly prevent a complete
rupture in the relationship. And China's holdings of nearly $1.2 trillion in US treasury debt
— and the willingness to buy additional debt offerings to fund the US federal budget deficit — will induce some caution
among administration officials who may be tempted to engage in China bashing.
Obama's reduced need to cater to trade unions and others who seek a more confrontational posture toward China on trade and other issues may also
ease the pressure.
Nevertheless, there
are enough factors in place to indicate that bilateral relations in the
next four years are likely to be less cordial than in previous administrations. China
and the US are entering a new and somewhat unsettling era in their relationship.
Economic ties solve
Ackerman 2011
quoting former admiral Timothy Keating, the official blog of the Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association
(Robert, 5/10/11, War Between China, U.S. Not Likely, http://www.afcea.org/signal/signalscape/index.php/2011/05/10/11510/)
The United States and China are not likely to go to war with each other because neither
country wants it and it would run counter to both nations’ best interests. That was the
conclusion of a plenary panel session hosted by former Good Morning America host David Hartman at the 2011 Joint Warfighting
Conference in Virginia Beach. Adm. Timothy J. Keating, USN (Ret.), former head of the U.S. Pacific Command, noted
that China actually wants the United States to remain active in the Asia-Pacific region as a
hedge against any other country’s adventurism. And, most of the other countries in
that region want the United States to remain active as a hedge against China. Among areas of
concern for China is North Korea. Wallace “Chip” Gregson, former assistant secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security
Affairs, said that above all China fears instability, and a North Korean collapse or war could send millions of refugees streaming
Adm. Keating offered that with each
day, the likelihood of a Chinese attack on Taiwan diminishes. Economic ties
between the two governments are growing, as is social interaction. He predicts that a
gradual solution to reunification is coming. The United States can hasten that process
by remaining a powerful force in the region, he added.
into Manchuria, which has economic problems of its own. As for Taiwan,
AT: U.S.-China Relations --- Coop Impossible
Cooperation’s impossible – policymakers will never trust China
Mazza 4-23
[Michael. Asian Policy Expert at AEI. “Why America and China can’t trust each other” 4/23/13
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/23/why-america-and-china-cant-trust-each-other/ //GBS-JV]
The release of China’s biennial defense white paper has been getting some press for its
revelations about the People’s Liberation Army’s force structure. Chinese media outlet Xinhua, for example, reported
that “the Chinese government on Tuesday declassified the designations of all 18 combined
corps of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as the latest step to increase transparency of its armed forces.”¶
While it is difficult to applaud the PLA for declassifying information that was already
common knowledge (see, for example, the sinodefence.com page on army organization, last updated four years ago), more transparency
is certainly better than less. Still, the American focus on Chinese transparency is misplaced. Of
course, the Pentagon would like to see its Chinese counterpart be more candid about
PLA capabilities and investments; to the extent the United States can coax China towards such candor, it should do so. But
disclosures like those in the Chinese white paper do little to address the underlying problem in the
U.S.-China relationship: a dearth of strategic trust .¶ Although more Chinese
transparency can enhance that trust on the margins, it cannot by itself redress the
bilateral relationship’s great deficiency . Nor is it possible for that deficiency to be
satisfactorily redressed, at least not in the near- to medium-term. Why not? American distrust of China is
intimately linked to the very nature of the People’s Republic, and the reverse is
true
as well.¶ Because
the Chinese political system is a closed one, foreign observers can
never be sure that Chinese pronouncements on foreign policy, strategy, and
intentions are genuine. There is no free press or independent legislature to call Chinese
leaders to account or challenge their public statements. Unlike in democracies , it is much easier for China’s leaders to
keep the results of their internal deliberations secret and to control the message that
is delivered publicly. Due to the nature of the Chinese political system and Beijing’s
propensity for secrecy, it would be folly for any country – let alone the United States, which China clearly views as
potential adversary – to take Chinese words at face value. Indeed, in his 2011 book, A Contest for Supremacy, Aaron
Friedberg quite clearly explained the link between transparency and China’s closed political system:¶ “Even if Beijing were
suddenly to unleash a flood of information, American analysts would regard it
with profound skepticism , scrutinizing it carefully for signs of deception and disinformation. And they would be
right to do so; the centralized, tightly controlled Chinese government is far better
able to carry off such schemes than its open, divided, and leaky American
counterpart.”
The reverse is also true – China will fundamentally never trust the United States –
the plan does precisely nothing about this
Mazza 4-23
[Michael. Asian Policy Expert at AEI. “Why America and China can’t
trust each other” 4/23/13 http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/23/why-america-and-china-cant-trusteach-other/ //GBS-JV]
Nor is it easy for Beijing to trust Washington. While America’s open political
system makes it difficult for the United States to pull off any sort of strategic
surprise – consider how far ahead of time the Bush administration began preparing the American public for the 2003 invasion of Iraq –
China’s leaders believe their U.S. counterparts have already aired their malign
intentions in public . Successive American presidents have consistently stated
their support for the spread of liberty globally and for the development of
democracy in China in particular. One of President Bill Clinton’s main arguments for supporting Chinese entry into the World Trade
Organization was that trade with China would, over time, lead to greater political freedom in that country.¶ American leaders
cannot trust Chinese leaders because the latter’s long-term designs are difficult to
discern and clouded in secrecy. Beijing cannot trust Washington because it
believes Washington has already made clear U.S. opposition to the continued rule
of the Chinese Communist Party, even if America’s ultimate plans for bringing down the CCP are unclear.¶ If Beijing
felt so inclined, it could publicize all PLA unit designations down to the platoon
level, while Americans cheered China on for increasing transparency. Even then ,
each country would continue to look at the other through a glass, darkly.
foreseeable future,
For the
true Sino-American trust will remain illusory .
Cooperation is hindered by domestic politics and shifting blame
Czarnezki, 11 [Jason J. Professor of Law in the Environmental Law Center and Faculty Director of the U.S.-China¶ Partnership for
Environmental Law at Vermont
Law School; A.B., J.D, “CLIMATE POLICY &¶ U.S.-CHINA RELATIONs”, Published After April 4th 2011.
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Jason%20Czarnezki%20Climate%20Policy%20and%20China.pdf]
Both the United States and China are hindered by the reality of domestic politics and
their ability to blame the other for lack of progress. Professor¶ Cinnamon Carlarne, increasing future
political pressure, described the 2010¶ Cancun Climate Change Conference as “a determinative point for both a 2¶ degree world and the continuing
validity of the UNFCCC process,”44 but¶ COP-16 in Cancun has come and gone with little fanfare. The Cancun¶ process avoided the high-stakes drama
of Copenhagen, successfully set up a¶ fund for adaptation measures in poor countries, created a mechanism for¶ technology transfer, approved a deal to
protect tropical forests, and ensured¶ adherence to the goals put forward in the Copenhagen Accord.45 IV. DOMESTIC POLITICS¶ The
United
States and Chinese governments have significant domestic¶ political pressures that
limit their ability and desire to come to a progressive¶ international agreement on climate
change, and these pressures create the¶ type of chaos and self-interested behavior seen at Copenhagen.¶ China does not want to
limit its amazing and historic economic growth¶ and development. The domestic
justifications are sound and¶ understandable. Economic prosperity defines global power,
many Chinese¶ still need to be brought out of poverty, and economic success
provides the¶ necessary stability for the ruling Communist party to stay in power. As
a¶ result, China is happy to become far more energy efficient, but will make¶ no emissions limitations promises that have the potential to limit overall¶
economic growth.¶ To this end, China has developed “carbon intensity” targets in an effort¶ to slow its greenhouse gas emissions and become more
energy efficient.¶ China proposes to reduce carbon intensity—the amount of CO2 emitted per¶ unit of economic output—by forty to forty-five percent,
compared with¶ 43. Agence France-Presse, China and U.S. Blame Each Other as Climate Talks Conclude,¶ PORTFOLI (Oct. 9, 2010, 7:39PM),
http://portfo.li/o/255346-china-and-u-s-blame-each-other-as-climatetalks-¶ conclude.¶ 44. Carlarne, supra note 37, at 149.¶ 45. John M. Broder,
Climate Talks End with Modest Deal on Emissions, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 11,¶ 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/science/earth/12climate.html.¶
670 VERMONT JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW [Vol. 12¶ 2005.46 Unfortunately, under this plan, even though the rate of emissions¶ will
slow, overall emissions will continue to rise. This will eventually rub¶ up against “The China Problem”—that even if other countries reduce¶ emissions
to zero, China’s growth and emissions alone, despite improving¶ energy intensity, have the potential to push global temperature above the¶ two degree
Celsius threshold goal, and potentially further.47¶ Similar to China, the
United States has domestic political and
economic¶ considerations that have created roadblocks for international climate¶
agreements and domestic initiatives. These roadblocks include concerns¶ about
limiting economic growth, a culture and infrastructure that support¶ high levels of
driving and energy consumption, strong lobbying by energy¶ and automobile
industries against greenhouse gas regulation, dismissal of¶ climate science, and
anti-internationalism among both politicians and¶ citizens. As a result, the U.S.
government has not enacted a single law¶ explicitly requiring any public or private
entity to mitigate its greenhouse¶ gas impact on the global climate.¶
AT: U.S.-China Relations --- Energy Coop Ans
High Now
Brent 13 [William. China Analyst for Forbes. “Cleantech: Bright Spot In U.S.-China Cooperation” 4/23/13
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williambrent/2013/04/18/cleantech-bright-spot-in-us-china-cooperation/ //GBS-JV]
Despite
heated rhetoric from protectionist corners that China and the United States must compete over the
massive dollars associated with the clean energy industry, some signs are actually emerging that we’re entering
a phase of mutual benefit and collaboration .¶ It’s a natural fit: the U.S. is an
innovation engine short of capital and customers, and China is a commercialization
hotspot with lots of money and a major environmental problem. Thanks to interesting new deal
structures that allow for commercialization to happen while addressing U.S. intellectual property concerns, cooperation
finally appears to be a reality . This month, Zhongding Group announced a $200 million
investment to scale the production of U.S. company EcoMotor’s ultra-efficient motor technology. A new manufacturing
facility will be built in China to commercialize a technology that would have otherwise taken years to
come to market (if ever) in the United States. Similar deals have started to add up. Wanxiang Holdings acquired faltering
U.S. battery company A123 Systems (now renamed B456 – can you say rebrand fail?) for $250 million and also invested $420 million in GreatPoint
Energy, a company that turns coal into natural gas. Coal-to-butanol company IGP Energy similarly formed a joint venture with Chinese coal giant
Yankuang Group for five facilities. Shanghai steel giant Baosteel also invested in waste-to-fuel company LanzaTech, funding a demonstration plant that
is expected to result soon in a fully commercial facility. All
of these deals, and many others, have meant rapid
acceleration of technology that may not have otherwise happened. But the benefit isn’t just
flowing to U.S. cleantech companies starved for cash. China also desperately needs the technologies to address
mounting environmental concerns – air pollution, severe water shortages, food
safety and the list goes on and on.¶ According to Cleantech investor Greg Manuel, there is a 5-plus year “innovation
delta” between the clean technologies being developed in the United States and
those in development in China (with China lagging behind). Similarly, Manuel says, there will be a $4.5
billion shortfall in capital for U.S.-developed clean technology start-ups in the next
three years.¶ “This emerging pattern of cooperation is still in its early stages. But there is a tremendous vector of
opportunity when you look at the innovation delta, capital gap and severe
environmental and energy challenges facing large Chinese enterprises with large
pools of cash,” said Manuel, formerly a special advisor for energy affairs to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and senior vice
president for corporate development and strategy at Amyris.
Canada Economy DA
1nc Canadian Economy DA
Investment in Venezuela will force a tradeoff with Canadian oil sands
Campbell, 13 (4/16/2013, Darren, “A new leader could signal change for Venezuela’s troubled oil and gas sector; If Nicolas
Maduro can reverse the industry's decline, it could siphon off investment in
Alberta's oil sands,” http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2013/04/a-new-leader-could-signal-change-for-venenzuelas-oil-and-gassector/, JMP)
Oil-rich Venezuela has a new president and his name is Nicolas Maduro.
On Monday, Maduro was declared the winner of the closest presidential election the country has had in 45 years. He succeeds Hugo Chavez, who died
of cancer on March 5.
Normally, we wouldn’t write about the results of an election from a far-off outpost like Venezuela here at Energy Ink. But Venezuela isn’t just
any outpost.
It has
some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. And under Chavez, the
industry and the state-run company, the Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A (PDVSA), have been run badly.
That, of course, has been good for Alberta’s own oil and gas industry, particularly the oil
sand sector.
That’s because Venezuelan heavy oil is a competitor to the bitumen and heavy oil Alberta
produces, and as long as the Venezuelan oil and gas industry is badly
underperforming, some of the investment that could be going to develop its
reserves will flow to the oil sands.
Oil sands key to Canada’s economy
Reeve, 13 (5/24/2013, Albert F., “ Canada's economic future depends on the oilsands ,”
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Canada+economic+future+depends+oilsands/8429574/story.html, JMP)
Proposed oil pipelines from the Canadian oilsands to the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic are opposed by those who are described by others as
"eco-fascists." Al Gore has come here from the U.S., to criticize our government, peddle climate change fear and ask Canadians to "take one for the
planet" by restricting oil production.
Meanwhile, the European Union is trying to classify Canadian oil as "dirty" and prevent its export, eastward. We must look like soft targets for this kind
of prejudice.
Canada relies on the sale of natural resources, including oil, for its economic
strength . The age of oil is not over. It will take generations to develop more efficient energy sources.
Canada should not forgo its petroleum wealth to be replaced in the market by
Venezuelan oilsands production . Oil pipelines to the Pacific will support Canada's economic future for our grandchildren.
We must recognize that the objective is to sell oil, not spill it.
No one's interest is served by spilling oil.
Pacific exports of LNG will also be beneficial, but face serious competition from gas fields closer to the prime Asian markets.
Key global economy and t/ the case
CFS ‘12
[The Council of the Federation Secretariat. “Canada in the Global Economy” 2012
www.councilofthefederation.ca/.../COF_Canada_Global_Economy_Eng.pdf //Cal-JV]
The United States and Canada share one of the most¶ extensive bilateral
relationships in the world and have¶ successfully negotiated and implemented
comprehensive¶ trade and intergovernmental agreements to facilitate¶ the
movement of goods, services, investment, and¶ people. Canada and the US have a
number of highly¶ integrated sectors and move over $ 1.3 billion worth of¶ goods
across the border daily .¶ Canada’s exports to the US are equivalent to¶ approximately
one-quarter of Canadian GDP and¶ the US receives roughly 75% of our exports and
supplies¶ more than 50% of our imports. It is estimated that¶ one in seven Canadian jobs is
related to trade with the¶ US1. Direct investment flows between Canada and the¶ US
are also extensive . However, trade and direct¶ investment figures do not fully capture the
integrated¶ nature of supply chains between Canada and the United¶ States as it is
estimated that over one half of¶ manufactured products imported from Canada by the¶ US
are intermediate inputs used by US companies to¶ produce other goods and provide services.
Canada also¶ has long-established and growing relationship with¶ Mexico and with
emerging economies throughout¶ the Americas.¶ Canadians have deep historical
connections with Europe,¶ and the ongoing federal, provincial and territorial¶ work to develop a Canada-EU CETA
[comprehensive economic and trade agreement] paves the way to an¶ expanded relationship in
the future.
A successful¶ agreement would be the first of its kind, as it¶ encompasses
more sectors than a
traditional free trade¶ accord, and could greatly enhance the relationship.¶ The EU
is currently the largest single market in the¶ world , with just over 500 million consumers. It is also¶
the second largest source of foreign direct investment¶ (FDI) in Canada, with the stock of FDI from the
EU¶ amounting to $164 billion at the end of 2009. In 2009,¶ the stock of Canada’s direct investment in the EU¶ totalled $149 billion. The EU is
the destination of¶ 25% of Canadian direct investment abroad. A joint¶ Canada-EU study estimates
that by 2014 there will be¶ a $12 billion positive economic impact for Canada and¶ $18 billion for the EU.¶ • Canada and Asia also
have strong and growing¶ connections to build upon. These include expanding¶
economic connections reflected by trade and investment¶ flows and vibrant and
diversified gateway infrastructure¶ building out from world-class airports, ports
and¶ transportation networks with the capacity to move¶ people and goods to and
from Asian markets. Canada¶ has strong “people connections” through Canada’s¶ extensive
student, skilled-worker and immigration¶ flows from Asia and through its diverse,
globallyconnected¶ population, including up to a half million¶ Canadians living, studying and working
in Asia .¶ For a trade- and investment-dependent country like¶ Canada, Asia represents an enormous
opportunity to¶ enhance its future prosperity. There is a significant shift¶ in the
global economic “centre of gravity.” China has¶ now surpassed Japan as the
second-largest economy in¶ the world. The International Monetary Fund has¶ projected that within five years China
may overtake¶ the US in real purchasing power. Underlying this¶ economic shift are changing trends in
population¶ growth. Europe and North America had 17% of the¶ world’s population in 2000, but are projected to have¶ only 13% in 20502 due to
slower population growth and aging populations.
The largest population increase¶ is projected to occur
in Asia, particularly in China, India¶ and Southeast Asia, accounting for about 60% and¶ more of the world’s population by 20503.¶
Canada’s exports to Asia reached $32 billion (or 10%¶ of the total) in 2010, increasing 141% from 20 years¶ earlier.
The growth is primarily in exports to China¶ which grew from $1.6 billion in 1990
to $13 billion in¶ 2010, overtaking Japan as the biggest market for¶ Canadian exports in Asia.
Economic decline undercuts interdependence and triggers nuclear
conflict
Kemp 10 [Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the White House under Ronald Reagan,
special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council
Staff, Former Director, Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010, The East Moves West: India,
China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East, p. 233-4]
The second scenario, called Mayhem and Chaos, is the opposite of the first scenario; everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The
world
economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan
suffer a major reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global
economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets,
leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut
back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to
political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The
internal stability of some countries is challenged, and there
are more “failed states.” Most serious is the collapse of
and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take
possession of a large number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between
the democratic government in Pakistan
India and Pakistan increases significantly . Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and
weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in
the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear
states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the
possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oilproducing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic
market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be
expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planet’s population
Uniqueness
Canadian Economy High Now
Canada econ high now
Beltrame 4/30 (4/30/13, Julian, Vancouver Sun, “Canada’s economic growth surprisingly strong, boosting dollar; Statistics Canada
report has analysts revising first quarter growth estimates,”
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/economy/Canada+economic+growth+surprisingly+strong+boosting/8315862/story.html
In the first welcome economic news in several weeks,
Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that the
country’s output expanded by 0.3 per cent in February. What’s more it revised
upward an earlier calculation for January by one notch, also to 0.3 per cent.¶ The
Canadian dollar climbed about half a cent on the news to 99.36 cents US in
morning trading.¶ “We can cheer not only the February result, but as well an upward revision to January and what now looks like a
reasonably good first quarter,” said CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld.¶ Economist Jimmy Jean of Desjardins Capital Markets noted that the growth
numbers were not “soft,” or the result of rounding. The
actual growth figures for January and February
were 0.33 and 0.34 per cent respectively.¶ “An unquestionably solid report, which
changes the picture somewhat with respect to the first quarter,” he said.¶ Analysts
now are pencilling in annualized growth rates of up to 2.5 per cent for the first
three months of the year, a pace that would make it the strongest in more than a
year.
Canada’s econ will only improve—increased US demand
Beltrame 13—writer for The Canadian Press (Julian, “U.S. revival to inject life into Canadian economy, but not till 2014: forecast,”
CTVNEWS, 6/14/13, http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/u-s-revival-to-inject-life-into-canadian-economy-but-not-till-2014-forecast-1.1325904)
The Conference Board of Canada released a new outlook Friday morning in line
with the scenario. It says the economy will likely be receiving a boost from
stronger U.S. demand for Canadian products, but that won't be felt until 2014.¶ In
the updated forecast, the Ottawa-based think-tank estimates Canada's growth rate
at 1.8 per cent this year, the same as last year and four-tenths of a point below its
previous call, before picking up to 2.5 per cent in 2014. That is near the Bank of Canada's call of 1.5 per
cent growth in 2013 and 2.8 per cent in 2014.¶ "Overall, Canada's domestic economy is not expected to muster enough strength to get growth ... above
two per cent this year," said economist Pedro Antunes, the think-tank's director of national and provincial forecasting. "The
stronger
pace of U.S. growth in 2014 should help lift spirits, resource prices, trade
prospects and income here at home," he added.¶ TD Bank's analysis also says Canada must wait until its largest
trading partner to the south fully swings into growth mode before seeing any significant pick-up here.¶ That remains a hope for the future, however.
For the present, the manufacturing report constitutes a significant setback for this year, particularly in the short term.¶ "(It's) an upsetting report in
many respects. This cools the mood a bit on Canadian fundamentals, after the robust employment and housing starts received recently," said Jimmy
Jean, an economic strategist with Desjardins Capital Markets.¶ April's decline was the fourth in five months. In terms of volumes, shipments are down
3.5 per cent in the past year. The drop was also broad-based, with 13 of 21 industries representing about 86 per cent of manufacturing declining, led by
an 8.8 per cent slide in petroleum and coal products sales, and an 8.7 per cent fall in primary metals. Autos fell 2.2 per cent.¶ Union economist Erin
Weir of the United Steelworkers pointed out that despite reasonable growth in employment, manufacturing has shed nearly 100,000 jobs in the past
year, and about 600,000 in the past decade.¶ Weir
notes that trend coincides with the appreciation of
the Canadian dollar from about 65 per cent of the U.S. currency's value to the
current near-parity status. The U.S. recession and weak recovery has also kept the sector from making as strong a comeback as
some others, particularly resource-based industries that are more closely tied to emerging economies such as China.¶ "Manufacturing is
the sector that is perhaps the most integrated between Canada and the United
States," he explained. "So I do think the recession in the U.S. explains a lot of the malaise
to date and if the American economy picks up, that has the potential to bolster
Canadian manufacturing again."¶ On that front, there was some encouraging news Friday. The International
Monetary Fund reported the U.S. economy is on sounder footing than it was a year
ago, although it expects recent tax increases and government spending cuts to
shave 1.5 per cent from growth this year. Once those impacts fade later the year,
the economy should start accelerating to a more healthy 2.7 per cent rate, the IMF said.
Canadian Oil Sands Strong Now
Canada’s oil sector increasing now
TSP 13 (6/26/13, The StarPhoenix, “Oil industry set to grow,” http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/industry+grow/8579355/story.html)
Canada's oil industry continues to expand and will see production more than
double over the next two decades, says a forecast released by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).
The projected increase presents both opportunities and challenges for the sector and the markets it is seeking to supply.
Crude oil production in Canada
is expected to increase to 6.7 million barrels per day by 2030 ,
3.2 million barrels per day in 2012, according to CAPP's 2013 Crude Oil Forecast, Markets and Transportation report
released this month. This includes oil sands production of 5.2 million barrels per day by 2030, up
from 1.8 million barrels per day in 2012.
"The emergence of the oil sands and the application of new technology are allowing previously
uneconomic resources to be commercially extracted," says Greg String-ham, CAPP's vice president of
up from
markets and oil sands.
With oil sands representing the majority of Canada's crude oil reserves, it is the primary driver of future overall growth. However, production will grow
more rapidly in in-situ (drilling) in the oil sands versus mining.
"In-situ is a relatively young technology in oil (less than 15 years), and we are beginning to see significant environmental and technological
improvements that are making these projects more efficient," explains Stringham. By 2030 in-situ oil sands production is forecast to reach 3.5 million
barrels per day, up from one-million barrels per day in 2012.
