Warming
Warming is real and anthropogenic – most comprehensive scientific data analysis proves consensus
Cook et al 5/15 – Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia (John, “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic
Global Warming in the Scientific Literature”, 5/15/13; < http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/17489326_8_2_024024.pdf>)//Beddow
An accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support
for climate policy (Ding et al 2011 ). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people’s acceptance
that climate change (CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012 ). Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide
public perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012 , Pew 2012 ). In
the most comprehensive analysis performed to date, we have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed
climate papers in Oreskes ( 2004 ). We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC,
published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human
activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found
strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009 , Anderegg et al 2010 ).
Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996
to 2009 (Bray 2010 ). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on
the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996 , 2001 , Solomon et al 2007 ). The peer-reviewed scientific literature
provides a ground- level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of
abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search ‘global climate change’ found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus
position on AGW (Oreskes 2004 ). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in the early
1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010 ). Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the
scientific community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of
the US public believes there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007 ). Similarly,
57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very likely warming due to human activity (Pew
2012 ). Through
analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study provides the
most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level and evolution
of consensus over the last two decades.
Skeptics are wrong they cherrypick data ignoring long term trends of warming
Nuccitelli 1/10 - Environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “Did Global Warming Stop in 1998, 1995, 2002,
2007, 2010?”, 1/10/13; < http://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008-basic.htm>)//Beddow
A common claim amongst climate "skeptics" is that the Earth has been cooling recently. 1998 was the first year
claimed by "skeptics" for "Global Cooling". Then 1995 followed by 2002. 'Skeptics' have also emphasized the year 2007-2008 and most recently
the last half of 2010. NASA and climate scientists throughout the world have said, however, that the years starting since 1998 have been the
hottest in all recorded temperature history. Do these claims sound confusing and contradictory? Has the Earth been cooling, lately? To find out
whether there is actually a "cooling trend," it is important to consider all of these claims as a whole, since they follow the same pattern. In
making these claims, 'skeptics' cherrypick short periods of time, usually about 10 years or less. 'Skeptics'
also take selected areas of the world where cold records for the recent past are being set while ignoring
other areas where all time heat records are being set. The temperature chart below is based on information acquired from
NASA heat sensing satellites. It covers a 30 year period from January 1979 to November 2010. The red curve indicates the average temperature
throughout the entire Earth. The red line represents the average temperature. The top of the curves are warmer years caused by El Niño; a
weather phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean gives out heat thus warming the Earth. The bottoms of the curves are usually La Niña years
which cool the Earth. Volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 will also cool the Earth over short timeframes of 1-2 years. Below is the
same temperature chart, showing how 'skeptics' manipulate the data to give the impression of 'Global Cooling'. First they choose the warmest
most recent year they can find. Then, in this case, they exclude 20 years of previous temperature records. Next they draw a line from the
warmest year (the high peak) to the lowest La Niña they can find. In doing this they falsely give the impression that an ordinary La Niña is
actually a cooling trend. The chart above clearly shows that temperatures have gone up. When temperatures for the warm El Niño years (pink
lines) during 1980-1995 are compared to 1998-2010, there is a sudden increase of at least 0.2o Centigrade (0.36o Fahrenheit). Temperatures
also jumped up by about 0.15oC (0.27oF) between the cool La Niña years (Green lines) of 1979-1989 and those of 1996-2008 (the eruption of
Mount Pinatubo in 1991 lowered the Earth's temperatures in the midst of an El Niño cycle). The
overall trend from 1979 through
November 2010 (Brown line) shows an unmistakable rise. This is particularly clear when we
statistically remove the short-term influences from the temperature record, as Kevin C did here: Did global
warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010? Link to this page The skeptic argument... Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007,
2010, ???? "January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major well respected indicators. HadCRUT, RSS,
UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year" (source: Watts Up With That). What the science says... Select a
level... Basic Intermediate Global temperatures continue to rise steadily beneath the short-term noise. A
common claim amongst
climate "skeptics" is that the Earth has been cooling recently. 1998 was the first year claimed by "skeptics" for "Global
Cooling". Then 1995 followed by 2002. 'Skeptics' have also emphasized the year 2007-2008 and most recently the last half of 2010. NASA and
climate scientists throughout the world have said, however, that the years starting since 1998 have been the hottest in all recorded
temperature history. Do these claims sound confusing and contradictory? Has the Earth been cooling, lately? To find out whether there is
actually a "cooling trend," it is important to consider all of these claims as a whole, since they follow the same pattern. In making these claims,
'skeptics'
cherrypick short periods of time, usually about 10 years or less. 'Skeptics' also take selected
areas of the world where cold records for the recent past are being set while ignoring other areas where
all time heat records are being set. The temperature chart below is based on information acquired from NASA heat sensing
satellites. It covers a 30 year period from January 1979 to November 2010. The red curve indicates the average temperature throughout the
entire Earth. The red line represents the average temperature. The top of the curves are warmer years caused by El Niño; a weather
phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean gives out heat thus warming the Earth. The bottoms of the curves are usually La Niña years which cool
the Earth. Volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 will also cool the Earth over short timeframes of 1-2 years. Figure 1: University of
Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) temperature chart from January 1979 to November 2010. This chart is shown with no trend lines so the viewer may
make his own judgment. Below is the same temperature chart, showing how 'skeptics' manipulate the data to give the impression of 'Global
Cooling'. First they choose the warmest most recent year they can find. Then, in this case, they exclude 20 years of previous temperature
records. Next they draw a line from the warmest year (the high peak) to the lowest La Niña they can find. In
doing this they falsely
give the impression that an ordinary La Niña is actually a cooling trend. Figure 2: Representation of how 'skeptics'
distort the temperature chart. Even though the chart clearly indicates increased warming, 'skeptics' take small
portions of out of context to claim the opposite. What do the past 30 years of temperature data really show? Below is the
answer. Figure 3: Trend lines showing the sudden jump in temperatures in the 1995 La Niña (Green lines) and the 1998 (Pink lines) El Niño
events. Brown line indicates overall increase in temperatures. The chart above clearly shows that temperatures have gone up. When
temperatures for the warm El Niño years (pink lines) during 1980-1995 are compared to 1998-2010, there is a sudden increase of at least 0.2o
Centigrade (0.36o Fahrenheit). Temperatures also jumped up by about 0.15oC (0.27oF) between the cool La Niña years (Green lines) of 19791989 and those of 1996-2008 (the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 lowered the Earth's temperatures in the midst of an El Niño cycle). The
overall trend from 1979 through November 2010 (Brown line) shows an unmistakable rise. This
is particularly clear when we
statistically remove the short-term influences from the temperature record, as Kevin C did here: In spite
of these facts, 'skeptics' simply keep changing their dates for 'Global Cooling', constantly confusing
short-term noise and long-term trends (Figure 4).
Warming is reversible, carbon reductions mitigate its worst effects.
Desjardins 13 (Clea, “Global Warming: irreversible but not inevitable”, Concordia University, http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-wedo/research/20130402/global-warming-irreversible-but-not-inevitable.php//SJ)
There is a persistent misconception among both scientists and the public that there is a delay between emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and
the climate’s response to those emissions. This misconception
has led policy makers to argue that CO2 emission
cuts implemented now will not affect the climate system for many decades. This erroneous line of
argument makes the climate problem seem more intractable than it actually is, say Concordia University’s
Damon Matthews and MIT’s Susan Solomon in a recent Science article. ¶ The researchers show that immediate decreases in
CO2 emissions would in fact result in an immediate decrease in the rate of climate warming. Explains
Matthews, professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, “If we can successfully decrease CO2
emissions in the near future, this change will be felt by the climate system when the emissions
reductions are implemented – not in several decades."¶ “The potential for a quick climate response to
prompt cuts in CO2 emissions opens up the possibility that the climate benefits of emissions
reductions would occur on the same timescale as the political decisions themselves.” ¶ In their paper,
Matthews and Solomon, Ellen Swallow Richards professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science, show that the onus for slowing
the rate of global warming falls squarely on current efforts at reducing CO2 emissions, and the
resulting future emissions that we produce. This means that there are critical implications for the equity of carbon emission
choices currently being discussed internationally.¶ Total emissions from developing countries may soon exceed those from developed nations.
