INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
HADAL ZONE EXPLORATION
AFFIRMATIVE
HADAL ZONE EXPLORATION AFFIRMATIVE ................................................................................. 1
1AC Overview ............................................................................................................................ 2
1AC ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Inherency ......................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Plan Text .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Adv. 1: Warming ............................................................................................................................................................. 5
Adv. 2: Econ/STEM ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
Adv. 3: China ................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Solvency ........................................................................................................................................................................ 15
2AC Extensions ........................................................................................................................ 18
Inherency Ext ................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Solvency Ext .................................................................................................................................................................. 20
Warming Adv. ............................................................................................................................................................... 21
Warming Causes a Laundry list of problems. ................................................................................................................ 21
STEM EXT .................................................................................................................................................................... 23
Advanced Medicine Adv Scenario ................................................................................................................................ 24
China Adv. ..................................................................................................................................................................... 26
War With China Good!........................................................................................................... 28
Heg Impact Calc. ........................................................................................................................................................... 30
2AC ANSWERS ............................................................................................................................. 31
AT: United States T ................................................................................................................. 32
HADAL ZONE EXPLORATION NEGATIVE..................................................................................... 33
AT: Warming ................................................................................................................................................................. 33
Try or Die ...................................................................................................................................................................... 33
AT: Bio Diversity .......................................................................................................................................................... 36
AT: RnD ........................................................................................................................................................................ 38
AT: China ...................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Bio Diversity Scenario ................................................................................................................................................... 41
Species Loss Good......................................................................................................................................................... 41
Heg Scenario.................................................................................................................................................................. 43
Politics Link ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
1
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
1AC OVERVIEW
THE DEEPEST TRENCHES IN THE OCEAN ARE REFERRED TO AS THE "HADAL ZONE." THE ZONE CAN BE FOUND
FROM A DEPTH OF 6,000 M TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN. THE HADAL ZONE IS LOCATED OFF THE COAST OF
GUAM; IT INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO THE CHALLENGER DEEP AND MARIANA TRENCH.
COLLECTIVELY THE TRENCHES OCCUPY AN AREA THE SIZE OF AUSTRALIA. THE FARTHEST DEPTH A
SUBMERSIBLE HAS REACHED IS REPORTED AT AROUND 7,000 – 8,000 M; HOWEVER, THE MAJORITY OF THESE
TRENCHES REMAIN LARGELY UNEXPLORED, WHICH IS WHERE THE AFF COMES IN. THE POINT OF THE
AFFIRMATIVE IS TO PROVIDE X ORGANIZATION FUNDS TO EXPLORE AND DEVELOP THE HADAL ZONE TO,
THUS, ACHIEVE THE ADVANTAGES.
2
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
1AC
INHERENCY
Dedicated funding is key to obtain a role of investments of deep ocean exploration. There is a
laundry list of benefits that can be achieved, but funding is necessary.
Jackson, 2012
[Keith Jackson, Project Management Institute, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, June 1, 2012,
http://www.readperiodicals.com/201206/2703629061.html]
Though Mr. Cameron's adventure was part publicity stunt, it also highlighted a growing number of projects aimed at
creating the infrastructure to investigate the deepest parts of the oceans. The reasons for the renewed interest dive into hot
issues: new research on earthquakes and climate change. But not all the projects have such a high-profile sponsor as Mr.
Cameron, who lined up backers such as National Geographic and luxury marketer Rolex for his endeavor. Because deep-sea exploration projects
don't necessarily have an immediate (Return on Investment) ROI, most organizations are left scrambling for funding
leaving many questions unanswered. "I'm sad to say that here we are at the beginning of the 21st century, and we know more about
other parts of the solar system than we do our own ocean," says oceanographer Sylvia Earle, PhD, founder of DOER Marine, an
Alameda, California, USA-based marine technology company, and explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society. " We have better maps of the
moon. Mars and Jupiter than we do of our own ocean floor." The quest for better information about what lies beneath is
motivated by more than mere curiosity. Researchers believe there are more than 20 trenches similar to the Mariana, and
that these seismically active zones could be a factor in sparking earthquakes.The deep sea may also play a bigger role in
the carbon cycle—and therefore in regulating the Earth's climate—than was previously thought. As organic matter from dead flora
and fauna sinks to the bottom of the sea, it's trapped by the steep walls of the trench. Because of this, more carbon
accumulates at the bottom of trenches than in other parts of the ocean. The value of that type of information helps project
teams make the case for deep-sea exploration—now more than ever. "It's a competition against time because of what
humans are doing to the ocean and the need for more deepsea research," says DOER Marine's president and CEO Liz Taylor. Deep-dive
vessels also could help in disaster-relief efforts. "During the BP oil spill, a manned submersible would've been extremely useful in going down and possibly helping fix
the problem sooner or gathering more information," Ms. Taylor explains.
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INNERARITY
TSDC 14
PLAN TEXT
HADAL ZONE
THE USFG WILL PROVIDE 20 BILLION DOLLARS TO THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC
ADMINISTRATION (NOAA) OFFICE OF OCEAN EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH (OER) FOR THE EXPLORATION
AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HADAL ZONE.
4
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
ADV. 1: WARMING
HADAL ZONE
GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND WE ARE REACHING THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF.
Flournoy 11 – (Dec. 2011, citing Feng Hsu, PhD in Engingeering Science, NASA scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, former research fellow of
Brookhaven National Laboratory in the fields of risk assessment, risk-based decision making, safety & reliability and mission assurances for nuclear power, space
launch, energy infrastructure and other social and engineering systems, Don Flournoy, PhD, University of Texas, Project Manager for University/Industry Experiments
for the NASA ACTS Satellite, Professor of Telecommunications, Scripps College of Communications, Ohio University, "Solar Power Satellites," January, Springer
Briefs in Space Development, p. 10-1)
In the Online Journal of Space Communication , Dr. Feng Hsu, a NASA scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, a research center in the forefront of science of space and Earth, writes,
“The
evidence of global warming is alarming,” noting the potential for a catastrophic planetary climate change is real and troubling(Hsu
2010 ) . Hsu and his NASA colleagues were engaged in monitoring and analyzing climate changes on a global scale, through which they received first-hand scientific information
and data relating to global warming issues, including the dynamics of polar ice cap melting. After discussing this research with colleagues who were world experts on the subject, he wrote:
global temperatures are rising, and that global warming is a serious problem confronting all of humanity. No matter whether these trends are due to human
is overwhelming scientific evidence showing positive
correlations between the level of CO2 concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere with respect to the historical fluctuations of global
temperature changes; and (b) the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientific community is in agreement about the risks of a
potential catastrophic global climate change. That is, if we humans continue to ignore this problem and do nothing, if we continue dumping huge quantities
of greenhouse gases into Earth’s biosphere, humanity will be at dire risk (Hsu 2010 ) . As a technology risk assessment expert, Hsu says he can show with some
I now have no doubt
interference or to the cosmic cycling of our solar system, there are two basic facts that are crystal clear: (a) there
confidence that the planet will face more risk doing nothing to curb its fossil-based energy addictions than it will in making a fundamental shift in its energy supply. “This,” he writes, “is
because the
risks of a catastrophic anthropogenic climate change can be potentially the extinction of human species, a risk that is simply
too high for us to take any chances” (Hsu 2010 ) .
LIMITED TRENCH
RESEARCH HAS REVEALED A POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOR
EXPLORATION KEY TO SOLVE
GLOBAL WARMING –
FURTHER
Kaplan 11 [Matt Kaplan, New Scientist, Once More unto the Deep, 9/3/2011, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128281.600-what-lies-beneathexploring-the-ocean-depths.html]
Mud-burping volcanoes on the slopes of the Mariana trench might do more than just reveal how earthquakes are generated
(see main story). They could be the entrances to a natural carbon-sequestering machine. Carbon sequestration, if we can harness it
on a large scale, is seen as a quick way of removing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so mitigating global
warming. But so far there has been no agreement on how or where to go about this. At a subduction zone such as the Mariana trench, fluids in the
subducting rocks that contain dissolved CO2 heat under pressure and are driven into the flues of mud volcanoes. As this
fluid rises inside the volcanoes, it mixes with seawater, causing calcium and magnesium in this water to combine with the
dissolved gas to form carbonates. Some samples from the Mariana trench volcanoes contain up to 50 per cent carbonate
crystals. And there the CO2 remains locked away for millions of years. Patricia Fryer of the University of Hawaii in
Honolulu and her colleagues speculate that we could copy nature's method of long-term storage by pumping CO2 into the
volcanoes from above. "The potential to lock away billions of tonnes of CO2 in this way is highly attractive," she says. "And
the technology to drill into these volcanoes and pump CO2 in is only going to get cheaper." Whether that is a practical prospect
remains to be seen. "The biggest question is whether the rocks in and around the volcanoes are permeable," says Geoff Wheat, a geochemist at the University of Alaska
in Fairbanks who is working with Fryer on the possibility. "Drilling a hole and injecting a bunch of CO2 into rock that is entirely solid would be useless." The hope
now is to map active mud volcanoes with the aim of testing their permeability later on. Perhaps some day we will bury our
carbon waste deep under the sea.
5
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
WITHOUT
NEW SOLUTIONS TO WARMING THERE WILL BE RUNAWAY WARMING WHICH MAKES EXTINCTION
INEVITABLE
Tickell, 08 – (Oliver, 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
caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth.
Warming turns Earth into Mars ---- runaway carbon will bake the planet to death
Brandenburg and Paxson ’99 (John, Visiting Prof. Researcher @ Florida Space Institute, and Monica Rix, Science Writer, “Dead Mars, Dying
Earth”, p. 232-233)
One can imagine a scenario for global catastrophe that runs similarly. If the human race adopted a mentality like the crew aboard the ship Californian—as some argue, saying that both
ozone hole and global warming will disappear if statistics are properly examined, and we need do nothing about either—the following scenario could occur. The earth goes on its merry way
and fossil fuels continue to power it. Rather than making painful or politically difficult choices, such as investing in fusion research or enacting a rigorous plan of conserving, the industrial
world chooses to muddle through the temperature climb . Let’s imagine that America and Europe are too worried about economic dislocation to change course. The ozone
hole expands, driven by a monstrous synergy with global warming that puts more catalytic ice crystals into the stratosphere, but this affects the far north and south and not the major nations’
heartlands. The seas rise, the tropics roast but the media networks no longer cover it. The Amazon rainforest becomes the Amazon desert. Oxygen levels fall, but profits rise for those who can
provide it in bottles. An equatorial high pressure zone forms, forcing drought in central Africa and Brazil, the Nile dries up and the monsoons fail. Then inevitably,
at some unlucky
point in time, a major unexpected event occurs —a major volcanic eruption, a sudden and dramatic shift in ocean circulation or a large asteroid impact (those who think
freakish accidents do not occur have paid little attention to life or Mars), or a nuclear war starts between Pakistan and India and escalates to involve China and Russia… Suddenly the
gradual climb in global temperatures goes on a mad excursion as the oceans warm and release large amounts of dissolved carbon
dioxide from their lower depths into the atmosphere. Oxygen levels go down precipitously as oxygen replaces lost oceanic carbon dioxide. Asthma cases double and then double again. Now
a third of the world fears breathing. As the oceans dump carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect increases, which further warms the oceans,
causing them to dump even more carbon. Because of the heat, plants die and burn in enormous fires which release more carbon dioxide, and the oceans evaporate, adding
more water vapor to the greenhouse. Soon, we are in what is termed a runaway greenhouse effect, as happened to Venus eons ago. The last two surviving
scientists inevitably argue, one telling the other, “See! I told you the missing sink was in the ocean!” Earth, as we know it, dies. After this Venusian excursion in temperatures, the oxygen
disappears into the soil, the oceans evaporate and are lost and the dead earth loses its ozone layer completely. Earth is too far from the Sun for it to be the
second Venus for long. Its atmosphere is slowly lost—as is its water—because of ultraviolet bombardment breaking up all the molecules apart from carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere becomes
ultraviolet sears any life that tries to make a comeback. The carbon
dioxide thins out to form a thin veneer with a few whispy clouds and dust devils. Earth becomes the second Mars—red, desolate, with
perhaps a few hardy microbes surviving.
thin the Earth becomes colder. For a short while temperatures are nearly normal, but the
6
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
ADV. 2: ECON/STEM
HADAL ZONE
Exploration is key to making critical studies for science, future technology, and human survival.
Current funding limits exploration.
Mayer 2013- [Larry Mayer, , Professor and Director- Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, September 2013
The Report of Ocean Exploration 2020-A national forum,http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf]
Exploration is innate to human nature. We are compelled to explore—watch how a baby learns about its surroundings. Exploration (at
many scales) has provided the framework for much of what we know about the world we live in. Early explorers ventured out to
unknown lands and on the SURFACE of the ocean to discover new territories, extend the sovereignty of nations, and to find new sources of wealth and enterprise. As
we have developed tools and technologies to more efficiently and effectively explore, our vision has expanded beyond our
own planet and we now venture into space exploring, discovering, and learning about the Universe. And yet… nearly
three quarters of our own planet—that part of it that is BENEATH the surface of the ocean—remains virtually unexplored.
This is surprising and frightening considering that we DO KNOW that the ocean regulates our climate system and is a critical source of food
and fuel—in essence it sustains life on our planet.It is even more frightening to recognize that despite our current efforts to understand the ocean and
despite tremendous advances in technology, we continue to make new and startling discoveries that radically change our view of how our planet works. The
discovery of deep-sea vents and the remarkable life forms associated with them, the discovery of many new species of
plants and animals, and the discovery of new mountain systems and deep passages on the seafloor that control the
circulation of deep sea currents (that in turn control the distribution of heat on the planet) are but a few examples of important ocean
discoveries that have changed our understanding of ocean processes but were not part of the planned scientific process. Just
last week, I returned from a mapping cruise off northwestern Greenland. We were looking for a wreck in 300 to 600 meters of water in an area that was supposed to be
relatively flat and too deep to be impacted by iceberg keels. What we found was nothing like the preconceived notions. We found a seafloor that had hundreds of meters
of relief, we found evidence that iceberg keels had dragged across the bottom to depths well beyond 400 meters and we found surprising passages for warm waters from
the continental shelf to enter the fjords and affect the melting of the Greenland icecap. This is not an isolated incident—it happens almost every time we take a close
look at the ocean with the right tools. It is difficult for scientists to admit—but we have to admit—that there is so much more that
we DON’T KNOW about the oceans. We must put our pride aside and realize that given our limited understanding of the
ocean we must extend our study of the ocean to include not only the scientific process of testing specific hypotheses, but
also a program of EXPLORATION—a program that is specifically designed to significantly increase the chances of
making new discoveries. It will only be after many years of systematic exploration that we will begin to be able to say that
we indeed do understand the wondrous ocean system that is so fundamental to sustaining us.
HADAL EXPLORATION WILL LEAD TO AN INCREASE IN STEM JOBS/STUDENTS…
Beattie, Schubel 2013 [Ted Beattie, Jerry Schubel, July 2013- http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf]
In the current competitive global economy, the United States faces a distinct disadvantage. Only 16 percent of American high school
seniors are proficient in mathematics and interested in STEM careers. And among those who do pursue college degrees in STEM fields, only half
choose to work in a STEM-related career. The benefits of STEM education are clear. By 2018, the U.S. anticipates more than 1.2 million job
openings in STEM-related occupations, including fields as diverse as science, medicine, software development, and engineering.
STEM workers, on average, earn 26 percent more than their non-STEM counterparts, and experience lower unemployment rates than
those in other fields. In addition, healthy STEM industries are critical to maintaining a quality of life in the United States. A national program of ocean
and Great Lakes exploration provides myriad ways to capture public imagination and curiosity to support sustained involvement and
more intense exposure not only to STEM topics, but also the humanities and arts. New less expensive tools, such as small ROVs,
remote sensing stations, and underwater cameras, enable everyone to participate in ocean and freshwater exploration as citizen
scientists. These types of public engagements around exploration, such as through the NOAA kiosks stationed in Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers,
provide a glimpse into the true nature of science: not merely as a bundle of textbook facts, but a dynamic enterprise of investigation that is constantly
changing as our understanding evolves. The effectiveness of STEM-focused programs are evident; studies have shown not only that young
people enjoy inquiry-based STEM activities in and out of school settings, but also that sustained involvement and more intense
exposure to STEM topics increase youth interest and confidence in their scientific abilities. By engaging the public with ocean and Great
Lakes observation, we provide people of all ages with opportunities to explore their natural aquatic environments, and to fall in love
with the magic and mystery of scientific exploration.
7
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
STEM JOBS KEY TO CONTINUE ECONOMIC GROWTH
Gillibrand and Kennedy III 14 [Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Kennedy III, USA Today, “STEM jobs key to better economy: Column,” January 10, 2014, accessed June 25, 2014,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/01/10/engineering-mathematics-stem-gillibrand-kennedy-column/4361837/][LG]
From Taunton, Massachusetts to Buffalo, New York, the
innovation economy is redefining our nation's story of recovery and growth. Middleclass industrial towns and working-class urban epicenters alike are experiencing transformative shifts toward advanced manufacturing,
life sciences, information technology and big data. ¶ We see this trend amplified across our national job market. Over the past decade,
jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) have grown at a rate three times faster than non-STEM jobs. According to the
Department of Commerce, that momentum will continue over the next decade as STEM jobs will grow at a staggering rate of 17% –
compared with a projected 9.8% growth in other occupations. ¶ But if we want to capitalize on this economic bright spot, it's time to
expand the conversation we are having about STEM. Too often pigeonholed as the vehicle by which upper middle class students pursue PhD programs at
MIT, STEM is also the tool a first-generation vocational student from Fall River, Massachusetts uses to get a $50,000/year advanced manufacturing job right after
graduation or a student from Rensselaer, New York uses to secure a good-paying job in upstate New York's fast growing nanotechnology industry. ¶ In a time of
slow recovery, decreased mobility and pervasive income inequality, STEM is not just the fuel our high-tech workforce requires. It is
the best hope we have of creating what our fragile economy needs most: a sustainable supply of well-paid, middle-class jobs.¶
STEM KEY TO U.S. ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS. WITHOUT STEM ECONOMIC DOWNTURN IS LIKELY.
Engler 12 [John Engler, June 15th, 2012. us news, STEM education is the key to the U.S's Economic Future,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/06/15/stem-education-is-the-key-to-the-uss-economic-future
A close look at American unemployment statistics reveals a contradiction: Even with unemployment at historically high levels, large
numbers of jobs are going unfilled. Many of these jobs have one thing in common–the need for an educational background in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. Increasingly, one of our richest sources of employment and economic growth will be jobs that
require skills in these areas, collectively known as STEM. The question is: Will we be able to educate enough young Americans to fill them? Yes, the
unemployment numbers have been full of bad news for the past few years. But there has been good news too. While the overall unemployment rate has slowly come
down to May's still-high 8.2 percent, for those in STEM occupations the story is very different. According to a recently released study from Change the Equation, an
organization that supports STEM education, there are 3.6 unemployed workers for every job in the United States. That compares with only one unemployed STEM
worker for two unfilled STEM jobs throughout the country. Many jobs are going unfilled simply for lack of people with the right skill sets. Even
with more than 13 million Americans unemployed, the manufacturing sector cannot find people with the skills to take nearly 600,000 unfilled jobs, according to a study
last fall by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte. The hardest jobs to fill were skilled positions, including well-compensated blue collar jobs like
machinists, operators, and technicians, as well as engineering technologists and sciences. As Raytheon Chairman and CEO William Swanson said at a Massachusetts'
STEM Summit last fall, "Too many students and adults are training for jobs in which labor surpluses exist and demand is low, while high-demand jobs, particularly
those in STEM fields, go unfilled." STEM-related skills are not just a source of jobs, they are a source of jobs that pay very well . A report last
October from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that 65 percent of those with Bachelors' degrees in STEM fields earn more than
Master's degrees in non-STEM occupations. In fact, 47 percent of Bachelor's degrees in STEM occupations earn more than PhDs in non-STEM
occupations. [Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Foreign STEM Graduates Get Green Cards?] But despite the lucrative potential, many young people
are reluctant to enter into fields that require a background in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics . In a recent study by the
Lemselson-MIT Invention Index, which gauges innovation aptitude among young adults, 60 percent of young adults (ages 16 to 25) named at least one factor that
prevented them from pursuing further education or work in the STEM fields. Thirty-four percent said they don't know much about the fields, a third said they were too
challenging, and 28 percent said they were not well-prepared at school to seek further education in these areas. This is a problem—for young people and for our
country. We need STEM-related talent to compete globally, and we will need even more in the future. It is not a matter of choice: For
the United States to remain the global innovation leader, we must make the most of all of the potential STEM talent this country has to
offer. Government can play a critical part. President Barack Obama's goal of 100,000 additional science, technology, engineering, and math teachers is laudable. The
president's STEM campaign leverages mostly private-sector funding. Called Educate to Innovate, it has spawned Change the Equation, whose study was cited above. A
nongovernmental organization, Change the Equation was set up by more than 100 CEOs, with the cooperation of state governments and educational organizations and
foundations to align corporate efforts in STEM education.