Much of the growth in the second half of the 20-year forecast comes from a resurgence in conventional oil production. The
incremental
increase by 2030 is 300,000 barrels per day, compared to 200,000 barrels per day
from oil sands production.
Oil sands strong—expected to double production
Reuters 13 (“Alberta oil sands production likely to double by 2022 –regulator,” Reuters, 5/8/13,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/canada-alberta-reserves-idUSL2N0DP2HI20130508)
CALGARY, Alberta, May 8 (Reuters) - Alberta's
Energy Resources Conservation Board said on
Wednesday it expects output from the province's oil sands to double to 3.8 million
barrels a day by 2022.¶ The board, which regulates the province's oil and gas
industry, said it expects oil sands production to hit 3.8 million bpd in nine years,
up from 1.9 million bpd in 2012.¶ Canada's oil sands are the world's third-largest
crude reserves, behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but the biggest open to
investment by private oil companies.¶ The expected increase in production in Alberta is based on new projects and
expansion of existing projects by companies including Imperial Oil Ltd, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and Suncor Energy Inc, among others.¶ In its
annual look at the province's reserves and production expectations, the
board also said conventional oil
production - which includes shale oil - rose 14 percent to 556,00 bpd in 2012.¶ The
ERCB attributed the rise to increasing production from horizontal wells, many of
which use fracking technology, and said it reverses a decades-long trend of decline in conventional crude oil production and
reserves.¶ Alberta's reserves of oil sands bitumen and conventional crude stood at 169.6 billion barrels at the end of 2012, including 167.9 billion barrels
of bitumen and conventional reserves of 1.7 billion barrels.¶ Natural gas reserves stood at 33 trillion cubic feet at the end of last year.
AT: Non-Unique --- No Keystone Will Undermine Canada
Oil Sands
Canada confident Keystone will be approved soon
Boston Herald 6/25 (6/25/13, by AP, “Canada confident Keystone XL will be approved,”
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/americas/2013/06/canada_confident_keystone_xl_will_be_approved)
Canada's natural resources minister said Tuesday he's confident the proposed
Keystone XL oil pipeline project from Canada to Texas will be approved because it
meets President Barack Obama's requirement that it not lead to a significant increase in
greenhouse gas emissions.¶ Joe Oliver responded to Obama's comments earlier Tuesday that the pipeline should be approved
only if it does "not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution."¶ Oliver pointed to "Obama's very own State Department" which he said
concluded in a report this year "that there would be no increase in greenhouse gas emissions."¶ The
long-delayed project
carrying oil from Alberta's oil sands requires approval from the State Department
because the project crosses the border. Republicans, and business and labor
groups, have urged the Obama administration to approve the pipeline as a source of
jobs and a step toward North American energy independence.¶ But environmental groups have been
pressuring Obama to reject the pipeline, saying it would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming. They also worry about a spill.
Keystone isn’t key to Canadian oil sands—rail, market pressure, and
other alternatives
Johnson and Dawson 13—writers for the Washington Post (Keith and Chester, “Pipeline called key to Canada oil sands,”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/7/13,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324069104578531713102125222.html)
In a report this past week, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projected oil-sands production capacity will more than double by 2030 to
more than five million barrels a day. If the Keystone expansion is blocked, production could exceed shipping capacity by as early as 2016—unless rail
delivery takes up the slack.¶ "
We're very confident the market will respond ," said Greg
Stringham, CAPP vice president.¶ Keystone is just the highest profile among a spate of pipeline projects that would be
needed to carry all of the growing Canadian oil production to distant markets. The CAPP report says that even if all proposed pipelines for Canadian
crude are built on schedule, oil-sands production will still fall short of the 2030 forecast by one million barrels a day .¶ Canada's RBC Capital Markets
said blocking Keystone would likely defer about $9 billion in oil-sands investment to the end of the decade.¶ But market
experts said
blocking Keystone would at most temporarily sidetrack Alberta's development
plans . They said that just as rail capacity expanded in the U.S. to handle a boom in oil
output, alternative facilities will eventually handle the expected flood of Canadian
crude.¶ "Keystone is the preferred enabler" of Canada's oil sands, "but it isn't the only enabler. There's more
than one way to skin the cat," said Robert Johnston of the Eurasia Group, a
consultancy that has closely studied the economics of Canadian oil production.
Project will be approved
Boston Herald 6/25 (6/25/13, by AP, “Canada confident Keystone XL will be approved,”
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/americas/2013/06/canada_confident_keystone_xl_will_be_approved)
***Note --- Oliver is the natural resources minister of Canada
Oliver said "we're comfortable the project will be approved" if the facts and science
are taken into account.¶ TransCanada, the Calgary-based company that has
proposed the pipeline, said in a statement it was pleased with Obama's comments
setting out criteria for pipeline approval.¶ "The almost five-year review of the project has already repeatedly found
that these criteria are satisfied," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive.
Links / Internal Link
2nc Link Ext
Expanded Venezuelan oil will tradeoff with Canada’s oil exports to the
U.S. and Asian Markets
***this evidence answers the argument that they could just shift to Asian Markets
Hussain, 13 (3/6/2013, Yadullah, “Life after Chavez: America’s oil gains could be Canada’s loss,”
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/03/06/life-after-chavez-venezuela-u-s-oil-industries-are-naturally-attractive-trading-partners/?__lsa=d8ad15ca, JMP)
Despite severe disagreements, the two countries’ oil industries are “naturally
attractive oil trading partners” due to their proximity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
“The robust trade in crude oil from Venezuela to the U nited S tates is due to the
compatibility between the configuration of some U.S. refineries and the quality
characteristics of Venezuelan crude, which is predominately sour and medium or heavy.”
This is a worrying development for Canadian crude producers, which offer similar type of heavy crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast
refineries, and may lose out if Venezuela reforms its oil industry.
Despite shrinking U.S. oil imports, Canada is now it southern neighbour’s largest
supplier of crude, accounting for nearly 30% of all U.S. imports last year. Much of
these gains were at the expense of heavier crudes from Venezuela and Mexico.
A long-term reversal in Venezuela oil production could compete with Canada in
the U nited S tates and even China and Asian markets.
Increased Venezuelan production will undermine investment in
Canadian oil sands
Vanderklippe, 13 (3/6/2013, Nathan, “Chavez's death opens door to Venezuela's oil riches,”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/latin-american-business/chavezs-death-opens-door-to-venezuelas-oilriches/article9324112/, JMP)
For years, the torrents of oil flowing from Venezuela’s giant energy reserves have dwindled. From a peak of 3.5 million barrels per day, the country’s
output has fallen to less than 2.5 million.
Now, the death of Hugo Chavez offers the promise of domestic oil market changes that could roil the energy world and place substantial opportunities
at the feet of Canadian oil companies whose expertise in heavy crude is directly applicable to Venezuela’s Orinoco oil fields. Venezuela, after
all, boasts
the world’s largest crude reserves. The country’s ability to exploit them
has been constrained by a lack of investment in dwindling older fields and the regime’s hostile treatment of foreign
capital.
Observers caution that in the short term, the likelihood of substantial change is low, and even if policy shifts do come, they are unlikely to result in an
energy transformation for many years.
For now, the most likely outcome is that “everything will remain the same in terms of policies,” said Jorge Neher, Venezuelan-born partner with law
firm Norton Rose who specializes in South American natural resource extraction.
Yet the death of Mr. Chavez, the populist leader who tossed out international oil companies and proved a frequent irritant to the United States, may set
in motion a series of long-term reforms that could slowly redraw the world’s energy map.
“There is going to be a point in time that, without the charismatic figure of Chavez in power, the Chavista movement is going to degrade – and at some
point it’s going to lose,” Mr. Neher said.
That could portend important shifts for Canada, given the sheer size of
Venezuela’s reserves and their similarity to the Alberta oil sands.
“The question for Canada, especially, is – is this the beginning of the end of Venezuela as an inefficient producer? And it probably is,” said Robert
Johnston, the director of energy and natural resources at the Eurasia Group political risk firm.
“I don’t think we’ll see a big change in the next four or five years. If you look at the four or five years beyond that, things could get very interesting.”
A revival in Venezuela’s oil industry could draw investment dollars away from
Canada , given the relatively low cost of producing heavy crude in the South
American nation. A revival in production there could also pose new competitive
threats to Canada as it seeks markets for its oil sands product.
“Longer-term, the risks are adding to the heavy oil glut in the Gulf Coast, or potentially in China,” Mr. Johnston said.
Expanded Venezuela production will compete with Canadian imports
to the U.S.
Kohl, 13 --- insider in the energy markets, one of few financial reporters to have visited the Alberta oil sands (3/8/2013, Keith, “Reviving
Venezuela's Oil Industry; Heavy Oil Investments,” http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/reviving-venezuelas-oil-industry/3151, JMP)
Rex's Revenge
The bitter court battle that followed Chavez's May Day takeover didn't sit well with ExxonMobil Executive Rex Tillerson. But fear not, because he's
about to have his revenge...
When the company announced it was spending $190 billion over the next five years, an interesting detail was where they're directing the capital. Out of
28 oil projects the company will start during that time frame, two dozen deal with heavy oil.
It's a good bet not a drop of it will come from Venezuelan fields.
Herein lies our opportunity, and I guarantee you most investors won't see it coming...
Battle for the Gulf
We've always known what the late Venezuelan president never said: The country needs us much more than we need them.
About 40% of Venezuela's oil exports are shipped to the U nited S tates. Take it a step
further, and you'll notice these barrels are heading for refineries along the Gulf
Coast that are specifically designed to handle heavy crude.
Nearly half of all our oil imports are shipped to the Gulf Coast area (PADD 3). Our
PADD 3 area will become a battleground for heavy oil producers (and there are more of them
than you might think).
Refiners like Valero, meanwhile, have performed admirably for investors over the past year:
Valero
The heavy oil showdown in the Gulf will come down to Canada and Venezuela.
Both are developing their own massive heavy oil deposits, and although our initial
reaction is to side with our Canadian friends, Chavez's death could breathe new
life into Venezuela's dying oil industry.
Next month's election for Hugo's successor will be the first clear indication of whether that will happen...
If the current vice president fails to win, it'll be interesting to see if the country will become more market-friendly and open its doors once again for
foreign investment.
Expanded Venezuelan production will compete with Canadian heavy
oil
Ross, 13 (4/30/2013, Elsie, Daily Oil Bulletin, “Venezuela, Mexico Could Once Again Compete Against Canada In Heavy Oil Market,” LexisAcademic, JMP)
Canadian heavy oil, which in recent years has increased its share of the United States Gulf of
Mexico market at the expense of Venezuela and Mexico, could face increasing
competition from those two countries, an oil conference heard Monday.
"There is going to be competition from Venezuela," Alberto Cisneros Lavaller, president
and chief executive officer of Global Business Consultants, told the Canadian
Energy Research Institute event. "The question is the degree of competition and the
amount of exports that we can expect."
At present, the U.S. imports less than one million bbls of oil a day from Venezuela
but that could increase to 1.2 million bbls a day or 1.6 million bbls a day depending
on whether the recently-elected government of Nicolas Maduro maintains the socialist approach of
former President Hugo Chavez or whether there is a return to democracy, he said.
Canadian Oil Sands Key to Economy
Canada oil sands are key to its economy and jobs --- attracting
investment is key to sustain momentum
Government of Alberta 5/19/13 (Website of the government of Alberta, “Economic Benefits”
http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/economicinvestment.html)
Our challengeｶ Albertans
own an incredibly valuable energy resource – valued by the
province, country and the entire world. It is essential that Albertans benefit from
the oil sands industry; while at the same time the province must nurture an attractive
investment climate to remain a stable global energy supplier.ｶ Our actionsｶ Alberta's oil sands
reserves are developed by private enterprise, regulated by independent agencies, and subject to policy and laws developed by democratically elected
governments. Oil
sands development benefits all Canadians through employment
opportunities as well as generating royalties and taxes that help pay for
government services and programs.ｶ Fast factsｶ Alberta's remaining proven oil reserves
are 170.8 billion barrels (169.3 billion barrels in the oil sands), or about 13 per cent of total global oil reserves.ｶ
About 1.6 million barrels of crude were produced every day from the oil sands in 2010.ｶ The energy sector (oil and
gas/mining)accounted for almost 28 per cent of Alberta's industry output in 2011.ｶ
As of April 2012, there were 101 active oil sands projects in Alberta. Of these,five were producing mining projects(three more are under construction);
the remaining projects used various in-situ recovery methods.ｶ Benefits to Albertansｶ About
151,000 Albertans are
directly employed in the oil and gas extraction and mining sectors in 2011 – that's
one of every 14 jobs in the province.ｶ Royalties from the oil sands were $3.7 billion
in 2010-2011. This is Albertans' share of the revenue from oil sands production and helps fund many
public services.ｶ According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute(CERI), Alberta
can expect $350 billion in royalties and $122 billion in provincial and municipal tax revenue from the
oil sands over the next 25 years.ｶ About 10 per cent of the oil sands workforce is Aboriginal.ｶ In 2009, the value of contracts
between oil sands companies and Aboriginal companies was $810 million.ｶ Investmentｶ Capital investment in the oil sands is estimated to add up to
$218 billion over the next 25 years.ｶ
Every dollar invested in the oil sands creates about $7.50
worth of economic activity, one-third of which occurs outside Alberta's borders –
in Canada, the US and around the world .ｶ In total, from 2000-2010, $116 billion has been
invested in the oil sands industry.ｶ Benefits to Canadiansｶ The Canadian Energy Research
Institute (CERI)estimates oil sands will create $444 billion in tax revenue across
Canada over the next 25 years. Over 70 per cent, or $322 billion, will go to the federal government.ｶ Alberta companies have
signed millions of dollars in contracts with companies throughout Canada to support activity in the oil sands.ｶ Key industries servicing the oil sands
include machinery and metal fabrication, particularly in Ontario.ｶ Atlantic Canada is seeing increased activity in certain industries, such as
manufacturing.ｶ New Brunswick steel manufacturers have signed contracts worth an estimated $50 million.ｶ Over
the next 25 years,
employment in the oil sands is expected to grow from 75,000 jobs in 2010 to
905,000 jobs in 2035 – with 126,000 of those being sourced in provinces outside
Alberta.ｶ Alberta economyｶ Highest rate of economic growth in Canada over the last 20 years.ｶ Alberta exports of goods rose by 64 per cent
from 2001 to 2011 to $93 billion, which includes over $66 billion in energy exports.ｶ The lowest tax regime in Canada. Alberta businesses do not pay
general sales taxes, capital taxes or payroll taxes and Alberta has the lowest gasoline tax among provinces. The general corporate tax rate is 10 per cent,
and the small business tax rate is three per cent.ｶ -
Canadian oil sands key to Canadian economy—driving in billions of
US and Chinese investment
Hancox 12—writer for PolicyMic (Ed, “China and US Battle for Control of Canadian Oil Sands,” policymic, July 2012,
http://www.policymic.com/articles/12052/china-and-us-battle-for-control-of-canadian-oil-sands)
Did a Canadian business deal just derail hopes that the United States could become energy self-sufficient?¶ Last week, China's
state-run
oil conglomerate China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has put in a bid to buy Canadian firm
Nexen, (which holds claim to a portion of the Oil Sands region in Alberta,) in a $15 billion deal that would see CNOOC pay a 61%
premium for shares of Nexen stock. The
Oil Sands region is currently driving Canada's economic
bonanza , and even though they lie within a foreign country, the Oil Sands are an important factor in projections that the U.S. could wean itself
off of “foreign” oil by the next decade. If the Oil Sands products start flowing east rather than south though, these projections of U.S. oil independence
get cast very much in doubt.¶ Critics
were quick to jump on the CNOOC offer as the by-product
of President Obama's decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline
project, which would bring Oil Sands bitumen (the technical term for the product of the Oil Sands) from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. They note
that the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper began a very public courtship of Chinese energy firms following the Obama
administration's Keystone XL decision. Some, like Nathan Vardi of Forbes, go as far as to say that Obama “pushed” Canada into China's arms.
Impacts
2nc Canada Key to Economy
IL magnifier – micro multinational economic powers drive growth
Varian ‘11
[Hal. Economic Analyst for Foreign Policy. “
Micromultinationals will Run the World ” 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/micromultinationals_will_run_the_world //Cal-JV]
We live in an age of combinatorial innovation. There have been other such periods before: In the 19th century,
standardized mechanical parts -- wheels, pulleys, belts, and gears -- were combined and recombined to create new innovations. In the 20th century, the
components were internal combustion engines, electricity, electronics, and (eventually) microelectronic chips.¶ Today, a substantial
amount of software development on the web involves connecting standardized
components in novel ways. The Linux operating system, the Apache web server, the MySQL database, and the Python
programming language are prominent examples: the LAMP components that serve as basic building blocks for much of the web. Once your application
is developed, the cloud computing model offered by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others changes fixed costs for data centers into variable costs for
data services, lowering barriers to entry and increasing the pace of innovation.¶ Just
as the mechanical innovations of
the 19th century led to dramatic changes in our way of life, the still-evolving
computing and communication innovations of the early 21st century will have a
profound impact on the world's economy and culture . For example, even the smallest
company can now afford a communications and computational infrastructure that
would have been the envy of a large corporation 15 years ago. If the late 20th century was the age of
the multinational company, the early 21st will be the age of the micromultinational: small
companies that operate globally.
2nc Middle Power Impact – Stability
Growth is key to Canada’s legitimacy as a global middle power
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
Canada between 1945 and 2010 has been classified as a prominent " middle power ." At the same¶ time its
relative standing among nations has been declining and it has less regard in the
world than¶ it once did. Middle power theory seeks to classify those nations who in the wake of the Second¶ World War were neither
great powers nor non- great powers.¶ The idea of middlepowermanship greatly appealed to
Canadians and they undertook initiatives to¶ separate themselves from the nongreat powers. Canada is often seen as the exemplary case for¶ observing middle power
status. Through the post war era and the Cold War Canada was both¶ economically
and politically powerful. By getting involved in a plethora of multi-lateral bodies¶ such as the United Nations and the
Commonwealth while promoting peacekeeping and mediation,¶ Canada was able to exert its growing influence
on the world order. Throughout this time Canada¶ worked hard to build its reputation as a mediator and specialized in ending quarrels.
This is true of¶ Canada’s involvement in the Commonwealth in the 1960s and 1970s with regard to the Rhodesian¶ question. On two separate occasions
it was the Canadian contingents that prevented the¶ Commonwealth from dissipating. This further bolstered Canada’s rise to prominence in the world¶
order.¶ Over the years,
as Canada took on more initiatives resources became very thinly
spread. With an¶ economic slow down and new commitments to national policies (universal healthcare and pensions)¶
the Canadian budget was rearranged and priorities changed. No longer were there
the same¶ resources available to middle power initiatives or the military. This has
greatly impacted Canada’s¶ ability to participate in international projects.¶ Recently,
Canada’s position in the world has come into question, asking whether or not it truly is¶ still a middle
power. By looking at various traditional middle power elements including the¶
economy,
bodies
peacekeeping, official
development assistance and involvement in multilateral
it¶ can be seen that Canada’s
prominence is waning. Using the case study of Zimbabwean/ Canadian¶ relations
through the 20th and 21st centuries, the decline of Canada’s middle power performance can¶ be traced. Combining these
different themes with hard and soft power theory it is clear to see that ¶ Canada no
longer holds the same position of middle power it once did. It also shows that Canadians¶ are holding
onto an image of Canada, which is dated, and it is time to redefine Canada’s position¶ within the world
order.
Canada’s standing as a middle power is a controlling impact –
necessary to mediate otherwise-inevitable great power conflict
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
Robert Cox in his 1989 article “Middlepowermanship, Japan and the Future World Order” poses a¶ valid question “what is the essence of the middle
power’s functional relationship to the world¶ order?” (Cox, 1989:825). Before delving into the theory behind middle powers it is important to¶
understand why they are so important in the world.
Middle powers have acted as a stabiliser and¶
neutraliser , especially during the Cold War, middle power countries acted within the interests
of¶ their bloc to neutralise the tension, “or urging restraint on the alliance leader, or
resisting renewed¶ 21¶ tendencies towards isolationism on the part of the bloc leader”(Cooper et al. 1993:20).
“The¶ middle-power role is to affirm the principle of adherence to acceptable rules
of conduct by all¶ powers, great and small” (Cox, 1989:834). Middle powers are able to
affirm this world order¶ through various international institutions based on a
post- Westphalian political structure and a¶ decentralization of global hegemony
(Cox, 1989:835).¶ In the era after the Second World War when the Great Powers had been decimated a new grouping¶ of powers began to emerge. A
country like Canada who was very involved in the war through¶ industry, finance,
technology and manpower came out on the other side with a new place in the¶
global order. No longer was Canada a former colony or a nation pretending to be its own country;¶ rather, as a nation Canada had
an important impact . Perhaps most importantly, the Canadian¶ economy was stronger than
ever at the end of the war. Since Canada was not a ‘great power’ like¶ the United States or Britain
but was no longer a small power a new place in the world order needed¶ to be sought out. This is where the evolution of middle powers began.¶ After
the Cold War ended there
were new opportunities for middle powers. They were not needed¶ to try
and keep a stable world order; there were new initiatives they were able to participate in.¶ Since the Soviet Union and the
United States were no longer caught in a constant power struggle¶ and there was no longer the same divide between east and west and as a result,
“middle powers had¶ greater freedom of action thrust upon them in terms of their
diplomacy ” (Cooper et al.1993: 21).¶ Middle powers have the ability to come together through
multi-lateral bodies such as NATO and¶ the UN to uphold “the norms and rules of the
international system and perform certain tasks to¶ maintain and strengthen that
system ” (Cooper et al. 1993: 21). Throughout the 1980s with the¶ United States’ declining resources middle powers were
poised to take on a more active role in the¶ international arena (Cooper et al.1993: 21).
More evidence – growth is key to Canadian middle power legitimacy
because economic contraction constrains international aid
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
Foreign policy is a nation’s tool to interact with the rest of the world and Canadian
foreign policy is¶ no different. For a middle power foreign policy is extremely important as a
means to convey its¶ values to the rest of the world . Currently, Canada maintains 270
missions in 180 countries (Cohen,¶ 2003:16). This is a tool to keep lines of communication
open with the rest of the world and to¶ maintain some form of prominence.¶ One
element of foreign policy that Canadians view as extremely important is foreign
aid or ODA.¶ By projecting an image of giving ‘generously’ (actually about .3 % of the GDP, Graph 3)¶
Canadians view themselves as “good international citizens” and it offers “domestic
approaches to¶ economic justice and equality to the international sphere” (Jordaan,
2003:174). As part of Canadian foreign policy the government uses the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA) to¶ conceive and then administer its ODA. In 2003
Canada spent $2.4 billion on aid (Cohen, 2003:18).¶ In 2005 Canadian foreign policy outlined three themes consistent with
middle powers: “the¶ promotion of prosperity and employment; the protection of our
security within a stable global¶ framework; and the projection of Canadian values
and culture” (Hillmer & Granatstein, 2007:6). As¶ Jordaan (2003:166) outlines, middle powers (like Canada), main
tenant of foreign policy is its¶ “ proclivity for seeking multi-lateral solutions to
international problems, for advocating compromise¶ and for, in general being
part of the solution at the international level.” Meaning they rely on their¶ foreign
policy and membership to multi-lateral organizations to contribute to the world order and¶
maintain their middle power status.¶ “No one belongs to more clubs” (Cohen, 2003:15). A bold
statement, and one that rings true for¶ Canada. Being a member of a plethora of multilateral bodies is
something the Canadian government¶ is strongly in support of as a middle power.