But developed
countries are expected to maintain a far higher per-capita contribution to present and
possible future warming. “This disparity clarifies the urgency for low-carbon technology investment and diffusion to enable
developing countries to continue to develop,” says Matthews.¶ “Emission cuts made now will have an immediate effect
on the rate of global warming,” he asserts. “I see more hope for averting difficult-to-avoid negative impacts by accelerating
advances in technology development and diffusion, than for averting climate system changes that are already inevitable. Given the enormous
scope and complexity of the climate mitigation challenge, clarifying these points of hope is critical to motivate change.”
Best methodology shows positive feedbacks will push us past the tipping point – causes extinction.
Guterl 12 – Executive Editor of Scientific American, expert in Climate and Environment, Science Policy, citing James Hanson, a NASA scientist
(Fred, “Climate Armageddon: How the World’s Weather Could Quickly Run Amok”, 5/25/12; <
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-worlds-weather-could-quickly-run-amok>)//Beddow
The world has warmed since those heady days of Gaia, and scientists have grown gloomier in their
assessment of the state of the world's climate. NASA climate scientist James Hanson has warned of a "Venus effect,"
in which runaway warming turns Earth into an uninhabitable desert, with a surface temperature high
enough to melt lead, sometime in the next few centuries. Even Hanson, though, is beginning to look downright
optimistic compared to a new crop of climate scientists, who fret that things could head south as quickly as a handful of
years, or even months, if we're particularly unlucky. Ironically, some of them are intellectual offspring of Lovelock, the
original optimist gone sour. The true gloomsters are scientists who look at climate through the lens of "dynamical
systems," a mathematics that describes things that tend to change suddenly and are difficult to predict.
It is the mathematics of the tipping point—the moment at which a "system" that has been changing
slowly and predictably will suddenly "flip." The colloquial example is the straw that breaks that camel's back. Or you can also
think of it as a ship that is stable until it tips too far in one direction and then capsizes. In this view, Earth's climate is, or could soon
be, ready to capsize, causing sudden, perhaps catastrophic, changes. And once it capsizes, it could be next to
impossible to right it again. The idea that climate behaves like a dynamical system addresses some of the key
shortcomings of the conventional view of climate change—the view that looks at the planet as a whole,
in terms of averages. A dynamical systems approach, by contrast, consider climate as a sum of many
different parts, each with its own properties, all of them interdependent in ways that are hard to
predict. One of the most productive scientists in applying dynamical systems theory to climate is Tim Lenton at the University of East Anglia
in England. Lenton is a Lovelockian two generations removed— his mentors were mentored by Lovelock. "We are looking quite hard at past
data and observational data that can tell us something," says Lenton. "Classical case studies in which you've seen abrupt changes in climate
data. For example, in the Greenland ice-core records, you're seeing climate jump. And the end of the Younger Dryas," about fifteen thousand
years ago, "you get a striking climate change." So far, he says, nobody has found a big reason for such an abrupt change in these past events—
no meteorite or volcano or other event that is an obvious cause—which suggests that perhaps something
about the way these
climate shifts occur simply makes them sudden. Lenton is mainly interested in the future. He has tried to look for things that
could possibly change suddenly and drastically even though nothing obvious may trigger them. He's come up with a short list of
nine tipping points—nine weather systems, regional in scope, that could make a rapid transition from
one state to another.
Emissions causes ocean acidification – extinction.
Romm 12 – physicist and climate expert, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Senior Fellow at the Center
for American Progress (Joseph J., “Science: Ocean Acidifying so fast that it threatens humanity’s ability to feed itself”, 3/2/12; <
http://earthlawcenter.org/news/headline/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanitys-ability-to-feed-itself/>)//Beddow
The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did
during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global
temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean
acidification over this vast time period. “What we’re doing today really stands out,” said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at
Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new
species evolved to replace those that died off. But if
industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may
lose organisms we care about—coral reefs, oysters, salmon.” James Zachos, a paleoceanographer at University of
California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from some 56 million years ago, when the oceans underwent acidification that could be an
analog to ocean changes today. That’s the news release from a major 21-author Science paper, “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification”
(subs. req’d). We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience study that the oceans
are now acidifying 10 times faster today than
55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million
and found that “the
unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place” has put marine life at risk
in a frighteningly unique way: … the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable
of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at
least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown
territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by
end of century” as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration.