8
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
AND, ECONOMIC DECLINE CAUSES WAR – STATISTICS PROVE
Royal 10 [Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, “Economic
Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal
and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-214]
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate
degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defense behavior of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at
systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson’s (1996)
work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and
the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crisis could usher in a redistribution of
relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a
relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power
(Werner, 1999). Seperately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among
major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown.
Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland’s (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that ‘future expectation of trade’ is a significant variable in understanding
economic conditions and security behavious of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an
optimistic view of future trade relations, However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the
likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crisis could potentially be the trigger for decreased
trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered the link between economic decline
and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during
periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing.
Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which
international and external conflict self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. P. 89) Economic decline has been linked with an increase in
the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises
generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. ‘Diversionary theory’ suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting
governments have increase incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a ‘rally around the flag’ effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blomberg,
Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and
Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that
democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that
periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the
use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlated economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas
political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels. This implied connection between integration, crisis
and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
9
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
ADV. 3: CHINA
HADAL ZONE
CHINA IS EXPANDING THEIR EXPLORATION OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN NOW
Du Mingming 14 [Du Mingming, Bianji, English People Daily, “China's Jiaolong submersible set for Pacific voyage,” June 22, 2014, accessed June 23,
2014, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/n/2014/0622/c202936-8744682.html][LG]
QINGDAO, June 21 -- Jiaolong, China's first manned deep-sea submersible, is scheduled to leave for a voyage in the northwest Pacific
Ocean on June 25, according to oceanic authorities.¶ Its carrier, Xiangyanghong 09, left the eastern port city of Qingdao on Saturday. It will pick up Jiaolong from
the city of Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, according to the State Oceanic Administration (SOA)'s North China Sea Branch. ¶ During the 40-day voyage, Jiaolong will
conduct research on cobalt-rich crusts in the ocean and is expected to return in August , according to the SOA branch.¶ The branch has sent 45
members of staff on the mission. Most of them have been on previous Jiaolong missions. ¶ Xiangyanghong 09, which has been service for more than 30 years,
underwent thorough testing and maintenance before it set off. ¶ In late November, the sub will leave for the southwest Indian Ocean to carry out scientific research on
polymetallic sulfides. It is expected to return to China in March.¶ Jiaolong reached 7,062 meters in the Pacific's Mariana Trench in a dive in June
2012.¶ During a trial and exploration voyage from June to September 2013, it explored the South China Sea and the northeast and northwest of the Pacific,
accomplishing 21 dives.¶ Scientists brought back 390 creatures from the seabed representing 71 species, including coral, sea cucumbers and
sea anemones, as well as a number of samples including 161 polymetallic nodules, 32 rocks and 180 kg of sediment.
SCENARIO ONE IS BIODIVERSITY
1. CHINA HAS PLANS TO BUILD LAB FOR DEEP-SEA MINING – RISKS IRREVERSIBLE ENVIRONMENT DAMAGE
China Daily Mail 12 [China Daily Mail, “After orbiting space lab, China wants an undersea lab for deep sea mining,” July 8, 2012, accessed June 23,
2014, http://chinadailymail.com/2012/07/08/after-orbiting-space-lab-china-wants-an-undersea-lab-for-deep-sea-mining/][LG]
Imagine, for a moment, that the year is 2034, and China has just declared ownership of a massive copper mine deep below the surface of
the Western Pacific.¶ Although the site was first discovered and repeatedly explored by robotic submersibles from other countries, China is
the first to send a manned vessel to the depths.¶ Living and working for two months in a nuclear-powered deep-sea station, at a depth of
about 1,000 metres, 33 Chinese “aquanauts” finish construction of a sophisticated mining facility atop the considerable mineral deposit.
The switch is flicked, and rocks on the ocean floor begin to be pulverised – their copper-rich remains pumped to a floating platform above that is the
size of a small city, where a fleet of empty cargo ships bearing China’s flag await.¶ This may be just science fiction today, but it’s all part of China’s
latest blueprint for construction of an elaborate facility on the ocean floor, in line with the nation’s ambitious plans for deep-sea
exploration.¶ At the 15th China Beijing International Hi-Tech Expo in May, the China Ship Scientific Research Centre , which built the
Jiaolong manned submersible that reached a depth of more than 7,000 metres in the Western Pacific’s Marianas Trench last month, revealed the official design
of a mobile deep-sea station that is to be used in future ocean exploration. ¶ Equipped with a nuclear reactor, the station would be able to support 33 crewmen for up to two months at a time. “If a
¶
submersible were a plane, this station would be an aircraft carrier,” Ma Xiangneng , a researcher with the project, told China National Radio. “The station will be an underwater palace, with showers, a living room and laboratories.”¶ The designs show the station
resembling a nuclear submarine, with two propeller fans at the tail. It would measure 60.2 metres long, 15.8 metres wide and 9.7 metres tall, weighing about 2,600 tonnes.¶ Like a space station, the deep-sea station would have multiple ports to support the docking of
the station’s main purpose would be deep-sea mining. With an underwater “mother ship” hovering above the
station, located just below the surface and undisturbed by weather conditions, mining facilities could be built much more quickly and cheaply than if surface ships were
used.¶ A smaller prototype, able to carry 12 crewmen on an 18-day dive, is expected to be finished by 2015. No completion date was given for the larger station,
smaller manned or unmanned vessels.¶ Researchers such as Ma have said
but some experts think it will be finished by 2030.¶ It’s a risky endeavour, and the Chinese scientists involved conceded that they were
aiming for operations at depths where more developed countries had failed. During the cold war, the Soviet Union deployed underwater habitats for military research, and
the US built three so-called Sealabs for experiments that included testing the effects of living in an isolated environment.¶ These facilities all operated in much shallower waters, and they were discontinued relatively quickly
after failing to prove their worth. France also tinkered with such deep-sea stations in the 1960s, with its series of Continental Shelf stations.¶ The Aquarius Reef Base, owned by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, is currently the world’s only undersea research station. It operates at a depth of just over 19 metres.¶ “We are still years behind developed countries and trying to catch up,” Ma said.¶ But as it is considered the
“world’s factory” at a time when its resources are dwindling on land, China has come under more pressure than deep-sea forerunners to exploit ocean resources. The country imported more than 250 million tonnes of oil last
year, or more than 5 million barrels a day. Official figures show that it is only a matter of time before China surpasses the US to become the biggest oil consumer. And Chinese companies are consuming
ores from all over the globe as they flood the world with products ranging from toys to heavy machinery. ¶ As
prices for energy and raw materials continue
to rise, Chinese officials and companies are eager to explore the untapped resources at the bottom of the world’s oceans. The Russians
have given China a big hand in this regard.¶ A designer of the Jiaolong said that when the project was started in the late 1990s, no factory in China could produce the titanium alloy needed to withstand the enormous pressure
found at depths of 8,000 metres. So the hull was made at a military plant in Russia. Chinese scientists and engineers then studied the materials for years to be able to replicate them. ¶ The designer, who wished to remain unnamed, said future generations of Chinese
submersibles and the planned station would utilise a made-in-China titanium alloy.¶ Although Beijing frequently says its deep-sea programme is for civilian purposes, there has been no denial of military involvement. Since 2002, the deep-sea project has been financed
by the 863 Programme, a government effort that is widely known to focus on military needs. ¶ The China Ship Scientific Research Centre also operates under the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, one of the country’s largest builders of naval vessels.¶
Possible military overtones aside, sending people to such risky depths has also sparked debate. Some experts argue that it will be
neither economical nor safe for people to be mining at depths of several thousand metres underwater. ¶ But Professor Fan Dejiang , a deep-sea
geologist with the Ocean University of China, said that technological advancements would eventually allow deep-sea mines to be mostly automated.¶ “I think a deepsea station probably has more military applications than economic value,” he said. “You don’t send miners to a place a million times more
deadly than coal pits.Ӧ But Fan said that manned underwater activities would play a crucial role in finding and locating minerals, as well as in setting up mining
facilities and repairing broken pipelines.¶ Analysts also note that China has to overcome several hurdles in order to tap into the treasures of the sea. Constructing a
massive, floating mining facility in the middle of the ocean will require technology that has not yet been developed, such as for anchoring and power generation. But
the biggest risk might be the environmental damage that such mining could cause.¶ “We know little about the oceans, not to mention
the regions at depths of several thousand metres,” Fan said. “Many creatures have lived on the deep-sea floor undisturbed for millions of
years.¶ “Once we start mining and drilling for oil, we can cause damage that no technology can repair. ”
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2. U.S. IS NET BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Hart and Cavanagh 12 [Melanie Hart and Jeffrey Cavanagh, Center for American Progress, “Environmental Standards Give the United States an Edge
Over China,” April 20, 2012, accessed June 24, 2014, http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2012/04/20/11503/environmental-standards-give-the-united-statesan-edge-over-china/][LG]
This Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day, a great opportunity to take stock of the progress we are making around the world on environmental protection. Here in the
United States, much can be learned by comparing our environmental progress to China, where they are just now starting down a path
we took back in 1970. Taking stock of our environmental progress is particularly important in an election year, when some politicians and political hopefuls are
pointing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an example of wasteful government spending and overregulation. The reality is that our regulatory
system is what separates us from the citizens in China, where air pollution and lead poising are the norm and environmental problems corrode the quality
of life in ways that we have not faced in decades.¶ We certainly hope China manages to address its environmental problems, not only for the sake of the Chinese people
but also because China’s problems harm us as well. China is now the largest contributor to global carbon dioxide pollution, and jet
streams are bringing some Chinese pollution to the United States. Mercury emissions from China’s coal-fired power plants are building up in U.S.
watersheds, for example, and particulate pollution from China appears to be inhibiting rain and snow production and reducing water supplies in some California cities.¶
At the moment, however,
edge.
our environmental protection regime is far superior to China’s, which gives us a competitive
Our children are growing up healthier and arguably smarter (since lead and mercury poisoning impairs brain development), and we will probably live longer
and face lower cancer risks. Our
environmental regulations give U.S. businesses more incentives to innovate and develop cleaner, more
efficient production processes that will be fueling our economy long after China’s current high-polluting factories close their doors. We
fought hard to build up the system that is now bringing these benefits, and it is not something we want to give up. ¶
3. OCEAN BIOD KEY TO SURVIVAL
Craig 3 - Attorneys’ Title Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Environmental Programs at
Florida State University
(Robin Kundis Craig, “ARTICLE: Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine
Reserves in Florida and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review, Winter 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far
rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide,
worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production.
n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems
play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living
organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements ." n858 In
a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life .
Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's
ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse
ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity . [*265] Most ecologists agree that
the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that
the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on
sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining
and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of
marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value,
or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable
force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities
on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but
we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI
coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what
we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United
States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world.
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4. RESILIENCY IS WRONG—ANY SHOCK CAN BE THE TIPPING POINT
Craig ’11 – Attorneys’ Title Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Environmental Programs at Florida State University
(Robin Kundis, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review,
2011, http://lawreview.byu.edu/articles/1326405133_03craig.fin.pdf)
Ecological resilience and resilience theory acknowledge that ecosystems are dynamic—not, as prior theories had assumed, inherently stable systems tending toward an
equilibrium. 142 Resilience theory recognizes that there are at least three different ways in which ecosystems experience and respond to change and perturbation—three
different aspects of “resilience.” 143 The first and most common understanding of resilience refers to an ecosystem’s ability to absorb change and persist in function
and relationships. 144 This sense of resilience refers to “the rate or speed of recovery of a system following a shock.” 145 As a practical matter in the law of natural
resource management, the law tends to expect that ecosystems will be resilient in this first sense—that is, the law assumes that ecosystems will generally successfully
absorb any human-induced perturbations of the system. As a result, natural resources law is what I will term “first sense resilience dependence,” but that dependence
reflects a truncated understanding of ecosystems’ resilience and capacity for change. Importantly, however, the second aspect of resilience theory acknowledges that
ecosystems can exist in multiple states rather than stabilizing around a single equilibrium state; as a result, changes and disturbances
can “push” ecosystems over thresholds from one ecosystem state to another. 146 This second sense of resilience “assumes multiple
states (or ‘regimes’) and is defined as the magnitude of a disturbance that triggers a shift between alternative states.” 147 For example, the
boreal forests of Canada can exist in at least two states with respect to spruce budworms: a “no outbreak” state “characterized by low numbers of budworm and young,
fastgrowing trees,” and an “outbreak” state “characterized by high numbers of budworm and old, senescent trees.” 148 The shift between the two appears to relate to an
increase in canopy volume, which in turn affects bird populations and the birds’ ability to control the pest. 149 Regime-shift models can also help to explain outbreaks
of some human diseases. 150 However, natural resources law and policy generally do not acknowledge this second sense of resilience, and, as
a result, it generally does not incorporate mechanisms for acknowledging, responding to, or even trying to avoid ecological regime
shifts. Finally, resilience theory also acknowledges “the surprising and discontinuous nature of change, such as the collapse of fish stock or the sudden outbreak of
spruce budworms in forests.” 151 In other words, the long-time persistence of an ecosystem (or collection of multiple ecosystems) like the Gulf
Of Mexico in an apparently stable, productive ecosystem state is absolutely no guarantee that humans can continue to disturb and
abuse the system and expect only a gradual or linear response. As was true for the second sense of resilience, natural resource law in general and
marine resources law in particular do not deal well with the possibility of sudden and dramatic ecosystem changes. Nevertheless, such
regime shifts have been documented for a number of marine ecosystems. For example, In Jamaica, the effects of overfishing, hurricane damage, and
disease have combined to destroy most corals, whose abundance has declined from more than 50 percent in the late 1970s to less than 5 percent today. A dramatic phase
shift has occurred, producing a system dominated by fleshy macroalgae (more than 90 percent cover). Immediate implementation of management
procedures is necessary to avoid further catastrophic damage. 152 Similarly, the presence or absence of sea otters can significantly influence the
structure and function of Alaskan kelp forests because the otters, when present, control sea urchin populations, allowing for more extensive coral growth. 153 In some
locations, moreover, “sea urchin population changes in response to sea otter predation were rapid and extreme” and could result in “short-term changes in kelp density.”
154 The current law, policy, and remedy regime for offshore oil drilling effectively presumes that marine ecosystems have virtually
unlimited first-sense resilience with respect to oil spills—in crudest terms, that restoration will always be possible, and perhaps even
through entirely natural means. 155 Our experience with the last large oil spill in U.S. waters, however, suggests otherwise.
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SCENARIO TWO IS HEGEMONY
1. CHINA EXPANDING DEEP-SEA EXPLORATION
RESOURCES – SURPASSING U.S. ABILITIES NOW
HADAL ZONE
TO SECURE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND TAP INTO OCEAN
IB Times 14 [IB Times, June 4, 2014, accessed June 23, 2014, http://www.ibtimes.com/whats-behind-chinas-dive-marianas-trench-deepest-place-earth701402][LG]
Not content with just spending billions on the new space race, China is reaching for the depths of the world's oceans .¶ Chinese explorers
and scientists are now headed off to the Mariana Trench. They'll try a successful dive where James Cameron made history less than three months prior. ¶
China's dive into the deepest place on Earth, expected to take place sometime over the next month, will only reach approximately 23,000 feet (7,000 meters) into the
trench, whereas the Hollywood director's craft hit bottom at 35,755 feet (10,898 meters). However, the Chinese vessel, the Jiaolong, named after a mythical sea dragon,
will carry three scientists, while Cameron's only contained himself.¶ The Chinese team will be supported in their dive by a sophisticated oceanographic vessel and a
group of 100 technicians, engineers and specialists.¶ As with China's space program, observers expect advancement in the country's deep-sea
exploration capabilities to be driven by three key factors: national prestige, a sense of competition and a desire to advance scientific
progress.¶ In 2010, China joined the U.S., France, Russia and Japan in the very exclusive group of countries capable of operating
manned dives past more than 11,480 feet (3,000 meters) below the ocean surface. During a highly publicized dive that took place in the South China
Sea that summer, Chinese scientists used the opportunity to plant the country's flag on the bottom of the seafloor, similar to Russia's planting of the flag at the bottom of
the Arctic Ocean in 2007.¶ In summer 2011, the Jiaolong dived past the 16,400 foot (5,000 meters) point in the Pacific Ocean. ¶ China has publicized the vessel
as a fully indigenously developed and built submersible. The vessel is not only symbolic of China's growing maritime capabilities, but
also its ambition to tap into the resources of the ocean. ¶ Ye Cong, the lead diver on the expedition, noted to Chinese media that the deep sea has amazing
resources waiting to be discovered, such as hydrothermal sulfide and manganese nodules. ¶ Other resources include methane hydrates, dense deposits of methane locked
inside of ice crystals found on the ocean floor. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the total amount of carbon locked away
inside of methane hydrates could be twice as much as the amount that exists in all the world's known fossil fuels. ¶ Japan is currently
studying the economic feasibility of conducting limited methane hydrate development off its southern seaboard, near Aichi Prefecture. ¶ For resource- and energy-
starved Asian states, further exploration into the depths could reveal valuable energy and mineral sources that could alleviate much of
their current constraints. However, analysts expect the technology to economically retrieve or even prospect for such deposits in the deep ocean to be decades
away.¶ If deep-sea mining sounds like the stuff of science fiction, Chinese scientists at least seem interested in exploring those ideas.
After all, Jiaolong designer Cui Weicheng, while quick to point out that his vessel is not inferior to Cameron's Deepsea Challenger,
says that China can nevertheless learn from the example set by the sci-fi director turned explorer.
2. EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH PROJECTS ARE ESSENTIAL TO U.S. MARITIME FORCE POSTURE
Gaffney 13 [Gaffney, Paul G. II, 2013, The Report of Ocean Exploration 2020-A national forum, aquariumofpacific.org/ocean_exploration_2020_report,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/nationalframework.html, http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf, September
2013, accessed June 23, 2014]
The U.S. Ex Ex,” a creation of Congress (PL 24-24), a voyage of discovery 175 years ago, was a deliberate step by a tentative nation with an eye on becoming a world power. A six Navy ship
flotilla, manned by 346 military and civilian scientists was charged by government to explore the vast Pacific, top to bottom. Called “The U.S. Exploring Expedition,” it sought to discover the
natural characteristics of the great Pacific, extend U.S. presence by connecting to new peoples and collect data useful to U.S. seaborne commerce and naval operations. Fast
forward to
21st century America, no longer a tentative nation, now the greatest maritime nation in world history. Its place in the middle of the
great ocean system enables prosperous trade and a unique security situation. Yet, that ocean system is still largely unexplored. A
world power unavoidably dependent on the ocean still does not understand the ocean’s full range of opportunities and dangers. A world
maritime power—The World Power, The United States—cannot afford to be surprised by the very natural features that characterize her as a
maritime nation. Exploration projects in the high Arctic have found unexpected (previously undiscovered) ocean bottom variability and changes in water temperature
structure. Now that is important to defense, especially safe U.S. submarine operations . It also gives a hint about past climate fluctuations so we can get a better idea
of the ocean’s and Arctic’s role in climate excursions. Arctic exploration discoveries will also help America argue for rights to minerals off its northern coast. There are a few,
scattered ocean exploration efforts within our nation. Federal agencies do make new discoveries incidental to their separate missions. And, privately funded citizen
explorers are getting excited about the ocean. While this collection of small efforts survives, each for its own purpose, the Congress expected more. The nation needs more to
ensure maritime strength. A broad, coordinated national program envisioned by Congress in PL 111-11 could help prioritize cross-agency
oceanographic campaigns, strain from mission and research-driven expeditions and private excursions those bits of information that are of new-discoveryquality and guarantee that it will be archived within government and shared with an increasingly excited group of American citizen explorers. It is government’s role to set the
nation’s priorities, create and maintain the information backbone, and carry out comprehensively over the long term a program to
understand the opportunity and dangers in an ocean system in whose middle America sits. Only after it has demonstrated this commitment to leadership
can it fully leverage investments from the private sector.