Many of the “clubs” Canada is a member of it was also¶ a founding partner, such as the G20 and UN. Canada takes pride in
belonging to the larger multi¶ lateral bodies such as the UN, NATO, IMF and OAS but also in smaller (perhaps dated)
bodies of¶ both the Commonwealth and la Francophonie. By being a member of so many bodies Canada is¶
able to voice an opinion and have influence on a variety of different issues which
do not directly¶ affect them. This is consistent with maintaining the current world
order and perpetuating their¶ middle power status .
More evidence – growth is key to Canadian relevance – history’s a
crush for the neg
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
The end of the Second World War was important to Canada for a number of
reasons. Politically, it¶ made Canada a pillar upholding world order. In economic terms it
allowed Canada to expand its¶ markets while the traditional economic centres in
Europe were rebuilding from the ground up.¶ Increasing economic integration with the United States enhanced prosperity. In the
1950s, when¶ compared to the rest of the world, Canada’s standard of living was second in the world “behind the¶ Americans, but far ahead of anybody
else- including the British” (Bothwell, 2007:107). This¶ economic boom that Canadians enjoyed in the post-war period launched Canada into many¶
economic initiatives, from jet engines to atomic reactors. The strength of Canada’s economy was¶ another indicator that it had reached middle power
status.¶ It is a truism that an independent nation, Canada
has never “been wholly self- sufficient” (Nossal,¶
on other nations to bolster its economy. The reliance on trade for Canada’s GDP¶ has been a
continual theme throughout Canadian political history. Some have even argued that¶ Canadian “foreign policy is trade
1997:29) relying
policy”
(MacLaren, 1997:30). Accordingly Canada
is extremely¶ sensitive to the American market
and “virtually all foreign policy issues become linked to¶ Canadian- American
relations” (Nossal, 1997:33).¶ Canada’s fruitful economy meant it could afford to belong to
many international bodies, and could¶ offer generous foreign assistance. Many Canadians
believed that “development assistance could¶ help lay the foundations for steady
economic growth by promotion of the commercialization of¶ agriculture, boosting
domestic consumption, and raising the level of savings and capital¶ investment”
(Tomlin et al. 2008:157). Initially, development aid was seen as a wise investment which would be profitable for the Canadian economy, in terms of
promoting Canadian goods and¶ services abroad. Under Pearson there was an immediate shift in the character of the government’s¶ development
policy. As opposed to infrastructure and agricultural development there was¶ movement towards social investment such as education and healthcare.
When Trudeau became¶ prime minister the policy was focused on the poorest countries, but pressure was mounting on the¶ development policy to
Mulroney
government shifted its aid policy towards one of direct domestic¶ economic benefits. As a
focus on economic developments which would have a greater impact on the¶ Canadian economy.¶ The Conservative
result, the government’s priorities moved “in the direction of supporting¶ Canadian trade and investment abroad by channelling development
assistance to those middleincome,¶ developing countries where economic fortunes were rising” (Tomlin et al. 2008: 159), as¶ opposed to the least
developed countries.¶ While
the Canadian economy continued to grow and the Canadian standard of living
and Japan had rebuilt their economies which were, inevitably,¶ larger than
Canada’s. Domestically, the Canadian government redirected some of its resources, on,¶ for
example, universal health care and a comprehensive pension system. As a result of the change in¶ government policy, the
continued to¶ rise until the early 1970s, Europe
budget had to be adjusted to accommodate the expenses of healthcare so¶ there was simply less money to be sent abroad. Despite the increased
spending on healthcare in the¶ budget, the first five years after medicare was introduced the Canadian budget was in surplus. The¶ 1970s brought
economic slowdown for many nations, including Canada. What was happening at the¶ time was a combination of stagflation and national revenues
reaching a plateau. All of these factors¶ contributed to Canada’s lessening ability to maintain the same level of commitment and to the¶ decline in its
middle power ranking.¶ The Mulroney era of the 1980s
was characterised by economic belt-tightening.
end of the Cold War brought
more¶ changes in foreign policy, in part because the great enemy of forty years was no
longer there, but¶ also because the end of the Cold War coincided with a sharp
recession and a debt crisis in¶ government finance. When Mulroney left office in 1993, there was a significantly greater deficit¶ than when he
Nevertheless by the¶ end of Mulroney’s term the deficit had grown substantially. The
came into office in 1983. The newly elected Liberal government needed to deal with¶ not only the growing deficit but the interest it accumulated. “An
aggressive approach to deficit¶ reduction throughout much of the 1990s effectively decimated government resources devoted to¶ international activity”
(Keating, 2010: 4). This also had
a great impact on Canadian military¶ 40¶ spending. On the whole, the
in
military spending would have consequences¶ for Canada’s role as a middle power,
especially in terms of peacekeeping.¶ The economic slow-down of the Canadian
idea of spending less on the military pleased the Canadian population,¶ but most Canadians did not realise that the cutbacks
economy also affected Canada’s participation in multilateral¶ bodies . Being a
member of multi-lateral organizations is an integral part of being considered¶ a
middle power. Canada is a member of many organizations, which require both attention and¶ money. More to the point, membership does
not necessarily mean importance or significance.¶ When Canada joined the G7 in 1976, the Canadian economy really was the world’s sixth largest,¶
ahead of Italy. By the 1990s this was no longer the case. Wisely, the Canadian government¶ redefined its foreign policy goals from the G7 to the G20,
where Canada could still legitimately¶ claim a place. This initiative was particularly identified with Paul Martin, finance minister in the¶ 1990s and
prime minister from 2003 to 2006.¶ The
G20 incorporates emerging economies such as India,
China, Brazil and South Africa.1 These¶ emerging economies, especially China and India have
gained increasing importance to the global¶ economy while Canada’s role has been
lessening. The motivation behind the creation of the G20¶ was obvious. Canada was no longer the sixth, seventh or even eighth wealthiest
economy in world¶ terms. It was only a matter of time until Canada’s position in the G8 was questioned, and former¶ prime minister Paul Martin tried
to avoid the question by redefining the terms of the meeting and¶ incorporating these emerging economies.¶ Today, the G8 still meets and coexists with
the G20 but is now seen as an elitist enterprise which¶ fails to incorporate the shift in the global order. The G8s influence has been lessening with
fewer¶ programs actually materializing. The stagnation of global initiatives like the New Partnership for¶ Africa’s Development (NEPAD, discussed in
Chapter 4) which was introduced at the G8 summit in¶ 2002, can be seen as an example of the declining political and economic influence of not only
the¶ G8 but Canada’s influence within the body. NEPAD is an initiative aimed at the improvement of¶ many elements of African society based
substantially on support from G8 members. Since its¶ inception it has fallen short of its target goals. Current Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the
acting President of the G8 for 2010. Canada, most¶ recently hosted both the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto and despite best efforts it turned out to
be¶ a disastrous meeting. The total cost was about 1 billion dollars, spent on security, lavish¶ accommodations and marketing Canada to the world. In
the end what made global headlines was¶ not the content of the summits but rather the protests, the price tag and riots in Toronto.¶ By holding a
worldwide economic conference Canada attempted to uphold its middle power status.¶ But spending 1-billion dollars on the conference enraged the
population and created a larger chasm¶ between the government and its electorate. Having such a large international conference with an¶ immense
price tag where very little was accomplished did not place Canada in a good light to the¶ rest of the world. At the same time, Canada’s Conservative
government found itself at odds with the¶ summit’s most important member, the United States. Returning to Washington, American delegates¶
expressed disgust with the summit and the summit process (Private Communication, 2010 citing¶ Strobe Talbott).¶ American president Barak Obama
said that he did “not like the form or the substance of the G8 and¶ G20 meetings. Indeed, he left convinced that bilateral and other group meetings
were more useful”¶ (English, 2010). The focus of the Summit was economic, centred on job creation, financial growth¶ and stability. The Millennium
Development Goals were discussed in brief, but were not a central¶ focus of the event. The issue of Maternal Health was something that Stephen
Harper pushed for¶ and was met with substantial controversy. The Maternal Health strategy “strives for care before and¶ after birth, family planning
including contraception, reproductive health, treatment and prevention¶ of diseases, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of disease,
immunization and nutrition”¶ (CBC, 2010). Despite the government’s best intentions, the Maternal Health initiative turned into a¶ very public debate
over the right to abortion instead of the actual policy aimed to helping new¶ mothers and children. In the end, it was the gross overspending and the
controversy around the¶ Toronto summit undermined its actual purpose. The Canadian government was extremely¶ misguided in the organization and
spending towards the G8/20 summits which has further¶ weakened its middle power stance. Today, the legacy left behind in the wake of the summits
is¶ discontent and mismanagement- not the subjects discussed.¶ The
Canadian economy was once the “second
highest income in the world after the Second World¶ War [but] now has the
twelfth-largest economy and seventh-highest per capita income” (Cohen,¶ 2003: 26). Throughout
the post-war era Canada experienced unprecedented economic growth.¶ 42¶ Unlike its European counterparts, Canada did not need to rebuild itself
from the ground up giving it¶ an economic advantage.
It was only a matter of time before the gap between
Europe and Canada¶ closed. One of Jordaan’s crucial characteristics of middle power
status was a stable economy.¶ Canada through the past decades has shown a substantial
economic slow down and the strength of¶ its economy is being confronted by some
new challengers- the emerging middle powers. The¶ emerging nations of China and India are
growing exponentially in terms of economic growth which¶ pushes Canada further
down the list of economic bigwigs in the world order.
More evidence – Canada’s middle power legitimacy is vital to global
stability (also AT: Canada no longer relevant & AT: theory outdated)
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
Tracing the development of traditional middle powers gives insight into the
importance of the world¶ order. It shows how relatively ‘neutral’ nations are
integral to maintain the peace and mediate¶ through crises. As the global order is
constantly shifting it is important to be able to classify¶ emerging middle powers in
the same manner as traditional middle powers like Canada, Australia¶ and Sweden. As in 1945, the world is recognising the
distinct differences between the not great and¶ the great countries but perhaps on a
more specific scale. New and more accepting categories are¶ developing to keep up with the constant change in the world order. Some
of the frameworks¶ discussed cannot keep up with the shifting global landscape. The hierarchical model is dated and is¶ based on an out of date way of
quantifying power based on population and military capabilities. On¶ the opposite end of the spectrum, the behavioural model is too flexible and can
classify some states¶ as middle powers when they only act like a middle power, but are not necessarily a middle power¶ through and through.¶ After
examining the various types of middle power analysis it is clear that Jordaan presents the best¶ framework. Inspired by Cox and Gramsci, Jordaan
highlights characteristics essential to both¶ emerging and traditional middle powers while applying them to relevant examples. Furthermore,¶ Jordaan
has also created a strong distinction between emerging and traditional middle
powers,¶ showing how the theory is flexible
and can keep up with the shifting global order .
AT: Middle Powers are inevitable – Canada’s key
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
The post- war era was ideal for Canada to make a name for itself externally as a
middle power. It¶ has acted as legitimiser, peacekeeper, proponent of conflict
reduction and supporter of multilateral¶ solutions with like-minded states. From the outset
there are some elements of middle powermanship¶ which are more obvious than
others. Jordaan presents many attributes necessary for a nation to be¶ considered a middle power. Some of these
characteristics are easily applied when examining¶ Canada’s middle power status
of the past including: regional significance, identity, foreign policy¶ participation
in multi-lateral bodies and leadership. Since Canada has an “inability… to
unilaterally¶ and single handily shape global outcomes in any direct manner” it is
essential for them to¶ participate in multi-lateral bodies and have a strong foreign policy (Jordaan,
2003:169). As a result,¶ Canada has acted as a legitimising force to the current world order
upholding the middle power¶ reputation .
Middle Power Impact – S. Asia
SouthAsian resource conflict’s inevitable
Akbar 6-22
[Mashfique. International Desk for the Dhaka Tribune. “ The imminent water war” 6/22/13 ln//Cal-JV]
The battles of yesteryear were fought over land, those of today centre around energy, and it will not
be long before the focus shifts to water. In fact, water will be a political tool in the
years to follow.¶
Recent days saw Bangladesh win a longstanding maritime dispute that has been making the rounds since the 1970s. The
maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal has been neglected by India, Myanmar and Bangladesh for decades.¶ Then why was there a sudden interest in
the Bay and its demarcation involving a naval standoff between two of the world’s poorest nations? The
answer lies in the
hydrocarbons, which are hidden out in the depths. Bangladesh requires the
hydrocarbons to contend with its own energy shortage, while Myanmar requires
the minerals for export purposes.¶ We have already seen that there are issues regarding
water bodies, as is evidenced by the example above. But these disputes are not only limited to the
ocean. We have already seen some examples of this phenomenon in our country, and things are likely to get much worse.¶ Asia is a
water-deficient continent when it comes to fresh water. Home to more than half of the world’s population, Asia has the
smallest proportion of fresh water (excluding Antarctica), according to a 2006 United Nations report.¶ Fresh
water, a necessary resource, is bound to become a source of tension in Asia . The probability
of global warming sweeping away glaciers in the Himalayan range over the next
couple of decades could pose a serious water threat not only in the South Asian region, but also for Asia as a
whole.¶ Conflict caused by water shortage could arise when upper riparian states
would want to capitalise on their position, depriving the lower riparian states,
especially during times of low rainfall. Disagreements regarding fresh water territories have been a concern in the South
Asian region since British rule.¶ Although there is an international law on distribution of trans-boundary river water, the law is not
comprehensive and does not confront the various issues regarding water sharing in the delta.¶ The rise of waterconflicts is likely to increase due to enhanced irrigated farming, the rise in waterintensive industries and an expanding middle-class consuming more water for less
necessary functions.¶ In this context, that urbanisation will take a toll on fresh water bodies is a point to be
noted. Climate change and degradation in the form of shrinking forests as a result of
deforestation, overuse of groundwater, contamination of water sources and fading
swamps are the other facets of urbanisation that also have effects on the
availability of fresh water.¶ Moreover, inland water bodies have been the lifeline of
many South Asian countries
including Bangladesh. Many
rivers cut through national borders
in the sub-continent .¶ With the majority of the work force still employed in agriculture in the delta, water demand is
ever increasing . The demand for water will continue to increase given enhanced economic
activity and the ever-increasing population in this part of the world, with less and less water availability per
capita.
Canadian softpower’s key to navigate tensions on the subcontinent
Clark ‘12
[Campbell. Foreign Affairs Writer for the Globe and Mail. “Canada must help strengthen Pakistan's civilian rule” 9/10/12
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-must-help-strengthen-pakistans-civilian-rule/article625838/?service=mobile //Cal-JV]
Even after combat in Kandahar, Canada, like the rest of the world, has
an interest in seeing that this
dangerous dynamic doesn't heat up. Pakistan and its uncontrolled army
intelligence agency, which has already frustrated the United States, is at the centre of the question.¶
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Canada supports India in its fight against terrorists. "We've seen a similar attack in a similar way not long
ago," he said.¶ He was referring to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 164, and were traced to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistan-based group
backed by elements of Pakistan's intelligence agency. They, and the homegrown Indian Mujahedeen, who also are believed to have been helped by the
Inter-Services Intelligence agency, are immediate suspects in India this time.¶ An
immediate danger is that the attacks
could derail India-Pakistan talks aimed at cooling tensions. The bombings may have, in fact, been a
spoiler attempt, said Daniel Markey, senior fellow for India and Pakistan at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.¶ Tensions
between India and Pakistan have a larger effect in the region. Pakistan, especially its
powerful army, sees India as its overriding adversary and has sponsored groups such as the LeT as
strategic assets. It backed the Taliban in Afghanistan in a proxy battle with India for
influence.¶ That doesn't seem to be the policy of Pakistan's civilian government now, but it isn't really in control. The army is
dominant, and inside the army, the intelligence service, the ISI, is powerful.¶ It's hard to
tell how much of the army or the government supports terror groups or insurgents. "Parts of the ISI very clearly still support LeT. It's dangerous to go
beyond that," Mr. Markey added.¶ Many Canadian
officials have held the same view about support
for the Afghan Taliban. Former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan Chris Alexander, now a Conservative MP, last year accused
Pakistan's army of "complicity."¶ Some wanted Ottawa to out that role with criticism, others
wanted to try to change it. Carleton University professor Eliot Tepper argues that India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan should be treated as one "security complex" and Canada should
adopt a broader aid and trade policy to strengthen Pakistan's civilian elements.¶
There was an international wave to do that two years ago, led by late U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. Pushing India to reduce troops on the border
would make Pakistan feel more secure and would stop support for insurgents, it was argued. But Mr. Markey said that ran into a "buzzsaw" with India,
which wouldn't make security compromises that, it argued, wouldn't change Pakistan's behaviour anyway.¶ Now the
United States is
frustrated with engagement in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden was found there, and then-CIA chief Leon Panetta
reportedly confronted the ISI over leaks that allowed insurgents to slip away. Since then, Washington has decided to
withhold $800-million in military aid to Islamabad.¶ That alone won't change Pakistan, Mr. Markey argued;
another step is to quietly convince others with influence, such as China and Saudi Arabia, that the "increasingly unmanageable" ISI must be cleaned up,
for their interests, too.¶ Canadian
criticism won't move Pakistan, either. But Canada does have a
smaller part: Encouraging India to keep talks going , looking for ways to foster
civilian government in Pakistan and pressing the world to see its intelligence
agency as a global problem .
South Asian war causes extinction – other conflicts do not
Robock and Toon ‘10
[Dr. Alan Robock is a professor of climatology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University and the associate director of its
Center for Environmental Prediction. Prof. Robock has been a researcher in the area of climate change for more than 30 years. His current research
focuses on soil moisture variations, the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate, effects of nuclear war on climate, and regional atmosphere/hydrology
modeling. He has served as Editor of climate journals, including the Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology and the Journal of Geophysical
Research-Atmospheres. He has published more than 250 articles on his research, including more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and Owen Brian Toon
is professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a fellow at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of
Colorado, received his Ph.D. from Cornell University – From the January 20 10 Scientific American Magazine –
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf]
By deploying modern computers and modern climate models, the two of us and
our colleagues have shown that not only were the ideas of the 1980s correct but the
effects would last for at least 10 years, much longer than previously thought. And
by doing calculations that assess decades of time, only now possible with fast,
current computers, and by including in our calculations the oceans and the entire
atmosphere— also only now possible—we have found that the smoke from even a
regional war would be heated and lofted by the sun and remain suspended in the
upper atmosphere for years, continuing to block sunlight and to cool the earth.
India and Pakistan, which together have more than 100 nuclear weapons, may be the most
worrisome adversaries capable of a regional nuclear conflict today. But other countries besides the U.S. and Russia (which have thousands) are well
endowed: China, France and the U.K. have hundreds of nuclear warheads; Israel has more than 80, North Korea has about 10 and Iran may well be
trying to make its own. In 2004 this situation prompted one of us (Toon) and later Rich Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles, both
veterans of the 1980s investigations, to begin evaluating what the global environmental effects of a regional nuclear war would be and to take as our test
case an engagement between India and Pakistan. The latest estimates by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and by
Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council are that India has 50 to 60 assembled weapons (with enough plutonium for 100) and that
Pakistan has 60 weapons. Both countries continue to increase their arsenals. Indian and Pakistani nuclear
weapons tests indicate that the yield of the warheads would be similar to the 15-kiloton explosive yield (equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT) of the bomb
the U.S. used on Hiroshima. Toon and Turco, along with Charles Bardeen, now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, modeled what would
happen if 50 Hiroshima-size bombs were dropped across the highest population-density targets in Pakistan and if 50 similar bombs were also dropped
across India. Some people maintain that nuclear weapons would be used in only a measured way. But in the wake of chaos, fear and broken
communications that would occur once a nuclear war began, we
doubt leaders would limit attacks in any
rational manner. This likelihood is particularly true for Pakistan, which is small
and could be quickly overrun in a conventional conflict. Peter R. La voy of the
Naval Postgraduate School, for example, has analyzed the ways in which a conflict
between India and Pakistan might occur and argues that Pakistan could face a
decision to use all its nuclear arsenal quickly before India swamps its military
bases with traditional forces. Obviously, we hope the number of nuclear targets in
any future war will be zero, but policy makers and voters should know what is
possible. Toon and Turco found that more than 20 million people in the two
countries could die from the blasts, fires and radioactivity—a horrible slaughter.
But the investigators were shocked to discover that a tremendous amount of
smoke would be generated, given the megacities in the two countries, assuming each fire would burn the same area that actually
did burn in Hiroshima and assuming an amount of burnable material per person based on various studies. They calculated that the 50 bombs exploded
in Pakistan would produce three teragrams of smoke, and the 50 bombs hitting India would generate four (one teragram equals a million metric tons).
Satellite observations of actual forest fires have shown that smoke can be lofted up through the troposphere (the bottom layer of the atmosphere) and
sometimes then into the lower stratosphere (the layer just above, extending to about 30 miles). Toon and Turco also did some “back of the envelope”
calculations of the possible climate impact of the smoke should it enter the stratosphere. The large magnitude of such effects made them realize they
needed help from a climate modeler. It turned out that one of us (Robock) was already working with Luke Oman, now at the NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, who was finishing his Ph.D. at Rutgers University on the climatic effects of volcanic eruptions, and with Georgiy L. Stenchikov, also at
Rutgers and an author of the first Russian work on nuclear winter. They developed a climate model that could be used fairly easily for the nuclear blast
calculations. Robock and his colleagues, being conservative, put five teragrams of smoke into their modeled upper troposphere over India and Pakistan
on an imaginary May 15. The model calculated how winds would blow the smoke around the world and how the smoke particles would settle out from
the atmosphere. The smoke covered all the continents within two weeks. The black, sooty smoke absorbed sunlight, warmed and rose into the
stratosphere. Rain never falls there, so the air is never cleansed by precipitation; particles very slowly settle out by falling, with air resisting them. Soot
particles are small, with an average diameter of only 0.1 micron (μm), and so drift down very slowly. They also rise during the daytime as they are
heated by the sun, repeatedly delaying their elimination. The calculations showed that the smoke would reach far higher into the upper stratosphere
than the sulfate particles that are produced by episodic volcanic eruptions. Sulfate particles are transparent and absorb much less sunlight than soot
and are also bigger, typically 0.5 μm. The volcanic particles remain airborne for about two years, but smoke from nuclear fires would last a decade.
Killing Frosts in Summer The
climatic response to the smoke was surprising. Sunlight was
immediately reduced, cooling the planet to temperatures lower than any experienced for the past 1,000 years. The global average cooling, of about 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), lasted for
several years, and even after 10 years the temperature was still 0.5 degree C colder than normal. The models also showed a 10 percent reduction in
precipitation worldwide. Precipitation, river flow and soil moisture all decreased because blocking sunlight reduces evaporation and weakens the
hydrologic cycle. Drought was largely concentrated in the lower latitudes, however, because global cooling would retard the Hadley air circulation
pattern in the tropics, which produces a large fraction of global precipitation. In critical areas such as the Asian monsoon regions, rainfall dropped by as
much as 40 percent. The
cooling might not seem like much, but even a small dip can cause
severe consequences. Cooling and diminished sunlight would, for example,
shorten growing seasons in the midlatitudes. More insight into the effects of
cooling came from analyses of the aftermaths of massive volcanic eruptions. Every
once in a while such eruptions produce temporary cooling for a year or two. The largest
of the past 500 years, the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia, blotted the sun and produced global cooling of about 0.5 degree C for a year; 1816
became known as “The Year without a Summer” or “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” In New England, although the average summer
temperature was lowered only a few degrees, crop-killing frosts occurred in every month. After the first frost, farmers replanted crops, only to see them
killed by the next frost. The price of grain skyrocketed, the price of livestock plummeted as farmers sold the animals they could not feed, and a mass
migration began from New England to the Midwest, as people followed reports of fertile land there. In Europe the weather was so cold and gloomy that
the stock market collapsed, widespread
famines occurred and 18-year-old Mary Shelley was
inspired to write Frankenstein. Certain strains of crops, such as winter wheat, can
withstand lower temperatures, but a lack of sunlight inhibits their ability to grow.