That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones
“devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.“ And remember, we
just learned from a 2012 new Nature Climate Change study that carbon dioxide is “driving fish crazy” and threatening their survival. Here’s
more on the new study: The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form
carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can
deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building. That is what is happening now. In a review
of hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, a team of researchers from five countries found evidence for only one period in the last 300 million
years when the oceans changed even remotely as fast as today: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, some 56 million years ago.
In the early 1990s, scientists extracting sediments from the seafloor off Antarctica found a layer of mud from this period wedged between thick
deposits of white plankton fossils. In a span of about 5,000 years, they estimated, a mysterious surge of carbon doubled atmospheric
concentrations, pushed average global temperatures up by about 6 degrees C, and dramatically changed the ecological landscape. The result:
carbonate plankton shells littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown layer of mud. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifers,
a group of single-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct, suggesting that organisms higher in the food chain may have also
disappeared, said study co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University who was on that pivotal Antarctic cruise. “It’s really
unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species over less than 20,000 years,” she said. “It’s usually on the order of a few percent
over a million years.” During this time, scientists estimate, ocean pH—a measure of acidity–may have fallen as much as 0.45 units. (As pH falls,
acidity rises.) In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO2 has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts per million, and ocean pH has fallen by 0.1
unit, to 8.1–an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3 units by the end of the century,to 7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes
similar to those observed during the PETM. More catastrophic events
have shaken earth before, but perhaps not as
quickly. The study finds two other times of potential 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 the timing and chemical changes of these events is less certain. Because most ocean
sediments older than 180 million years have been recycled back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with. During the end
of the Permian, about 252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in atmospheric carbon, and the
extinction of 96 percent of marine life. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones and the survival of organisms able to withstand
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 doubled atmospheric carbon. Coral reefs collapsed and
many sea creatures vanished. Noting that tropical species fared the worst, some scientists question if global warming rather than ocean
acidification was the main killer at this time. The effects of ocean acidification today are overshadowed for now by other problems, ranging
from sewage pollution and hotter summer temperatures that threaten corals with disease and bleaching. However, scientists trying to isolate
the effects of acidic water in the lab have shown that lower pH levels can harm a range of marine life, from reef and shell-building organisms to
the tiny snails favored by salmon. In a recent study, scientists from Stony Brook University found that the larvae of bay scallops and hard clams
grow best at pre-industrial pH levels, while their shells corrode at the levels projected for 2100. Off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the death of
oyster larvae has recently been linked to the upwelling of acidic water there. In parts of the ocean acidified by underwater volcanoes venting
carbon dioxide, scientists have seen alarming signs of what the oceans could be like by 2100. In a 2011 study of coral reefs off Papua New
Guinea, scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that when pH dropped to 7.8, reef diversity declined by as much as 40
percent. Other studies have found that clownfish larvae raised in the lab lose their ability to sniff out predators and find their way home when
pH drops below 7.8. “It’s not a problem that can be quickly reversed,” said Christopher Langdon, a biological oceanographer at the University of
Miami who co-authored the study on Papua New Guinea reefs. “Once
a species goes extinct it’s gone forever. We’re
playing a very dangerous game.”