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3. AN UNCHECKED CHINA CAUSES NUCLEAR WAR
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 in Eastern Eurasia and creating the underlying conditions for a massive, and probably 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.
4. PERCEPTION OF HEG DECLINE INDEPENDENTLY CAUSE WARS
Goldstein 7 [Goldstein 7 Professor of Global Politics and International Relations @ University of Pennsylvania “Power transitions, institutions, and China's
rise in East Asia: Theoretical expectations and evidence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume 30, Issue 4 & 5 August 2007, pages 639 – 682]
Two closely related, though distinct, theoretical arguments focus explicitly on the consequences for international politics of a shift in power between a dominant state and a rising power. In War and Change in World Politics,
peace prevails when a dominant state’s capabilities enable it to ‘govern’ international order
Robert Gilpin suggested that
an
that it has shaped. Over time, however,
as economic and technological diffusion proceeds during eras of peace and development, other states are empowered. Moreover, the burdens of international governance drain and distract the reigning hegemon, and
As the power advantage of the erstwhile hegemon ebbs, it may become desperate enough
to resort to the ultima ratio of international politics, force, to forestall the increasingly urgent demands of a rising challenger. Or as the power of the challenger rises, it may be tempted to press its case with threats
to use force. It is the rise and fall of the great powers that creates the circumstances under which major wars, what Gilpin labels ‘hegemonic wars’, break out.13 Gilpin’s argument logically encourages
challengers eventually emerge who seek to rewrite the rules of governance.
pessimism about the implications of a rising China. It leads to the expectation that international trade, investment, and technology transfer will result in a steady diffusion of American economic power, benefiting the rapidly
developing states of the world, including China. As the US simultaneously scurries to put out the many brushfires that threaten its far-flung global interests (i.e., the classic problem of overextension), it will be unable to
the US will find it ever more
difficult to preserve the order in Asia that it created during its era of preponderance. The expectation is an increase in the likelihood for the use of force – either by a Chinese challenger able to field a stronger
devote sufficient resources to maintain or restore its former advantage over emerging competitors like China. While the erosion of the once clear American advantage plays itself out,
military in support of its demands for greater influence over international arrangements in Asia, or by a besieged American hegemon desperate to head off further decline. Among the trends that alarm those who would look at
Asia through the lens of Gilpin’s theory are China’s expanding share of world trade and wealth (much of it resulting from the gains made possible by the international economic order a dominant US established); its
acquisition of technology in key sectors that have both civilian and military applications (e.g., information, communications, and electronics linked with to forestall, and the challenger becomes increasingly determined to
realize the transition to a new international order whose contours it will define. the ‘revolution in military affairs’); and an expanding military burden for the US (as it copes with the challenges of its global war on terrorism
and especially its struggle in Iraq) that limits the resources it can devote to preserving its interests in East Asia.14 Although similar to Gilpin’s work insofar as it emphasizes the importance of shifts in the capabilities of a
dominant state and a rising challenger, the power-transition theory A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler present in The War Ledger focuses more closely on the allegedly dangerous phenomenon of ‘crossover’– the point at
which a dissatisfied challenger is about to overtake the established leading state.15 In such cases, when the power gap narrows, the dominant state becomes increasingly desperate. Though suggesting why a rising China may
ultimately present grave dangers for international peace when its capabilities make it a peer competitor of America, Organski and Kugler’s power-transition theory is less clear about the dangers while a potential challenger
still lags far behind and faces a difficult struggle to catch up. This clarification is important in thinking about the theory’s relevance to interpreting China’s rise because a broad consensus prevails among analysts that Chinese
military capabilities are at a minimum two decades from putting it in a league with the US in Asia.16 Their theory, then, points with alarm to trends in China’s growing wealth and power relative to the United States, but
especially looks ahead to what it sees as the period of maximum danger – that time when a dissatisfied China could be in a position to overtake the US on dimensions believed crucial for assessing power. Reports beginning in
the mid-1990s that offered extrapolations suggesting China’s growth would give it the world’s largest gross domestic product (GDP aggregate, not per capita) sometime in the first few decades of the twentieth century fed
these sorts of concerns about a potentially dangerous challenge to American leadership in Asia.17 The huge gap between Chinese and American military capabilities (especially in terms of technological sophistication) has so
far discouraged prediction of comparably disquieting trends on this dimension, but inklings of similar concerns may be reflected in occasionally alarmist reports about purchases of advanced Russian air and naval equipment,
as well as concern that Chinese espionage may have undermined the American advantage in nuclear and missile technology, and speculation about the potential military purposes of China’s manned space program.18
a dominant state may react to the prospect of a crossover and believe that it is wiser to embrace the logic of preventive war and act early
to delay a transition while the task is more manageable, Organski and Kugler’s power-transition theory also provides grounds for concern about the period prior to the possible crossover.19 pg. 647-650
Moreover, because
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SOLVENCY
HADAL ZONE
HEG CHECKS BACK ALL SCENARIOS
Thayer 06 [Thayer 2006 [Bradley A., Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, The National Interest, November -December, “In Defense of Primacy”, lexis]]
U.S. primacy--and the bandwagoning effect--has also given us extensive influence in international politics, allowing the United States to shape the
behavior of states and international institutions. Such influence comes in many forms, one of which is America's ability to create coalitions of like-minded states to free Kosovo, stabilize
Afghanistan, invade Iraq or to stop proliferation through the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Doing so allows the United States to operate with allies outside of the UN, where it can be stymied by opponents.
American-led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq stand in contrast to the UN's inability to save the people of Darfur or even to conduct any military campaign to realize the goals of its charter. The quiet effectiveness of the
dismantling
WMD programs
PSI in
Libya's
and unraveling the A. Q. Khan proliferation network are in sharp relief to the typically toothless attempts by the UN to halt proliferation. You can count with one
hand countries opposed to the United States. They are the "Gang of Five": China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. Of course, countries like India, for example, do not agree with all policy choices made by the United
States, such as toward Iran, but New Delhi is friendly to Washington. Only the "Gang of Five" may be expected to consistently resist the agenda and actions of the United States. China is clearly the most important of these
states because it is a rising great power. But even Beijing is intimidated by the United States and refrains from openly challenging U.S. power. China proclaims that it will, if necessary, resort to other mechanisms of
China may not be confident those strategies would
is likely to refrain from testing the United States directly for the foreseeable future because China's power benefits, as we shall see, from the
international order U.S. primacy creates. The other states are far weaker than China. For three of the "Gang of Five" cases--Venezuela, Iran, Cuba--it is an anti-U.S. regime that is the source of the
problem; the country itself is not intrinsically anti-American. Indeed, a change of regime in Caracas, Tehran or Havana could very well reorient relations. THROUGHOUT HISTORY, peace and
stability have been great benefits of an era where there was a dominant power --Rome, Britain or the United States today. Scholars and statesmen have long recognized the
irenic effect of power on the anarchic world of international politics. Everything we think of when we consider the current international order--free trade, a robust monetary regime, increasing respect for
human rights, growing democratization--is directly linked to U.S. power. Retrenchment proponents seem to think that the current system can be maintained without the current
amount of U.S. power behind it. In that they are dead wrong and need to be reminded of one of history's most significant lessons: Appalling things happen when international orders
collapse. The Dark Ages followed Rome's collapse. Hitler succeeded the order established at Versailles. Without U.S. power, the liberal order created by the United States will end
challenging the United States, including asymmetric strategies such as targeting communication and intelligence satellites upon which the United States depends. But
work, and so it
just as assuredly. As country and western great Ral Donner sang: "You don't know what you've got (until you lose it)." Consequently, it is important to note what those good things are. In addition to ensuring the security of
American primacy within the international system causes many positive outcomes for Washington and the world. The first has been a more
peaceful world. During the Cold War, U.S. leadership reduced friction among many states that were historical antagonists, most notably France and West Germany. Today, American primacy helps keep a number
the United States and its allies,
of complicated relationships aligned--between Greece and Turkey, Israel and Egypt, South Korea and Japan, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and Australia. This is not to say it fulfills Woodrow Wilson's vision of ending all
Pax Americana does reduce war's likelihood, particularly war's worst form: great power
wars. Second, American power gives the United States the ability to spread democracy and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Doing so is a source of much good for the
war. Wars still occur where Washington's interests are not seriously threatened, such as in Darfur, but a
countries concerned as well as the United States because, as John Owen noted on these pages in the Spring 2006 issue, liberal democracies are more likely to align with the United States and be sympathetic to the American
once states are governed democratically, the likelihood of any type of conflict is
significantly reduced. This is not because democracies do not have clashing interests. Indeed they do. Rather, it is because they are more open, more transparent and more likely to want to resolve things
amicably in concurrence with U.S. leadership. And so, in general, democratic states are good for their citizens as well as for advancing the interests of the United States. Critics have faulted
worldview.3 So, spreading democracy helps maintain U.S. primacy. In addition,
the Bush Administration for attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East, labeling such an effort a modern form of tilting at windmills. It is the obligation of Bush's critics to explain why democracy is good enough for
Western states but not for the rest, and, one gathers from the argument, should not even be attempted. Of course, whether democracy in the Middle East will have a peaceful or stabilizing influence on America's interests in
the short run is open to question. Perhaps democratic Arab states would be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better off. The United States has brought democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5
million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in a critical October 2004 election, even though remnant Taliban forces threatened them. The first free elections were held in Iraq in January 2005. It was the military power
of the United States that put Iraq on the path to democracy. Washington fostered democratic governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Caucasus. Now even the Middle East is increasingly democratic. They may
not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. By all accounts, the march of democracy has been
impressive. Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been the growth of the global economy. With its allies, the United States has labored to create an economically liberal
worldwide network characterized by free trade and commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and labor markets. The economic stability and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a
global public good from which all states benefit, particularly the poorest states in the Third World. The United States created this network not out of altruism but for the benefit and the economic well-being of America. This
economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes efficiencies and growth, and benefits defense as well because the size of the economy makes the defense burden manageable. Economic spin-offs
foster the development of military technology, helping to ensure military prowess. Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the economic network comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat and
researcher at the World Bank, who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India. Abandoning the positions of his youth, Lal now recognizes that the only way to bring relief to desperately
poor countries of the Third World is through the adoption of free market economic policies and globalization, which are facilitated through American primacy.4 As a witness to the failed alternative economic systems, Lal is
one of the strongest academic proponents of American primacy due to the economic prosperity it provides. Fourth and finally, the United States, in seeking primacy, has been willing to use its power not only to advance its
to promote the welfare of people all over the globe.
interests but
The United States is the earth's leading source of positive externalities for the world. The U.S. military has participated in
over fifty operations since the end of the Cold War--and most of those missions have been humanitarian in nature. Indeed, the U.S. military is the earth's "911 force"--it serves, de facto, as the world's police, the global
paramedic and the planet's fire department. Whenever there is a natural disaster, earthquake, flood, drought, volcanic eruption, typhoon or tsunami, the United States assists the countries in need. On the day after Christmas in
2004, a tremendous earthquake and tsunami occurred in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, killing some 300,000 people. The United States was the first to respond with aid. Washington followed up with a large contribution of
aid and deployed the U.S. military to South and Southeast Asia for many months to help with the aftermath of the disaster. About 20,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines responded by providing water, food, medical
aid, disease treatment and prevention as well as forensic assistance to help identify the bodies of those killed. Only the U.S. military could have accomplished this Herculean effort. No other force possesses the
communications capabilities or global logistical reach of the U.S. military. In fact, UN peacekeeping operations depend on the United States to supply UN forces. American generosity has done more to help the United States
fight the War on Terror than almost any other measure. Before the tsunami, 80 percent of Indonesian public opinion was opposed to the United States; after it, 80 percent had a favorable opinion of America. Two years after
the disaster, and in poll after poll, Indonesians still have overwhelmingly positive views of the United States. In October 2005, an enormous earthquake struck Kashmir, killing about 74,000 people and leaving three million
homeless. The U.S. military responded immediately, diverting helicopters fighting the War on Terror in nearby Afghanistan to bring relief as soon as possible. To help those in need, the United States also provided financial
aid to Pakistan; and, as one might expect from those witnessing the munificence of the United States, it left a lasting impression about America. For the first time since 9/11, polls of Pakistani opinion have found that more
people are favorable toward the United States than unfavorable, while support for Al-Qaeda dropped to its lowest level. Whether in Indonesia or Kashmir, the money was well-spent because it helped people in the wake of
disasters, but it also had a real impact on the War on Terror. When people in the Muslim world witness the U.S. military conducting a humanitarian mission, there is a clearly positive impact on Muslim opinion of the United
THERE IS no other state, group of
states or international organization that can provide these global benefits. None even comes close. The United Nations cannot because it is riven with conflicts and major
States. As the War on Terror is a war of ideas and opinion as much as military action, for the United States humanitarian missions are the equivalent of a blitzkrieg.
cleavages that divide the international body time and again on matters great and trivial. Thus it lacks the ability to speak with one voice on salient issues and to act as a unified force once a decision is reached. The EU has
similar problems. Does anyone expect Russia or China to take up these responsibilities? They may have the desire, but they do not have the capabilities. Let's face it: for the time being,
American primacy
remains humanity's only practical hope of solving the world's ills.
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HADAL ZONE
HEG SOLVES CHINA WAR
Thayer 06 [Bradley A., Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, The National Interest, November -December, “In
Defense of Primacy”, lexis]
They are the "Gang of Five": China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. Of course, countries like India, for example, do not agree with all policy choices
made by the United States, such as toward Iran, but New Delhi is friendly to Washington. Only the "Gang of Five" may be expected to consistently resist the
agenda and actions of the United States. China is clearly the most important of these states because it is a rising great power. But even Beijing is intimidated by
the United States and refrains from openly challenging U.S. power. China proclaims that it will, if necessary, resort to other mechanisms of challenging
the United States, including asymmetric strategies such as targeting communication and intelligence satellites upon which the United States depends. But China may not
be confident those strategies would work, and so it is likely to refrain from testing the United States directly for the foreseeable future because
China's power benefits, as we shall see, from the international order U.S. primacy creates.
OER solves for Hadal Region exploration and development
NOAA, 2011 National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Office of Ocean Exploration and Research Strategic Plan FY 2011-FY 2015,
http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/about-oer/strategic-plan.pdf
OER develops and utilizes cutting-edge technology and sensors to explore and study poorly known and unknown areas and
phenomena in the ocean. It makes and transitions ocean discoveries and research results to new products, processes, and
policies that benefit society; and it manages the information acquired and generates the scientific knowledge necessary to
educate the public and inform management and policy makers on the use and preservation of ocean resources. OER
contributes significantly to important NOAA focus areas – such as the Arctic, global climate change, ocean acidification,
biodiversity, new ocean resources, coastal and marine spatial planning, as well as technology development and
demonstration. OER is critical to the NOAA’s mission, which serves the Nation by helping ensure wise ocean environmental
stewardship and appropriate utilization of marine resources. Baseline maps and characterizations obtained in Goal 1 will be
screened to identify areas of intrinsic value or which merit further scientific investigation. These areas include extreme or
unique environments, rare or sensitive habitats, and new ecosystems; areas of particular concern which are those that have
been subjected to cumulative anthropogenic (e.g., overfishing) and/or natural (e.g., volcanic eruptions) impacts but that
provide an important ecological function. These areas will be subjected to further research, mapping, or study to obtain
advanced knowledge for consideration of protection from adverse impacts. OER will give special attention to newly-discovered communities of
organisms that display novel relationships with their environments. Newly discovered living and non-living resources will be screened for their
potential economic importance and/or benefit to humanity, e.g., marine natural products, pharmaceutical or biotechnology
application, minerals, rare earth elements, or energy sources. Activities or further research both within and outside of
NOAA will bring these resources to market or make them available to industry and academia. Research activities on submerged cultural
resources with a significant role in American or world heritage will foster preservation and benefit society. Quantify the time, space, and dynamic variability of
poorly known or newly-discovered ocean processes or phenomena with far ranging implications for the study of the
Earth’s system. These may be natural or human-made and are of particular interest if they result from an interaction across
disciplines (e.g., climate change, ocean acidification, underwater volcanoes, seeps, venting, ice formation, or melting) or
are, from an ecosystem perspective, important factors in the viability of living species and communities or play significant
roles in the creation or destruction of habitats. Given an understanding of these poorly known or newly-discovered ocean
processes, phenomena, and/or their interactions, monitor their status and trends to detect changes which may have far
ranging implications for the Earth’s system (e.g., changes in temperature, salinity, pH, biodiversity). Use this understanding and change detection ability to improve
ecosystem management and ocean policies in order to maintain or restore ocean health.
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Due to a low level of current exploration scientific breakthroughs will not occur. The plan is the
only way to solve.
Jamieson, 2009
[Alan Jamieson,Trends in Ecology and Enviroment Vol 25 No.3; Hadal Trenches: the ecology of the deepest places on earth,
http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/Students/Current_Students/SIO277/jamieson.Trenches.pdf]
Trenches are poorly sampled and our knowledge of the ecological structure and functioning of this environment remains
rudimentary. A current difficulty is that existing data are not sufficient to confidently apply overarching ecological theory.
Indeed, it is not yet possible to reliably distinguish between taxa of non-viable vagrants from shallower populations and those which are trench endemics. Considering
all trenches to be a single habitat is likely confound the interpretation of their ecology. The collection of multidisciplinary observational and
experimental data, replicated across trenches, is a prerequisite for testing the generality of existing hypotheses. It will be
essential to apply a broad spectrum of techniques to examine phylogenetic relationships, physiological adaptations, diet, levels of biodiversity and
evolutionary traits of the inhabitants. Although a formidable task, technological advances, such as the Japanese remotely operated vehicle (ROV)
Kaiko II, UK– Japan HADEEP lander vehicles [6] and the US Hybrid ROV Nereus vehicle [5], already exist and are operational. These present the
opportunity for an internationally coordinated research campaign that considers how ecological processes operate across
the full span of ocean depth.
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HADAL ZONE
2AC EXTENSIONS
INHERENCY EXT
LIMITED FUNDING SLOWS UNLIMITED NEW DISCOVERIES FROM HADAL ZONE EXPLORATION
Schrope, April 2014 [Mark schrope, Scientific American, April 2014 Vol. 310, Issue 4; Journey to the Bottom of the Sea,
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v310/n4/full/scientificamerican0414-60.html]
Biologists and geologists have every reason to believe Nereus will reveal amazing wonders. But the expedition has a still greater
significance. Humans have rarely ventured below 6,000 meters, to the ultradeep trenches worldwide known as the hadal zone . The April
expedition, led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), marks the beginning of an era scientists have spent decades fighting and longing for: a
systematic exploration of the planet's final frontier. The Nereus mission is "the dawn of hadal science as an enterprise, " says Patricia Fryer, a marine
geologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "And it's an enterprise that could very well provide us with some incredible discoveries. " Hadal
exploration is ready to take off because the stars of funding, technology and publicity have aligned. The public's attention was riveted on the
hadal zone in 2012, when movie director and explorer James Cameron piloted a one-man submersible down to the bottom of the deepest place on the planet, in another
trench called the Mariana. WHOI has improved the deep-sea technology needed to make Nereus strong yet nimble. Funding is rising. And with other vehicles
being built, extended access to the deepest places in the world is becoming realistic. Money is still tight, of course, and the task is enormous -- the
trenches of the world's hadal zone occupy an area nearly the size of Australia. Where should deep-sea vehicles go? What should they
look for? In interviews with more than a dozen ocean experts, the consensus converges on a small number of top priorities. Among them: Figuring out how
creatures survive such crushing pressure. Investigating whether organisms big and small host novel compounds that could lead to new
drugs. Determining how tsunami-spawning earthquakes are born. And answering the ultimate question: Could the trenches have
spawned the start of life on earth, as some scientists have suspected but have had no way to prove or disprove?
U.S. budget cuts have limited the ability for deep ocean research to continue.