In our scenario, daylight would filter through the high smoky haze, but on the
ground every day would seem to be fully overcast. Agronomists and farmers could
not develop the necessary seeds or adjust agricultural practices for the radically
different conditions unless they knew ahead of time what to expect. In addition to
the cooling, drying and darkness, extensive ozone depletion would result as the
smoke heated the stratosphere; reactions that create and destroy ozone are temperature-dependent. Michael J. Mills of the
University of Colorado at Boulder ran a completely separate climate model from Robock’s but found similar results for smoke lofting and stratospheric
temperature changes. He concluded that although surface temperatures would cool by a small amount, the stratosphere would be heated by more than
50 degrees C, because the black smoke particles absorb sunlight. This heating, in turn, would modify winds in the stratosphere, which would carry
ozone-destroying nitrogen oxides into its upper reaches. Together the high temperatures and nitrogen oxides would reduce ozone to the same
dangerous levels we now experience below the ozone hole above Antarctica every spring. Ultraviolet
radiation on the
ground would increase significantly because of the diminished ozone. Less
sunlight and precipitation, cold spells, shorter growing seasons and more
ultraviolet radiation would all reduce or eliminate agricultural production. Notably, cooling
and ozone loss would be most profound in middle and high latitudes in both hemispheres, whereas precipitation declines would be greatest in the
tropics. The specific damage inflicted by each of these environmental changes would depend on particular crops, soils, agricultural practices and regional weather patterns, and no researchers have completed detailed analyses of such agricultural responses. Even in normal times, however, feed-
ing the growing human population depends on transferring food across the globe
to make up for regional farming deficiencies caused by drought and seasonal
weather changes. The total amount of grain stored on the planet today would feed the earth’s population for only about two months [see
“Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” by Lester R. Brown; Scientific American, May]. Most cities and countries have stockpiled food
supplies for just a very short period, and food shortages (as well as rising prices) have increased in recent years.
A nuclear war could
trigger declines in yield nearly everywhere at once, and a worldwide panic could
bring the global agricultural trading system to a halt, with severe shortages in
many places. Around one billion people worldwide who now live on marginal food
supplies would be directly threatened with starvation by a nuclear war between
India and Pakistan or between other regional nuclear powers. Independent Evidence Needed
Typically scientists test models and theories by doing experiments, but we obviously cannot experiment in this case. Thus, we look for analogues that
can verify our models. Burned cities. Unfortunately, firestorms created by intense releases of energy have pumped vast quantities of smoke into the
upper atmosphere. San Francisco burned as a result of the 1906 earthquake, and whole cities were incinerated during World War II, including Dresden,
Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These events confirm that smoke from intense urban fires rises into the upper atmosphere. The seasonal
cycle. In actual winter the climate is cooler because the days are shorter and sunlight is less intense; the simple change of seasons helps us quantify the
effects of less solar radiation. Our climate models re-create the seasonal cycle well, confirming that they properly reflect changes in sunlight. Eruptions.
Explosive volcanic eruptions, such as those of Tambora in 1815, Krakatau in 1883 and Pinatubo in 1991 provide several lessons. The resulting sulfate
aerosol clouds that formed in the stratosphere were transported around the world by winds. The surface temperature plummeted after each eruption in
proportion to the thickness of the particulate cloud. After the Pinatubo eruption, the global average surface temperature dropped by about 0.25 degree
C. Global precipitation, river flow and soil moisture all decreased. Our models reproduce these effects. Forest fires. Smoke from large forest fires
sometimes is injected into the troposphere and lower stratosphere and is transported great distances, producing cooling. Our models perform well
against these effects, too. Extinction of the dinosaurs. An asteroid smashed into Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula 65 million years ago. The
resulting dust cloud, mixed with smoke from fires, blocked the Sun, killing the
dinosaurs. Massive volcanism in India at the same time may have exacerbated the
effects. The events teach us that large amounts of aerosols in the earth’s
atmosphere can change climate drastically enough to kill robust species.
Middle Power Impact – China
China’s rise is inevitable – Canada’s middle power leadership
prevents escalation
Gilley ‘11
[Bruce. PhD in Poli Sci at Portland State. “Middle Powers During Great Power Transitions” International
JV]
Journal, Vol 66 N2. Ebsco//Cal-
Within Asia, Canada’s
relationship with Japan, with which it formed relations in 1929, could form the
cornerstone of this new agile Canadian diplomacy, in security affairs as well as
rights promotion and the environment. For as Kawasaki notes, unlike China, Japan is a great power
in Asia that Canada fully trusts and identifies with .36 Taiwan, South Korea,
Australia, and Indonesia will be Canada’s other “indispensable allies” in the
region.¶ As Canada pursues initiatives in areas like global health, climate change, debt relief,
refugee policy, international law, and human security, its freedom to engage and
accommodate China in order to socialize it from the inside might create frictions
with the US similar to those that emerged temporarily over Iraq (and in the past, Vietnam). But in a larger sense, they will
reflect a shared commitment to liberal-centred norms of world order. Canada might pursue
the underlying drive for an effective
and legitimate UN that can enforce the liberal principles and underlying UN laws
and charters are at one.¶ A broader “democratic multilateralism” in which Canada
bandwagons with other global liberal powers to strengthen and reaffirm liberal
a UN security council enlargement plan that the US considers less than ideal. But
order
could also make sense. If so, relations with India, Brazil, and South Africa would be a top priority, far more than with China, because they
are domestically liberal powers with increasingly illiberal foreign positions.37 Likewise, wobbly
liberal powers in Asia that
might be inclined to bandwagon with China—Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, for example— could
be a focus of Canadian initiatives in Asia alongside a renewed emphasis on JapanCanada ties.
Within China, Canada
has a unique niche to fill, in part because it is seen as
relatively inconsequential and can thus, like Nordic powers, fly below the radar of Beijing’s
obsession with national sovereignty
and the threat represented by liberal values. CIDA’s civil society program in China,
for example, is an example of Canadian commitments to liberal values and opportunistic initiatives in China. Canada
has the luxury
of promoting truly liberal engagement with the Chinese state , just as South Korea’s middle-power
“sunshine policy” briefly reoriented great power approaches toward North Korea from 2005 to 2007. As with South Korea, this new era of
China’s ascendance in Asia and in world order will put a premium on an agile and
smart diplomacy by Canada if it is to shore up its declining regional and global
influence.¶ China’s rise is, in other words, an opportunity for Canada to save something of the
global role that it enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s by reasserting its commitment to liberal world
order. Between 1951 and 1968, for instance, Canada maintained its alignment with the US by refusing to recognize an increasingly repressive
communist regime in China (and by fighting alongside the US against Chinese aggression in Korea, as it later fought alongside the US against Islamic
totalitarianism in Afghanistan). Ottawa continued to recognize the liberalizing authoritarian Republic of China, which had been forced, de Gaulle-like,
to flee to Taiwan. Internally, Canadian diplomats advised the minister of external affairs in 1958 that “Communist China cannot be kept out of the
United Nations indefinitely…support for the seating of Communist China and opposition to the United States approach is growing each year.”38 But
externally, Canada remained firm, all the while pursuing the sorts of multilateral initiatives like Indo-China, peacekeeping, and wheat sales to China
that were consistent with both economic and humanitarian liberal principles. Canada’s insistence on selling wheat to China while quietly remonstrating
with Washington was crucial to the reformulation of US policies.39 As always, Canada’s
role in shaping the global
response to China was greatest when it leveraged its close ties to the US . This policy of quiet
remonstrance with Washington over China policy then collapsed under the Maoist romanticism and crude anti-Americanism of Trudeau and
Ronning.40 Ottawa established relations with Beijing in 1970 without any bilateral understanding on Taiwan. Thereafter, Canada’s influence in China,
and in global affairs more generally, began a long-term decline from which it has yet to escape. If Canada took pleasure in cocking a snook at the
American imperialist with a precipitate recognition of Mao’s China, the enduring damage to its global influence, and to its liberal identity more
generally, was hardly worth the price.¶
Close allies become closer in tough times
that remind them of their shared
interests and identities. A
disruptive rising China would strengthen the basis of Canada-US
relations for that reason. However, a minimally disruptive China will allow Canada to
continue to play the role of middle power. The emergence of China as a voice on world order and the restructuring of
east Asian power relations will erode Canada’s global status. But the modest revisionist agenda that China
brings to international relations, along with the commitments of other rising powers like Brazil, Turkey, India, and South
Africa, and later Indonesia, will create more openings for an agile middle power diplomacy. ¶
Canada’s role, despite its declining power, will be to leverage its US ties (and its good name) to contribute
to socializing China into global liberal norms, as well as to maintain its bridging
capacity among other liberal powers by occasionally dissenting from Washington. Sometimes, as on Arctic governance,
Canada will need to remonstrate with its great neighbour for violating liberal
principles, just as it did on wheat sales to China during Mao’s “great leap” famine. Canada and the US can only speak of their relationship as
“good” or “bad” in a narrow technocratic sense, a fraternal difference over tactics. But China’s rise, and the potential looming challenge to
global liberal order, will underscore the deep integration —normative as well as structural—that supports
the Canada-US relationship.
Violent China rise causes extinction
Walton ‘7
(C. Dale Walton, Lecturer in International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, 2007, Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the
21st Century, p. 49)
Obviously, it
is of vital importance to the United States that the PRC does not become the hegemon of
Eastern Eurasia . As noted above, however, regardless of what Washington does, China's success in such an endeavor is not as easily
attainable as pessimists might assume. The PRC appears to be on track to be a very great power indeed, but geopolitical conditions are not favorable for
any Chinese effort to establish sole hegemony; a robust multipolar system should suffice to keep China in check, even with only minimal American
intervention in local squabbles. The more worrisome danger is that Beijing
will cooperate with a great power partner, establishing a very
muscular axis. Such an entity would present a critical danger to the balance of power, thus both necessitating very
active American intervention
and probably
in Eastern Eurasia and
creating the underlying conditions for a massive,
nuclear, great power war . Absent such a "super-threat," however, the demands on American leaders will be far
more subtle: creating the conditions for Washington's gentle decline from playing the role of unipolar quasi-hegemon to being "merely" the greatest of
the world's powers, while aiding in the creation of a healthy multipolar system that is not marked by close great power alliances.
AT: Climate / Environment Turn
No environmental impact—new efficient technologies
Krauss and Rosenthal, 10 (5/18/10, Clifford and Elizabeth, NY Times, “Reliance on Oil Sands Grows Despite
Environmental Risks,” http://www.imrltd.ca/news/reliance%20on%20%Sands%20Grows%20Despite%20Environmental%20Risks.pdf)
Proponents of oil sands acknowledge the dirtiness of the extraction process. But
they say that newer projects are using more efficient technologies. For example, instead
of surface mining, the Devon project injects high-pressure steam into the
reservoir to enable the heated oil sands to be pumped out of the ground as a fluid,
which is less invasive of the forest. Shell is also experimenting with ways to
capture some of the carbon emissions, and other companies are trying to use solvents to heat the steam more efficiently.
Heavy Oil from Latin American produces similar amounts of
emissions.
Krauss and Rosenthal, 10 (5/18/10, Clifford and Elizabeth, NY Times, “Reliance on Oil Sands Grows Despite
Environmental Risks,” http://www.imrltd.ca/news/reliance%20on%20%Sands%20Grows%20Despite%20Environmental%20Risks.pdf)
Some analysts argue that imports from oil sands will replace conventional oil from
places like Venezuela and Mexico, where heavy oil requires so much refining that
it produces a comparable amount of greenhouse gas emissions . For the United
States, “in the grand scheme of things, the actual emissions impact is very small,”
said Michael A. Levi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
No increase in emissions
Ljunggren et al 13 (6/25/13, David Ljunggren, Cameron French, Gary Hill, Reuters, “Canada says sees no net increase in emissions
from Keystone,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/usa-climate-obama-canada-idUSL2N0F11UL20130625
(Reuters) - Canada
does not think there would be a net increase in carbon emissions if
TransCanada Corp builds its proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta's oil
sands to Texas, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said on Tuesday.¶ Earlier in the day,
U.S. President Barack Obama had indicated he would block the pipeline if it significantly
increased the problem of carbon pollution and said the net effects of its impact on
the climate would be a critical factor.¶ "On a net basis, we don't see any increase in emissions as a result of the
construction of the pipeline," Oliver told reporters in Toronto. He said at least 20 percent of the oil transported by Keystone would be lighter grades of
crude that would not come from the tar sands and would therefore not be carbon intensive to produce.
AT: Canadian Oil Spills
Canada oil isn’t any more likely to leak than other oil
Bernstein 13, (6/25/13, Lenny, The Washington Post, “Diluted oil sands crude no more likely to leak from pipeline than other oil, study
finds,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/diluted-oil-sands-crude-no-more-likely-to-leak-from-pipeline-than-other-oil-studyfinds/2013/06/25/859cf288-dda5-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html)
The diluted form of heavy crude from Canadian oil sands fields is no more likely to
leak from a pipeline than other forms of oil, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences reported Tuesday. The
finding, after an extensive study by the National Research Council, refutes a claim by opponents of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline extension,
who contend that the “diluted bitumen” it would carry is more corrosive than other forms of crude and thus more likely to leak. The TransCanada
pipeline company hopes to transport 830,000 barrels of crude per day from oil sands fields in Alberta to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico via the 1,100mile Keystone extension. The project has become a litmus test for environmentalists, who say construction of the pipeline will promote more-rapid
extraction of an especially dirty form of crude and contribute 15 percent more greenhouse gases than production of other crude oil. The State
Department must decide whether to allow the project.
President Obama will lay out his agenda for addressing climate change in a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday afternoon. He is not expected
to discuss the pipeline. It noted that diluted bitumen has been imported from western Canada for more than 30 years and flows through pipelines in
the United States.
The committee was not asked to determine whether a leak of diluted bitumen would cause more damage to surrounding communities than a leak of
other forms of crude.
Bitumen is a thick crude oil with the consistency of molasses. It must be diluted with other petroleum products to be transported via pipeline. The
American Petroleum Institute welcomed the report. Director Peter Lidiak released a statement saying that “since the U.S. Office of Pipeline Safety
began keeping detailed statistics in 2002, not a single corrosion-related pipeline release from pipelines carrying any Canadian crude has been
reported.” He cited a Canadian study that concluded that acid and sulfur compounds in oil sands crude are too stable to be corrosive. But Jane Kleeb,
head of BOLD Nebraska, one of the leading opponents of the pipeline extension, criticized the panel for failing to study the consequences of a diluted
bitumen leak. “Moms in Michigan and Arkansas [the sites of previous pipeline leaks] want this basic question answered: When a diluted bitumen
pipeline spills, what are the health and economic risks to our families, land and water? The NAS failed them and our kids by not conducting an in-depth
study of tar sands and diluents, including benzene, spilling in our water and near our homes.” The
research council committee found
no “evidence of chemical or physical properties of diluted bitumen that are outside
the range of other crude oils or any other aspect of its transportation by transmission pipeline that would make diluted bitumen
more likely than other crude oils to cause releases.”
Diluted bitumen isn’t corrosive
Bernstein 13, (6/25/13, Lenny, The Washington Post, “Diluted oil sands crude no more likely to leak from pipeline than other oil, study
finds,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/diluted-oil-sands-crude-no-more-likely-to-leak-from-pipeline-than-other-oil-studyfinds/2013/06/25/859cf288-dda5-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html)
The diluted form of heavy crude from Canadian oil sands fields is no more likely to leak from a pipeline than other forms of oil, an arm of the National
Academy of Sciences reported Tuesday. The finding, after an extensive study by the National Research Council, refutes a claim by opponents of the
controversial Keystone XL pipeline extension, who contend that the “diluted bitumen” it would carry is more corrosive than other forms of crude and
thus more likely to leak. The TransCanada pipeline company hopes to transport 830,000 barrels of crude per day from oil sands fields in Alberta to
refineries in the Gulf of Mexico via the 1,100-mile Keystone extension. The project has become a litmus test for environmentalists, who say construction
of the pipeline will promote more-rapid extraction of an especially dirty form of crude and contribute 15 percent more greenhouse gases than
production of other crude oil. The State Department must decide whether to allow the project. President Obama will lay out his agenda for addressing
climate change in a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday afternoon. He is not expected to discuss the pipeline. The research council committee
found no “evidence of chemical or physical properties of diluted bitumen that are outside the range of other crude oils or any other aspect of its
transportation by transmission pipeline that would make diluted bitumen more likely than other crude oils to cause releases.” It noted that diluted
bitumen has been imported from western Canada for more than 30 years and flows through pipelines in the United States.
The committee was not asked to determine whether a leak of diluted bitumen would cause more damage to surrounding communities than a leak of
other forms of crude.
Bitumen is a thick crude oil with the consistency of molasses. It must be diluted with other petroleum products to be transported via pipeline. The
American Petroleum Institute welcomed the report. Director Peter Lidiak released a statement saying that “ since
the U.S. Office of
Pipeline Safety began keeping detailed statistics in 2002, not a single corrosionrelated pipeline release from pipelines carrying any Canadian crude has been
reported.” He cited a Canadian study that concluded that acid and sulfur compounds in oil sands crude are too stable to be corrosive.
But Jane Kleeb, head of BOLD Nebraska, one of the leading opponents of the pipeline extension, criticized the panel for failing to study the
consequences of a diluted bitumen leak. “Moms in Michigan and Arkansas [the sites of previous pipeline leaks] want this basic question answered:
When a diluted bitumen pipeline spills, what are the health and economic risks to our families, land and water? The NAS failed them and our kids by
not conducting an in-depth study of tar sands and diluents, including benzene, spilling in our water and near our homes.”
Workers monitor the pipelines for safety
Alberta Government 13 (2013, Alberta Government, “Pipeline Safety: The U.S. Context,” http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/2821.html)
Through the use of advanced technology, pipeline operators can watch
the rate, pressure and movement of
product at points along the system. Pipeline controllers watch for inconsistencies,
monitor instruments, and evaluate pressure and flow rates that may require additional investigation if
evidence of a possible leak is detected. While every pipeline company is working to achieve incident-free operations, accidents do happen. In the
case of an accident, pipeline operators are trained to shut down pipeline systems
quickly and safely.
Maintenance
Pipeline maintenance crews also work
to ensure the integrity of pipeline infrastructure. Qualified
personnel hired or contracted by the pipeline company assure that welding operations, valve
inspections, pipeline repairs, corrosion prevention system checks and electronic
equipment maintenance (among many other functions) are performed safely and according to pre-established
procedures. These people work on the daily maintenance of the system in addition to assisting with any major pipeline repair and replacement projects.
Pipeline employees are also trained
responders if a pipeline accident occurs.
in emergency response procedures and work with local emergency
Pipelines are improving in safety
Alberta Government 13 (2013, Alberta Government, “Pipeline Safety: The U.S. Context,” http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/2821.html)
In the United States, data

compiled by the Association of Oil Pipe Lines shows that:
Liquid pipeline spills along rights-of-ways have fallen over this decade, in terms
of both the number of spills and the barrels of product spilled per 1,000 miles travelled.


The frequency of releases decreased from two incidents per thousand miles
in 1999-2001 to 0.7 incidents per thousand miles in 2006-2008, a decline of 63 percent.
Similarly, the amount of barrels released per 1,000 miles decreased from 629 in
1999-2001 to 330 in 2006-2008.
Aff Answers
No Keystone Kills Canadian Oil Sands
Keystone key to Canadian oil sands—prices & no rail alternative
Swift 13—member of the NRDC (Anthony, “Goldman Sachs report finds that Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is linchpin for tar sands
production,” SWiTCHBOARD: Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Blog, 6/10/13,
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/goldman_sachs_report_finds_tha.html)
In a report released last week, Goldman
Sachs painted a clear picture outlining why Keystone XL
is a linchpin for tar sands production and the significant climate emissions
associated with it. NRDC and Oil Change International summarize Goldman Sachs’ key findings in the following backgrounder. In short,
Goldman Sachs finds that without Keystone XL, lower tar sands prices and higher
transport costs will result in the cancelation or deferment of tar sands expansion
projects. Contrary to the State Department’s findings, Goldman Sachs concludes that rail is not a
feasible alternative for the tar sands pipeline due to higher costs as well as
technical and logistical barriers. In its environmental review, State must recognize what the tar sands industry, the financial
sector and the environmental community agree upon – that without Keystone XL, tar sands expansion and
the climate impacts associated with it will be significantly reduced. On the basis, the President
should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as a project that locks the U.S. into decades of dirtier fuel and increased climate emissions.¶ The
Goldman Sachs report is the latest in a number of major developments demonstrating the intellectual bankruptcy of the argument that tar sands
expansion, and the climate impacts associated with it, are inevitable. Last week, British Columbia formally rejected the Northern Gateway tar sands
pipeline proposal, putting yet another nail in the coffin in the argument that without Keystone XL tar sands will be sent across Canada’s West Coast.
Meanwhile Canada’s RBC Dominion Securities concluded that a rejection of Keystone XL would reduce investment in tar sands expansion by $9 billion
over the next seven years. Finally, Goldman Sachs’ analysis supports a Reuters investigation showing that while light crude from North Dakota and
Canada is being moved by rail, very
little tar sands is shipped by rail. Goldman Sachs observes
the same logistical obstacles NRDC has repeatedly cited which make it unlikely
that rail will provide an economically feasible alternative for tar sands in the
absence of Keystone XL.¶ The time has come for all parties to agree with the facts on this point – the proposed
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is critical for the tar sands industry’s expansion
plans and the significant climate impacts associated with it.
Keystone key to Canadian oil sands—delivery & capacity
Johnson and Dawson 13—writers for the Washington Post (Keith and Chester, “Pipeline called key to Canada oil sands,”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/7/13,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324069104578531713102125222.html)
Extracting Canada's huge deposits of oil sands in the next few years might not be
economically viable without building the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline into
the U.S., according to new research that environmentalists said bolsters their view
that blocking the project would shut off development of the energy source.¶
Environmentalists say producing Canadian oil sands releases more carbon dioxide than other kinds of oil and are pressing President Barack Obama to
block the pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta and help it get to Gulf Coast refineries. The U.S. State Department, industry officials and some
analysts counter that burgeoning railroad capacity will eventually give Canadian crude a way to reach global markets even if Keystone is blocked.¶
"The
potential for Canadian heavy crude oil supply to remain trapped in the
province of Alberta is a growing risk for the 2014-2017 period depending on the
timing of new pipeline start-ups," analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -1.33% wrote in a research report this past
week.¶ Without adequate pipeline capacity, Canadian heavy crude will continue to
trade at a steep discount to other grades of oil for the next few years, which could
weigh on the economics of developing Canadian oil sands, according to the Goldman Sachs report and
other analysts.¶ Environmentalists say Mr. Obama can help curb greenhouse gases by rejecting the pipeline, and they want the State Department,
which is reviewing the pipeline, to take into account the environmental impact.¶ "The
evidence shows that Keystone XL
is the linchpin" for oil-sands production," said Danielle Droitsch of the Natural
Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. Hundreds of activists called on Mr. Obama to block the project
Thursday and Friday at fundraisers he held in California ahead of a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.¶ " If that added
capacity from Keystone XL isn't brought online, there's potential for a gap between
production and delivery," said Grady Semmens, a spokesman for TransCanada Corp., TRP.T +0.93% which is proposing to build
the pipeline. "But we don't necessarily view XL as a linchpin in oil production. The industry will look for other ways to get to market," he said.¶ In a
report this past week, the
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projected oil-sands
production capacity will more than double by 2030 to more than five million
barrels a day. If the Keystone expansion is blocked, production could exceed
shipping capacity by as early as 2016—unless rail delivery takes up the slack.