Catastrophic climate change should be measured as the highest priority – do not discount the
unpredictable impact it will have on future generations. This is distinctly different from impacts that
do not threaten human survival
Scorse 8 – Professor of International Studies
Jason, Assistant Professor @ Monterey Institute of International Studies @ Middlebury College, What Environmentalists Need to Know About
Economics, Online Book
Even though the science now confirms that human activity is contributing to global warming and that
this warming is likely to continue if we do not dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we
are still highly uncertain as to what the end results of this warming will be (Parry et al, 2007). We can be sure about a few
things-less Arctic ice, more storms, sea level rise-but the range of possibilities still includes some not-so-catastrophic
outcomes along with some potentially cataclysmic scenarios; e.g. major new storm activity, sever draught, major species extinction, and the
major inundation of coastal areas. Weitzman argues that a
small probability of catastrophic damage may be enough to
force us to err on the side of action over inaction, even if the most likely average future benefits of action
do not merit such a response. Putting a high premium on worst-case scenarios tilts us in the direction
of a zero discount rate not because we actually value benefits to people 100 years from now as much as we value benefits today
(as many environmentalists and the authors of the Stern Review would like us to believe), but because when our actions pose a
reasonably significant risk of making the world much less livable in the future then we have an
obligation to go out of our way to reduce that risk. This rationale is not operative when assessing the
benefits of most types of environmental investments because they do not pose such dire scenarios. For
example, cleaning up a waterway or expanding open space, while perhaps in society's interests, will not greatly impact
humanity's chance for survival or greatly affect overall living standards to anywhere near the degree that climate
change might. When posed with these more common scenarios we should revert back to the basic
arguments for choosing the proper discount rate.
Technical assistance for renewables significantly reduces greenhouse gases
COCEF 12 - La Comisión de Cooperación Ecológica Fronteriza
(“Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Transportation: Project Opportunities in the U.S. – Mexico Border Region,”
http://www.cocef.org/Eng/VLibrary/Publications/SpecialReports/BECC%20WP%20%20Nov%202011%20index.pdf)//BB
This white paper describes the current deficit in the U.S.-Mexico border region in terms ¶ of renewable energy, energy
efficiency, and transportation projects focused on the ¶ reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG). In the presentation, the
argument is made that ¶ the primary reason this project deficit exists is due to: ¶ 1. limited resources for project
development, ¶ 2. lack of capacity building, at the most fundamental level, in the public and publicprivate sectors,
and ¶ 3. lack of technical assistance program to address this deficit ¶ Specifically targeting a technical
assistance program for renewable energy, energy ¶ efficiency, and transportation projects to achieve GHG
reductions would be invaluable ¶ in promoting an environment for effective climate action in border
communities. A ¶ proposed technical assistance program could help public sector entities build the bases ¶ on
which they can develop both mitigation and adaptation greenhouse gas projects. ¶ Mitigation projects
are the priority of the program since they are intended to directly ¶ reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation
projects are important as well, and it is ¶ recommended they be developed as “capacity building” initiatives to assist ¶ municipalities better
manage the current realities of climate change. Ultimately, these ¶ project
the funds will need a highly
¶
types do need technical assistance funds , and
capacitated and experienced program manager .
Renewables can solve global warming
Bose 10 (Bimal K. Bose, The Condra Chair of Excellence in power electronics at the University of Tennessee, March 2010, “Global Warming:
Energy, Environmental Pollution and the Impact of Power Electronics”, Industrial Electronics Magazine, IEEE 4.1// JG)
Nuclear power is claimed to be environmentally clean, and currently, there is demand for increasing nuclear power generation. Since trees
absorb CO2, the tropical rain forests (such as the Amazon rain forest) can be preserved, or widespread forestation can be promoted to mitigate
the global warming problem. Some countries are actively promoting tree plantation as new housing estates are being developed. Controlling
the human and animal population to reduce GHG is not easy. Since human beings exhale CO2 as well as demand energy for standard of living,
population control gives benefit in two dimensions. A
substantial portion of global energy demand can be met by
promoting environmentally clean renewable energy sources (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and fuel cells), and the
current trend in the world is to explore them vigorously. Fuel cells can be defined as clean if clean energy is used to
produce hydrogen fuel. Recent studies [38] have indicated that hydro, wind, and solar technologies (possibly
with adequate storage ) can provide 100% of the world’s energy , eliminating all fossil fuels . Internal
combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) can be replaced by electric vehicles (EVs) (with the interim phase
of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) possibly with biofuels), and if electricity is generated by clean
sources, GHG pollution will be mitigated. Promoting mass transportation, particularly by railways, as in Japan and Europe, will
mitigate global warming problem. Considerable amount of energy can be saved by improving efficiency in generation,
transmission, distribution, and utilization of electrical energy.