Nature, 2012[April, 4, 2012Into the Depths; Celebrity missions to the deep oceans won't make up for cuts to marine science, Nature Edi-484,,
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/484006a.html
]
In the United States, too, researchers have reason to fret. Budget negotiations can be tortuous, with nothing set in stone until the final vote, but there
is
growing concern about the future of the National Undersea Research Program (NURP). The programme, run by the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), hosts much of the country’s research fleet of scientific
submersibles. Other NOAA programmes are also under scrutiny. When the costs of high-profile glamour projects such as
manned space flight draw criticism, supporters often say that their public engagement value offsets mission costs. With
Cameron’s dive, science got a freebie. No government funds that could have gone to austerity hit research labs were used: this was one man doing what he wanted with
his own money. Others with similar means are set to follow Cameron into the deep, and wealthy individuals are likely to reach space under their own steam and on their
own terms in the near future. But will science be well placed to exploit the massive appeal of Cameron’s dive and the new attention that will be given to the ocean
depths? Scientists have sent unmanned vehicles to the Challenger Deep between the manned mission in 1960 and last
week’s visit. Those trips were made with kit that relies on the skill and dedication of scientists working for programmes
such as NURP and the NOC. While Cameron celebrates, ocean science slips a little further out of reach for everyone else.
Unreliable funding leads to delays in the production of underwater subs. Lack of subs lead to less
discoveries. Jackson, 2012[Keith Jackson, Project Management Institute, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, June 1, 2012,
http://www.readperiodicals.com/201206/2703629061.html]
With research funding provided by philanthropists, including former Google executive Eric Schmidt's Marine Science and Technology Foundation, DOER
Marine's US$40 million Deepsearch program includes construction of two unlimited-depth ocean submersibles and
supporting infrastructure, including glass that can withstand the crushing pressure found in deep water."With no reliable funds coming in and
having to start and stop while completing other projects, this had the ability to become an unwieldy and unmanageable
project. And we recognized that fairly early in the process," Ms. Taylor says. "So we modeled our project after some of the
more successful U.S. Navy projects that also had financial constraints and received a lot of insight on how to handle the
Rendering of DOER submarine complexities and flexibility of the project. What we're using is almost a hybrid of agile and phased waterfall,
and we use those principles to guide the project."
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HADAL ZONE
Lack of political spotlight has killed funding for exploration. Private investments have kept this
exploration alive.
Kaplan 11 [Matt Kaplan, New Scientist, Once More unto the Deep, 9/3/2011, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128281.600-what-lies-beneathexploring-the-ocean-depths.html)
Half a century after our only previous visit, Earth's deep-sea trenches might finally be about to give up their secrets, says
Matt Kaplan "I didn't understand why the oceans weren't being explored - it seems crazy when you think about it" IT IS a sobering fact that more people
have walked on the moon's surface than have visited Earth's lowest spot. During six Apollo missions between 1969 and
1972, 12 humans did the moonwalk. Just two have plumbed Earth's ultimate depth. Their names are Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and
their expedition to the Challenger Deep - the deepest point of the Mariana trench, some 11,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the island of Guam lies over 50 years back, in January 1960. The immense pressures and extreme cold of the ocean deep make reaching it a
technologically demanding business. But sending humans into space isn't exactly easy. The discrepancy is largely down to
politics: while the space race was fuelled by the rivalries of the cold war, no such spur has ever existed to encourage
exploration of our oceans. With the will to fund such ventures from the public purse on the wane, at least in the US and
Europe, various private initiatives claim to be poised to take over the baton in the space race. Meanwhile something is stirring in the
oceans too. The US film-maker James Cameron into the Mariana trench to film footage for his follow-up to the film Avatar. And earlier
this year, the British entrepreneur Richard Branson launched his one-person Virgin Oceanic submarine with the goal of
visiting the deepest points of all of Earth's five oceans, the Challenger Deep included (see diagram, page 40). It is currently doing training runs with
a view to performing the first full dives before the end of the year.
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TSDC 14
SOLVENCY EXT
HADAL ZONE
Programs exist for the exploration of the Hadal zone, but they just need more support.
Schrope, April 2014 [Mark schrope, Scientific American, April 2014 Vol. 310, Issue 4; Journey to the Bottom of the Sea,
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v310/n4/full/scientificamerican0414-60.html]
THE AGENDA FOR HADAL SCIENTISTS is exciting but for now will be difficult to accomplish, with only one
primary vehicle, Nereus, at their disposal. Cameron has given WHOI rights to the technologies developed for his sub, as well as the sub itself, but the
institute has no plans yet to dive with it, in part because of insurance issues. The options could increase by the end of
2015. The Schmidt Ocean Institute, founded by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt, is working with WHOI to build a Nereus
successor called N11K. It will have a greater payload for samples and two robot arms instead of one so it can grab hold of the seafloor with one arm and really dig into
it with the other. [Disclosure: I am a consultant for Schmidt on media communications.] Manned vehicles are not likely to play a major role, at
least for the next few years. As in the U.S. space program, debate is under way over the relative merits of human-occupied
vehicles. Shank and Patricia Fryer say video cannot replace a person's 3-D visual ability to make sense of what is seen at
deep, dark depths. Cameron adds that manned missions provide inspiration [see box on opposite page]. Indeed, Virgin Group founder
Richard Branson and partner Chris Welsh, an entrepreneur, intend to pilot a one-person submersible to the deepest spot in each of the planet's five loosely defined
oceans. Problems with their prototype vehicle's clear dome have slowed the project. Triton Submarines in Vero Beach, Fla., has designed a three-
person sub that would reach the deepest trenches but has not acquired the funding needed to build it. China, which
recently christened a 7,000-meter manned vehicle, is designing one to reach full hadal depth, as is Japan, but both projects
are years from completion. At JPL, Hand is designing a small autonomous vehicle that could be launched in groups over the side of a small vessel. He says
the cost target is about $10,000 a pod, so fleets would be possible and losing one would not be catastrophic. He, along with engineers from JPL and from Cameron's
group, is seeking NASA funding. "We want to take some capabilities and lessons learned from robotic exploration of worlds
like Mars and beyond and bring that capability and the talent to bear on the exploration of our ocean," Hand says. As
exploration technology and money expand, researchers will face the welcome challenge of deciding which trenches and
troughs to plumb next. Very different creatures might live in the remote conditions of the 8,428-meter-deep South Sandwich Trench just above Antarctica. The
Puerto Rico Trench could offer valuable information about connections between trenches. And there are a few open seafloor plains in the hadal zone that researchers
would love to compare against trenches. Patricia Fryer is trying to secure funding for a workshop that would bring together deep-sea
scientists from around the world to discuss priorities and the best ways to move forward. Prior research was piecemeal,
and as in outer space, coordinated international work could most efficiently exploit funding and expertise, rather than a
competitive race to the bottom among nations. "I think the community of marine scientists is ready" to complete a systematic hadal agenda, Fryer
says. Drazen agrees: "We have the technology now to explore these places. And people are champing at the bit, ready to go."
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WARMING ADV.
HADAL ZONE
WARMING CAUSES A LAUNDRY LIST OF PROBLEMS.
Hansen 5/9 (James Hansen, directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at
Columbia University, “Game Over for the Climate,” 5/9/12) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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
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 United States 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
source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies,
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.
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL TRIGGER LIFE-THREATENING DISEASES AND STATE COLLAPSE
Sullivan,
14
General Gordon
Former Chief of Staff, US Army (ret.), May 20
, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,
http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/news/FlipBooks/Climate%20Change%20web/flipviewerxpress.html
Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security.
The predicted effects of climate change over the coming decades include
extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level rise, retreating glaciers, habitat shifts, and the increased spread of life-threatening diseases.
These conditions have the potential to disrupt our way of life and to force changes in the way we keep ourselves safe and secure. In the national and international
security environment, climate change threatens to add new hostile and stressing factors. On the simplest level, it has the potential to create sustained natural
and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today. The consequences will likely foster political instability where societal demands
exceed the capacity of governments to cope. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world. Projected
climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations,
causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states. Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting
in specific ways and points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the
same time frame. Economic and environmental conditions in already fragile areas will further erode as food production declines, diseases
increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large populations move in search of resources. Weakened and failing governments, with an
already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism, and movement toward increased
authoritarianism and radical ideologies. The U.S. may be drawn more frequently into these situations, either alone or with allies, to help provide stability before
conditions worsen and are exploited by extremists. The U.S. may also be called upon to undertake stability and reconstruction efforts once a conflict has begun, to avert
further disaster and reconstitute a stable environment.
CO2 CAUSES OCEAN ACIDIFICATION THAT THREATENS THE ENTIRE FOOD CHAIN
Walsh, 2014
,
J.D.
University of Alaska Fairbanks, May Wuebbles, K. Hayhoe, J. Kossin, K. Kunkel, G. Stephens, P. Thorne, R. Vose, M. Wehner, J. Willis,
D. An- derson, V. Kharin, T. Knutson, F. Landerer, T. Lenton, J. Kennedy, and R. Somerville, 2014: Appendix 3: Climate Science Supplement. Climate Change
Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, Eds., U.S. Global Change Research
Program, 735-789. doi:10.7930/J0KS6PHH. On the Web: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/appendices/climate-science-supplement
Dissolved calcium and carbonate ions are the building blocks for the skeletons and shells of many living things in the oceans. Ocean
acidification lowers the availability of
carbonate ions in many parts of the ocean, affecting the ability of some marine life to produce and maintain their shells.Since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by 0.1 pH units, representing approximately a 30%
increase in acidity. The oceans will continue to absorb carbon dioxide produced by human activities and become even more acidic in
the future. Projections of carbon dioxide levels indicate that by the end of this century the surface waters of the ocean could be as much as 150% more acidic, resulting in a pH that the
oceans have not experienced for more than 20 million years and effectively transforming marine life as we know it.Ocean acidification is expected to affect ocean species to varying degrees.
Some photosynthetic algae and seagrass species may benefit from higher CO conditions in the ocean, as they require CO to live, as do plants on land. On the other hand, studies
2
2
have
shown that a more acidic environment has dramatic negative effects on some calcifying species, including pteropods, oysters, clams,
sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. When shelled species are at risk, the entire food web may
also be at risk.
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CO2 MAKES OCEANS MORE ACIDIC, THREATENING THE FOOD CHAIN
Melillo, 2014
Jerry M.
Marine Biological Laboratory, May Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and Gary W. Yohe, Eds., Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate
Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, 841 pp. doi:10.7930/J0Z31WJ2. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report
In addition to causing changes in climate, increasing
levels of carbon dioxide from the
burning of fossil fuels and other human activities have
a direct effect on the world’s oceans.
Carbon dioxide interacts with ocean water to
form carbonic acid, increasing the ocean’s
acidity. Ocean surface waters have become 30%
more acidic over the last 250 years as they have
absorbed large amounts of carbon
dioxide
from the atmosphere. This ocean acidification
makes water more corrosive, reducing the capacity of marine organisms with shells or skeletons made
of calcium carbonate (such as corals, krill, oysters, clams, and crabs) to survive, grow, and reproduce, which in turn will affect the marine food chain.
UNPRECEDENTED ACIDIFICATION ON THE WAY NOW – EVERYTHING CLOSE IN THE PAST CAUSED EXTINCTION
EVENTS
Hartz 12 (John Hartz, reposting a news release from the National Science Foundation, “Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years,”
3/5/12) http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1334
The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists publishing a paper this week in
the journal Science. "What we're doing today really stands out in the geologic record," says lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out--new species evolved to
replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about-coral reefs, oysters, salmon." The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air. The gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid,
which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. If too much carbon dioxide enters the ocean too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that
corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building. In a review of hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, the researchers found evidence for
only one period in the last 300 million years when the oceans changed as fast as today: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. In
ocean sediment cores, the PETM appears as a brown mud layer flanked by thick deposits of white plankton fossils. About 56 million years ago, a mysterious surge of
carbon into the atmosphere warmed the planet and turned the oceans corrosive. In about 5,000 years, atmospheric carbon doubled to 1,800 parts per million (ppm), and
average global temperatures rose by about 6 degrees Celsius. The carbonate plankton shells littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown clay layer that scientists
see in sediment cores today. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifera, a group of one-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct,
suggesting that deep-sea organisms higher on the food chain may have also disappeared, said paper co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University.
"It's really unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species," she said. Scientists estimate that ocean acidity--its pH--may have fallen as much as 0.45 units as
the planet vented stores of carbon into the air. "These scientists have synthesized and evaluated evidence far back in Earth's history," said Candace Major, program
officer in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "The ocean acidification we're seeing today is
unprecedented," said Major, "even when viewed through the lens of the past 300 million years, a result of the very fast rates at which we're changing the chemistry
of the atmosphere and oceans." In the last hundred years, rising carbon dioxide from human activities has lowered ocean pH by 0.1 unit, an acidification rate at least 10
times faster than 56 million years ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that pH will fall another 0.2 units by 2100,
raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes similar to those observed during the PETM. More catastrophic events have happened on Earth before, but
perhaps not as quickly. The study finds two other analogs for modern day ocean acidification--the extinctions triggered by massive volcanism at the end of the Permian
and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201 million years ago, respectively. But the authors caution that because ocean sediments older than 180 million years have
been recycled back into the deep Earth, scientists have fewer records to work with. During the "Great Dying" at the end of the Permian, about 252 million years ago,
about 96 percent of life disappeared. Massive eruptions from what is known as the Siberian Traps in present-day Russia are thought to have triggered earth's biggest
extinction. Over 20,000 years or more, carbon in the atmosphere rose dramatically. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones, and preferential survival of
organisms predisposed to carbonate-poor seawater and high blood-carbon levels, but so far they have been unable to reconstruct changes in ocean pH or carbonate. At
the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago, a second burst of mass volcanism associated with the break-up of the supercontinent Pangaea doubled
atmospheric carbon and touched off another wave of die-offs. Coral reefs collapsed and an entire class of sea creatures, the eel-like
conodonts, vanished. On land, large plant-eating animals gave rise to meat-eating dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex as the Jurassic era began. A greater extinction
of tropical species has led some scientists to question whether global warming rather than ocean acidification was the main killer at this time. This study finds that the
most notorious of all extinctions, the one that ended the Age of Dinosaurs with a falling asteroid 65 million years ago, may not have been associated with ocean
acidification. The asteroid impact in present-day Mexico 65 million years ago released toxic gases and possibly set off fires that sent surges of carbon into the air.
Though many species of plankton went extinct, coral reefs and benthic foraminifera survived. In lab experiments, scientists have tried to simulate modern ocean
acidification, but the number of variables currently at play--high carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures, and reduced ocean pH and dissolved oxygen levels--make
predictions difficult. An alternative to investigating the paleo-record has been to study natural carbon seeps from offshore volcanoes that are producing the acidification
levels expected by the year 2100. In a recent study of coral reefs off Papua New Guinea, scientists found that during long-term exposure to high carbon dioxide and pH
0.2 units lower than today--at a pH of 7.8 (the IPCC projection for 2100)--reef biodiversity and regeneration suffered.
-NSF-
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HADAL ZONE
STEM EXT
STEM SOLVES MULTITUDE OF CHALLENGES
Gillibrand and Kennedy III 14 [Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Kennedy III, USA Today, “STEM jobs key to better economy: Column,” January 10, 2014, accessed June 25, 2014,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/01/10/engineering-mathematics-stem-gillibrand-kennedy-column/4361837/][LG]
Broadening our STEM efforts isn't just about jobs today and tomorrow. It's about leveraging the collective capacity of the American
workforce to tackle our most pressing modern challenges, from renewable energy to medical research to cybersecurity. ¶ If we don't keep
the doors of opportunity wide open to students of all genders, ethnicities and backgrounds then we will collectively forfeit a huge portion of the talent that these next
generation challenges demand.¶ At a time when our global leadership is being challenged on multiple fronts; when American students lag
behind other developed nations in the skills required to support innovation industries – we cannot afford to leave that much potential
untapped.
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ADVANCED MEDICINE ADV SCENARIO
HADAL ZONE
EXPLORATION LEADS TO AN INCREASE OF STUDY IN MULTIPLE DIFFERENT SCIENTIFIC FIELDS.
Schrope, April 2014 [Mark schrope, Scientific American, April 2014 Vol. 310, Issue 4; Journey to the Bottom of the Sea,
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v310/n4/full/scientificamerican0414-60.html]
BECAUSE SO LITTLE HADAL WORK has been done, a single data set from Nereus or another mission could help address top
priorities in multiple disciplines. That is the case with the critical question of how much carbon is raining down or sliding down into
the trenches. For ocean organisms, carbon-based molecules are food. The cascade includes all kinds of pleasantries, such as dead algae and fish as well as poop from
shallower residents. Levels can decrease with depth because much of what sinks gets consumed on its way to the bottom. But trenches could also be acting like funnels
that concentrate organic matter from above and from sediment that slumps down the walls. Knowing where carbon concentrates might tell biologists
where to find the greatest diversity of animals, and ample food could mean more and larger animals than expected . Geochemists are
fixated on that same carbon because the oceans absorb roughly 40 to 50 percent of the carbon dioxide that humans and nature emit
into the atmosphere, slowing the greenhouse effect. Researchers think a lot of the carbon may get buried on the seafloor, but they
cannot say even within a factor of 10 how much carbon is in the trenches. Nereus will collect sediment that the HADES team will analyze for carbon.
They will also measure oxygen to assess biological activity there. "I've got the world's deepest oxygen sensors that I'm dying to actually get into the trench," Drazen
says. Geologists are interested in another aspect of the trench floor that could hit the public much closer to home, literally. The
magnitude 9 Tohoku earthquake that caused the devastating 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan occurred
in the Japan Trench. Many scientists were shocked that a quake so large was possible there, says Hiroshi Kitazato of JAMSTEC. Researchers have drilled
sediment cores there from surface ships and have a few rock samples from a robot that can go to 7,000 meters. But the trench is 1,500
meters deeper, and the epicenter was well below the seafloor. Experts are not even sure how to survey such areas appropriately, says Gerard Fryer, a
geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu. "A huge amount will be learned if we can get some eyes down there." Deeper rock
samples could improve understanding of how stress progresses in fault zones, and more sediment samples could help researchers
assess evidence that the types of sediment in trenches could affect the magnitude of quakes. The other process that comes up when
geologists make their hadal wish list is serpentinization. It is key to understanding the long-term balance between how tectonic plates are built
and destroyed. The destruction occurs where trenches form, when two plates butt up against each other and one slides down underneath. Much of the material melts,
and serpentinization, which involves water reacting with certain rocks, is key to maintaining this part of the balance. Or so scientists think. Rock and sediment
samples from trenches, along with detailed views of surrounding areas, could go a long way to proving or disproving theories, says
Daniel Lizarralde, a geologist at WHOI. Nereus could bring that information from Kermadec or its mission to Mariana later this year. "This would be the first
confirmation that processes that seem logical actually take place in reality, " Patricia Fryer says.
HADAL EXPLORATION IS
BREAKTHROUGHS.