More evidence—Keystone as its name implies is KEY—prices and rail
doesn’t solve because of design/heat/weight
McDermott 13 (“Goldman Sachs: Killing the Keystone XL Pipeline kills canadian oil sands,” Motherboard: beta, 6/14/13,
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/goldman-sachs-killing-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-killscanadian-oil-sands)
Contrary to what the U.S. State Department says, stopping
the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would
have a large impact on the financial viability of future expansion of tar sands
projects, as shipping all that bitumen--oil's heavy, vicous tar form--out via rail would be just too
expensive and logistically challenging. For the Canadian tar-sand oil boom to continue, they're going to need to open
that vein.¶ Though that sounds like something environmental groups opposed to the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline have been saying for some
time, it
actually comes from a far more conservative source: A new Goldman Sachs
report, being highlighted by NRDC.¶ Goldman Sachs found that even though rail
transport of bitumen may indeed expand if the Keystone XL isn't built, trains can't
replace the capacity of the pipeline. Failing to construct the pipeline will slow
expansion of tar sands extraction because the oil being trapped in Alberta
depresses prices for Canadian oil locally, and would result in future projects being
"deferred or cancelled."¶ As for logistical hurdles for moving tar sands by rail and not pipeline, Goldman Sachs
highlights three main challenges:¶ The first hurdle is that bitumen/heavy crude oil
rail cars have to be specially constructed so that their viscous cargo can be heated
by steam in order to flow the crude out of the car.¶ Secondly, heating a rail car so
that heavy crude oil can be unloaded takes more time than simply tapping a rail
car filled with light oil, which means fewer heavy barrels per day can be
transported than light.¶ Third, bitumen and [Western Canadian Select oil] are denser
than light crude, and since rail cars have maximum weight restrictions, fewer
barrels of heavy crude can be carried in ear car compared to light. Therefore, of
the 150,000 b/d of crude transported by rail in 2013, we estimate that no more
than 40 percent is likely to be heavy (and this number could prove closer to 20
percent).
The Keystone pipeline is key to Canadian oil market, energy security,
and jobs
Jones 4-18-13 (Jeffrey Jones, writer and reporter for The Globe and Mail, “Canada swipes at Venezuela in push for U.S. approval of
Keystone” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/canada-swipes-at-venezuela-in-push-for-usapproval-of-keystone/article11378603/)
<<Canada
is playing up its record as a reliable oil supplier to the United States
compared to politically volatile Venezuela, as it seeks to win favour in Washington
for the contentious Keystone XL pipeline to Texas refineries. ｶ Natural Resources Minister
Joe Oliver said on Thursday that the United States, already Canada’s largest oil market by far, can
expect far better service than it has received from the South American OPEC member that currently feeds a
large chunk of oil demand in the Gulf Coast region. “Venezuela may be a major supplier of heavy crude to the U.S., but it has also threatened to
cut supplies five times in as many years,” Mr. Oliver said in a speech to business people and academics in Calgary.ｶ “That’s not a reliable partner. That’s
not a stable source of oil. And that’s not how Canada will ever treat the United States.”ｶ <<Despite
frequent threats,
Venezuela has not shut off exports to the United States, but Mr. Oliver’s remarks
underline how high the stakes have become for Canada as a U.S. decision on
Keystone XL looms.>>ｶ Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and Alberta Premier Alison Redford have
aggressively lobbied U.S. politicians ahead of the Obama administration’s decision, likely this summer, whether to approve the $5.3-billion
TransCanada Corp. proposal.ｶ Mr. Oliver is scheduled to travel to Washington and New York next week to meet with Republican and Democratic
lawmakers as well as the media.ｶ Canada
and its oil industry say the project will bring energy
security, jobs and growth to both countries as oil sands-derived crude flows to the
largest refining market in the United States. The project faces strong opposition from environmentalists, who say it
would vastly increase greenhouse gas emissions and risks of oil spills.ｶ According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, the United States
imported 2.5 million barrels of oil a day from Canada last week, versus 709,000 from Venezuela. However, the lion’s share of the Venezuelan crude was
used by Gulf Coast refineries, and only a fraction of the Canadian crude flowed to that region due to limited infrastructure to get it there.ｶ <<Tight
export pipeline capacity in the United States has helped create a glut in Canada,
and is cited as a key reason that Canadian heavy oil is deeply discounted in the
fight for space to transport itｶ <<Mr. Oliver said he was not specifically seeking to cast aspersions on the
competing oil supplier.ｶ “I’m not taking a shot. The reason I mention Venezuela is that
Venezuelan oil is a large part of the oil that comes into the United States,” he told reporters
following his speech. “If our oil comes down, it will be displacing Venezuela oil. I’m just
simply commenting on that economic reality.”>>ｶ He said he mentioned the threats of supply disruption as
“historical fact.”ｶ Canada was also less than laudatory this week following the disputed election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Ottawa
congratulated Venezuelans for voting in large numbers but failed to mention that Mr. Maduro, a protégé of late president Hugo Chavez, was declared
the winner.
--- XT: Keystone Key—AT: Goldman Sachs bad
AND—Goldman Sachs isn’t biased—it itself is a conservative thinkthank
McDermott 13 (“Goldman Sachs: Killing the Keystone XL Pipeline kills canadian oil sands,” Motherboard: beta, 6/14/13,
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/goldman-sachs-killing-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-killscanadian-oil-sands)
Contrary to what the U.S. State Department says, stopping
the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would
have a large impact on the financial viability of future expansion of tar sands
projects, as shipping all that bitumen--oil's heavy, vicous tar form--out via rail would be just too
expensive and logistically challenging. For the Canadian tar-sand oil boom to continue, they're going to need to open
that vein.¶ Though that sounds like something environmental groups opposed to the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline have been saying for some
time, it
actually comes from a far more conservative source: A new Goldman Sachs
report, being highlighted by NRDC.
Climate Impact Turn
Impact is extinction from runaway climate change
Hansen, 12 --- directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (5/9/2012, James, NYT, “Game Over for the Climate,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html?_r=0)
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling
Stone in which he said that Canada
what we do.”
would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate .
Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon
dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and
continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5
million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of
heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would
accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global
temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s
species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western U nited S tates
and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent
drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.
Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley
could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.
If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not
only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic
incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.
--- XT: Warming Internal Link
Canadian oil sands makes climate change unsolvable
Carrington, 13 (5/19/2013, Damian, “Tar sands exploitation would mean game over for climate, warns leading scientist; Prof James
Hansen rebukes oil firms and Canadian government over stance on exploiting fossil fuel, which he says would make climate problem unsolvable,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/19/tar-sands-exploitation-climate-scientist, JMP)
Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the
world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the
Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil.
"Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are
making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't make sense for the
rest of the people on the planet. We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the
atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a
tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable ."
Hansen met ministers in the UK government, which the Guardian previously revealed has secretly supported Canada's position at the highest level.
Canada's natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, has also visited London to campaign against EU proposals to penalise oil from Alberta's tar sands as
highly polluting. "Canada can offer energy security and economic stability to the world," he said. Oliver also publicly threatened a trade war via the
World Trade Organisation if the EU action went ahead: "Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests."
The lobbying for and against tar sands has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic as the EU moves forward on its proposals, which Canada fears could
set a global precedent, and Barack Barack Obama considers approving the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Canada to the US gulf
coast refineries and ports. Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, was met by protesters when he visited New York last week to tell audiences that
KXL "absolutely needs to go ahead".
Canada's tar sands are the third biggest oil reserve in the world, but separating
the oil from the rock is energy
intensive and causes three to four times more carbon emissions per barrel than
conventional oil. Hansen argues that it would be "game over" for the climate if tar
sands were fully exploited, given that existing conventional oil and gas is certain to
be burned.
Extraction releases more greenhouse gases
TSA 13 (2013, Tar Sands Action, “Climate Change: Keystone XL is the fuse to North America’s biggest carbon bomb,”
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/keystone-xl-facts/)
In a study funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, a group of retired four-star generals and admirals concluded that climate change, if not addressed,
will be the greatest threat to national security. The State Department Environmental Impact Statement fails to adequately analyze lifecycle greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions caused by the pipeline. Extraction
and refinement of oil sands are more GHGintensive compared to conventional oil. The EIS estimates that the additional annual GHG
emissions from the proposed pipeline could range from an additional “12-23
million metric tons of CO2 equivalent… (roughly the equivalent of annual
emissions from 2 to 4 coal-fired power plants)” over conventional crude oil from
the Middle East. [8] The EPA believes that the methodology used by the State Department is inaccurate and could underestimate GHG
emissions by as much as 20 percent.[ 9] Given that the expected lifetime of the Keystone XL pipeline
is fifty years, the EPA notes that the project could yield an extra 1.15 billion tons of
GHGs using the quantitative estimates in the EIS. [10]
Canadian oil sands produce 3 time more C02
Reinhard, 09 --- LCDR, USN (April 2009, Paul B., “A Long-Term United States’ Energy Policy Without Venezuelan Oil,”
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539679.pdf, JMP)
While Canada’s oil sands appear to be a panacea for a loss to Venezuelan oil, its
importation poses significant political and environmental problems for the U.S.
Oil sands, when refined, produce three times more carbon dioxide per barrel than
contained in a barrel of conventional oil.67 The refining of oil sands in Canada is expected to account for half of its
carbon dioxide emissions by 2010.68 Importing
and refining Canadian oil sands will only increase
the amount of greenhouse gases emissions produced by the U.S. Due to concern over greenhouse
gases, the 2007 Energy and Independence Security Act (EISA) included a provision which prevents the U.S. Air Force from developing coal to liquid
fuels. Authors of the bill categorize Canadian oil sands under the same provision, which would prevent the U.S. military from purchasing Canadian oil
sand syncrude.69 With the U.S. military being the largest domestic consumer of oil, purchasing 136 million barrels worldwide in fiscal year 2007, the
impact of EISA will present challenges for the U.S. if ever placed in a position of supplanting Venezuelan oil. 70
Environment Turn
Oil from sands produces more greenhouse gases than drilling and
carve gashes in forests crucial to absorb carbon dioxide and house
birds
Krauss and Rosenthal, 10 (5/18/10, Clifford and Elizabeth, NY Times, “Reliance on Oil Sands Grows Despite
Environmental Risks,” http://www.imrltd.ca/news/reliance%20on%20%Sands%20Grows%20Despite%20Environmental%20Risks.pdf)
Whatever the advantages, serious environmental problems and risks come with
producing oil ¶ from oil sands. ¶ Most of the biggest production sites are huge mine pits,
accompanied by ponds of waste that ¶ are so toxic that the companies try to frighten birds away with scarecrows
and propane ¶ cannons. ¶ Extracting oil from the sands produces far more greenhouse gases
than drilling, environmental ¶ groups say, and the process requires three barrels of
water for every barrel of oil produced ¶ because the dirt must be washed out. Already,
tailing pools cover 50 square miles of land ¶ abutting the Athabasca River. ¶ The mines are also carving gashes in the
world’s largest intact forest, which serves as a vital ¶ absorber of carbon dioxide
and a stopover point for millions of migrating birds.
--- XT: Oil Spills
Canada oil more vulnerable to spills
Krauss and Rosenthal, 10 (5/18/10, Clifford and Elizabeth, NY Times, “Reliance on Oil Sands Grows Despite
Environmental Risks,” http://www.imrltd.ca/news/reliance%20on%20%Sands%20Grows%20Despite%20Environmental%20Risks.pdf)
In addition, critics
warn that American regulators have waived a longstanding safety
standard ¶ for the pipelines that deliver the synthetic crude oil from Canada to
refineries in the United ¶ States and have not required any specific emergency
plans to deal with a spill, which even ¶ regulators acknowledge is a possibility. ¶ Oil sands are now getting more scrutiny as the
Obama administration reviews a Canadian ¶ company’s request to build a new 2,000-mile underground pipeline that would run from ¶ Alberta to the
Texas Gulf Coast and would significantly increase America’s access to the oil. In ¶ making the decision, due this fall, federal officials are weighing the
¶ The gulf
accident adds yet another layer of complexity. Regulators and Congress are
weighing ¶ new limits on drilling off the coastline after the Deepwater Horizon
catastrophe, increasing the ¶ pressure to rely more heavily on canada’s oil sands.
At the same time, political consciousness of the risks has grown.
environmental concerns ¶ against the need to secure a reliable supply of oil to help satisfy the nation’s insatiable thirst.
AT: Canada Middle Power Impact
US leadership controls Canadian relevance – not the other way
around
Bothwell ‘11
[Alice. International Studies at Univ of Stellenbosch. “Can Canada Still be Considered a Middle Power?” March 2011
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/6698//Cal-JV]
Canada is a middle power but not a regional power, fitting with Jordaan’s framework. Next door
to¶ the United States, Canada is regionally insignificant . Canada cannot measure
up financially or¶ militarily and is largely dependent on the American economy.
With the signing of the North¶ American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA ) in 1993 Canada became even more
dependent on the¶ United States (Welsh, 2004). Until recently, more than 80% of Canada’s exports went to the United¶
States, which is thought to have changed the traditional “east- west trading axis to a north-south¶ trading axis” (Welsh, 2004: 590). Canada
has become accustomed to a comfortable position without¶ having to think about
the issue of security.
Brysk (2009) characterizes Canada’s
position as one of a¶ “protected
middle power, freed of the security dilemma by U.S. hegemony - at the price of
perpetual¶ junior partnership in an involuntary alliance ” (Brysk, 2009:84). Regionally, Canada
carries little¶ clout and often needs to fall in line with the neighbour to the south.
This is in keeping with the¶ traditional middle power characteristic set out by Jordaan.
AT: Canada Econ Internal
Canada econ strong—GDP expanding at fast rate in 2 years—and other
sectors solve for any lag
CBC News 13 (“Canada’s economy expands at faster pace,” CBCNEWS, 5/31/13,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/05/31/business-gdp-economy.html)
Canada's gross domestic product expanded last quarter at its fastest pace in a year
and a half, annualized at 2.5 per cent.¶ Statistics Canada reported Friday that more
oil exports to the U.S. jumpstarted the economy.¶ By sector, mining and oil and gas extraction showed the
largest gain at 4.1 per cent.¶ Other sectors that expanded, although by not as much, include: ¶
The public sector.¶ Finance and insurance.¶ Arts and entertainment.¶ Construction.¶
Retail trade.¶ Manufacturing.¶ In the three months between January and March, Canada's GDP expanded by 0.6 per cent in real
terms, the largest quarterly gain since late 2011.¶ Economists had been expecting the economy to get off
to a strong start in 2013, with a consensus polled predicting growth of 2.3 per cent.
But the 2.5 per cent figure was even better than that.¶ For comparison purposes, the most recent data show
the U.S. economy is expanding at a 2.4 per cent annual pace.
AT: U.S. / Global Economy Impact
U.S. economic recovery inevitable due to restructuring – empirics
prove
Altman 13
(ROGER C. ALTMAN is Executive Chair of Evercore Partners. He was U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary in 1993–94, “The Fall and Rise of the West,”
January/February 2013, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138463/roger-c-altman/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-west?page=show#) GANGEEZY
The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed have had devastating effects on the U.S. economy and millions of American lives. But
the U.S. economy will emerge from its trauma stronger and widely restructured.
Europe should eventually experience a similar strengthening, although its future is less certain and
its recovery will take longer to develop. The United States is much further along because its financial crisis struck three years before Europe's, in 2008,
causing headwinds that have pressured it ever since. It will take another two to three years for these to subside, but after that, U.S.
economic growth should outperform expectations. In contrast, Europe is still in the midst of its financial
crisis. If historical logic prevails there, it will take four to six years for strong European growth to materialize. Such strengthening in both regions will
occur for one major reason: the
crisis years have triggered wide economic restructuring. Sweeping
changes in government finances, banking systems, and manufacturing are under
way, as are structural reforms in labor markets. All this is proving once again that global capital
markets, the most powerful economic force on earth, can effect changes beyond the capacity of normal
political processes. And in this case, they can refute all the forecasts of Western economic decline. Indeed, in the years ahead, the
United States and Europe could once again become locomotives for global economic growth.
This is not to say that the crises were worth the pain; they most definitely were not. There is palpable suffering on both sides of the Atlantic due to
unemployment and government austerity measures. It is tragic that so many people have lost their jobs and will never recover them. And it is socially
corrosive that the crises have accentuated existing trends toward greater income inequality. But these
events happened, and
the subject being addressed here is their long-term impact. The U.S. economy has
been expanding -- albeit in fits and starts -- since the recession's trough, in June 2009. Europe, however, is on an entirely different
timetable. Unlike those in the United States, Europe's financial systems did not implode in 2008. There were severe problems in Ireland and the United
Kingdom, but capital markets did not revolt against Europe as a whole, and thus there was not a large fiscal or monetary response. It was not until
2012, when the sovereign debt and banking crises hit the continent in full force, that the eurozone confronted problems comparable to those that had
afflicted the U.S. economy in 2008–9. As of today, therefore, the eurozone's GDP is still shrinking, and its recession may not have bottomed out yet.
Having experienced its crisis first, the United States now faces a shorter path to
recovery. Yet if European countries can restructure their economies to the degree
that the United States has, there will be cause for optimism. The economists Carmen Reinhart and
Kenneth Rogoff have argued that periods of economic recovery after financial crises are slower, longer, and more turbulent than those following
recessions induced by the business cycle. The painfully slow recovery in the United States and the sharp economic stress in Europe corroborate this
thesis. But history
is filled with examples of countries whose economies grew stronger
after financial implosions. Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, South Korea accepted a tough
bailout package from the International Monetary Fund, strengthened its financial system, and
increased the flexibility of its labor markets; soon thereafter, it enjoyed an economic
boom. In Mexico, the economy has performed well ever since the collapse of the peso and the U.S.
rescue package of 1994. A similar phenomenon occurred in parts of Latin America following the sovereign debt crises there in the late 1980s.
Although these financial crises were far smaller than the 2008 collapse in the United States, they followed the
same pattern, with capital markets rejecting the old order -- and then inducing major economic restructuring.
No impact
Robert Jervis 11, Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University,
December 2011, “Force in Our Times,” Survival, Vol. 25, No. 4, p. 403-425
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world
generate new interests that would bring the members of the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example,
perhaps linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a
worsening of the current economic difficulties, which
could itself produce greater nationalism, undermine democracy and bring back old-fashioned
beggar-my-neighbor economic policies. While these dangers are real, it is hard to believe
that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the members of the community to
contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has proceeded to
the point where it could not be reversed – states that were more internally interdependent than anything seen internationally have
fought bloody civil wars. Rather
it is that even if the more extreme versions of free trade and
economic liberalism become discredited , it is hard to see how without building on a preexisting high
level of political conflict leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their countries could
prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that problems will not only become severe, but that
people will entertain the thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could note that this argument
does not appear as outlandish as it did before the financial crisis, an optimist could reply
(correctly, in my view) that the very fact that we have seen such a sharp economic downturn without anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even if bad
times bring about greater economic conflict , it will not make war thinkable .
Alternative Variables cause war – they mix correlation with causation
Bazzi and Blattman, 11 (Samuel Bazzi (Department of Economics at University of California San Diego) and Christopher
Blattman (assistant professor of political science and economics at Yale University) November 2011 “Economic Shocks and Conflict: The (Absence
of?) Evidence from Commodity Prices” http://www.chrisblattman.com/documents/research/2011.EconomicShocksAndConflict.pdf?9d7bd4)
VI. Discussion and conclusions A. Implications for our theories of political instability and conflict The state is not a prize?—Warlord politics and the
state prize logic lie at the center of the most influential models of conflict, state development, and political transitions in economics and political
science. Yet we
see no evidence for this idea in economic shocks, even when looking at
the friendliest cases: fragile and unconstrained states dominated by extractive
commodity revenues. Indeed, we see the opposite correlation: if anything, higher
rents from commodity prices weakly 22 lower the risk and length of conflict. Perhaps
shocks are the wrong test. Stocks of resources could matter more than price shocks (especially if shocks are transitory). But combined with emerging
evidence that war onset is no more likely even with rapid increases in known oil reserves (Humphreys 2005; Cotet and Tsui 2010) we regard the state
prize logic of war with skepticism.17 Our main political economy models may need a new engine.
Naturally, an absence of evidence cannot be taken for evidence of absence. Many of our conflict onset and ending results include sizeable positive and
negative effects.18 Even so, commodity price shocks are highly influential in income and should provide a rich source of identifiable variation in
instability. It is difficult to find a better-measured, more abundant, and plausibly exogenous independent variable than price volatility.
Moreover, other time-varying variables, like rainfall and foreign aid, exhibit robust
correlations with conflict in spite of suffering similar empirical drawbacks and
generally smaller sample sizes (Miguel et al. 2004; Nielsen et al. 2011). Thus we take the absence of
evidence seriously. Do resource revenues drive state capacity?—State prize models assume that rising revenues raise the value of the
capturing the state, but have ignored or downplayed the effect of revenues on self-defense. We saw that a growing empirical political science literature
takes just such a revenue-centered approach, illustrating that resource boom times permit both payoffs and repression, and that stocks of lootable or
extractive resources can bring political order and stability. This countervailing effect is most likely with transitory shocks, as current revenues are
affected while long term value is not. Our findings are partly consistent with this state capacity effect. For example, conflict intensity is most sensitive to
changes in the extractive commodities rather than the annual agricultural crops that affect household incomes more directly. The relationship only
holds for conflict intensity, however, and is somewhat fragile. We do not see a large, consistent or robust decline in conflict or coup risk when prices
fall. A reasonable interpretation is that the state prize and state capacity effects are either small or tend to cancel one another out. Opportunity cost:
Victory by default?—Finally, the inverse relationship between prices and war intensity is consistent with opportunity cost accounts, but not exclusively
so. As we noted above, the relationship between intensity and extractive commodity prices is more consistent with the state capacity view. Moreover,
we shouldn’t mistake an inverse relation between individual aggression and incomes as evidence for the opportunity cost mechanism. The same
correlation is consistent with psychological theories of stress and aggression (Berkowitz 1993) and sociological and political theories of relative
deprivation and anomie (Merton 1938; Gurr 1971). Microempirical work will be needed to distinguish between these mechanisms. Other reasons for a
null result.—Ultimately, however, the fact that commodity price
shocks have no discernible effect on
new conflict onsets, but some effect on ongoing conflict, suggests that political stability might be less
sensitive to income or temporary shocks than generally believed. One possibility is that
successfully mounting an insurgency is no easy task. It comes with considerable risk, costs, and coordination challenges. Another possibility is that the
If a nation is so
fragile that a change in prices could lead to war, then other shocks may trigger war
even in the absence of a price shock. The same argument has been made in debunking the myth that price shocks led to
fiscal collapse and low growth in developing nations in the 1980s.19 B. A general problem of publication bias? More generally, these
findings should heighten our concern with publication bias in the conflict
literature. Our results run against a number of published results on commodity shocks
and conflict, mainly because of select samples, misspecification, and sensitivity to
model assumptions, and, most importantly, alternative measures of instability.
counterfactual is still conflict onset. In poor and fragile nations, income shocks of one type or another are ubiquitous.