Renewables solve water treatment
Huacuz 5 (Jorge M. Huacuz, PhD @ UC-San Diego in physics, specialist in unconventional energy sources,
president of the national association of solar energy in Mexico November 2005 “The road to green
power in Mexico – reflections on the prospects for the large-scale and sustainable implementation of
renewable energy” Energy Policy 33.16// JG)
From the availability, supply and environmental points of view, water may represent a potentially bigger problem than
energy for Mexico. However, electricity is necessarily linked to the supply, treatment and disposal of
water. For example, around 1.5 MW of electric power are used per every 1 m3/s of sewage treatment capacity
in the metropolitan Mexico City area. Drivers for the use of green power in this sector could be strategic,
environmental and economic. Power generation with biogas from water treatment plants, minihydro turbines in the downhill
sections of aqueducts, and retro-pumping by wind machines, are examples of the most obvious inner sources of green power in this sector.
Clean water scarcity perpetuates the rich poor binary – means disease, poverty, and death
Ereklam 09 (Franziska Erklam, Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Peer reviewed by
Academic Supervisor: Christian Bjørnskov, http://pure.au.dk/portal-asbstudent/files/7926/Franziska_Erlekam_-_Master_Thesis.pdf, “To which extent is water shortage a key ¶
determinant for a retarded economic growth?¶ A case study of Mexico City”, September 2009, 7/19/13,
//CW)
Despite institutional efforts, the supply of clean water is neither nationwide, nor fairly ¶ distributed within the
Federal District. In Mexico City an area of 3,371 square ¶ kilometers is served by the water distribution system. This area is mainly the city centre ¶ and the
nearer peripheries. Three quarters of Mexico City’s land area are not served ¶ with a water and wastewater system. “It has been estimated that over 400,000
persons in ¶ the Federal District do not have access to potable water and for those who do there is ¶ great variation in consumption patterns. For example, in Lomas
de Chapultepec per ¶ capita consumption is 450 liters per day while residents of Nezahualcoyotl consume ¶ only 30 liters per day.”70¶ Nonetheless, given Mexico
being a developing country, the average daily water ¶ consumption of 304 liters is fairly high71. Taking
into account the unequal
distribution ¶ of access to potable water, it is clear that the gap between the wealthy and the poor
must ¶ be substantial, daily water usage being one indicator of relative wealth. The following ¶ table makes this gap more
visible. ¶ The fact that the majority of the water usage is of domestic nature, and given that the ¶ water usage per day ranges between zero and 450 liters in the
Federal District, shows ¶ that the range and thus the wealth gap is widely open. An
additional area of scrutiny is ¶ the quality of
water that is considered potable. Water contamination can result in ¶ cholera, diarrheal diseases,
fevers, various worm diseases, infective jaundice and polio. ¶ Other water-related diseases and problems are scabies,
typhus, malaria etc. Researchers ¶ have confirmed that the water quality in the Federal District is often poor. At
least 84 ¶ types of bacteria, i.e. streptococcus, and too high levels of nitrates and carbon have been ¶ detected in the water72.
Almost 50 percent of the water running out of the households’ ¶ taps is actually not drinkable, they claim73.