KEY TO MEDICAL ADVANCEMENT
–
FURTHER EXPLORATION WILL LEAD TO MORE
Schrope, April 2014 [Mark schrope, Scientific American, April 2014 Vol. 310, Issue 4; Journey to the Bottom of the Sea,
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v310/n4/full/scientificamerican0414-60.html]
THE SECOND BIOLOGICAL PRIORITY is almost as basic as the first: figuring out how cells in critters big and small can function
under such immense pressure. Understanding the mechanisms could lead to new kinds of medical compounds for people . The mystery
goes back to Walsh and Piccard's 1960 dive. They spent 20 minutes on the bottom and reported seeing a flatfish, but they had no cameras. Biologists now question that
observation. "There's no way they saw a flatfish, absolutely no way," says Jeffrey C. Drazen, a deep-sea fish specialist and a HADES leader. Work suggests fish simply
cannot withstand such pressure. The deepest fish ever definitively observed were seen on video at about 7,700 meters. Walsh acknowledges he is not an ichthyologist
but defends his sighting. "All I can say is I think I've seen a few fish. But they keep telling me I didn't see one." In the 1990s Paul Yancey, a biologist at Whitman
College, discovered that as depth increases, fish cells have increasingly higher concentrations of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) -- the same chemical that makes fish
stink. That pattern has held down to about 7,000 meters -- the deepest Yancey and Drazen, now a collaborator, have samples for Exactly how TMAO might stabilize
proteins against pressure is not clear, and its effectiveness may have limits. In the fish bloodstream, TMAO functions something like salt, helping to maintain the
osmotic pressure that determines whether water will diffuse in or out. At about 8,000 meters, a fish's saltiness should roughly match seawater. According to the
hypothesis, if a fish went much deeper, so much water would diffuse into its cells that it would not survive. Scientists cannot prove a negative outcome, but if they do
not find fish at deeper hadal depths they would have a pretty strong case against fish in those regions. That said, Yancey says he would be happy if Nereus proves him
wrong. "I'd love to have that fish, to figure out what's going on." Based on the little information available, other creatures such as crabs and shrimp also seem limited to
about 8,000 meters. But on the few past missions researchers have seen organisms such as sea cucumbers as well as crustaceans called amphipods. Microbes have been
ubiquitous. Yancey thinks these life-forms could have additional protein-stabilizing chemicals, or piezolytes, which he found in amphipods that Cameron's team
collected. Biomedical researchers were already studying another compound that Yancey turned up, scyllo-inositol, as a potential
treatment for Alzheimer's disease, which is one of several that involve protein-folding problems. That relevance has biologists excited
about discovering potentially useful protein stabilizers in organisms that survive in the trenches. Doug Bartlett, a microbiologist at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has also done initial work with hadal bacteria collected by landers and with sediment Cameron was able to
grab. Bartlett will be studying bacteria in water, sediment and animal samples Nereus collects, and he hopes to eventually get samples
in containers that maintain hadal pressures, so he can observe how cells survive in real time.
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HADAL ZONE
AN INCREASE IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INCREASES MEDICINE.
SAGAN 97 (Carl, PhD in astrophysics from U of Chicago, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,
p. 16-19, JMB)
Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered 2,500 years later for the Hippocratic Oath (a modified form of which is still here and there
taken by medical students upon their graduation). But he is chiefly celebrated because of his efforts to bring medicine out of the pall of superstition and into the
light of science. In a typical passage Hippocrates wrote: `Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine
which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.' Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say
things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. AGod of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not yet understand. As knowledge of
medicine improved since the fourth century BC, there was more and more that we understood and less and less that had to be
attributed to divine intervention - either in the causes or in the treatment of disease. Deaths in childbirth and infant mortality have decreased,
lifetimes have lengthened, and medicine has improved the quality of life for billions of us all over the planet. In the diagnosis of
disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He urged careful and meticulous observation: `Leave nothing to
chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.' Before the invention of the thermometer, he charted the temperature
curves of many diseases. He recommended that physicians be able to tell, from present symptoms alone, the probable past and future course of each illness. He
stressed honesty. He was willing to admit the limitations of the physician's knowledge. He betrayed no embarrassment in confiding to posterity that more than half
his patients were killed by the diseases he was treating. His options of course were limited; the drugs available to him were chiefly laxatives, emetics and narcotics.
Surgery was performed, and cauterization. Considerable further advances were made in classical times through to the fall of Rome. While medicine in the Islamic
world flourished, what followed in Europe was truly a dark age. Much knowledge of anatomy and surgery was lost. Reliance on prayer and miraculous healing
abounded. Secular physicians became extinct. Chants, potions, horoscopes and amulets were widely used. Dissections of cadavers were restricted or outlawed, so
those who practised medicine were prevented from acquiring first-hand knowledge of the human body. Medical research came to a standstill. It was very like what
the historian Edward Gibbon described for the entire Eastern Empire, whose capital was Constantinople: In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery
was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea had been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of
patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation. Even at its best, pre-modern medical practice did not save many. Queen
Anne was the last Stuart monarch of Great Britain. In the last seventeen years of the seventeenth century, she was pregnant eighteen times. Onlyfive children were
born alive. Only one of them survived infancy. He diedbefore reaching adulthood, and before her coronation in 1702. There seems to be no evidence of some
genetic disorder. She had the best medical care money could buy. Diseases that once tragically carried off countless infants and children have
been progressively mitigated and cured by science - through the discovery of the microbial world, via the insight that physicians and midwives should
wash their hands and sterilize their instruments, through nutrition, public health and sanitation measures, antibiotics, drugs, vaccines, the uncovering of the
molecular structure of DNA, molecular biology, and now gene therapy. In the developed world at least, parents today have an enormously better
chance of seeing their children live to adulthood than did the heir to the throne of one of the most powerful nations on Earth in the
late seventeenth century. Smallpox has been wiped out worldwide. The area of our planet infested with malariacarrying
mosquitoes has dramatically shrunk. The number of years a child diagnosed with leukaemia can expect to live has been increasing progressively, year by
year. Science permits the Earth to feed about a hundred times more humans, and under conditions much less grim, than it could a few thousand years ago. We can
pray over the cholera victim, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hours . (There is still a religion, Christian Science, that denies the germ
theory of disease; if prayer fails, the faithful would rather see their children die than give them antibiotics.) We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on
the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of chlozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more
effective than the alternatives. (And even when the alternatives seem to work, we don't actually know that they played any role: spontaneous remissions, even of
cholera and schizophrenia, can occur without prayer and without psychoanalysis.) Abandoning science means abandoning much more thanair conditioning, CD
players, hair dryers and fast cars. In hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural times, the human life expectancy was about 20 to 30 years. That's
also what it was in Western Europe in Late Roman and in Medieval times . It didn't rise to 40 years until around the year 1870. It reached 50 in
1915, 60 in 1930, 70 in 1955, and is today approaching 80 (a little more for women, a little less for men). The rest of the world is retracing the European
increment in longevity. What is the cause of this stunning, unprecedented, humanitarian transition? The germ theory of disease, public
health measures, medicines and medical technology. Longevity is perhaps the best single measure of the physical quality of life. (If
you're dead, there's little you can do to be happy.) This is a precious offering from science to humanity - nothing less than the gift of life.
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CHINA ADV.
HADAL ZONE
INCREASED CHINESE PRESENCE IN THE PACIFIC RESULTS IN US COUNTERBALANCE TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONY,
LEADS TO AIRSEA BATTLE – ONLY A QUESTION OF FUNDING
Buxbaum 10 [Peter A. Buxbaum, Oil Price, “Chinese Plans to End US Hegemony in the Pacific,” May 31, 2010, accessed June 23, 2014,
http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Chinese-Plans-To-End-US-Hegemony-In-The-Pacific.html][LG]
The US is developing an air-sea battle concept to counter China's military buildup. But political problems and budgetary woes could
kill the program before it ever gets started.¶ China's People's Liberation Army is building up anti-access and area-denial capabilities with the
apparent goal of extending their power to the western half of the Pacific Ocean . Chinese military and political doctrine holds that China should rule
the waves out to the second island chain of the western Pacific, which extends as far as Guam and New Guinea, essentially dividing the Pacific
between the US and China and ending US hegemony on that ocean. ¶ Among the anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) capabilities being fielded by
China include anti-satellite weapons; spaced-based reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition; electromagnetic weapons;
advanced fighter aircraft; unmanned aerial vehicles; advanced radar systems; and ballistic and cruise missiles. ¶ The Chinese also have
an emerging and muscular deep-water navy. "The PLA navy is increasing its numbers of submarines and other ships," said Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of
US naval operations, at a recent speech hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. "Navies tend to grow with economies and as trade
becomes more important."¶ All
of this has US military planners and thinkers worried. The A2AD buildup threatens the US forward
presence and power projection in the region. ¶ "Unless Beijing diverts from its current course of action, or Washington
undertakes actions to offset or counterbalance the effects of the PLA’s military buildup," said a report recently released by the Washington-based
Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments, "the cost incurred by the US military to operate in the [w]estern Pacific will likely rise sharply,
perhaps to prohibitive levels, and much sooner than many expect [...].This situation creates a strategic choice for the United States, its
allies and partners: acquiesce in a dramatic shift in the military balance or take steps to preserve it. "¶ In response to the Chinese
challenge, US strategic planners and thinkers are exploring a concept known as ' AirSea Battle ,' the subject of the new CSBA report.
"Admiral Roughead is conducting an AirSea Battle study inside the Pentagon," noted Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and a member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, at a recent Washington gathering. ¶ Spurring the need for AirSea Battle, CSBA president and report co-author Andrew
Krepinevich told ISN Security Watch, is that "China will attempt to achieve a quick victory by inflicting such damage that the US would
choose to discontinue the fight or driving a major US ally out of the war." A key objective of AirSea Battle, then, is to deny
adversaries a quick victory.¶ AirSea Battle, as outlined in the CSBA report, is a complex set of concepts, involving the development of
specific military capabilities, such as long-range strike systems, and operating concepts, such as greater integration between the US
Navy and Air Force, that would offset the Chinese buildup. But the program has its political dimension as well: to reassure US allies, particularly the
Japanese, and keep them from succumbing to Chinese pressure despite the apparent decline of US capabilities in the western Pacific. The big squeeze¶ Looming in
the background are the budgetary constraints now being placed on the Pentagon. In a speech earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates warned military commanders not to expect to get everything they ask for. "The gusher has been turned off," he said, "and will stay off for a good period of
time[...].[R]ealistically, it is highly unlikely that we will achieve the real [budget] growth rates necessary to sustain the current force structure."¶ Pursuing AirSea
Battle would require a reordering of Pentagon priorities, especially in light of the budget squeeze. Gates has displayed a proclivity, as reflected
in the Quadrennial Defense Review released earlier this year, towards developing a balanced, multifaceted defense posture. That position does not promote sharp
decision making that allocates scarce resources to emerging threats. ¶ In fact, according to the CSBA report, DoD continues to invest in capabilities that
assume that the status quo will prevail in the western Pacific, emphasizing, for example, short-range over than long-range strike
systems.¶
INNOVATION CRITICAL TO GLOBAL MILITARY DOMINANCE
Michael Lind, May-June, 2014, “National Interest,” The Case for American Nationalism,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-case-american-nationalism-10328?page=7
According to Global Firepower, the world’s leading military powers are currently the United States, Russia, China, India, Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, South
Korea and Japan. And according to the World Bank, in 2012 the leading nations by GDP were the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom,
Brazil, Russia, Italy and India. The close correlation between GDP and military power is striking. (Because of World War II memories, Japan and
Germany continue to spend proportionally less on their militaries than the victors.)
A great power must both produce and innovate within its own borders. And it must innovate repeatedly, merely to maintain its relative
rank in the world. Innovative technology increasingly is a wasting asset, given the growing ease with which intellectual
property can be transferred by high-tech espionage.
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HADAL ZONE
US HAS LOST ITS INNOVATION MONOPOLY
Vivek Wadhwa, tech entrepreneur, 2014, Mythbusters, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/myths-aboutamericas-role-in-the-world-102409_Page3.html#.U4OOui-Or4Y
What drives me crazy is that some U.S.
policymakers are still living in the ’60s—when the U.S. and a handful of big countries were the only
ones that could perform cutting-edge research and innovate. You see this ignorance in their arrogance toward the developing world and in U.S.
immigration policies. They have closed the door to the best and brightest from all over the world who want to come to the United States and do what they have always
done—boost its global competitive advantage. Someone needs to tell these policymakers that the cost of developing world-changing technologies has dropped
exponentially, and anyone anywhere now has access to the same scientific knowledge. Countries such as Brazil, China and India have engineers and
scientists with the same capabilities as those in the United States, and entrepreneurship is flourishing all over the world. America has
lost its monopoly on innovation.
27
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HADAL ZONE
WAR WITH CHINA GOOD!
1. WE’D WIN IN A WAR NOW
a. ELIMINATE THE CHINESE ARSENAL
Lieber and Press 09 [Keir A., Associate Professor @ Georgetown University, Daryl G., Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College, Foreign
Affairs, Nov/Dec]
Today, a
multiple-warhead attack on a single silo using a Trident II missile would have a roughly 99 percent chance of destroying it,
and the probability that a barrage would destroy all 20 targets is well above 95 percent. Given the accuracy of the U.S. military’s
current delivery systems, the only question is target identification: silos that can be found can be destroyed. During the Cold War, the United States
worked hard to pinpoint Soviet nuclear forces, with great success. Locating potential adversaries’ small nuclear arsenals is undoubtedly a top priority for U.S.
intelligence today. The revolution in accuracy is producing an even more momentous change: it is becoming possible for the United States to conduct low yield nuclear
counterforce strikes that inflict relatively few casualties. A U.S. Department of Defense computer model, called the Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability
(hpac), estimates the dispersion of deadly radioactive fallout in a given region after a nuclear detonation. The software uses the warhead’s explosive power, the height
of the burst, and data about local weather and demographics to estimate how much fallout would be generated, where it would blow, and how many people it would
injure or kill. Hpac results can be chilling. In 2006, a team of nuclear weapons analysts from the Federation of American Scientists (fas) and the Natural Resources
Defense Council (nrdc) used hpac to estimate the consequences of a U.S. nuclear attack using high-yield warheads against China’s icbm field. Even though China’s
silos are located in the countryside, the model predicted that the fallout would blow over a large area, killing 3–4 million people. U.S. counterforce capabilities were
useless, the study implied, because even a limited strike would kill an unconscionable number of civilians. But the United States can already conduct nuclear
counterforce strikes at a tiny fraction of the human devastation that the fas/nrdc study predicted, and small additional improvements to
the U.S. force could dramatically reduce the potential collateral damage even further. The U nited S tates’ nuclear weapons are
now so accurate that it can conduct successful counterforce attacks using the smallest-yield warheads in the
arsenal , rather than the huge warheads that the fas/nrdc simulation modeled. And to further reduce the fallout, the weapons can be set to detonate
as airbursts, which would allow most of the radiation to dissipate in the upper atmosphere . We ran multiple hpac scenarios against the identical
target set used in the fas/nrdc study but modeled low-yield airbursts rather than high-yield ground bursts. The fatality estimates plunged from 3–4 million to less than
700—a figure comparable to the number of civilians reportedly killed since 2006 in Pakistan by U.S. drone strikes. One should be skeptical about the results of any
model that depends on unpredictable factors, such as wind speed and direction. But in the scenarios we modeled, the area of lethal fallout was so small that very few
civilians would have become ill or died, regardless of which way the wind blew. Critics may cringe at this analysis. Many of them, understandably, say that nuclear
weapons are—and should remain—unusable. But if the United States is to retain these weapons for the purpose of deterring nuclear attacks, it
needs a force that gives U.S. leaders retaliatory options they might actually employ. If the only retaliatory option entails killing
millions of civilians, then the U.S. deterrent will lack credibility. Giving U.S. leaders alternatives that do not target civilians is both
wise and just. A counterforce attack—whether using conventional munitions or low- or high-yield nuclear weapons—would be
fraught with peril. Even a small possibility of a single enemy warhead’s surviving such a strike would undoubtedly give any U.S.
leader great pause. But in the midst of a conventional war, if an enemy were using nuclear threats or limited nuclear attacks to try to
coerce the United States or its allies, these would be the capabilities that would give a U.S. president real options.
b. TECHNOLOGICAL GAP IS TOO LARGE FOR CHINA TO WIN A WAR IN THE SHORT TERM, NOW KEY
Bandow 09
[Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former assistant to Regan, “China’s Military Rise Means End of US Hegemony?”, 6/6/2009, appeared in the Korea
Times on 5/5/2009, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10175]
China's "armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies, including those for anti-access/areadenial, as well as for nuclear, space, and cyber warfare, that are changing regional military balances and that have implications beyond
the Asia-Pacific region." Yet this concerted expansion little threatens U.S. security. Only the Chinese nuclear force is theoretically
able to strike America today. Beijing possesses about 60 missiles, some of limited range. In contrast, the U.S. nuclear arsenal
Moreover,
includes thousands of sophisticated warheads on hundreds of missiles. Beijing is going to have to spend years to
build a modest force simply capable of deterring America .
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HADAL ZONE
3. WAR NOW GOOD – NAVAL POWER
A. CHINA’S DF-21D BALLISTIC MISSILES MEANS WAR NOW IS KEY – SAVES NAVAL POWER PROJECTION IN THE
PACIFIC
Kato ’11 YOICHI KATO; 1/27/11; (NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT); “China's new missile capability raises tensions”; asahi;
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201101260340.html; J.Nelson
The U.S. Department of Defense explained in its annual report to Congress last year that China is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) based
on an existing medium-range ballistic missile known as the CSS-5, or DF-21. It is mainly intended to deter and attack U.S. aircraft carriers from a great
distance. This ASBM is called DF-21D in the United States. Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander, U.S. Pacific Command, said in a recent interview with The Asahi
Shimbun, "An analogy using a Western term would be 'initial operational capability' (IOC)," explaining the status of the development of DF-21D. According to Andrew
Erickson, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, "IOC" means "it's already tested successfully and it's already deployed." He
went on to say: "At least one Chinese unit must have already received the DF-21D. While doubtless an area of continuous challenge and
improvement, the DF-21D's C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance) infrastructure must be
sufficient to support basic carrier strike group targeting capabilities. Based on previous deployment patterns, ever-better performing
versions of the DF-21D will likely be deployed in 'waves' to different units until the majority of ASBMs reach a level of capability the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) deems sufficient to meet its present deterrence objectives." The DOD report says " the missile has a range in excess of 1,500
kilometers." The first island chain, which runs from the Japanese archipelago through Taiwan and the Philippines down to the South China Sea, is within the range.
This island chain is one of the demarcation lines that China often refers to as its own defense perimeter. While a regular ballistic missile flies in a constant parabolic
orbit once it is launched, the ASBM can change its flight path using an on-board seeker to home in on the moving target. It is also designed to disperse
submunitions over the target to maximize the area of impact and damage. If one hit the flight deck of an aircraft carrier,
fighter jets and other aircraft would not be able to take off or land --even if the ship survived the attack itself. The
enormous power projection capabilities of the aircraft carrier would be lost. The ASBM is the main pillar of the weapon systems, along with
submarines, which support China's "anti-access/area denial" (A2/AD) capabilities. China decided to acquire such capabilities after it was forced to face up to the power
of U.S. aircraft carriers during Taiwan's presidential election in 1996. China staged a large-scale military exercise and fired missiles into the East China Sea off the
coast of Taiwan, apparently to intimidate the candidate and his supporters, who were inclined toward independence from mainland China. The Clinton administration
dispatched two carrier strike groups to the vicinity of Taiwan to provide some sort of balance, thereby putting pressure on China and offering reassurance to the
Taiwanese population. China realized it lacked the military capability to prevent such intervention by the United States and started to develop its own A2/AD
capabilities mainly against U.S. aircraft carriers. U.S. response China's growing A2/AD capabilities have already had a serious impact on the freedom
of movement of the U.S. Navy. Japanese government sources said they heard U.S. government officials say that the United States would not be able to conduct "the
same kind of operations it did back in 1996" because it would involve too much risk now.
Aircraft carriers symbolize U.S. power projection
capabilities and deterrence. If one of those carriers were to be attacked, much less sunk, the magnitude of the shock would be
immense. For U.S. friends and allies like Japan, the credibility of U.S. military capability would be shaken at its foundations. The
offsetting strategy that the United States has come up with is called "joint air-sea battle concept." It was first introduced in the Quadrennial Defense Review, which was
released in February last year. According to this strategic document, "The concept will address how air and naval forces will integrate capabilities across all operational
domains--air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace--to counter growing challenges to U.S. freedom of action."