Across the social and hard sciences, there is a concern that the majority of published research findings are false (e.g. Gerber et al. 2001). Ioannidis
(2005) demonstrates that a
published finding is less likely to be true when there is a greater
number and lesser pre-selection of tested relationships; there is greater flexibility
in designs, definitions, outcomes, and models; and when more teams are involved
in the chase of statistical significance. The cross-national study of conflict is an
extreme case of all these. Most worryingly, almost no paper looks at alternative dependent
variables or publishes systematic robustness checks. Hegre and Sambanis (2006) have shown that the
majority of published conflict results are fragile, though they focus on timeinvariant regressors and not the time-varying shocks that have grown in
popularity. We are also concerned there is a “file drawer problem” (Rosenthal 1979). Consider this decision rule: scholars that discover robust results
that fit a theoretical intuition pursue the results; but if results are not robust the scholar (or referees) worry about problems with the data or empirical
strategy, and identify additional work to be done. If further analysis produces a robust result, it is published. If not, back to the file drawer. In the
aggregate, the
consequences are dire: a lower threshold of evidence for initially
significant results than ambiguous ones.20
Colombia Investment DA
1nc Colombia DA
Venezuelan instability boosts investments in Columbia
Delgado-Kiling 13 (January 29th 2013, Paula, “Talking about Colombia” http://talkingaboutcolombia.com/2013/01/29/adestabilized-venezuela-is-good-for-colombias-foreign-investment-in-the-oil-sector/)
A destabilized Venezuela is good for Colombia’s foreign investment in the oil
sector¶ People have asked me: why do you write about Venezuela in this blog? — In short: what happens in Venezuela
determines, to some degree, the amount of investment in the oil sector in Colombia. A stable
(read: a non-Chavez) Venezuela translates into more foreign investment in the oil sector in Venezuela, which means less foreign investment flowing
into Colombia’s oil.¶ ¶ The
growing
major
turmoils in Venezuela have helped Colombia become the fastest-
oil producer in Latin America
in the past five years.
Expanding investment key to Colombia’s economy
Valores, 12 --- a Colombian based independent investment analytics and risk management consultancy specializing in South American
stocks and regional economic and risk assessments (3/22/2012, Caiman, “Beat The BRICs: Invest In Colombia, Latin America's Hidden Investment
Gem,” http://seekingalpha.com/article/451881-beat-the-brics-invest-in-colombia-latin-america-s-hidden-investment-gem)
Colombia has been closed to investors for decades, not only due to its once heavily regulated economy but mainly due to ongoing political
instability and an unstable internal security environment. It is a country that for many still has a reputation of violence and is associated with being one
of the world's most dangerous countries with high rates of kidnapping, terrorism and narco-trafficking, as well as Latin America's longest running
insurgency. Yet despite this it is
fast turning into an investment hotspot .
In my opinion it is now the hidden investment gem of South America , with the country opening up to
tourism, foreign investment and experiencing enviable rates of economic growth. All of which can be attributed to a
government that is focused on stabilizing the internal security situation, reforming
the economy, creating optimal conditions for economic growth and encouraging
foreign direct investment ('FDI'). This has seen the economy grow at a staggering rate
over the last 10 years, except during the peak of the global financial crisis ('GFC'), the increased growth of an entrepreneurial and
educated middle class, growing domestic consumption, the substantial expansion of the local business sector and the solid growth of the local bourse,
the Bolsa de Valores de Colombia ('BVC'). In my opinion this can only continue and create further solid opportunities for investors.
Colombia has been experiencing solid economic growth since the early 2000s, in fact
the Colombian economy has had GDP growth of over 4% annually since 2003, except during the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
For 2011 the International Monetary Fund ('IMF') forecast GDP growth of 4.9%, but in a recent report from José Darío Uribe the governor of
Colombia's central bank, the Banco de la Republica Colombia, GDP growth was reported as being between 5.6% to 6% in 2011. Furthermore in 2011, the
Colombian economy saw its greatest quarter of GDP growth since 1979, with third quarter GDP growth of 1.7%, which equates to an annualized rate of
7.7%.
For 2012 the IMF has forecast Colombia's 2012 GDP growth rate to be 4.5%, which is more than quadruple the IMF's GDP growth forecast for the
eurozone of 1.1% and three times the forecast rate for the U.S of 1.8%. Colombia also has the fifth highest 2012 GDP forecast for South America, behind
Peru's 5.6%, Paraguay's 5%, Chile's 4.7% and Argentina's 4.6%, as the table below shows.
[Table Omitted]
all of Colombia's economic indicators demonstrate that the economy is
gathering further momentum and continuing to grow, with increasing FDI, strong
performance from the local stock market, increased foreign investment, falling
unemployment and companies expanding their operations. Such strong economic growth not only
In fact,
bodes well for the performance of Colombian companies but further fuels the growth of Colombia's middle class leading to higher domestic
consumption.
Colombia's key industries are textiles, food processing, oil, clothing and footwear, beverages, chemicals, cement, gold, coal and emeralds. In 2010
Colombia's domestic industrial production grew at an estimated 4%, which was a drop from the 5.5% for 2010. However, much of this can be attributed
to the growth in the service industry with the agricultural sector accounting for 18% of employment, the industrial sector 13% and the service sector
accounting for the majority of employment at 68%. For 2010 domestic demand grew by 7.68% which was a substantial increase in growth from 2009
domestic demand of 5.61%. So far the for 2011 domestic demand has grown strongly with an average rate of domestic demand over the first three
quarters of 12.36%.
Much of the growth in the Colombian economy and the solid GDP growth can be attributed to the explosion in FDI in Colombia due to the government
focusing on creating a favorable trade climate. For the first half of 2011 Colombia saw FDI totaling $7 billion and for the full year reached over $15
billion, which is a 122% increase on the $6.76 billion of FDI received by Colombia in 2010. This growth in FDI is continuing with FDI having risen in
the first two months of 2012 by almost 25% when compared to the same period in 2011. The majority of the FDI in Colombia is invested in the mining
and oil sectors.
It is also notable that neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia have
shown resistance to foreign investment, whereas Colombia has differentiated itself
from other nations in the region by looking favorably upon foreign investment. There
is also a higher degree of transparency in governmental policies towards both business and foreign investment. This pro-business attitude bodes well
for investing in Colombia and is the key reason I believe in reducing the degree of country risk attached to any investments in Colombia.
Colombian collapse destroys Latin American stability and democracy
Wilhelm, 2000 --- COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND (2/15/2000, General Charles E.,
STATEMENT OF GENERAL CHARLES E. WILHELM, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES SOUTHERN
COMMAND BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND
HUMAN RESOURCES, www.dod.mil/dodgc/olc/docs)
STRATEGY AND LONG RANGE PLAN TO ASSIST COLOMBIA WITH ITS CD EFFORTS
Personal Assessment
As I stated earlier, as
Colombia's problems spill over into neighboring countries, they
threaten the regional stability that is essential to the growth and sustainment of
strong democracies and free market economies throughout the region. Drug
trafficking is a major contributing factor to Colombia's internal problems. A key to
success in achieving regional stability is to support CD efforts through a strategy that considers the regional impact of Colombia's multi-faceted internal
conflict.
Uniqueness
Colombia Economy Improving
Colombian economy will grow – predictive ev
Crowe 13, (Darcy, May 10 2013. WSJ “Colombian Central Bank Sees 1Q Slowdown, Stronger Growth for Rest of Year”)
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130510-712197.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
BOGOTA--The
Colombian economy likely continued to suffer a slowdown in the first
quarter, but activity will pick up pace during the rest year , the central bank said Friday in the minutes
for its last monetary policy meeting.¶ The central bank cited these projections to explain the unanimous decision last month by the seven-member
monetary policy board to leave in check the bank's key lending rate at 3.25%, a move that was widely expected by the market.¶ In the minutes from that
meeting,
the central bank showed that it was confident that the cycle of rate cuts
during the last few months would be enough to offset the slowdown and steer the
economy towards faster growth .¶ Additionally, the government has stepped up its spending plans, a move that the central
bank says will help generate faster growth.¶ "The Colombian economy currently is growing below its
potential," the central bank said. "The monetary and fiscal policy measures adopted in 2013 will help to place output near the economy's
productive capacity and move inflation towards the long‐term target," it added.¶ The Colombian economy grew 4% in
2012, a figure that came in below the 2011 expansion of the country's gross domestic product by 6.6%.¶ Inflation, meanwhile, remains subdued and
in the lower end of the central bank's target range of 2% to 4% for the year. Twelve-month inflation through April stands at 2.02%, the government's
statistics agency reported earlier this week.¶ In the minutes, the central bank also mentioned that the recent rate cuts are starting to be reflected in the
economy, something which was not happening in earlier months.¶ The rates that banks charge to their corporate and individual clients have dropped
recently for the first time since the cycle of rate cuts started.¶ "Benchmark interest rate cuts had passed through to nominal interest rates in the
market," the central bank said in the minutes. "Recent weeks have seen a significant reduction in interest rates on home mortgages," the central bank
added.¶ In March, the
central bank carried out a larger-than-expected reduction in its key
rate by slashing it 50 basis points, while the market was expecting a 25-basis-point cut. That move was partly designed
to insure that the rate reductions had a faster impact on the economy, analysts
said.
Colombia Investment High
Colombia is good prospect for Investment
PRWeb 6/18 (2013 “ Colombia Shines as a Leading Outsourcing Destination, Global Outsourcing Information CEO Victoria Prussen
Spears Tellls NEA Audience Vocus is a marketing software company based in Beltsville, Maryland, United States, serving clients worldwide. In addition
to its proprietary web-based marketingsoftware suites, the company owns online marketing and publicity services, including PRWeb, Help a Reporter
Out (HARO), North http://www.prweb.com/releases/outsourcingtocolombia//prweb10842821.htm)
Victoria Prussen Spears, co-founder and chief executive officer of Global Outsourcing Information Inc., a New York-based company that specializes in
research and publishing about global outsourcing destinations, believes that there are numerous reasons outsourcing to Colombia
is
growing rapidly and that Colombia is fast becoming a leading outsourcing destination.
As Ms. Spears explains in her article, “ A South American Jewel, Colombia Shines as a
Leading Outsourcing Destination,” which is published in the current issue of the newsletter of the Nearshore Executive
Alliance, Colombia is a magnet for FDI, with a dynamic industry dedicated to nurturing
business growth, a young and increasingly educated workforce, growing
information technology (“IT”), business process outsourcing (“BPO”), and knowledge process outsourcing (“KPO”) industries, a
new spirit of entrepreneurialism, numerous multinational companies in residence, a business-friendly environment, seven thriving major metropolitan
areas, and the support of the international business community. As a result, Ms. Spears says, “It is no wonder that Colombia is fast becoming a leader in
the region.”
As Ms. Spears points out, Colombia’s national investment promotion agency (Proexport Colombia), regional agencies (e.g. Pro Barranquilla and Invest
in Bogotá), and business associations (e.g. National Business Association of Colombia (“ANDI”) and The Colombian Association of BPO Contact
Centers) have been working directly with investors considering Colombia and businesses already in residence, “and are taking needed steps to let the
world know all Colombia has to offer.” In addition, Ms. Spears writes, “the
government offers investment
incentives, free trade zones, and provides support services for businesses setting up shop in
Colombia.” These efforts are paying off in the growth of outsourcing to Colombia , according to
Ms. Spears.
In her article, Ms. Spears also points out that 84,000 jobs were created in 2011 in BPO basic voice (call operations centers and contact centers),
according to the Colombian Association of BPO Contact Centers, and that, with government support and training grants, “the industry is gearing up to
diversify further into the BPO and KPO markets, offering value added services across a variety of platforms.”
“Similarly impressive,” Ms. Spears says, “is the IT sector.” As Ms. Spears observes, Proexport Colombia has reported that Colombia’s IT market is
growing at twice the rate of the rest of Latin America, and that it is third in Latin America in terms of IT sales, which totaled US$6.118 million in 2011.
She also points out that, over the past five years, as noted by Proexport Colombia, “the
software industry in Colombia
has grown 230 percent, and the hardware industry has grown more than 190
percent.” That rate of growth, Ms. Spears says, “is nothing short of phenomenal.”
Nearshore Executive Alliance Executive Director Rebeca Hassan says that in her “comprehensive” article, Ms. Spears “provides seven good reasons that
demonstrate why outsourcing to Colombia is growing.” Ms. Hassan adds that Ms. Spears’ article explains “why Colombia is a desirable country for IT
and BPO development and why it should be on the list of any companies looking to invest abroad.”
Colombia is ripe for investment
Zant 6/24 (Taylor Vant/ Reporter for Investorideas.com “Magical Realism: The Reality VS Perception of Investing in Colombia”
http://www.investorideas.com/news/2013/main/06241.asp)
The breakfast seminar emphasized the investment
and business opportunities arising in Colombia for
global investors. The presentation focused on major changes that have occurred over the past ten years,
as well as future goals for the country of Colombia that will incite and encourage investment.¶ Speaking at the conference
Canadians, as well as for
was Honorary Consul Jairo Clopatofsky, Colombia's Trade Commissioner to Canada Alvaro Concha, as well asInvestment Advisor for Invest Pacific
José Daste.¶ All three speakers spoke with passionate intensity with regards to their home country and though English is a second language to all three,
they managed to speak with fluid confidence in the language and were able to discuss complex economics and investing plans with ease.¶ Jairo gave a
strong introduction to the countries growth over the past decade and their continuing goals to reach new international heights and become a larger
player on the global market, and his speech was a perfect lead in for Alvaro Concha's in depth look at Colombia as aninvestment opportunity and MICE
(Meeting Incentives Conventions and Exhibitions) destination.¶ As for the MICE destination, Proexport's new "Magical Realism" tourism ad is
evidence enough of the beauty and "magic" this country has to offer as far as tourism and meetings are concerned. To view the video click here, or to see
more videos for Colombia click here.¶ One of the points reiterated from all three speakers, and I found to be the general theme: Proexport's goal is to
communicate the difference between reality and perception when looking at investing in Colombia.¶ Colombia
has shown
exceptional growth and development over the past few years and continues to push itself to
develop further and improve its standard of living and economy so it can become a large player on the world stage.¶ The Doing
Business Report recognized Colombia as being the most reformative country in the
region and is the third most business friendly environment in South America.¶ The real area of difference between Colombia and other South
American countries lies with investor protection as Colombia is now sixth in the world for investor protection and is the leader in South America.¶
Colombia has IIA's (International Investment Agreements) with Canada, USA, China, Mexico and Switzerland with undersigned agreements with South
Korea, Japan, Iceland, Norway, United Kingdom and the EU.¶ Colombia is also working hard to extend their international integration through free
trade agreements. Currently they have FTA's with many South American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Peru, etc. as well as larger countries such
Canada, USA, Mexico and Switzerland. The
country is also in negotiations to open up FTA's with
South Korea, Japan, Costa Rica and Panama and undersigned agreements with Iceland, Norway, the EU and
Venezuela.¶ As far as investing in the country or bringing your business to Colombia, they offer a surplus of tax incentives
aimed at investors and business owners. With an income tax of only 15%, no custom taxes (VAT, tariffs) and many benefits aimed at
specific sectors of business such as 30 years of tax exemption for tourism businesses .¶ Colombia also offers 50% lower real
estate costs than its surrounding countries, as well as being the second most bio-diverse country in South American
and the only South American country going coast-to-coast.¶ Colombia offers an amazing work force with 55% of their 46.7
million person population being under the age of 30, with over 200,000 students graduating, 53% finishing their graduate degrees, and 28% finishing
their post-graduates.¶ Colombia is continuing to improve their standards of living with literacy rate of 94.2%, an unemployment rate of 10.8% and GDP
growth of 5.9%. Colombia is also under consideration for joining the OECD and looks to becoming a full member in the next two years.¶ Colombia has
also improved their internet access, which has managed to triple over the last four years going from 2,179,951 connections in 2008 to 6,456,779
connections in 2012.¶ Alvaro Concha as well as José Daste both focused on Colombia's plans to develop their infrastructure as roads and infrastructure
continue to be the largest bottleneck to development and improving quality of life and are one of the biggest investment growth areas in the country.¶
What I, as well as the full room full of investors and business owners took away from such a passionate seminar, was that Colombia
is
changing and the perception no longer matches the reality, and is far beyond the
future growth and potential of this country. Alvaro mentioned during his speech that Colombia aims to be "the
prettiest lady at the party" and they are actively working to maintain this image of a "shining star in the South American constellation". With the World
Games coming to the beautiful city of Cali, Colombia this year, it will be a great venue to showcase the change and growth in this country. After this
seminar it is hard not to believe in the "magical realism" that is Colombia.¶ About Proexport:¶ Proexport Colombia is the organization in charge of
promoting Colombia as an international tourist destination, attracting foreign investment and fostering non-traditional exports.¶ Through their
national and international office network, they provide support and comprehensive assistance to national entrepreneur, through offering services with
the aim of facilitating the design and execution of its internationalization strategy, seeking the generation and tracking of business opportunities.¶ To
learn more about Proexport visit www.proexport.com.co¶ About Invest Pacific:¶ Colombian Pacific Investment Promotion Agency, Invest Pacific, is a
public-private non-profit organization. Invest Pacific promotes and facilitate national and foreign investment in the department, promotes
reinvestment of investors already settled and works to have a better investment climate of the region.¶
Drug Trafficking Decreasing Now
Drug trafficking in Colombia in decline – stats prove
Bargent 13, (James, June 21 2013. “Colombia Police Dismantle 100s of Gangs in 2012”) http://www.insightcrime.org/newsst
briefs/colombia-police-dismantle-100s-of-gangs-in-2012
Colombian police broke up over 700 criminal gangs over the last year, highlighting
the increasingly fragmented criminal landscape in Colombia, with smaller, localized operations more focused
on domestic sources of criminal revenues.¶ Presenting a statistical breakdown of his first year in office, police chief Jose Roberto Leon Riaño
announced police
had dismantled a total of 786 criminal gangs, captured 242 drug
traffickers and extradited 192 more, dismantled 40 trafficking networks, and
carried out 243 operations targeting the financial infrastructures of criminal groups, reported Vanguardia.¶ In
operations targeting street level drug dealing -- microtrafficking -- police seized
99,184 kilos of cocaine, 132,182 tablets of synthetic drugs and 291,220 kilos of
marijuana. In actions taken against kidnapping and extortion, they arrested 2,038
people and solved 1,041 cases.
Coca growth declining by 25%
Buschschluter 13, (Vanessa, June 28 2013. BBC “Colombia coca land 'drops by 25% to historic low'”)
th
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23081105
Colombia, one of the world's largest producers of cocaine, has seen the proportion
of land planted with coca drop to a "historic low", sources in the Colombian security forces say.¶ CounterNations figures will suggest that areas planted
with coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, decreased by 25% from 2011 to 2012.¶
Colombian Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said that, if confirmed, the figures showed "important progress"
had been made in the fight against illicit drugs.¶ The annual report by the UN's Integrated Illicit Crops
narcotics experts say that soon-to-be-published United
Monitoring System is expected to say that the land planted with coca bushes has dropped from 64,000 hectares in 2011 to less than 48,000 hectares in
2012, the lowest figure since monitoring started in Colombia over a decade ago.
Links
2nc Link Block
Venezuelan instability lets Colombia attract investment to boost its oil
production
Delgado-Kiling 13 (January 29th 2013, Paula, “Talking about Colombia” http://talkingaboutcolombia.com/2013/01/29/adestabilized-venezuela-is-good-for-colombias-foreign-investment-in-the-oil-sector/)
Hence, it is with that light that Colombia should look at what experts predict for Venezuela now that Vice President Nicolas Maduro is filling in for a
sick Chavez, in what may be the end of the Chavez era.¶ Moisés Naím, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the New York
Times: Venezuela
faces a fiscal deficit approaching 20 percent of the economy, a black
of the world’s highest
inflation rates, a swollen number of public sector jobs, debt 10 times larger than it was in 2003, a
fragile banking system and the free fall of the state-controlled oil industry, the
country’s main source of revenue.¶ Naím added: Mismanagement and lack of investment have decreased oil production.¶
Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan political scientist and a consultant founder of Caracas Chronicles, told the New York Times: Venezuela’s
debt has quintupled in 14 years. Time and again spending has been hiked just ahead of elections to give Chavistas an edge.
This last one was no exception. … This kind of spending-led “socialim” can’t last. For years, Venezuela has been
market where a U.S. dollar costs four times more than the government-determined exchange rate, one
borrowing at credit-card level interest rates.¶ Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue and an adjunct professor of Latin American
politics at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, told the New York Times: If Chavistas retain power, they should quickly take steps to rein
in spending, rebuild relations with Venezuela’s business and professional communities and encourage foreign investment. Revamping PDVSA, the state
oil company, should also get high priority.¶ Anita Isaacs, a political science professor at Haverford College, told the New York Times: The prospect of
armed conflict in Venezuela is real and should not be underestimated. Should political violence ensue, all bets are off on the Latin American front.
Rather than play a productive role in the region Venezuela could arouse regional fears of a destabilizing spillover of violence, becoming instead the
target of efforts at containment and peace making.¶ Conclusively:
Venezuela is not creating the ideal conditions
suitable for foreign investment, and it is up to Colombia to profit and increase oil
production
— and that is the reason why the FARC and other groups are attacking the Colombian oil infrastructure in hopes of forcing
concessions from the government.
The plan reverses brain drain from Venezuela that is fueling
Colombian growth now
Hussain, 13 (Yadullah. “Colombia crude puts heat on oil sands” Yadullah moved to Toronto in December 2010, after 12 years in Dubai
where he was involved in the launch of a newspaper and two magazines. He later became the editor of www.zawya.com, Middle East's largest business
and financial newswire and business intelligence platform. http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/21/colombia-crude-puts-heat-on-oilsands/?__lsa=64ea-191d)
Like Canada, Colombia had a pipeline capacity problem, but unlike Canada it has fixed it.
And ironically, it took Canadian financing for the Colombians to get there.
The US$4.2-billion Bicentenario pipeline is 55% owned by state-run Ecopetrol SA, while TSX-listed Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. and Petrominerales
Ltd. have a 32.88% and 9.65% share, respectively, in the project that has seen its share of delays and cost overruns.
Starting in July, 140,000 barrels per day will course through the pipeline which is crucial to meet the country’s oil production that has surged 80% in
seven years. Fully complete by 2016, the 960-kilometre pipeline
will transport 600,000 bpd of mostly heavy
Colombian blends by 2016 to the U.S. Gulf Coast refineries and elsewhere.
Colombia’s crude output has crossed one million in a few short years, and could reach 1.6 million bpd.
“More than 70% of the territory has still not been explored as we had such a violent situation for so long,” Federico Renjifo Vélez, the country’s minister
of mines and energy, said in an interview, referring to the country’s long-standing enmity with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
“We have finally secured our territory and that’s why we have a number of companies who want to explore big areas. Because we are neighbours with
Venezuela and Brazil, there is expectation that there could be strong potential.”
Most Canadian energy analysts expect Alberta oil sands to find a home in Gulf Coast refineries due to declining Mexican and Venezuelan production,
but they seem to ignore the Colombian production surprise which could displace some Canadian heavy.