Due to this fact, there was a boom in the sale ¶ of bottled water in the last decade
Disease spread causes extinction
Yu 09 (5/22, Victoria, Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, "Human extinction: the uncertainty of our fate",
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate)
A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the bestknown case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have
been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new
viral strains are constantly emerging — a process
that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS
as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s
rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s
use of reverse
transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction
mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a largescale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly,
but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza,
the evolution of new strains could
prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point
antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a
new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could
potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent
scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as
the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the
original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
mutations that lead to new strains) and
Mexico is key:
First – production – they have ENORMOUS renewable energy potential
Wood 10 – PhD in Political Studies @ Queen’s, Professor @ ITAM in Mexico City
(Duncan, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
http://www.statealliancepartnership.org/resources_files/USMexico_Cooperation_Renewable_Energies.pdf)//BB
The North American context¶ The
North American economic region is experiencing an impact from all of the issues
mentioned above. Climate change, population growth, tightening energy markets and the need for sustainable
development pose a series of challenges for policy makers at both the national and regional levels. A number of studies , some dating
from the early years of the 2000s, have called for the creation of North American renewable energy markets,
with adequate integration of electricity transmission systems, funding programs and
intergovernmental cooperation 3.¶ The demand for integration of RE markets is urgent. As nations,
states and municipalities struggle to meet carbon emissions targets, they are looking to their
neighbors to satisfy demand for RE and to benefit from synergies across sectors . Unfortunately, we are still a
long way away from such integration. There is still a lack of knowledge about the full extent of renewable energy resources across the region
and differences in regulatory regimes, both within and between countries remains an obstacle. A comprehensive study and database of
renewable energy resources is a vital component for developing RE in the region that was attempted in 2003 by the North American
Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC)'1, but which sadly came to nothing. However, it is encouraging that significant progress has
been made in recent years on both the technological and the regulatory fronts, and there
is significant interest from the private
sector in exploiting renewable energy across borders in the region.¶ The industry in Mexico¶ Mexico enjoys one of the world's
most privileged positions in terms of its potential to generate renewable energy. Possessing tropical,
temperate and arid climates, very long coastlines, areas of high wind velocity and stability,
geothermal activity, and high levels of solar irradiation, Mexico is naturally extremely well endowed .
However there has been very little development of the renewable sector in Mexico until very recently (with
the exception of hydro-electric and geothermal electricity generation). This lack of development can be explained by;¶ The
dominance of energy thinking by issues related to oil and, to a lesser extent, gas¶ The absence of any consideration of energy security
issues due to the abundance of¶ hydrocarbons¶ A lack of awareness on the part of the executive branch and
legislators of the potential¶ for renewable energy generation¶ A low level of environmental consciousness on the part of government,
society and the¶ private sector¶ The absence of economic and financial incentives for public or private sector¶
development of renewable resources
Second – technology transfer – Mexico will spread the green tech globally
ENS 12 – Environmental News Service
(“U.S., Canada, Mexico Vow ‘Continental’ Energy Grid,” http://www.reepedia.com/archives/4568)//BB
The leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada today pledged to develop “continental energy, including electricity generation and
interconnection” across national borders and welcomed “increasing North American energy trade.”¶ Meeting in Washington, U.S. President
Barack Obama, Canada’s President Stephen Harper
and Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon committed their
governments to enhance their collective energy security, to facilitate “seamless energy flows on the
interconnected grid” and to promote trade and investment in clean energy technologies.¶ They will
cooperate in expanding cooperation “to create clean energy jobs and combat climate change,” the leaders said in a joint statement.¶
“Enhanced electricity
interconnection in the Americas would advance the goals of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the
energy poverty and increase the use of renewable sources of energy,” the three leaders
said.¶ They recognized Mexico’s leadership in supporting inter-connections in Central America and reaffirmed their
support “to bring affordable, reliable, and increasingly renewable power to businesses and homes in Central America and the
Caribbean while opening wider markets for clean energy and green technology.Ӧ During a joint news
Americas to reduce
conference this afternoon, President Obama said, “Between us, we represent nearly half-a-billion citizens, from Nunavut in the Canadian north
to Chiapas in southern Mexico. In between, the diversity of our peoples and cultures is extraordinary. But wherever they live, they wake up
every day with similar hopes – to provide for their families, to be safe in their communities, to give their children a better life. And in each of
our countries, the daily lives of our citizens are shaped profoundly by what happens in the other two. And that’s why we’re here.”¶ “Energy
cooperation reduces the cost of doing business and enhances economic competitiveness in North America,” the three
leaders said. “We recognize the growing regional and federal cooperation in the area of continental energy, including
electricity generation and interconnection and welcome increasing North American energy trade.”