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B. NAVAL POWER KEY TO SOLVE MULTIPLE SCENARIOS FOR CONFLICT
CONWAY ET AL 07 [James T., General, U.S. Marine Corps, Gary Roughead, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Thad W. Allen, Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, “A
Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” October, http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf)]
We will employ the global reach, persistent presence, and operational flexibility inherent in U.S. seapower to accomplish six key tasks, or strategic imperatives. Where
tensions are high or where we wish to demonstrate to our friends and allies our commitment to security and stability, U.S. maritime forces will be
characterized by regionally concentrated, forward-deployed task forces with the combat power to limit regional conflict, deter major
power war, and should deterrence fail, win our Nation’s wars as part of a joint or combined campaign. In addition, persistent, missiontailored maritime forces will be globally distributed in order to contribute to homeland defense-in-depth, foster and sustain cooperative
relationships with an expanding set of international partners, and prevent or mitigate disruptions and crises. Credible combat power will be
continuously postured in the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital interests, assure our friends and allies of our continuing
commitment to regional security, and deter and dissuade potential adversaries and peer competitors. This combat power can be selectively and rapidly repositioned to
meet contingencies that may arise elsewhere. These forces will be sized and postured to fulfill the following strategic imperatives: Limit regional conflict with forward
deployed, decisive maritime power. Today regional conflict has ramifications far beyond the area of conflict. Humanitarian crises, violence spreading across borders,
pandemics, and the interruption of vital resources are all possible when regional crises erupt. While this strategy advocates a wide dispersal of networked
maritime forces, we cannot be everywhere, and we cannot act to mitigate all regional conflict. Where conflict threatens the global
system and our national interests, maritime forces will be ready to respond alongside other elements of national and
multi-national power, to give political leaders a range of options for deterrence, escalation and de-escalation . Maritime
forces that are persistently present and combat-ready provide the Nation’s primary forcible entry option in an era of declining access,
even as they provide the means for this Nation to respond quickly to other crises. Whether over the horizon or powerfully arrayed in
plain sight, maritime forces can deter the ambitions of regional aggressors, assure friends and allies, gain and maintain access, and
protect our citizens while working to sustain the global order. Critical to this notion is the maintenance of a powerful fleet—ships,
aircraft, Marine forces, and shore-based fleet activities—capable of selectively controlling the seas, projecting power ashore, and
protecting friendly forces and civilian populations from attack.
HEG IMPACT CALC.
CASE OUTWEIGHS AND TURNS DISAD/K BECAUSE DECLINE IN HEGEMONY LEADS TO GLOBAL INSTABILITY AND
GREAT POWER WARS, THAT’S THAYER, AND IF THERE WERE A DECLINE IN HEGEMONY THE NEG’S IMPACTS
BECOME INEVITABLE BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES WOULD BECOME MORE AUTHORITARIAN AND INTERVENE
TO MAINTAIN IT’S POWER. GLOBAL COMBAT IS NOW LESS THAN HALF WHAT IT WAS 15 YEARS AGO; THE
BIGGEST REASON WHY WAR IS ON THE DECLINE IS BECAUSE OF HEGEMONY – IF THE UNITED STATES WERE
CHALLENGED, ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE, PEACE, AND SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY WOULD DISAPPEAR AND
OTHER COUNTRIES WOULD LASH OUT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS OTHER GLOBAL POWERS TO
BECOME THE NEW WORLD HEGEMON. HEGEMONY SOLVES WAR BECAUSE IT MAKES DEMOCRATIC PEACE
RESILIENT GLOBALIZATION SUSTAINABLE – IT’S THE DEEPER CAUSE OF PROXIMATE CHECKS AGAINST WAR.
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2AC ANSWERS
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AT: UNITED STATES T
1. WE MEET –
2. COUNTER INTERPRETATION – UNITED STATES MEANS THE 50 STATES’ AND ITS TERRITORIES’ WATERS
GSA 07 [U.S. General Services Administration, January 24, 2007, “Executive Order 13423,” Sec. 9 Definitions,
accessed June 3, 2014, http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/102452][LG]
''United States'' when used in a geographical sense, means the fifty states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico, Guam , American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and associated territorial
waters and airspace.
3. COUNTER STANDARDS –
a. Limits –
i. We only add one more aff. Make them prove why the Hadal zone off the coast of Guam would trigger any of
their standards.
ii. They overlimit the topic – the resolution doesn’t outline ONLY the 50 states. They limit the aff to few cases to
choose under their interpretation.
b. Ground –
i. We have the most predictable ground. Our inherency outlines the only thing preventing plan passage is funding
for research, development, and exploration.
ii. The neg loses no ground under our interpretation; their links are predicated off general government passage of
the plan.
iii. It’s more difficult to gain CP ground under their interpretation – limiting the debate to the 50 continental states
means NO international actor can get access to US territorial waters.
iv. Under their interpretation the neg controls the resolution and the round because they get to choose the area aff
cases can function under, destroying all aff ground and fairness.
4. REASONABILITY – COMPETING INTERPRETATIONS IS A
DEBATE. IF WE’RE REASONABLY TOPICAL THEN VOTE AFF.
T IS NOT A VOTER FOR THE ABOVE STANDARDS.
RACE TO THE BOTTOM AND LIMITS DEPTH OF
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HADAL ZONE EXPLORATION
NEGATIVE
AT: WARMING
TRY OR DIE
No try or die – if the risk of solving their impact is statistically identical to zero then you should
throw it out
Hansson 5 (Sven Ove Hansson, professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy and History of Technology at
the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, “The Epistemology of Technological Risk”,
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v9n2/hansson.html)
It is easy to find examples in which many of us would be swayed by considerations of unknown dangers. Suppose, for instance, that someone proposes the introduction of a genetically altered species of earthworm that will
aerate the soil more efficiently. If introduced in nature, it will ultimately replace the common earthworm. For the sake of argument we may assume that all concrete worries have been neutralized. The new species can be shown not to induce more soil erosion, not to be
more susceptible to diseases, etc. Still, it would not be irrational to say: "Yes, but there may be other negative effects that we have not been able to think of. Therefore, the new species should not be introduced." Similarly, if someone proposed to eject a chemical
it would
any decision may have catastrophic
substance into the stratosphere for some good purpose or other, it would not be irrational to oppose this proposal solely on the ground that it may have unforeseeable consequences, and this even if all specified worries can be neutralized. However,
not be feasible to take such possibilities into account in all decisions that we make. In a sense,
unforeseen consequences . If far-reaching indirect effects are taken into account, then – given the unpredictable nature of actual
causation – almost any decision may lead to a disaster. In order to be able to decide and act, we therefore have to disregard
many of the more remote possibilities . Cases can also easily be found in which it was an advantage that far-fetched dangers were not taken seriously. One case in point is the false alarm on so-called polywater, an alleged
polymeric form of water. In 1969, the prestigious scientific journal Nature printed a letter that warned against producing polywater. The substance might "grow at the expense of normal water under any conditions found in the environment," thus replacing all natural
water on earth and destroying all life on this planet. (Donahoe 1969 ) Soon afterwards, it was shown that polywater is a non-existent entity. If the warning had been heeded, then no attempts would had been made to replicate the polywater experiments, and we might still
appeals to the possibility of unknown dangers may stop investigations and thus prevent scientific and
technological progress. We therefore need criteria to determine when the possibility of unknown dangers should be taken seriously and when it can be neglected. This problem cannot be solved with probability calculus or other exact mathematical
methods. The best that we can hope for is a set of informal criteria that can be used to support intuitive judgement. The following list of four criteria has been proposed for this purpose. (Hansson 1996) 1. Asymmetry of uncertainty:
Possibly, a decision to build a second bridge between Sweden and Denmark will lead through some unforeseeable causal chain to a
nuclear war. Possibly, it is the other way around so that a decision not to build such a bridge will lead to a nuclear war. We have no
reason why one or the other of these two causal chains should be more probable , or otherwise more worthy of our attention, than the other. On the other hand, the introduction of a new
not have known that polywater does not exist. In cases like this,
species of earthworm is connected with much more uncertainty than the option not to introduce the new species. Such asymmetry is a necessary but insufficient condition for taking the issue of unknown dangers into serious consideration. 2. Novelty: Unknown dangers
come mainly from new and untested phenomena. The emission of a new substance into the stratosphere constitutes a qualitative novelty, whereas the construction of a new bridge does not. An interesting example of the novelty factor can be found in particle physics.
Before new and more powerful particle accelerators have been built, physicists have sometimes feared that the new levels of energy might generate a new phase of matter that accretes every atom of the earth. The decision to regard these and similar fears as groundless
has been based on observations showing that the earth is already under constant bombardment from outer space of particles with the same or higher energies. (Ruthen 1993) 3. Spatial and temporal limitations: If the effects of a proposed measure are known to be limited
in space or time, then these limitations reduce the urgency of the possible unknown effects associated with the measure. The absence of such limitations contributes to the severity of many ecological problems, such as global emissions and the spread of chemically
4. Interference with complex systems in balance: Complex systems such as ecosystems and the atmospheric system are
known to have reached some type of balance, which may be impossible to restore after a major disturbance. Due to this irreversibility, uncontrolled interference
with such systems is connected with a high degree of uncertainty. (Arguably, the same can be said of uncontrolled interference with economic systems; this is an argument for piecemeal rather than drastic economic reforms.) It might be argued
that we do not know that these systems can resist even minor perturbations. If causation is chaotic, then for all that we know, a minor
modification of the liturgy of the Church of England may trigger a major ecological disaster in Africa. If we assume that all causeeffect relationships are chaotic, then the very idea of planning and taking precautions seems to lose its meaning. However, such a worldview would leave us entirely without guidance, even in situations when we consider ourselves well-informed. Fortunately, experience does not bear out this pessimistic
worldview. Accumulated experience and theoretical reflection strongly indicate that certain types of influences on ecological systems can be
withstood, whereas others cannot. The same applies to technological, economic, social, and political systems, although our knowledge about their resilience
stable pesticides.
towards various disturbances has not been sufficiently systematized.
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Can’t Solve Warming
Nothing solves it
McMartin 13 (Peter, Vancouver Sun Columnist, 3/9/2013, "Global warming’s new frightening deadline",
www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Global+warming+frightening+deadline/8071552/story.html)
In April 2009, the science journal Nature published a paper entitled Greenhouse-Gas
Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2 C. Its subject
was the end of the modern world. At the time, it attracted little notice. It was a half-dozen pages long. For laymen, its technical content was impenetrable. The purpose of
the paper — researched and written by a team of European scientists headed by Malte Meinshausen, a climatologist with Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact — was to
determine just how much time mankind had left before our burning of fossil fuels would cause catastrophic global warming . The
marker for what would be considered “catastrophic” warming was generally agreed to be anything above a rise of two degrees Celsius in global temperature. “More
than 100 countries,” the paper noted, (the actual number was 167 countries) “have adopted a global warming limit of 2°C or below (relative to pre-industrial levels) as a guiding principle for
no one was exactly sure how much fossil-fuel consumption had
already contributed to global warming, or how much fossil fuel mankind could consume without going over the two degrees Celsius marker. Those phenomena needed to be
quantified. Meinshausen’s team did just that. It constructed a rigorous model by incorporating hundreds of factors that had never been grouped together before, and then
ran them through a thousand different scenarios. The team’s conclusion? Time was perilously short. It found that if we continued at present levels of
fossil fuel consumption (and, in fact, consumption has been rising annually), we have somewhere between an 11- to 15-year window to prevent global
temperatures from surpassing the two degree Celsius threshold in this century. And the longer we waited, the worse the odds got. To quote
from a story on the Meinshausen paper by reporter Katherine Bagley of the non-profit news agency, InsideClimate News: “To have a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature
rise below two degrees, humans would have to stick to a carbon budget that allowed the release of no more than 1,437 gigatons of carbon dioxide from
2000 to 2050. “To have an 80-per-cent chance of avoiding that threshold, they would have to follow a stricter budget and emit just 886 gigatons .” To
put that in perspective, Meinshausen’s team calculated that the world’s nations had already produced 234 gigatons by 2006 . At our present rate, the paper predicted,
the world will surpass that 886-gigaton figure by 2024 — or sooner, if annual consumption rates continue to rise as they have. Since the
Meinshausen paper was published, several other studies have corroborated its findings . The math in them comes to basically the same conclusion. “Yes, I use
mitigation efforts to reduce climate change risks, impacts and damages.” The problem was,
Meinshausen’s study,” wrote Prof. Mark Jaccard, environmental economist at Simon Fraser University, in an email. “But I also use about five others that basically say the same thing. The
reason they all say the same thing is because the math is trivial — no
independent analysts dispute it. “This is not groupthink,” Jaccard wrote. “Even when we bring in vice-
presidents from oil and coal companies to be parts of the study groups, they quietly agree. When you are sitting in a meeting at Stanford (University) with top researchers
— and away from your marketing department — it is pretty hard to sustain the myths that ‘business-as-usual’ is OK.” Prof. Thomas Pederson, executive director of the Pacific Institute for
Climate Solutions, and former dean of science at the University of Victoria, noted in an email that “the study was conducted by one of the best teams of climate scientists in the world.”
continuing acceleration of emissions globally,” Pederson wrote, “we’re on or near the worst-case track that Meinshausen et al.
modelled, and that puts us on a probable course for several degrees of planetary warming by the end of this century. In a word, that will be
disastrous.” An even more alarming assessment comes from University of B.C. Prof. William Rees, originator of the “ecological footprint” concept. “I haven’t read this particular study,”
Rees wrote, “but it sounds about right. If I recall, the United Kingdom’s Tyndall Centre (for Climate Change Research) suggests that a 90-per-cent reduction in carbon
emissions from high income countries may be necessary. “In any event, various authors don’t believe we have any hope of cutting greenhouse gases
sufficiently in time to avoid a two Celsius degree increase in mean global temperature since to date , no serious steps have been taken
to wean the world off fossil fuels.” What would serious steps entail? According to the Meinshausen paper, up to 80 per cent of our known reserve of fossil
fuels will have to stay in the ground. “The carbon budget implied by the 2 C limit,” Jaccard wrote, “means that we cannot be making new
investments that expand the carbon polluting infrastructure. “This means no expansion of oilsands, no new pipelines (like Keystone
and Northern Gateway) and no expansion of coal mines and coal ports. “This does not mean shutting down the oilsands. It does not mean shutting coal mines.
These will continue to operate for decades. But you cannot be expanding carbon polluting production and also prevent 2 C or even 4 C temperature
increase. The industry knows this, but prefers its ads telling us about the jobs and revenue from expanding the polluting infrastructure.” But the remedies needed, Rees
suggested, might have to be even more draconian than that. “Even the International Energy Agency and the World Bank have recently conceded that even if
present agreed-upon policies were implemented, the world is likely headed to four Celsius degrees warming by the end of the century.
This would render much of the most heavily populated parts of the earth uninhabitable ...”
“Given
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Existing carbon triggers the impact
Daniel Rirdan
12, founder of The Exploration Company, “The Right Carbon Concentration Target”, June 29, http://theenergycollective.com/danielrirdan/89066/what-should-be-our-carbon-concentration-target-and-forgetpolitics?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29
James Hansen and other promi-nent cli-ma-tol-o-gists are call-ing to
bring the CO2 atmos-pheric level to 350 parts per million. In fact, an orga-ni-za-tion,
far more radical than most politicians are willing to entertain. And it is not likely to be enough.
The 350ppm target will not reverse the clock as far back as one may assume. It was in 1988 that we have had these level of car-bon con-cen-tra-tion in the
air. But wait, there is more to the story. 1988-levels of CO2 with 2012-levels of all other green-house gases bring us to a state of affairs equiv-a-lent
to that around 1994 (2.28 w/m2). And then there are aerosols. There is good news and bad news about them. The good news is that as long as we keep spewing
mas-sive amounts of particulate matter and soot into the air, more of the sun’s rays are scattered back to space, over-all the reflec-tiv-ity of clouds
increases, and other effects on clouds whose over-all net effect is to cool-ing of the Earth sur-face. The bad news is that once we stop polluting, stop run-ning
all the diesel engines and the coal plants of the world, and the soot finally settles down, the real state of affairs will be unveiled within weeks.
Once we fur-ther get rid of the aerosols and black car-bon on snow, we may be very well be worse off than what we have had around 2011 (a pos-si-ble
addi-tion of 1.2 w/m2). Thus, it is not good enough to stop all green-house gas emis-sions . In fact, it is not even close to being good enough. A
carbon-neutral econ-omy at this late stage is an unmit-i-gated disaster. There is a need for a carbon-negative economy. Essentially, it means that we have
not only to stop emitting, to the tech-no-log-i-cal extent pos-si-ble, all green-house gases, but also capture much of the crap we have already
out-gassed and lock it down. And once we do the above, the ocean will burp its excess gas, which has come from fos-sil fuels in the first place. So
we will have to draw down and lock up that carbon, too. We have taken fos-sil fuel and released its con-tent; now we have to do it in reverse—hundreds
350.org, came around that ral-ly-ing cry. This is
of bil-lions of tons of that stuff.
Need net negative emissions
Romm 8 (Joe Romm, Ph.D in Physics from MIT, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, former Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Energy, citing Ken Calderia, atmospheric scientist who works at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, Feb 28, 2008, “Stabilizing
climate requires near-zero emissions”, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/02/28/202398/stabilizing-climate-requires-near-zero-emissions/)
Avoiding climate catastrophe will probably require going to near-zero net emissions of greenhouse gases this century. That is the conclusion of a
new paper in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) co-authored by one of my favorite climate scientists, Ken Caldeira, whose papers always merit attention. Here is the abstract: Current international
climate mitigation efforts aim to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, human-induced climate warming
will continue for many centuries, even after atmospheric CO2 levels are stabilized . In this paper, we assess the CO2 emissions requirements for global temperature
stabilization within the next several centuries, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature
to hold climate constant at a given global
temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions. Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in
order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to
by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that
warming that is essentially irreversible
on centennial timescales.
Since the rest of the article is behind a firewall, let me extract a couple of key findings: … our results suggest that if
emissions were eliminated entirely, radiative forcing from atmospheric CO2 would decrease at a rate closely matched by declining ocean heat uptake, with the result that while future warming commitment may be negligible,
In the absence of human intervention to
actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere, each unit of CO2 emissions must be viewed as leading to quantifiable and essentially
permanent climate change on centennial timescales. We emphasize that a stable global climate is not synonymous with stable radiative forcing, but rather requires decreasing greenhouse gas levels in the
atmospheric temperatures may not decrease appreciably for at least 500 years. In short, the time for dramatic action is upon us. The study concludes:
atmosphere. We have shown here that stable global temperatures within the next several centuries can be achieved if CO2 emissions are reduced to nearly zero. This means that avoiding future human-induced climate
Bottom line: Stopping global warming is very hard — easily the
greatest challenge the human race has ever faced. The best we can hope for at this point is to limit warming to below the threshold
where the carbon-cycle feedbacks kick into overdrive, bringing about catastrophe (80 feet of sea level rise, widespread desertification, >50% species loss). In all
likelihood we need to slow cut emissions deeply and quickly enough that we get to the point this century where we can actually have
net negative emissions , by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while emitting almost none.
warming may require policies that seek not only to decrease CO2 emissions, but to eliminate them entirely.
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AT: BIO DIVERSITY
HADAL ZONE
TURN- THE
PLAN DESTROYS BIOD. THE PACIFIC ISLANDS ARE ALREADY THE LAST "UNTOUCHED" AREA OF
THE WORLD. INCREASING HUMAN INTERACTION WILL ONLY FURTHER DESTROY THE ECOLOGY OF THESE
AREAS. WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES ARE NOT SAFE FROM HUMAN INTERACTIONS.
Tolme 10 [National Wildlife (World Edition, American's Tropical Treasures, Oct/Nov 2010, http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/NationalWildlife/Animals/Archives/2010/Pacific-National-Marine-Monuments.aspx]
U.S. marine national monuments in the Pacific comprise some of the planet's healthiest ecosystems, yet even in these
remote locations, refuge managers struggle to erase the human imprint. A mother Laysan duckand her fuzzy brown ducklings waddle through
the grass on Midway Atoll, a U.S. national Wildlife refuge in the western Pacific Ocean. Biologist John Klavitter, assistant refuge manager, smiles at the sight. The
Laysan is the second-most endangered duck species in the world; it once lived on many islands in the Hawai'i Archipelago, but
invasive rats and habitat loss reduced it to one isolated island uninhabited by people. Now, thanks to a team of scientists, including
Klavitter, Laysan ducklings are an increasingly frequent sight at Midway.In 2004 and 2005, Klavitter and colleagues translocated 42 of these tiny ducks to the island.