Related
“Absolutely it could,” said Darren Engels, vice-president, institutional research at First Energy Capital Corp. “While
Venezuelan and
Mexican production is sliding, there has been heavy oil growth out of Colombia.”
Mexican oil exports to the U.S. have fallen to about 972,000 bpd from 1.4 million bpd during the past six years, while Venezuelan oil exports have also
slid by about 25% to 906,000 bpd over the same period.
During the same period, Colombia’s U.S.-bound shipments
the U.S. Department of Energy. By March 2013, it was edging closer to 480,000 bpd.
have tripled to 401,000 barrels per day, according to
“Despite a 200,000 bpd increase in Canadian bitumen production in 2012, US PADD 3 (Gulf Coast) imports of Canadian heavy oil actually fell by
40,000 bpd in 2012 due to transport constraints,” said the International Energy Agency in a recent report. “ Colombia’s
oil has filled
the gap, reaching a 10% share of the U.S. Gulf Coast heavy crude import market.”
To be sure, Canadian oil still accounts for a third of all U.S. imports, but Colombian exports could well be nibbling away at Alberta’s piece of the pie.
“Not knocking Canada too much, but Colombia… actually built a pipeline,” said Mr. Engels, who covers a number of Colombia-focused, Canada-based
companies.
Close to 40 Toronto-listed companies are involved in South America’s oil and gas sector with an emphasis on Colombia, due to its reputation as one of
the more welcoming Latin American economies.
Pacific Rubiales has emerged as a major player in the country, producing 116,779 barrels per day in the first quarter, mostly through its heavy oil
Rubiales, Quifa and Cajua fields in the country.
“We continue to benefit from the market and trading advantages currently enjoyed by Colombia heavy oil production, achieving a premium to WTI
pricing in the first quarter of almost $8 per barrel on our total crude oil production sales volumes,” said CEO Ronald Pantin, as he announced doubledigit production growth in the first quarter.
Others such as Gran Tierra Energy Inc. and Petroamerica Oil Corp. are also performing at the higher-end of their 2013 production guidance, Mr. Engels
said.
Venezuela has also had some role to play in Colombia’s oil fortunes. President Hugo
Chavez sacked 19,000 oil workers from state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PVDSA) in 2003, and many of the
disaffected skilled workers hopped over to Colombia where they contributed to a
resurging Colombian oil industry . Pacific Rubailes’ Mr. Patin and other top brass, for example, originally worked at the
PVDSA.
But with Mr. Chavez’s death this year, could Venezuela slowly reverse its brain
drain ?
“We don’t think that Venezuela has a lot of interest in big foreign investment,” said Mr.
Velez. “Meanwhile, we have very clear rules, and we have attractive contracts and royalty terms.”
But lack of large oil discoveries has dented optimism although some projects are only just beginning to get under way due to regulatory delays,
Francisco Rodríguez, an analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a June 10 note to clients.
FARC’s propensity to blow up pipelines to stir up trouble also remains a concern, although a new round of talks between the government and the
Marxist group is under way.
“It is certainly possible that Colombia will find large oil deposits capable of sustaining a further significant expansion of its economy,” Mr. Rodriguez
said. “However, the results of all of this exploratory activity have been relatively disappointing thus far.”
Indeed, the country’s small crude reserves of 2.3 billion barrels — seven years’ worth of current supply — remain a key challenge.
In a bid to raise reserves to 41 billion barrels by 2030, the government has empowered Ecopetrol to seek joint ventures. Colombia also generated
US$2.6-billion from 115 exploration blocks last November, auctioned to 37 companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
For Canada, there may be other distant threats from the south as the rest of the Americas catches the North American oil fever and cranks up heavy
crude production.
Last week, Mexico’s president Pena Nieto said he plans to end state-owned Pemex’s 80-year-old monopoly of the country’s oil production this year.
Hugo Chavez’s death has also fuelled hopes that Venezuela, home to the world’s largest repository of crude oil, could become more business-friendly
over time.
Meanwhile, Brazil raised a record US$1.4-billion for its first oil and gas auction in five years in May.
“Venezuela is still a mess,” said Mr. Engels. “In Mexico, you hear positive things, but that stuff does not happen overnight, as we all
know. Brazil looks like it is opening up to transparency and inviting more people in. But Colombia seems to be the leader in South America.”
Oil Key to Colombia’s Economy
Oil key to Colombian economy
Pearce 4 (June 2004, Jenny. “OIL AND THE COLOMBIAN ECONOMY IN TIMES OF WAR”)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/23438/1/DP32_BeyondthePerimeterFence.pdf
How important is oil to the Colombian economy? This question became important in the ¶ course of the 1990s and into the 2000s as the armed conflict
intensified while the ¶ economy entered recession. ¶ Colombia is not a major player in the international oil market nor is it a petro-state. Its ¶ world
share of proven reserves at the end of 2001 was a mere 0.2% and these are due to ¶ run out in just under eight years at present rates of production33.
Its production rose from ¶ 430 thousand barrels a day in 1991 to a peak of 838 a day in 1999, declining to 627 in ¶ 200134 when it contributed 0.9% to
world production35. At current rates, Colombia will be ¶ a net importer of crude between 2008 and 2010. While
it is a marginal oil
producer ¶ internationally with serious danger of disappearing from the tables
altogether if the ¶ country’s potential reserves are not further explored and
exploited in the near future, the oil sector has played a very significant role in the
country’s economy , particularly over ¶ the last ten years. It made a contribution of 3% to GDP in 1999 and provided in that year ¶ 32 %
of exports; coffee, the traditionally leading export, provided only 9%. While oil 12¶ became a vital area of the Colombian economy in the 1990s,
Colombia is not an oil ¶ economy as such 36. The rising importance of oil was due to the discovery of two large ¶ fields: Caño Limón in Arauca which
began producing in 1986 and the Cusiana and ¶ Cupiagua fields in Casanare, which began producing in 1992 and 1995 respectively and ¶ represented
50% of Colombia’s total oil production in 199937. Cusiana and Cupiagua are ¶ operated by BP on behalf of a group of companies38, and are one of the
most important oil ¶ finds in Latin America in recent times, although they are now on the decline39. Caño ¶ Limón is also near depletion. Colombia
urgently seeks to expand exploration and ¶ exploitation of other reserves. Its challenge is attracting foreign investment when many ¶ reserves are in the
midst of war zones and when the oil sector is a target for extortion, ¶ kidnapping and installation damage.40¶ Oil revenues made a major contribution
to public finances in the 1990s, compensating for ¶ the decline in international coffee prices and reducing the public sector deficit. In 1999 ¶ alone they
generated a US$2 billion net income for the country, around 25% of ¶ government revenues41. Revenues
such as these also
represent a great opportunity for ¶ economic modernization and development in
Colombia, and like other better endowed oil ¶ producing states, the debate on the relationship between oil wealth and development is a ¶ very
live one42. This debate is particularly heightened in Colombia at the time of writing, ¶ given the economic recession of the late 1990s and the
intensification of the armed ¶ conflict in the course of the decade and beginning of the 21st century.
Rather than a ¶
contribution to development, however, oil has been mostly seen hitherto as
crucial to ¶ macro-economic stability 43¶ .
Internal Links / Impacts
2nc Terrorism Impact
FARC is being funded by Colombian drug profits to buy nuclear
weapons
Elicticme, 11 (August 30 “The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” Master’s degree in Criminal Justice. And he is an expert in
foreign relations for various internet sources http://eclecticme.hubpages.com/hub/The-Revolutionary-Armed-Forces-of-Colombia)
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was only designated a foreign
terrorist organization on October 8, 1997 by the Secretary of State of the United States despite having ties to a period of Colombian
history know as La Violencia, The Violence, that occurred from 1948 to 1958. This period witnessed battles between the landless masses and the elite
landowners. Additionally, there is opposition to U.S. influences, the privatization of natural resources, multinational corporations and rightist violence.
Originally made up of peasants, students and intellectuals, today it appears that the group is largely into the drug market with followers joining in
search of employment rather than to fulfill some political goal. It is unclear as to the extent that FARC
is involved in the drug
trade as speculation ranges from local production to control of growth, harvesting and
processing. The U.S. government claims that FARC is responsible for more than 50 percent of the
world’s cocaine production and more than 60 percent of the cocaine that is
exported from Colombia goes to the United States. Estimated profits from the cocaine and heroin trade range from
$100 million to $1 billion annually, making
FARC’s strategic position in Colombia and in the international terrorism scenario
The possible tactics and weapons used by the group and the terrorist group’s rank based upon the level of danger their weaponry suggests
FARC’s weaponry includes low and medium range weapons. Venezuela provided rocket launchers in 2009 in response to a build-up of American troops
in Colombia. Plans to buy surface-to-air missiles, sniper rifles and radios from Venezuela have also been revealed. These arms negotiations were
facilitated by General Henry Rangel Silva, the director of Venezuela’s police intelligence agency. These collaborations have strained relationships
between the governments of Venezuela and Colombia. FARC is organized militarily and has units that operate in rural and urban areas. The
paramilitary operations of FARC include a February 2003 car bombing of a Bogota nightclub that killed more than 30 people and wounded another 160
people. A grenade attack which wounded three Americans took place in November, 2003 in Bogota. Along with conventional military action against
Colombian political, military and economic targets, bombings, murder, mortar attacks, narcotics trafficking, kidnapping, extortion and hijacking are all
part of FARC’s tactics to overthrow the Colombian government and replace it with communism. Increasingly, this activity has replaced the goal of
Marxist communist government in Colombia.
Based on the types of weaponry that FARC has at its command, they would rank in the middle range of terrorist groups. However, General Oscar
Naranjo, the Director of Columbian National Police released a statement on March 3, 2008 revealing that FARC
was negotiating to
purchase 50 kilograms of uranium. According to Charles Ferguson, a nuclear specialist with the U.S. Council on Foreign
Relations, this amount of uranium could possibly be used to construct a nuclear weapon as
powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. If FARC were able to obtain all
necessary ingredients and construct a bomb of this potential magnitude, their
rank based upon the danger of their weaponry would be extremely high.
FARC’s threat to innocent civilians and the terrorist group’s rank as compared to other terrorist groups based upon the level of danger it brings to
innocent civilians
Though it is not uncommon for terrorist groups to be engaged in criminal activities to fund their movements, FARC
has been viewed
by some as having lost the zeal of their revolutionary goals for the profits of its
drug trafficking. After the dismantling of the major drug cartels in Colombia in the 1990’s, the operations were taken over by the leftist
rebels and FARC is seen now to be only fighting nominally in support of Marxist goals.
Their numbers have dropped and they have lost key figures in their movement. Nevertheless, because of their shrewd drug business practices they may
be able to do more with less. Their coffers continue to fill with drug money and the movement’s ideologue, Alfonso Cano, is a new leader. Thus, far from
being defeated, the
huge profits from their drug trafficking may usher in a smaller but
more intense organization once again dedicated to a Marxist communist rule.
The counterterrorist measures that can be used against this group
The consensus among terrorism experts is that there are three basic options to respond to and deter terrorism and terrorists. The first way to limit the
growth of terrorists and terrorism is through the use of force.
To a lesser extent, the
Colombian government has employed the use of legal options to
combat FARC. They have cited documentation from the United Nations, created a nine-point statement and engaged, or attempted to
engage, other countries in prohibiting the safe keeping of FARC members. However, Mono Jojoy stated in 1999, “We don’t give a damn about the
Constitution and the laws because we are outside of that realm”. So while lawful action may help strengthen the Colombian government and its allies, it
is doubtful it will directly impact FARC as they don’t appear to put much stock in laws.
Currently in
Colombia, under the new leadership of President Santos who was elected to office in May 2010, there is a continuation of
president has stated that he plans to defeat FARC and
end the nearly 50 year conflict.
aggressive military campaigns against FARC. The
Even Failed Terrorist Nuclear Attack Leads to Extinction
Sid-Ahmed, 04 (September 1. Mohammad “Extinction” a long-serving contributing editor of Middle East Research Project info. He
was a life-long activist in the communist and progressive movements, one of Egypt’s leading political writers and intellectuals.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.)
A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and
Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain -- the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no
knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody.
So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear
weapons have been used only to threaten.
Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have
reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection
can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out,
these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harbouring WMD, proved to be unfounded.
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even
if it fails, it would further exacerbate the
negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in
on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between
civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up
the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is
imperative if humankind is to survive.
But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will
emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When
nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
Drug Trafficking => Terrorism
Drug trafficking funds terrorist activities
McCraw, 03 (May 20, Steven C. “Testimony” Assistant Director, Office of Intelligence, FBI
http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/international-drug-trafficking-and-terrorism)
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Judiciary Committee. On behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I would like to express my
gratitude for affording us the opportunity to speak with you on the important issue of international drug trafficking and terrorism, which you have
appropriately labeled as "a dangerous mix."
Worldwide economic, political, social, and technological changes have resulted in a more dispersed, complex, asymmetric threat to our nation.
Terrorists, criminals, and foreign intelligence collectors have significantly benefited from these rapid changes, which have permanently shrunk the
world. The result is a world that is more integrated with activities that are significantly less discrete. Terrorist acts, crime, and foreign intelligence
activities are no longer distinct activities, but rather profound fluid enterprises that through their very existence have a reverberating impact on our
national security. Terrorism and crime respect no borders and threaten civilized countries throughout the world.
Terrorism and crime are inextricably linked. International and Domestic Terrorism Organizations and their supporters
engage in a myriad of crimes to fund and facilitate terrorist activities. These crimes include extortion,
kidnaping, robbery, corruption, alien smuggling, document fraud, arms trafficking, cyber crime, white collar crime, smuggling of contraband, money
laundering and certainly drug trafficking.
In framing the issue, the Committee astutely recognizes these links and the threat they present to the American people. That is why all aspects of the
terrorist enterprise including funding and support must be attacked. The criminal nexus to terrorism including drug trafficking is why our local, state,
and federal law enforcement partners throughout the U.S. and the world are essential to combating global terrorism. They constitute an army of
dedicated professionals who bring tremendous resources and capabilities to the war on terrorism. In fact, the successes of the Joint Terrorism Task
Forces are in large part to their unwavering commitment to the safety of our nation and its citizens.
Today's Committee meeting focuses on the ties of drug trafficking and international terrorism which is clearly a problem. Drug
is a highly lucrative enterprise generating billions
trafficking
of dollars in profit that terrorist organizations
can easily tap into. The ties between international terrorist organizations and drug trafficking varies greatly from organization to
organization. For example, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ( FARC), aka the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is
strongly tied to drug trafficking in Colombia. The objective of the FARC is to overthrow the established order in
Colombia and replace it with a socialist dictatorship. In its attempts to destabilize the Government of Colombia, the FARC conducts bombings,
extortions, selective assassinations, kidnappings, and armed confrontations with Colombian police and military forces. In an effort to finance its
agenda, the FARC has conducted countless kidnappings for ransom of Colombian and foreign nationals, including the most recent kidnaping/capture
of American citizens in Colombia. They have also forced businesses to pay "war taxes" in exchange for FARC protection. However, drug trafficking
profits are the FARC's principal source of funding. Moreover, it appears much of their agenda is based upon protecting and exploiting drug trafficking
operations in Colombia and the region.
Historically, Afghanistan has been a major source of heroin throughout the world. Recently, al-Qa'ida and Sunni extremists have been associated
through a number of investigations with drug trafficking. We have observed elements of the Taliban shipping and selling illegal drugs into the US. A
recent joint FBI and DEA investigation resulted in the arrests of 16 Afghan and Pakistani subjects for involvement in a drug ring that was possibly
linked to Al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. The investigation determined that heroin, grown and processed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was being shipped to
the U.S. Profits from the sale of the heroin were laundered through Afghan and Pakistani owned businesses and then sent back to associates of terrorist
organizations. Criminal and financial links to the Taliban regime and their involvement with Al-Qa'ida were established. The subjects were also
involved in a number of other criminal activities including document/mail fraud, operating an illegal money transmitting business, and other white
collar crimes.
Historically, Hizballah's direct involvement in narcotics trafficking has been limited, and the group's leaders have condemned the drug trade on
religious grounds. However, we have seen individuals with suspected Hizballah ties involved in drug related activities and we believe that funds from
these activities eventually make their way to Hizballah coffers in Lebanon. The FBI has investigated and continues to investigate, efforts by individuals
and entities associated with Hizballah to traffic illegal drugs in the U.S. Acts of terrorism attributed to Hizballah have little or no connection to narcotic
issues. Rather, these acts were intended to further their political and terrorist agendas. Hizballah utilizes funds from drug trafficking as one of many
methods to fund these agendas.
By way of example, the FBI conducted an investigation which employed an undercover operation to target Hizballah cells in the U.S.
The investigation has focused on distinct, but related, criminal enterprises which have participated in a host of criminal activity from fraud schemes to
drug trafficking to fund their activities and provide funds to the overall Hizballah organization. A number of the subjects have been indicted and the
investigation is continuing.
The Al-Ittihad al-Islami, or AIAI, Somalia's largest militant Islamic organization, is suspected of smuggling an illegal narcotic leaf known as Khat
("cot") into the United States. Arrests and shipment seizures indicate a sharp increase in demand for the drug. Proceeds from East African Khat sales
are likely remitted to Middle Eastern banks via Hawala network and wire services. It is likely that these funds pass through the hands of suspected AIAI
members and other persons with possible ties to terrorist groups.
The bottom line is that terrorists and terrorist
groups will resort to any method or means to fund
and facilitate their terrorist agendas. As state sponsorship of terrorism has come under greater international
condemnation, the tremendous profit potential associated with drug trafficking make it an
attractive from the perspective of terrorist groups . This is further evidence that the prospect of
terrorist-related drug trafficking represents a continuing and significant threat to
our national security.
Thank you for affording me the opportunity to speak to you today on this important topic, and I look forward to any questions that you may have.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you Mr. Chairman and all members of the committee, for the tremendous support you have
provided to the FBI to effectively combat terrorism. I would also like to publicly thank the Drug Enforcement Administration and the thousands of local
and state law enforcement agencies for their outstanding support to the FBI since the attacks on 9/11/2001.
Drug trafficking funds terrorism
UNODC, 13 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime “Drug trafficking and financing of Terrorism”
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/drug-trafficking-and-the-financing-of-terrorism.html office that was established in 1997 as the Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna.[1] It is a member of the United Nations Development Group)
Although the link between terrorism and other related crimes, such as drug trafficking, is evident and
has been recognized by the United Nations Security Council, a thorough understanding is needed in order to develop solid strategies to prevent and
disrupt these crimes.
Speaking at a recent conference in Istanbul, "The Role of Drug Trafficking in Promoting and Financing Today's Global Terrorism," jointly organized by
Turkey, the United States and Colombia, UNODC Senior Terrorism Prevention Officer Irka Kuleshnyk said that "While it is difficult to establish how
widely terrorist groups are involved in the illicit drug trade, or the breadth and nature of cooperation between these two criminal groups, the
magnitude of the numbers involved make the relationship worrisome."
According to the UNODC's World Drug Report 2007, the total potential value of Afghanistan's 2006 opium harvest accruiing to farmers, laboratory
owners and Afghan traffickers reached about $US3.1 billion. In addition, it is reported that in 2004, some 400 tons of cocaine was exported from one
Latin American country, with an estimated domestic value of US$ 2 billion. How much of this money is used for perpetrating acts of terrorism?
Estimates vary. But even a
small percentage would be more than sufficient for some individuals or
groups to plan, finance and carry out terrorist acts.
Indeeed drug trafficking has provided funding for insurgency and those who use terrorist violence in
various regions throughout the world, including in transit regions. In some cases, drugs have even been the currency
used in the commission of terrorist attacks, as was the case in the Madrid bombings.
Effective tools do however, exist which can chip away at - and eventually contribute to breaking - the links. For example, at the international level there
is a common legal framework consisting of 16 universal anti-terrorist instruments, as well as relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Included in the
latter is a series of UN resolutions imposing sanctions - such as the freezing of assets, a travel ban and an arms embargo, on members of the Taliban,
Al-Qaida and their associates. There are currently 124 entities and 226 individuals on this list.
Illicit drug
traders and terrorists are not some mysterious entity, Kuleshnyk says. Rather they are usually groups and
networks that operate in ways that can be understood, identified, tracked and ultimately disrupted. We need to integrate our work to build up
more effective and efficient networks so that we may defeat these illegitimate networks that perpetuate so much destruction throughout the world.
Economy Key to Drug War
Economic growth and stability can help to combat drug war --- Mexico
proves
Gray ’10 --- Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy (May, 2010, Colin Gray, Stanford Progressive, “The Hidden Cost of the
War on Drugs” http://www.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=521)
The question remains: how
can we stabilize those parts of the Mexican economy that are
dependent on drug money, even while combating drugs? In the long-run, a stable
government that sends positive messages to investment is perhaps the most
crucial aspect of the struggle. In the short run, the government must give
alternative economic opportunities to the rural poor in drug-producing areas.
These can come in the form of incentives for companies to move to those areas or
artificial increases in the price of crops by means similar to current U.S. means for
artificially boosting corn and sugar prices. Other sectors, such as banking and luxury industries, may have to suffer.
Yet, with economic meltdown averted and globalization increasing demand for a myriad labor-intensive goods, the Mexican economy could presumably
fill those jobs without serious long-term difficulty. Action would have to be taken now, as the government battles drug cartels, to ensure the well-being
and sufficient political support of these populations.
Notably, alternative methods for fighting cartels may have alternative effects on these industries. For example, the legalization of drugs in Mexico
would undercut cartels by causing a significant price drop. While independent ethical issues may conflict with this approach, it would probably keep
many drug-dependent Mexican industries in business, albeit with lower profits. The unilateral legalization of drugs in the United States may be the
most effective means in combating Mexican cartels, as cartel profits would dwindle as prices fell while prosecution of criminal activity within Mexico
could continue. Yet, such an approach would not alleviate the threat those Mexican industries still indirectly dependent on drugs.
Whatever technique is used, it is the sad reality that drug organizations will not fail easily. Violence is increasing, but whether this is due to desperation
on the part of the drug cartels or increasing power of drug lords is unclear. Criminal organizations hang banners in towns advertising higher pay for
police officers and soldiers who defect. Brutality has become a type of game for some of these organizations, which have begun rolling heads onto
crowded dance floors, strapping skinned faces onto soccer balls, and leaving clear signs of torture on corpses. While the need to battle these threats to
law and order is clear, there are more subtle economic considerations that must be taken into account. Growth
and stability, not
stubbornness or punishment for industries implicitly tied into the drug trade,
must be priorities.
People turn to drug involvement because of lack of opportunity-fixing
economic structure can eradicate the drug war
Rios ’8 --- Department of Government Harvard University (Spring 2008, Viridiana Rios, Graduate Students Political Economy Workshop,
Institute for Quantitative Social
Sciences, Harvard University, “Evaluating the economic impact of Mexico’s drug trafficking Industry”
http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/Rios2008_MexicanDrugMarket.pdf)
What policy implications does this have? The most obvious one relates to increased employment efforts in impoverished regions within Mexico. Our
analysis has confirmed the long-held notion that most actors in Mexico’s drug
economy participate in such a business because of the lack of economic
opportunity – not a unique phenomenon in the drug-producing world (e.g. Afghanistan). This has special implications for the U.S. since the
current state of widespread calls for alien migration back to Mexico action might trigger an increase in drug production. If the economic
situation of these communities does not improve, getting involved with the illegaldrug industry will remain to be very attractive. Of course the best employment programs cannot function in an
environment of corruption. As briefly discussed above, this remains a major issue holding back Mexico from achieving greater economic and social
success. The international community must continue to pressure Mexican leaders for more transparency in government. This includes monitoring
money laundering activities more closely. Greatly
reducing the drug trafficking industry in Mexico
may seem like an insurmountable, naïve goal in overall drug control. But previous
successes of sharply reducing that business in other countries – like Thailand, Laos, and
Colombia – offer a glimpse of hope. Doing so would require a rededicated, multipronged effort consisting of poverty relief, alternative development, and anticorruption measures from the United States and other countries. This might
require great cost , but the price of doing nothing would probably be more.
Colombia Economy Key to Fighting Drug War
Cano, 10 (“The Price of Colombia’s Drug War” Summer Law Clerk at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP Summer Intern at Brigard & Urrutia
University of Pennsylvania Law School. Princeton Universityhttp://colombiareports.com/the-price-of-colombias-drug-war/ )
What is the price-tag of Colombia’s drug war? I started writing my senior thesis at Princeton with that question in mind. Every knowledgeable
observer of Colombia is aware that the country’s fight
against drugs has been costly in terms of human
lives, resources, and lost productivity. Too many people have died in the violence that surrounds the world of cocaine,
and too much government money has had to be allocated to the defense of the
nation. With both drug lords and insurgencies turned narco-terrorists, the Colombian state had no choice but to fight back with determination.
However, imagine for a moment that it hadn’t had to be that way. Imagine a peaceful Colombia, free of cocaine, free of Pablo Escobars, Carlos Castaños
and Manuel Marulandas (the beauty of that thought is so painful that it makes me want to stop fantasizing). Imagine, for example, that due to some
mystery of fate, Colombia’s soil had proven totally incapable of growing marijuana and coca plants. Or, even better, imagine that the easy-money
culture that comes with drug trafficking had never taken hold of the Colombian people. Just for one second, imagine…
Even if you would rather stay in fantasy land (I don’t blame you), we must now come back to reality. And reality is not nice. For decades now,
Colombia has been a main battleground of the international war on drugs. The world’s top
cocaine producer, Colombia has fought bravely and tirelessly to reduce drug production. There is no other country that has seen
more of its citizens die in the battle against cocaine: since 1990 there have been 450,000 homicides in Colombia; in Mexico, another front of the war on
drugs but with more than double the number of inhabitants, homicides in that same period amount to 220,000. For sure, cocaine has made Colombia
bleed.
But the costs of the drug war go well beyond the number of casualties. The tragedy of the many Colombians who have been internally displaced since
the 1980s has no parallel in the Western Hemisphere. Between 2.5 and 4 million people (there is debate over the exact number) have left their
hometowns in the search for safety. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of forest acres have been cut down to grow coca and build camps for the
production of cocaine. For every cultivated hectare (2.5 acres) of coca, around three hectares of forest are destroyed – and last year alone the UN found
81,000 hectares of coca inside the country. It will take time for Colombians to realize the depth of the environmental impact that drug production has
had on their country.
No doubt, the drug war has had terrible effects on the economy. The by-products of the war, the destruction of infrastructure and physical capital, have
made the economy less prosperous, diminishing its prospects of growth. Although the size of the drug economy is not overwhelming (it fell from 4% to
1.6% of GDP between 2000 and 2007), drug lords have enough resources to create bubbles and distort markets significantly. The office of the
Comptroller General has called attention to the fact that drug traffickers have bought large expanses of land in rural areas, thus increasing inequality
indexes and often contributing to the displacement of peasants. According to those estimates, about one million hectares are thought to be in the hands
of drug traffickers and their associates, although other analysts claimed the figure was as high as 5 million hectares. For its adverse effect on inequality,
this phenomenon has been characterized as “an agrarian counter-reform.”
All these are social, economic, human and environmental costs of the war against drugs, and the list is far from complete. To these, we must add the
added cost that the government’s justified retaliation has on the taxpayers. Not long ago, the Colombian state was weak, its military underfunded and
overwhelmed, violence was out of control, and anarchy just around the corner. Without that steep rise in defense spending that the Uribe
administration calls by the fancy name of “Democratic Security,” Colombia would not have survived. America, much more generous than Europe in
these affairs, was willing to lend a hand and pay for at least some of its responsibility for the Colombian drug trade.
So the country survived and improved to a large degree, but that transformation came at a high price. In the past five years, annual defense spending
has been equivalent to 5.3% of the economy (between US$11 and 12 billion). In contrast, the average South American country spends the equivalent of
1.7% of GDP on its defense budget. Looking in the books, you will find that between 1988 and 1995 Colombia never spent more than 2.5% of GDP on
defense, and the figure in the late 1990s rose to a maximum of 3.3% of the economy.
It is not hard to conclude that if Colombia were the average South American country with no drug war to fight, the government would not need to spend
such a large amount of public funds on defense. That means that if Colombia had around 20 (and not its current 36) homicides per 100,000
inhabitants, almost no coca plants to eradicate, no insurgencies, and no cocaine to export, the government could make budget savings amounting to
3.6% of GDP, or about US$9 billion! I bet the government could erase the fiscal deficit with that.
If you want, take that number as a rough indicator of how much the Colombian taxpayers spend in their antidrug effort. Consider that once you also
add all the other costs of the war on cocaine (taking care of the internally displaced, lost production due to violence, market distortions due to money
laundering, vanished human and social capital, dead forests, etc.) that number will go up significantly (perhaps to 6 or 7% of the economy?).
As I continue writing my senior thesis, I will explore these issues thoroughly. There is no question that Colombia
today is a better
place to live than at any other point in the last twenty years. But that privilege is
costing us money, and as long as Colombia remains at the center of the war against
drugs, the country will keep paying a high price for its security. Few things, though, are expensive if
they work, especially if you are talking about protecting life, liberty, and property. So, is there an alternative? Would the country do better if it rejected
the prohibition paradigm and embraced legalization? These are complex questions that escape simple answers. For now, the war goes on. And its cost
keep growing.
AT: Plan Colombia Solves
Plan Colombia failing now
BBC 08 (“US weighs costs of Plan Colombia” http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4627185.stm provide impartial public service
broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. It is the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with
about 23,000 staff)
Colombia is the world's leading producer of cocaine
Since 2000 the US has spent about $6bn (£3.8bn) fighting drug production in Colombia and training its army to battle rebel groups.
The centrepiece of Plan
finance the rebels.
Colombia has been the aerial spraying of coca plants, which yield the raw material for cocaine - which then helps
Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer. Yet the US plan has proved highly controversial.
Policymakers argue it is in the national interest to fight cocaine at its source and to stabilise Colombia.
Critics agree - but say the current
plan is ineffective, targets desperate farmers and has worsened
an existing human rights crisis.
Production up
Under the plan, the US has given Alvaro Uribe's government more than $600m each year, heavily slanted towards military aid.
It has supplied helicopters, advisers, trainers and intelligence to the Colombian army to help it modernise and operate more effectively against both the
coca farmers and rebels.
Congress initially specified that the aid should only be used against drug lords but the Bush administration has since indicated that some of it is being
spent on counter-terrorism efforts.
The US has financed training for Colombian troops
When, in a November 2008 report, the US government's General Accounting Office (GAO) assessed progress between 2000 and 2006, there was some
good news.
The Colombian armed
inroads into their financing.
forces had regained control of many areas formerly held by rebels and made
Murders and kidnappings had fallen as a result, the report said, and the number of fighters in rebel group Farc had fallen
50% to around 8,000.
But the
goal of reducing the cultivation and distribution of illegal narcotics by 50% in six years had not
been met.
Opium poppy cultivation and heroin production have fallen by half. But coca cultivation and cocaine production levels had
increased by about 15% and 4% respectively.
Farmers had found ways to defy aerial and manual eradication programmes, by planting smaller patches or moving to new ground.
Aid debate
The report came at a tricky time. The US has indicated that aid to Colombia will have to be cut because of the current financial crisis.
A growing number of US lawmakers - including incoming President Barack Obama - have also voiced concern about human rights abuses in the
country.
Days after Amnesty International accused the Colombian government of being "in denial" about the involvement of security personnel in extra-judicial
killings, the head of Colombia's army resigned amid a scandal linking military officers to the murders of 11 civilians.
Local farmers have also complained about the aerial spraying, saying it kills all their crops, regardless of what they are, and affects their health.
The GAO report says that changes are needed.
It recommends that the US and Colombia "develop a joint plan for turning over operational and funding responsibilities for US-supported programs to
Colombia" - although it does not give a time scale for this.
It also calls on USAID to assess whether its development assistance - about 20% of the total aid package - is helping to reduce the production of drugs
in Colombia.
Some US Democrats are calling for more development - and less military - aid for Colombia.
With a new administration set to take office, the debate looks set to continue.
--- XT: Key to Stability
Colombia key to regional security
Peters, 11 (August 2011, Tony “Colombia key for regional stability: EU official”
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-key-for-regional-stability/)
Colombia is a key country for stability in the region, said the vice president of the
European Commission during a country visit.
According to newspaper El Tiempo, European official Neelie Kroes said the European Union, including its businesses, has been able to quickly
recognize the enormous potential of Colombia. It is seen as an emerging power attractive for investment, not only for its economic growth, but for its
stable legal framework with clear, unchanging rules.
“The European Union sees Colombia as a crucial player in the promotion of
security and stability in the region and an important ally in multilateral forums,” said
the official.
On the subject of the E.U.-Colombia trade agreement, Kroes said it would provide a greater European market for Colombian goods, with more exports
leading to greater national income. She also said that agreement would cause the relationship between Colombia and the E.U. to be more permanent,
egalitarian and bilateral.
Recognizing Colombia’s efforts to bring the Internet to all of its citizens, Kroes said “It is important for Colombia to appreciate the direct link between
the development of ICT (information and communications technology) and the progress of the country on an economic as well as a on a social and
democratic level.”
Kroes, who is also the commissioner responsible for the digital agenda, has been listed by Forbes as one of the 100 most important women in the world.
Aff Answers
2ac Venezuela Turn
Turn --- boosting Venezuela’s economy will ensure Colombia
investment
Cohn and Rao, 13 (6/10/2013, Carolyn and Sujata “Venezuela instability a risk for Colombia growth - finance minister”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/uk-colombia-economy-idUKBRE9590SS20130610)
(Reuters) - Colombia's
economy faces its greatest risks this year from instability in
neighbouring Venezuela and the slump in commodity prices, the country's finance minister said on Monday.
Growth forecasts for the Andean country are likely to be downgraded, with 4.4-4.5 percent a likely rate for 2013, Mauricio Cardenas told Reuters
editors and Reuters Television.
Future growth however could see an annual boost of two percentage points, thanks to planned increases to infrastructure spending and if peace talks
with Marxist-led FARC rebels - due to restart on Tuesday - succeed in ending half a century of insurgency.
"We are going to make an announcement by the end of this week of between 4.4 and 4.5 percent, we are revising our projections a little downward," he
said of the growth forecast which is currently at 4.8 percent.
The exact revision is dependent on economic data coming through this week.
Falling commodity prices are an issue for Colombia, whose main exports include oil, coal and coffee. The
other worry is Venezuela, which is facing shortages of basic goods from toilet paper to wheat flour, raising fears of instability.
"Developments
in Venezuela are very important to us - a stable growing economy in
Venezuela is very important from Colombia's perspective," Cardenas said.
He added Colombia has been talking with Venezuelan ministers about the possibility of
offering food for oil, or food for future oil reserves.
"We are very dependent on commodity prices, and whatever happens to future oil prices," Cardenas
said.
The government was likely to keep a Brent crude oil reference rate of around $100 (64.25 pounds) a barrel for budget purposes, he said, not far below
the current $104 level.
The U.S. shale gas revolution has also cut the United States as an export destination for Colombia's coal, he added.
INFRASTRUCTURE, PEACE
Colombia has a potential growth rate of between 4.5 and 4.8 percent, but ambitious infrastructure spending plans could add around a percentage point
to those estimates, Cardenas said.
The government plans to spend $20 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, with most focus on roads, and is looking for around $30 billion
from the private sector, he said.
"Better infrastructure will add one percentage point to growth, and the peace process another percentage point," Cardenas said, adding that the impact
of the peace programme could be felt quickly.
President Juan Manuel Santos has said he wants the talks with FARC ended this year. The two sides last month reached agreement on the critical issue
of agrarian reform.
More than 100,000 people have died in the war which has diverted billions of dollars from the economy.
Cardenas said that if peace with FARC were agreed: "There will be more investment, there will be more projects, the sectors that will benefit the most
are agriculture and energy."
AT: Colombia Economy
Colombian econ in decline – exports prove
Crowe 13, (Darcy, May 8 2013. WSJ “Colombia Says March Exports Fell 20% From Year Earlier”) http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO20130508-718544.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
BOGOTA--Colombia's
exports plunged in March from a year earlier, extending a trend
of declines in overseas sales that is affecting economic growth .¶ DANE, the government's
exports fell 20% in March and stood at $4.56 billion.¶ The decline, DANE said, was
mainly the result of a 23% drop in sales of fuels and mining-related products. Manufactured exports fell 12.6%.¶ Many
exporters have said the persistent strength of the Colombian peso against the dollar is hurting their ability to compete overseas.¶ This is the
fifth straight month that exports declined, as the Colombian economy likely
suffered a slowdown in the first quarter. The Colombian economy slowed to a 4% expansion in 2012 after growing
statistics agency, said Wednesday that
6.6% in the previous year.
Colombian econ is resilient – efficient regulatory framework
The Heritage Foundation 12, (Index of Economic Freedom, “Colombia Economic Freedom Score”)
http://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2012/countries/colombia.pdf
Colombia’s economic freedom score is 68, making its economy the 45th freest in the 2012 Index. Its overall score is the ¶ same as last year, with
improvements in business, labor, and ¶ monetary freedom offset by worsened scores in government ¶ spending and freedom from corruption.
Colombia is ranked ¶ 8th out of 29 countries in the South and Central America/¶ Caribbean region.¶ The
Colombian economy
has shown a moderate degree of ¶ resilience in the face of a challenging economic
environment, ¶ and reform efforts have continued in many of the four pillars ¶ of
economic freedom. The overall regulatory framework has ¶ become more efficient,
and business procedures have been ¶ streamlined. Policies that support open markets and a strong ¶ private
sector are being implemented, enhancing flows of ¶ investment and the vitality of entrepreneurship. Government ¶ spending has been expanding in
recent years.¶ In contrast to its performance in other economic freedom pillars, Colombia has lagged in promoting the effective rule of ¶ law. The
judicial system remains vulnerable to political interference, and property rights are not strongly protected. Lingering corruption further undermines
freedom and hampers ¶ the emergence of more vibrant economic activity.
Colombia economy declining now
The economist 13, (March 3 2013, “Colombia’s economy The black stuff”) http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21572818rd
disruption-key-industries-black-stuff
OIL may now be Colombia’s biggest export, but coal comes second and coffee, no longer
paramount as it long was, is still the fifth-biggest foreign-exchange earner. In February both the coal and the coffee
industry were crippled by protests and strikes, threatening to put a temporary dent in the economy’s otherwise
reasonably healthy growth. They are doing nothing to buoy President Juan Manuel Santos’s dipping popularity.¶ Around 70% of the
coal industry has been halted since early February, for two separate reasons. More
than 5,000 workers at Cerrejón, the biggest mine, went on strike for higher wages
on February 7th, the first such stoppage in nearly 20 years. The strike is costing the company, a joint venture of three
multinational giants (Xstrata, Anglo-American and BHP Billiton), an estimated $3m a day. After blasts set by unidentified attackers damaged four
trucks at the mine, negotiations began on February 26th, though an agreement does not appear close.¶ The strike coincided with troubles at
Drummond, an American company that is Colombia’s second-largest coal producer. The authorities suspended its port licence after an incident in
January in which the company dumped hundreds of tonnes of coal into the Caribbean from a sinking barge. It officially reported the incident only after
photos appeared on television.¶ Coffee’s woes have a bigger political impact: more than 500,000 families grow the beans. On February 25th thousands
of them began blocking roads in ten provinces. Their incomes have dropped sharply, as leaf rust (a plant disease) has cut output, and the strong peso
has exacerbated a fall in the world coffee price. They want more government subsidies and changes in how the National Federation of Coffee-growers,
which buys the bulk of the crop, is managed. “Today,
to produce one arroba (a 25lb or 11.3kg bag) costs
the coffee grower 70,000 pesos ($38.6) and he gets paid 49,000 pesos for it. Need
a calculator?”, read a banner suspended by the protesters.¶ Mr Santos called the marches “inconvenient and unnecessary” as well as “unjust”.
The government has granted producers subsidies of $33 for every 125kg of coffee, paying out aid totalling $1.6 billion. The coffee growers and the
government have agreed to talks to resolve the dispute.¶ The
mood in Colombia seems to be darkening. In a
Gallup poll in February, twice as many respondents said things were getting worse
as thought they were improving. It doesn’t help that the FARC guerrillas have stepped up attacks, while peace talks in
Havana appear to be moving slowly. Facing an election next year if he wants a second term, Mr Santos has seen his approval rating fall to 50%, down
from 56% in December, according to Gallup. Although that is far from disastrous, Mr Santos will be watching carefully.¶
Colombian econ decline – competitiveness proves
Edling 12, (Zach, November 2012, “Colombia’s economic ‘competitiveness’ in decline”) http://colombiareports.com/colombias-economicqcompetitivenessq-in-decline/
Colombia’s competitiveness rating has declined despite a rising GDP, according to experts.¶ A recent report
from the Private Competitiveness Council (CPC), a non-profit organization that analyzes the economic challenges facing
Colombia, suggested that Colombia’s high levels of informal employment coupled
with low educational investment have caused the country’s competitiveness rating
to slip in comparison with countries like Mexico, Peru and Brazil.¶ A country’s competitiveness, as defined by the World Economic Forum, is
“the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity
of a country.Ӧ According to the World Bank, Colombia spent 4.8% of its GDP on education in 2010. In 2009, Brazil and Peru spent 5.7% and
5.3% of their GDP on education respectively.¶ The CPC report stated that, “the allocation of labor in Colombia is not
efficient because of informal employment levels [as well as the] high costs of hiring and firing employees.Ӧ A new tax policy supported by
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas aims at fixing this problem by lowering corporate payroll taxes.
Supposedly, this will make it easier for companies to hire labor. However, the proposed reform has been met with staunch criticism for being nothing
but a corporate tax break.¶ The CPC findings contradicted the supposed strength of Colombia’s economy. Although GDP rose 4.28% from 2009-2011,
this is a misleading figure as GDP does not take into account inequality statistics or a country’s competitiveness rating.¶ According to the World Bank,
Colombia is the seventh most unequal country in the world with a Gini coefficient comparable to Haiti and Angola. A Gini coefficient is the leading
indicator of a country’s inequality.¶ Colombia’s
September unemployment rate also rose to 9.9%,
the first such rise in one and a half years.¶
AT: Drug Wars Scenario
Drug trade in Colombia is stable even increasing.
UNODC 12, (United Nations Office of Drugs and Conflict, July 2012, “2011 Colombia coca crop survey shows stable overall situation”)
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/July/2011-colombia-coca-crop-survey-shows-stable-overall-situation.html
5 July 2012 - The
area under coca crop cultivation in Colombia rose 3 per cent in 2011 to
remained stable for the raw
material used in the production of the illegal drug cocaine.¶ The 2011 survey shows that while the area
64,000 hectares (ha), up by 2,000 ha compared with 2010. Overall, the picture, therefore,
used for coca leaf cultivation decreased in 14 of the 24 departments of Colombia, that trend did not offset increases in 6 other departments. In 4
departments, no major change was observed.¶ Almost
two-thirds (62 per cent) of coca cultivation was
concentrated in only 4 departments - Nariño, Putumayo and Cauca bordering Ecuador to the west and Guaviare to the
south - but all witnessed an increase in cultivation. The Putumayo-Caquetà region
saw a rise of 80 per cent in cultivation, from around 7,360 ha in 2010 to almost 13,280 ha in 2011. In contrast, the
central region, particularly Antioquia and Córdoba provinces, saw the sharpest declines in cultivation, dropping 31 per cent from some 15,300 ha in
2010 to around 10, 640 ha in 2011. The areas along the Pacific coast remained stable.¶ In 2011, the Government manually eradicated 34,170 hectares of
coca bush and sprayed a total of 103,302 hectares. While
aerial spraying remained at 2010 levels, manual
eradication decreased by 22 per cent.¶ Recent studies show that the coca leaf yield per hectare has decreased, probably
because farmers are cutting back on fertilizers and agro-chemicals. Thus, potential cocaine production in 2011 remained stable at 345 tons, down 1 per
cent from 350 tons in 2010.¶ The farm-gate value of coca leaf and derivatives (coca paste, cocaine base) in 2011 was estimated at US$420 million,
worth around 0.2 per cent of GDP.¶ The average net income from coca of a farmer selling coca leaf is close to $2 per day, close to the threshold of
extreme poverty set by the international community. This indicates that small-scale coca crop growers benefit very little from the lucrative cocaine
business. The number of households involved in coca cultivation fell 2 per cent from 63,660 in 2010 to 62,400 in 2011.¶ UNODC has supported the
Government of Colombia in monitoring coca cultivation since 1999. The annual survey supported by UNODC is mainly based on data derived from
satellite imagery and field surveys to measure the production of coca leaf.
Drug wars are shifting to west Africa
Sylla 13, (Coumba June 21 2013, AFP. “West Africa: the new theatre in US war on drugs”)
st
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jvZ0lv3Wbj6lK1aw4mAZf8m5MABA?docId=CNG.618c4c8ba04ca8a8cb7bf185c48a3177.e1
DAKAR — President
Barack Obama begins his African tour in Senegal next week in the heart of a
region becoming a focus for federal agents prosecuting the US war on the
international drugs trade. ¶ Investigators from the DEA, America's anti-narcotics
agency, have made a series of high-profile and dramatic arrests in West Africa as
part of a widening probe of African druglords as well as armed rebels in South America.¶ Derek Maltz, head of
the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Operations Division that targets global drug crime, described trafficking in the region as a "plague" as
he announced charges against suspected smugglers from Nigeria and Ghana on June 3.¶ "These criminal groups and their facilitators pose a direct
threat to the safety and security of innocent Americans," he said.¶ "Together with our law enforcement partners, DEA is dismantling illicit drug
networks in western Africa and around the world, and putting the criminals who operate them behind bars where they belong."¶ The suspects were
arrested on May 9 in New York and all three were charged with heroin trafficking.¶ According to their indictment, Ghanaian Solomon Adelaquaye and
Nigerians Frank Muodum and Celestine Ofor Orjinweke "conspired to import heroin into the United States" with a Colombian, Samuel Antonio
Pinedo-Rueda, who was arrested on May 16 in his home country and is awaiting extradition.¶ " These
alleged narco-traffickers
assumed they had secured safe passage for their heroin from west Africa to the
United States by paying off an airport insider but, unbeknownst to them, the people on the other side of their transaction were law
enforcement insiders working for the DEA," Manhattan Attorney Preet Bharara said.¶ It was also undercover DEA agents who were behind the
dramatic arrest in April of Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, a US-designated international drug "kingpin" and former head of the Guinea-Bissau navy,
near the west African island nation of Cape Verde.¶ The DEA arrested the officer and several alleged accomplices in "international waters", according to
the Americans, while two
Colombians suspected of having been involved were arrested
shortly after in their country.¶ A widening plot involving Guinea-Bissau came to
public notice on April 18, when the United States charged the African nation's coup
leader with drug trafficking and seeking to sell arms to Colombian insurgents.