Other duck species might have colonized Midway on their own by flying here, but Laysans evolved without land predators and thus have small wings good for only
short bursts of flight rather than long ocean journeys; So far, the project is a success--the Midway population has grown to 473 ducks. "Our dream of seeing Laysan
ducks thriving at Midway has come true," Klavitter says. Located at the outer edge of the Hawaiian island chain, 1,200 miles from' Honolulu, Midway is part of a grand
new experiment in the restoration and conservation of Pacific islands and their wildlife. It is part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, in the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Encompassing almost 140,000 square miles of ocean and a string of tiny uninhabited islands, it is one of four U.S. marine monuments
in the Pacific. Little-known to the public, these monuments cover 215 million acres of open ocean, islands, atolls, reefs and chunks of the seafloor. The monuments also
provide scientists with an opportunity to study ocean ecosystems that are virtually unaffected by human activity. In addition to translocating endangered species such as
the Laysan duck, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) officials who manage the refuges are working to erase damage done by
military bases, commercial fishing and other human activities. "It's difficult to call any place on the planet pristine
anymore, but these remote island ecosystems are as close as you get," says Project Leader Barry Stieglitz, who oversees the federal wildlife
refuges within the Pacific islands. The reason is simple: Nobody lives nearby to mess them up. Midway, with a year-round staff of refuge workers and
employees who carry out restoration projects, maintain the federal airport and oversee the upkeep of former military buildings, is the only refuge with a significant
population. Consequently, refuges within the four monuments are home to some of the world's largest seabird nesting colonies and some of the healthiest coral reef
ecosystems. The diversity and abundance of fish species within the monuments, where commercial fishing is prohibited, is off the charts.
Sharks, mercilessly overfished throughout the world's oceans, exist in numbers and varieties seldom seen anywhere else.
"The waters around these islands provide a vision of the apex predator ecosystems that used to exist around the world," Stieglitz says. Discoveries are frequent. A
potentially new species of beaked whale was recently documented off Palmyra Atoll, where schools of rare melonheaded
whales reside. In 2008, a research expedition discovered 100 new coral and fish species in Papahānaumokuākea. "The Pacific is
the last frontier," says FWS coral reef biologist Jim Maragos. "The coral reef ecosystems out here have not been degraded
to the extent of reefs elsewhere in the world. That means we can monitor and study them in the absence of direct human
influence. That is very rare these days." The four marine monuments are the newest additions to a national system that includes 10 terrestrial monuments,
such as Colorado's Dinosaur National Monument. The marine monuments were created between 2005 and 2009 by President George W. Bush, representing perhaps the
single great conservation achievement of an administration known primarily for rolling back environmental protections. First Lady Laura Bush, who visited the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, is believed to have been a key persuader. REFUGE RICHES Rose Atoll Marine National Monument is located west of Tahiti in
American Samoa. It covers 13,451 square miles and includes two islets totaling 21 acres, a fringing reef with an enclosed lagoon, plus the surrounding waters out to 50
nautical miles. The reefs and nearby waters are home to giant clams, green and hawksbill turtles and at least 270 species of reef fish. The islands and atolls of the
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument--Howland, Baker and Jarvis Islands in addition to Palmyra Atoll, Kingman Reef and the waters surrounding
Johnston and Wake Atolls--span the equator and are among the most isolated U.S. territories. These dots of land are vital nesting grounds for millions of seabirds and
provide stopovers for migratory shorebirds; surrounding waters are home to dolphins, groupers, giant clams, pearly oysters and rare fish, including the humphead
wrasse and bumphead parrotfish. Kingman Reef is the least disturbed coral reef in U.S. territory, possibly home to more sharks and large predatory fish than any other
coral reef on the planet. The Marianas Trench Marine National Monument lies in the western Pacific near Guam and includes the deepest point on Earth. If Mount
Everest were placed in the trench, its peak would be underwater. Undersea volcanoes and thermal vents support extremophiles and strange lifeforms that remain little
studied. "People think man has conquered the Earth, but we have visited the moon more times than we have been to the bottom of the trench," Stieglitz says.
Papahānaumokuākea is the largest marine monument, and its islands are the remnants of ancient volcanoes that have eroded into the sea. Kure Atoll is the northernmost
coral reef in the world• Nearby Midway Atoll harbors the largest colonies of Laysan and black-footed albatrosses on the planet. "I have worked at refuges around the
country, and there is no place where wildlife so dominates the ecosystem as it does here on Midway," refuge manager Matt Brown says. Aside from staff, the islands
within the marine monuments are off-limits to visitors; even scientists who want to do research there must receive permits. The one exception to the no-visitation rule is
Midway Atoll, a former military base that has one of only three runways in the marine monument system• Planes must land and depart at night to prevent collisions
with seabirds that fill the air during daylight. Visiting Midway during seabird nesting season is a bird-watcher's dream. More than a million adult Laysan albatrosses fill
the skies and cover the ground. Their chicken-sized hatchlings sit on the ground, squawking and clapping their beaks while awaiting the return of their parents, which
depart for a week or more on foraging excursions. Having evolved without land predators, the birds have virtually no fear of humans. Other seabird species--frigate
birds, boobies, noddies--seem to take up every inch of space not occupied by albatrosses. Red-tailed tropic birds roost at the base of trees while white terns fill the
branches above. Some birds even go subterranean: Visitors must be careful not to step on the burrows of Bonin petrels, which nest underground. Midway's seabird
populations have exploded since 1997, when the U.S. Navy, which formerly operated a military base here, funded a project to eradicate invasive rats that eat seabird
eggs and pose a major threat to Pacific islands. FWS staff hope to eradicate rats from Palmyra Atoll next, benefiting sooty terns and native trees that produce seeds and
fruit that the rats eat. Similar projects have taken place throughout the monument system. The elimination of feral cats has allowed blue noddies, the smallest tern
species and one of the few tropical seabirds to feed on marine insects, to return to Jarvis Island. Introduced rabbits that ravaged the vegetation of Laysan Island have
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the introduction of invasive species to the
monuments is a primary objective. Researchers who visit any of the protected sites, aside from Midway and Tern Islands and Palmyra
Atoll, must wear new clothing that has been frozen to kill any invasive seeds or insects. But accidents happen. Nonnative
yellow crazy ants recently turned up on Johnston Atoll. These aggressive insects threaten ground-nesting seabirds.
Nobody knows how the ants arrived; they could be evidence of an illegal visit. Shipwrecks are a threat to pristine coral
reefs because they leak fuel and their iron hulls spur the growth of bluegreen algae harmful to certain corals. Currently,
shipwrecks lie off Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef; officials are struggling to find the estimated $10 million needed to
remove them. Plastic trash is another problem. It not only washes up on refuge shores in ever-growing amounts but also is transported inland by
albatrosses, which eat plastic lighters, bottle caps and other bits of colorful floating trash and feed it to chicks, with sometimes fatal results. Over time, the
amount of plastic is dramatically increasing on Midway, Laysan, Tern and other islands in Papahānaumokuākea. Colorful bits of
trash glint in the sun where once there was only white sand. Global warming is the biggest threat to these low-lying
islands. Rising seas will eliminate nesting grounds for seabirds and sea turtles. Already, changes in ocean currents are
altering the locations of prime feeding grounds. Endangered monk seals in Papahānaumokuākea, the rarest seals in U.S. waters at
only 1,300 individuals, must now travel farther to find food, unwelcome news for a species in decline.
been eradicated, and FWS staff are now replanting bunchgrass and other native plants. Preventing
U.S. Fish and Wildlife services are limited in their oversight. There is no way they can stop
invasive speeches or ecological destruction via humans.
Tolme 10 [National Wildlife (World Edition, American's Tropical Treasures, Oct/Nov 2010, http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/NationalWildlife/Animals/Archives/2010/Pacific-National-Marine-Monuments.aspx
FEDERAL CORAL REEF biologist Jim Maragos was diving off Baker Island in 2008 when his boat captain lost sight of him for several hours. As sharks circled,
Maragos yelled for help until the boat crew finally located him. On another occasion, off Palmyra Atoll, Maragos again got separated from his boat and was spotted
only when brown boobies began circling him. "Thank God for boobies," Maragos says. Working conditions are challenging for the federal
officials who oversee the distant wildlife habitats in the four U.S. marine national monuments. Just getting to the
monuments can be a trial, because there are only three airplane runways n the system. Most islands must be visited by
ship a journey that can take weeks. "You can't just jump in a pickup truck like on most refuges," says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Susan
White, who oversees three of the marine monuments "We need ships and airplanes. Getting there is a logistical challenge." In the future,
federal officials would like to establish a remote monitoring network of audio and video equipment that would beam
images and sounds back to workers in Honolulu and the mainland. This would not only alert researchers to the arrival of seabirds or whales but
also would provide a law-enforcement tool to supplement the Coast Guard planes and cutters that patrol the monuments
for illegal fishing and other trespassing. But money is short. The annual FWS budget for the marine monuments is just
$16 million. "We are so far away from Washington," says Barry Stieglitz, who oversees federal wildlife refuges in the marine monuments. "We
would like to be on the radar screen of the American people."
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STATUS QUO SOLVES YOUR AFF.
US HAS INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE COOPERATION PROGRAMS NOW
Robert D. Hormats, March 2012, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Science & Diplomacy, Vol.
1, No. 1, http://www.state.gov/e/rls/rmk/2012/182545.htm
Twenty-first century statecraft also requires that we build greater people-to-people relationships. Science and technology cooperation makes that possible. For example,
through the Science Envoy program, announced by President Obama in 2009 in Cairo, Egypt, eminent U.S. scientists have met with
counterparts throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to build relationships and identify opportunities for sustained cooperation. With over half
of the world’s population under the age of thirty, we are developing new ways to inspire the next generation of science and technology
leaders. Over the past five years, the Department of State’s International Fulbright Science & Technology Award has
brought more than two hundred exceptional students from seventy-three different countries to the United States to pursue graduate
studies. Through the Global Innovation through Science and Technology Initiative, the United States recently invited young innovators from North Africa, the Middle
East, and Asia to post YouTube videos describing solutions to problems they face at home. The top submissions will receive financial support, business mentorship, and
networking opportunities. Advancing the rights of women and girls is a central focus of U.S. foreign policy and science diplomacy. As we work to empower women
and girls worldwide, we must ensure that they have access to science education and are able to participate and contribute fully during every stage of their lives.
Recently, we partnered with Google, Intel, Microsoft, and many other high-tech businesses to launch TechWomen, a
program that brings promising women leaders from the Middle East to Silicon Valley to meet industry thought-leaders,
share knowledge and experiences, and bolster cultural understanding.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION IS HAPPENING NOW. IT ALREADY SOLVES FOR THE PLAN.
Robert D.
Hormats
2012,
, March
Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Science & Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No.
1, http://www.state.gov/e/rls/rmk/2012/182545.htm
The practice of science is increasingly expanding from individuals to groups, from single disciplines to interdisciplinary, and from a national to an international scope.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that from 1985 to 2007, the number of scientific articles
published by a single author decreased by 45 percent. During that same period, the number of scientific articles published
with domestic co-authorship increased by 136 percent, and those with international co-authorship increased by 409
percent. The same trend holds for patents. Science collaboration is exciting because it takes advantage of expertise that exists around the country and around the
globe. American researchers, innovators, and institutions, as well as their foreign counterparts, benefit through these
international collaborations. Governments that restrict the flow of scientific expertise and data will find themselves isolated, cut off from the global networks
that drive scientific and economic innovation.
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THE USFG IS ALREADY CREATING NEW APPOINTMENTS AND FUNDING FOR SCIENCE.
Johnson ’10
[Jenny, “USAID appointment boosts science diplomacy focus”, April 8, http://scidev.net/en/news/usaid-appointment-boosts-science-diplomacy-focus.html
The US government's international development agency is stepping up its focus on science and
technology with a key appointment intended to enhance the agency's programmes in the Middle East and bolster the Obama
administration's push for science diplomacy. Alex Dehgan was appointed USAID's science and technology
advisor last month (11 March). The agency described him in a statement as "the focal point for implementing the
Administrator's vision to restore science and technology to its rightful place within USAID". An agency
spokeswoman said that Dehgan will work closely with USAID's senior counselor and director of innovation, Maura O'Neill, and will help shape development
strategies, as well as create "novel science-based initiatives". Dehgan's appointment is widely seen as
strengthening the administration's commitment to science diplomacy — the use of scientific programmes, such as efforts to
forge international cooperation among scientists and engineers, to achieve broader political objectives. Dehgan, a conservation biologist and an attorney in international
law, has worked for the US State Department in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. He also has experience working on large-scale conservation projects in the nongovernmental sector. The
appointment is "very encouraging", said Caroline Wagner, author of The New Invisible College: Science for
has a long background in science diplomacy, he is a bench-trained scientist, and he is young — he has energy
and drive." She said that this appointment adds to a growing list of high-level experts currently promoting US
science diplomacy. "There is a lot of interest and experience that's being brought to this issue." Al Teich, director of science and policy programmes at the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said that the appointment of Dehgan — who has worked as an AAAS fellow, helping to set
up an electronic library of scientific journals in Iraq — shows that science diplomacy is "an idea whose time has come". In
Development. "Dehgan
addition to furthering the administration's commitment to develop science and technology assistance to Islamic countries, Dehgan's background in conservation is seen
as strengthening a relatively new USAID's focus on environmental sciences. Although Dehgan is taking a newly-created position at the aid agency, the USAID
spokeswoman said that USAID is simply reviving a dormant area of interest: "USAID previously had a robust science and technology bureau and science advisor from
the late 1970s through the early 1990s". USAID's
focus on science and technology, as well as on the Muslim world, is likely to get a
boost from the federal budget for 2011. The Obama administration is asking Congress for a US $45 million increase in USAID funding over
2010, with most of the money to go to resources that "meet U.S. foreign policy objectives and support Presidential initiatives".
US TECHNOLOGICAL LEADERSHIP COLLAPSE IS INEVITABLE BECAUSE OF POPULATION
Lempert 8 (Richard O., the Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology at The University of Michigan Law School and a Research
Professor in the George Washington Institute of Public Policy, “Maintaining U.S. Scientific Leadership”, http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/03/maintaining-usscientific-leadership/, 3/3)
If these advantages were not enough, the competition for science leadership was weak thanks to the devastation that Europe suffered in two world wars and the slow
rebuilding of European economies in the post-war era. The upshot: U.S. science leadership is not natural and inevitable, but the loss of that
leadership may be. Countries much larger than the United States, most notably India and China, are experiencing economic
growth that outstrips ours, and as they grow in wealth they are rapidly improving their educational systems and basic
science infrastructures. Moreover, as globalization leads companies born in the United States to move research and production capacity abroad, market demand
for trained scientists and engineers is increasing elsewhere while it is being dampened here. Even if the United States retains a per capita education
and investment advantage over India and China, population differences alone mean that the number of trained scientists
and engineers in these countries will soon dwarf the number in America, with differences in the quantity and quality of
science innovation likely to follow. Added to the Asian challenge is a Europe that can no longer be seen as a set of discrete countries when it comes to
science. Rather, cross-border research teams are being encouraged, and European Union-wide funding mechanisms are being established. In short, several
decades from now we may find that we are not the world’s number one country when it comes to science, however
measured, but perhaps no. 4 behind China, India, and the EU. We may also find that being in fourth place is not altogether bad. When children in
China are vaccinated against polio, they are not worse off because the vaccine was invented in the United States. When an Indian inventor draws on two decades of U.S.
government-funded research to achieve a technological breakthrough, her accomplishment will not be lessened because it would not have happened had research in the
United States not paved the way.
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AT: CHINA
HADAL ZONE
War with china will not occur. China's current mission is Soft power not militarism.
BBC June 2014 [Xi Jinping promises neighbours China soft Power http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28071028]
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said China will never seek to impose its will on other nations, no matter how strong it
becomes. Mr Xi was speaking in Beijing as he hosted leaders from India and Myanmar (Burma) for a weekend of talks. Many of China's neighbours are
embroiled in territorial disputes with Beijing. They are concerned about China's growing military spending and what some see as its
increasing assertiveness. The speech came on the 60th anniversary of a mutual non-aggression and non-interference agreement signed with India and what was
then Burma. "China does not subscribe to the notion that a country is bound to seek hegemony when it grows in strength," he
said. "Hegemony or militarism is not in the genes of the Chinese. China will unswervingly pursue peaceful development
because it is good for China, good for Asia and good for the world." With this speech, China's president had one clear
goal: sending a message of reassurance to China's neighbours and other nations further afield watching this nation's rise, who wonder what sort of great
power it may turn out to be. The occasion he picked was a conference here in Beijing marking 60 years, he said, of peaceful co-existence with India and Myanmar. It's
not in Chinese people's genes to seek to dominate or bully, to be militaristic, he said. But whether President Xi's message works is another question. India, whose vicepresident was here listening, has chunks of territory that China claims or controls but which India considers its own. In recent months we have seen clashes at sea
between Chinese and Vietnamese ships, and tensions rising with Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan over maritime disputes, all with China. However , much of
President Xi's message seemed ultimately directed at the United States. He said what he called the law of the jungle was a
thing of the past, where one nation sought to dominate international affairs. And he said he wanted a new security architecture for Asia. But
as China spends more and more on its military and seeks to expand its influence, its neighbours and the United States will look to what China does as much as to what
China's president says. line And in what appeared to be a dig at the United States, he suggested that great power dominance was a
thing of the past. "The notion of dominating international affairs belongs to a different age, and such attempts are doomed
to failure," he said. " Flexing military muscles only reveals a lack of moral ground or vision, rather than reflecting
one's strength ." He also called for "a new architecture of Asia-Pacific security". China is locked in disputes with several neighbours over claims in the South
China Sea, and is seeking to counter US attempts to increase its presence in Asia.
U.S. RISKS LOSING AIRSEA BATTLE DUE TO LACK OF CONFIDENCE FROM ALLIES
Buxbaum 10 [Peter A. Buxbaum, Oil Price, “Chinese Plans to End US Hegemony in the Pacific,” May 31, 2010, accessed June 23, 2014,
http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Chinese-Plans-To-End-US-Hegemony-In-The-Pacific.html][LG]
The US also faces the problem of bolstering the confidence of its allies. If US allies fold in the face of increasing Chinese power, China
could win a war on the Pacific without firing a shot. ¶ "US success will depend heavily on Japan’s active participation as an ally," said
Krepinevich. "Most US allies in the region and lack strategic depth and must be supported and defended from the sea. US inability, real
or perceived, to defend its allies and partners could lead to regional instability, including coercion or aggression. "¶ But the US may
already be losing the hearts and minds of the Japanese. As a recent article in the Washington Post noted, Japan's current government, "only the second
opposition party to take power in nearly 50 years," advocates "a more Asia-centric view of Japan's place in the world." Although the immediate crisis on the Korean
peninsula is having the effect of cementing US-Japanese relations-the Japanese government has accepted a plan it once rejected to relocate a US Marine base on
Okinawa-it is not clear how long that attitude will last.¶ Admiral Roughead noted that the US Navy has a strong operational relationship with the Japanese Maritime
Self-Defense Force. But if the Asia-centric attitudes in Japan prevail, the JMFDS could easily develop a closer relationship with the Chinese navy. ¶ Roughead
acknowledged reports that the Chinese are planning to deploy one or more aircraft carriers to the Pacific, a new capability for them, but dismissed any potential threat to
US interests. "Carrier operations are very complex," he said. "It took us 70 years to get where we are. ¶ "Besides," he added, "the bigger questions are what the
intentions of the Chinese are and how the carriers will be used. "¶ But US allies in the region might not see things that way. The
projection of Chinese power on the Pacific may be enough for them to perceive their interests differently. ¶ As Sun Tzu said in his classic, The
Art of War, "To win one 100 victories in 100 battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."¶
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BIO DIVERSITY SCENARIO
HADAL ZONE
BIODIVERSITY
LOSS IS INEVITABLE, THE AFF DOESN'T SOLVE FOR THE ROOT CAUSE. CAPITALISTIC
CONSUMPTION WILL DRIVE NATIONS TO INCREASE RESOURCE EXTRACTION AT THE COST OF ANIMAL AND
PLANT LIVES.
Steinberg, 1999 [Phillip Steinberg, Enviroment and Palling D:Society and Space, 1999, vol 17. pages 403-426, The maritime mystique: sustainable
development, capital mobility, and nostalgia in the world ocean http://mailer.fsu.edu/~psteinbe/garnet-psteinbe/s%26s.pdf.]
There is a long history of the ocean as an arena of social transformation. It is generally acknowledged that the early seventeenth century 'Battle of the Books' gave birth
to the modern structures of international law (Colombos, 1967, page 8), and ocean law remains an important arena for shaping the system of
international relations that structures states as well as governing relations among them (Robles, 1996; Ruggie, 1993; Taylor, 1993; 1995). Along
with contributing to some of the social categories that have prevailed in land space, including modern notions of masculinity (Creighton, 1995) and class solidarity
(Rediker, 1987), struggles over ocean access have also inspired oppositional movements. They have provided an arena for challenging
what Shapiro (1997) calls the "violent cartographies" of statism. Thus Foucault points to the ship at sea as the "heterotopia par excellence": "In civilizations without boats, dreams dry
up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates" (Foucault, 1986, page 27). Historical examples of the role of the sea in forging alternative identities and social structures range from pirate
bands (Kuhn, 1997) and anarchist collectives (Sekula, 1995) to environmental movements (Brown and May, 1991) and diaspora nations (Gilroy, 1993)/4) Building upon this history and reflecting on the recent Law of the Sea
negotiations, a number of scholars have suggested that the collective governance of the sea be used as a model for radical notions of global citizenship and entitlements (Borgese, 1998; Pacem in Maribus, 1992; Van Dyke et
Keith (1977), in a discussion that has parallels to the actual case of the proposed manganese nodule mining regime, speculates
that the emergence of 'floating cities' would likely challenge the entire system of territorial statesthat provides the foundational
political divisions for capitalist competition. In literature too, the sea is increasingly depicted as a space of social liberation from the
oppressions of militarism, capitalism, and patriarchy (Bcrthold, 1995), as in the novels of Oetavia Butler, Ursula LcGuin, and Joan Slonezcwskl Whether
these visions of the sea as a site of social change come to fruition is not the point. As we have seen from the recent example of manganese nodule
mining, the crisis in the regulation of ocean space has intensified to the point where, for a considerable duration, the world's powers
found themselves supporting a regime that seemed to challenge the principles of capitalist enterprise. The broad support that this
regime received suggests the depth of the regulatory crisis, and in this context one should not underestimate the transformative
potential of struggles over oceanic space, resources, and access. This context—the structural contradiction of capitalist spatialtty—also demonstrates the superficiality (and indeed
al, 1993).
the danger) of the three images that increasingly characterize ocean space. For the images not only tell partial stories, They obscure material relations of exploitation experienced by those who derive their living from the
sea—seafarers, dockworkcrs, artisanal fishing communities, and others who may be 'managed' out of existence by the regulatory strategics with which each image is aligned. Despite their erasure from the popular
that the ocean is a locus of intense capitalist contradiction and a potential source of social
change. To interpret this contradiction and to contribute to the authoring of that social change, it is imperative that we look beyond the
prevailing ocean imagery and pierce the maritime mystique.
imagination, these individuals experience on a daily basis the fact
EVEN CONSERVATION BIOLOGISTS AGREE SPECIES LOSS IS SLOW AND THERE'S NO IMPACT
SIMON 1998 (Julian, world-renowned economist, The Ultimate Resource II, Feb 16
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR31.txt )
Starting in the early 1980s I published the above critical analysis of the standard extinction estimates. For several years these criticisms produced no response at all.
But then in response to questions that I and others raised, the "official" IUCN (the World Conservation Union) commissioned a book edited by
Whitmore and Sayer to inquire into the extent of extinctions. The results of that project must be considered amazing.
All the authors - the very
conservation biologists who have been most alarmed by the threat of species die-offs - continue to be concerned about the rate of extinction.
Nevertheless, they confirm the central assertion; all agree that the rate of known extinctions has been and continues to be very low. I will tax your
patience with lengthy quotations (with emphasis supplied) documenting the consensus that there is no evidence of massive or increasing rates of
species extinction, because this testimony from the conservation biologists themselves is especially convincing; furthermore, if only shorter quotes were presented,
the skeptical reader might worry that the quotes were taken out of context. (Even so, the skeptic may want to check the original texts to see that the quotations fairly
represent the gist of the authors' arguments.)
NO IMPACT—MASS EXTINCTIONS WILL BE FOLLOWED BY RECOVERY, NOT COLLAPSE
RUSE 2002
(Michael, Philosopher and Author, The Globe and Mail, August 24)
Let me say straight out that this is the most egregiously mislabelled book I have ever encountered. The author follows in the footsteps of the late Jack
Sepkoski, a Chicago paleontologist (and incidentally a sometime student of Gould's), who performed brilliant mega-analyses of the fossil record,
gathering together huge amounts of data about past species (and higher taxa) and using computers to extract hitherto-unseen trends and
salient features of life's history. Specifically, Sepkoski found that there are times of evolutionary breakthrough, rises in numbers of
certain forms of life, followed by cooling-off periods and then rapid decline. Together with his colleague David Raup, Sepkoski also investigated the
massive extinction episodes that we find in the fossil record - one of the most recent and famous being the time 65 million years ago, when a comet hit the earth and
finished off the dinosaurs. Yet fascinatingly, although Sepkoski argued that extinction is incredibly important in life's history - the mammals would
hardly have taken over the world if the dinos were still around - he concluded that in the long run, the overall patterns seem
impervious to the extinctions. Life has a tempo of its own, apparently, and can continue despite disruptions..
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SPECIES LOSS GOOD
HADAL ZONE
SPECIES LOSS IS KEY TO LONG-TERM EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE
BOULTER 2002
(Michael, professor of paleobiology at the University of East London, Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man, p. 170)
The same trend of long-drawn-out survival of the final relicts has been further considered by Bob May’s group at Oxford, particularly Sean Nee. The Oxford group are
vociferous wailers of gloom and doom: ‘Extinction episodes, such as the anthropogenic one currently under way, result in a pruned tree of life.’ But they go on to
argue that the vast majority of groups survive this pruning, so that evolution goes on, albeit along a different path if the environment is changed. Indeed,
the fossil record has taught us to expect a vigorous evolutionary response when the ecosystem changes significantly . This kind of research
is more evidence to support the idea that evolution thrives on culling. The planet did really well from the Big Five mass-extinction events. The
victims’ demise enabled new environments to develop and more diversification took place in other groups of animals and plants.
Nature was the richer for it. In just the same way the planet can take advantage from the abuse we are giving it. The harder the abuse, the
greater the change to the environment. But it also follows that it brings forward the extinctions of a whole selection of vulnerable organisms.
THIS PREVENTS TOTAL EXTINCTION OF LIFE ON EARTH
BOULTER 2002
(Michael, professor of paleobiology at the University of East London, Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man, p. 67)
If biological evolution really is a self-organised Earth-life system there are some very important consequences. One is that life on this planet continues despite internal
and external setbacks, because it is the system that recovers at the expense of some of its former parts . For example, the end of the
dinosaurs enabled mammals to diversify. Otherwise if the exponential rise were to reach infinity, there would not be space or food to
sustain life. It would come to a stop. Extinctions are necessary to retain life on this planet.
HUMANS WILL SURVIVE—WE CAN ISOLATE OURSELVES FROM THE ENVIRONMENT
POWERS 2002
(Lawrence, Professor of Natural Sciences, Oregon Institute of Technology, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 9)
Mass extinctions appear to result from major climatic changes or catastrophes, such as asteroid impacts. As far as we know, none has resulted from
the activities of a species, regardless of predatory voracity, pathogenicity, or any other interactive attribute. We are the first species with the potential to
manipulate global climates and to destroy habitats, perhaps even ecosystems -- therefore setting the stage for a sixth mass extinction.
According to Boulter, this event will be an inevitable consequence of a "self-organized Earth-life system." This Gaia-like proposal might account for many of the
processes exhibited by biological evolution before man's technological intervention, but ... the rules are now dramatically different. ... Many species may vanish,
... but that doesn't guarantee, unfortunately, that we will be among the missing. While other species go bang in the night, humanity will
technologically isolate itself further from the natural world and will rationalize the decrease in biodiversity in the same manner as we
have done so far. I fear, that like the fabled cockroaches of the atomic age, we may be one of the last life-forms to succumb, long after
the "vast tracts of beauty" that Boulter mourns we will no longer behold vanish before our distant descendants' eyes.
BIODIVERSITY IS BAD—COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE MORE PRONE TO TOTAL FAILURE—SIMPLE ONES ARE STABLE
HEATH 1999
(Jim, Orchids Australia, December, http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/whysave.htm)
Some people say we can’t afford to lose any species, no matter what species they are. Everything needs everything else, they say, to make nature balance. If that were
right, it might explain why the six orchid species should be saved. Alas, no. We could pour weedkiller on all the orchids in Australia and do no ecological
damage to the rest of the continent’s biology. But wouldn’t the natural ecological systems then become less stable, if we start plucking
out species - even those orchids? Not necessarily. Natural biological systems are hardly ever stable and balanced anyway. Everything goes
along steadily for a time, then boom - the system falls apart and simplifies for no visible reason. Diverse systems are usually more
unstable than the less diverse ones. Biologists agree that in some places less diversity is more stable (in the Arctic, for example). Also, monocultures - farms can be very stable. Not to mention the timeless grass of a salt marsh. In other words, there’s no biological law that says we have to save the orchids because they add
diversity, and that added diversity makes the biological world more stable.
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HEG SCENARIO
HADAL ZONE
ATTEMPTING TO SUSTAIN US HEGEMONY WILL TRIGGER A QUICK ADJUSTMENT AND INEVITABLE DECLINE
Ted
Carpenter 13
, 20
, March-April, Delusions of Indispensability, National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/article/delusions-indispensability-8145 (Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor to The
National Interest, is the author of nine books and more than 500 articles and policy studies. His latest book isThe Fire Next Door: Mexico’s Drug Violence and the Danger to America)
Those who desperately try to preserve a status quo with America as the indispensable nation risk an unpleasant outcome. A country
with America’s financial
woes will find it increasingly onerous to carry out its vast global-security commitments. That raises the prospect of a sudden,
wrenching adjustment at some point when the United States simply cannot bear those burdens any longer . That is what happened to Britain
after World War II, when London had no choice but to abandon most of its obligations in Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean. The speed and extent of the British move created or exacerbated numerous power vacuums. It is far better for the
United States to preside over an orderly transition to an international system in which Washington plays the role of first among equals,
rather than clinging to a slipping hegemony until it is forced to give way.
US HEGEMONY NOT SUSTAINABLE
Sullivan, May 1, 2014, The Dish, “Letting Go of American Hegemony,” http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/05/01/a-wartime-president-of-a-
Andrew
peacetime-country/
This kind of pragmatic balancing act has none of the glory of the Cold War and a dispiriting (to some) element of retreat. But in many ways, this is
inevitable . The staggering success of the West’s model in the last two decades is not one that can be sustained at the same pace. You
don’t get to liberate Europe twice. And of course the biggest factors behind this new climate are the disastrous wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. They essentially revealed the US military as all-powerful on paper but inevitably insufficient to deal
with sectarian hatred in the Muslim world, or running a “country” that cannot be run outside of a dictatorship or
authoritarian figure. Even drones reached a point quite quickly at which their costs outweighed their benefits.
SUSTAINING GLOBAL HEGEMONY IMPOSSIBLE
Jentleson 14
Bruce W.
, 20 , Washington Quarterly, March, “Strategic Recalibration: Framework for 21 st Century National Security Strategy,”
http://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/strategic-recalibration-framework-21st-century-national-security-strategy, Professor at Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
U.S. interests need recalibrating in four main ways. First, pursuing hegemony on anything close to the preponderance of the Cold War, let alone that “unipolar
moment” right after, is not in the U.S. interest. The costs of seeking to do so are much greater today: even defense spending has seen
cuts, let alone foreign assistance. The capacity to bear those costs is much less. Even
without fiscal pressures and other domestic
constraints,
the shifts in the distribution of
power, the prevalence of others’ foreign policies
to be grounded more on national
interests and
identities than major power alignment, and other
strategic forces shaping this 21st-century world impose
inherent limits on any state—be it the United States, China, or whomever—aspiring to hegemony. Major powers will continue to compete for geopolitical advantage;
there should neither be excessive expectations nor threat inflation. Relative gains still matter, but they will be limited by the centrifugal system dynamics and come with the burdens of trying to maintain control. The United
States has been taught this lesson all too painfully. As China of late has engaged in more regional muscle-flexing, it has spurred countermoves from a range of neighbors, ironically setting up an almost classic balancing
situation for the United States. Russia too has found its gains among former Soviet states to be fleeting (with Ukraine inevitably becoming the next example of that).
US HEGEMONIC PROWESS DID NOT DETER GLOBAL CONFLICT
Hadar,
14,
May 14, 20
“The Myth of America’s Peacekeeping Past,” http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-myth-of-americas-global-peacekeeping-past/ (Leon Hadar is a foreign policy analyst, author, and contributing editor
at TAC. He holds a Ph.D. from American University, and is the author of the books Quagmire: America in the Middle East and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East. He is a Wikistrat expert and former Cato Institute research fellow, and his articles have
appeared in theNew York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the National Interest.)
Leon
Yet consider the following application of such thinking back to the supposed period of the Pax Americana: The United States emerged as the victorious and
undisputed global power in the aftermath of the Cold War, and yet a tin-pot dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein was willing to invade Kuwait and defy the only remaining superpower and its freshly established new world order. So the
It followed the first Gulf War with the enunciation of a “dual
containment” strategy vis-à-vis both Iraq and Iran that included the deployment of U.S. troops in the region. And yet even this
remarkable show of American military force did very little to deter another bad guy, Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević, from challenging
American dictates and from asserting Serbia’s power during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. So again, the United States had to use its military force in the Balkans against the Serbs. The U.S.
eventually agreed to the dismembering of Serbia and the secession of the Kosovars, a move that ran contrary to the America-backed
international norm of maintaining the territorial integrity of a nation state (a principle that Washington is eager to defend in Ukraine today). In any
case, with all their military might and diplomatic power, U.S. presidents in the golden age of Pax Americana failed to bring peace to the
Holy Land (the only successful deal, the Oslo Agreement, was achieved in bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians), or to weaken Saddam’s hold on power in Baghdad, or the Ayatollah’s grip in Tehran . They couldn’t
even prevent the rise to power of new adversaries like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in the U.S.’s geographical backyard.
United States had no choice but to come to the aid of its allies in the Persian Gulf and use its military power to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
43
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
HADAL ZONE
UNIPOLARITY DID NOT PRODUCE GLOBAL PEACE
Acharya 2014,
Amitav
,
professor of international relations at American University, Washington, D.C., where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational
Challenges and Governance at the School of International Service, and serves as the chair of the ASEAN Studies Center, The End of American World Order, p. Kindle
The post-cold war debates over unipolarity take stability to include the peacefulness of the international system. Peace is equated entirely with the absence of
systemic or major power war. Both perspectives ignore internal and regional conflicts, alongside intervention in the developing world
or the War on Terror. By equating unipolarity with peace, the unipolar stability thesis takes a rather narrow view of stability and ignores the horrific
regional conflicts that ravaged the Balkans, the Great Lakes region of Africa, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan after the 9/ 11 attacks,
and the War on Terror, among others. Internal and local conflicts or collateral damage from the War on Terror were not regarded as threats to peace. Both the unipolar stability and unipolar illusion
perspectives, which embrace the realist view of international relations, believe that the end of unipolarity would mean heightened global disorder. 18 What is more interesting is that a similar equation between peace and the
preponderance of American power can be found in liberal perspectives on world order. Hence the claim by some American liberal theorists (to be discussed in the next chapter) that the American-led liberal hegemony order
(a form of unipolarity albeit legitimized through American strategic restraint and American-inspired multilateral institutions) has been largely peace-inducing and that its end would mean instability and disorder in the
international system. Acharya, Amitav (2014-04-25). The End of American World Order (Kindle Locations 437-439). Wiley. Kindle Edition.
UNIPOLAR
PEACE THEORY GROUNDED IN
EUROCENTRIC
APPROACHES TO HISTORY AND THE WORLD IS
CHANGING
Acharya 14
Amitav
, 20 , professor of international relations at American University, Washington, D.C., where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational
Challenges and Governance at the School of International Service, and serves as the chair of the ASEAN Studies Center, The End of American World Order, p. Kindle
Much of the evidence behind Mearsheimer's “back to the future” prognosis for Europe after the cold war , as well as Friedbeg's “ripe for
rivalry” outlook for Asia, came from Europe before World War II. The evidence for “unipolar illusion,” that is, the transience of unipolarity and the
rise of challengers, also comes from Europe based on the response to the rise of France in the later seventeenth century and of Britain in
the late eighteenth century. The argument for unipolar stability is made by showing how the current unipolarity under the US is
distinct from past situations where the concentration of power was the greatest – for example, 1860– 70 (Britain in Europe), and 1945– 55 (the cold
war). Wohlforth expects us to believe that because unipolarity is more real this time around, durable peace would be more likely . While
debates over the unipolar moment revolved around lessons drawn from Western history and geopolitics (European and cold war as applied to the “central strategic
balance”), the world is fast moving toward a situation with no historical precedent, i.e., the simultaneous rise of a number of states existing in different geographic
locations which nonetheless interact on a regular and sustained basis. While individual great powers had existed in different parts of the world throughout history, they
were always in relative isolation from each other. Globalization, with the attendant transport and communication revolutions, new power
projection technologies, and the emergence of global institutions and norms, and transnational actors (both positive players like human rights
advocacy groups and dark forces like transnational criminal gangs) now make it possible, and indeed imperative, for great powers to interact in a
sustained manner to affect international order globally. The result is a world that can hardly be described in terms of the traditional
Eurocentric historiography of polarity. By the time the world was catching up to this realization, partly as the result of another overblown narrative about the
“rise of the Rest,” one important factor in the traditional discourse of American hegemony was making a last stand, which could be called a theory of the liberal
hegemonic order, or hegemony without a hegemon. Acharya, Amitav (2014-04-25). The End of American World Order (Kindle Locations 449-457). Wiley. Kindle
Edition.
occurred in the developing world. Acharya, Amitav (2014-04-25). The End of American World Order (Kindle Locations 2473-2478). Wiley. Kindle Edition.
TURN- US HEGEMONY TRIGGER TERRORISM
Leon Hadar, May 14, 2014,
“The Myth of America’s Peacekeeping Past,” http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-myth-of-americas-global-peacekeeping-past/
(Leon Hadar is a foreign policy analyst, author, and contributing editor at TAC. He holds a Ph.D. from American University, and is the author of the
books Quagmire: America in the Middle East and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East. He is a Wikistrat expert and former Cato Institute
research fellow, and his articles have appeared in theNew York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign
Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the National Interest.)
Eventually, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 demonstrated that, contrary to the prevailing axiom, American
military supremacy not only failed to maintain
global stability, but it helped ignite new threats to its own security at home and abroad, and required the United States to go to war
once again in long and expensive military conflicts in Afghanistan and later Ira q. There is something morally appalling in Kagan, The Economist,
and other cheerleaders for the botched wars in the Greater Middle East arguing once again that only the full application of American military power will deter
aggression and build the foundations for stability. One would expect those pundits whose preferred policies after 9/11 helped destabilize the
Middle East, strengthen the power of Iran and its Shiite partners, and eventually weaken American military and economic power, to
demonstrate a certain level of intellectual humility.
44
INNERARITY
TSDC 14
POLITICS LINK
HADAL ZONE
NO SUPPORT FOR OCEAN REFORM
Migliaccio 14 – JD @ Vermont Law School
(Emily, “NOTE: THE NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY: CAN IT REDUCE MARINE POLLUTION AND STREAMLINE
OUR OCEAN BUREAUCRACY?,” 15 Vt. J. Envtl. L. 629)//BB
The Obama Administration issued Executive Order 13,547, intending for Congress to "show support for effective implementation of the NOP,
including the establishment of an ocean investment fund"--the hope being that Congress would codify the Order in subsequent legislation. 130 At
present, Congress is wrestling with some bills relating to the NOP; however, not all proposals support the policy. For example, the House has
adopted an amendment to the Water Resources and Development Act ("WRDA") 131 that would bar the Obama Administration from
implementing marine spatial planning under the WRDA, specifically "preventing the Army Corps of Engineers and other entities that receive money from the
bill from implementing such planning as part of the National Ocean Policy." 132 Then again, also before Congress is a bill that seeks to establish a National
Endowment for the Oceans, which would fund programs and activities to "restore, protect, maintain, or understand living marine resources and their habitats and ocean,
coastal, and Great Lakes resources. . . ." 133 For this bill to pass, House and Senate members must agree to prioritize ocean conservation and research, and allocate
Policy] is appearing on the Congressional docket, it is hard to find hope for
successful ocean reform in the current congressional atmosphere .
funds to [647] the initiative. Although the NOP [National Ocean
45