Third - diplomacy – Cancun Agreements prove
Villar ’12 (Marina Guajardo Villar, June 2012 “How is Mexico implementing its soft power by means of its public diplomacy to influence its
international image?” Master Thesis, Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, the paper extensively consulted the work of
Joseph Nye, Nicholas Cull, Jan Melissen and Simon Anholt
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/19412/MarinaGuajardo_MasterThesis_FINAL.pdf?sequence=1,//JG)
COP16/CMP6 refers to the 16th edition of Conference of the Parties of the ¶ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP)15
and the 6th ¶ Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol ¶ (CMP). The name COP refers to the
reunions of the State Parties at various ¶ international conferences. Nevertheless, as the relevance of the subject in the ¶ international agenda
increases, the term COP refers exclusively to climate change. ¶ Every year, such conferences are held between the months of November and ¶
December (COP16).¶
The government of Mexico recognizes that climate change is the major global ¶
environmental challenge of this century, representing in the medium and long term ¶ one of the
greatest threats to development and human welfare. As a ratifying party, in ¶ 2010 Mexico offered to host
the COP16/CMP6 in Cancun16¶ , as in 2010 the UNFCCC ¶ COP16 and sixth Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol was to be
held in ¶ Latin-America and the Caribbean region. It was during COP 15 that took place in ¶ Copenhagen, that the parties approved by
unanimous decision that Mexico would be ¶ the host country of COP16/CMP6.¶ As Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa pointed out
during ¶ COP16/CMP6, Mexico
has indeed promoted an inclusive and transparent process of ¶ consultation
with various contemporary participants. In light of global events, Mexico believes that every voice must be heard if mutual
common goals are to be achieved ¶ (Patricia Espinosa). ¶ Furthermore, in its attempt to positively collaborate on global climate efforts, ¶
Mexico has played a decisive role which has influenced and facilitated the final ¶ Cancun Agreements.
Even when the 16th Conference of the Parties to the ¶ Convention United Nations Framework on Climate Change was planned to conclude ¶ at
six in the afternoon of Friday 10 December, it was until three o'clock on Saturday, ¶ when Patricia Espinosa, Mexican Foreign Secretary and
President of the COP, read ¶ the Cancun Agreements.
weeks of intense negotiations
said: “ Cancun
Such agreements stand out as the ultimate result of two ¶
held among the 194 attending countries.¶ As Yvo de Boer, former head of the UN climate change
yielded ¶ excellent results for developing countries; a new climate fund will be set up and
new ¶ organizations will create programs to transfer technology, help people adjust to ¶ climate
change”
(Yvo de Boer, former head of UN climate change).
Plan
The United States Federal Government should provide renewable energy assistance to Mexico
through the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission.
Solvency
Contention 2 is solvency
An expanded BECC role quickly facilitates a Mexican green economy
COCEF 12 - La Comisión de Cooperación Ecológica Fronteriza
(“Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Transportation: Project Opportunities in the U.S. – Mexico Border Region,”
http://www.cocef.org/Eng/VLibrary/Publications/SpecialReports/BECC%20WP%20%20Nov%202011%20index.pdf)//BB
SECTION 4: BECC – THE BORDER TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROVIDER 25¶ Since 1995, the BECC
[Border Environmental
Cooperation Commission] has demonstrated a very strong capacity to manage technical ¶ assistance
programs for capacity building and project development. They have ¶ administered millions of dollars
in technical assistance funds for hundreds of projects ¶ across the border region. Two of the most noteworthy
technical assistance programs ¶ that BECC has been entrusted with by the U.S. EPA are: Border 2012 Program (2005) ¶ and the Project Develop
Assistance Program (1997). ¶ Border 2012 ¶ In 2005, EPA requested that BECC assist in administering the Border 2012 program. ¶ Since 2006
when the first program funds were provided for environmental projects, the ¶ BECC has distributed over $10 M in funds and managed over 183
projects, of which 95 ¶ are complete and 71 in progress. ¶ BECC
provides logistical support for the work groups, assists in
identifying priority areas ¶ for grant funding, reviews requests for proposals, assists in project selection and
project ¶ management, and ensures quality of deliverables and compliance with work plans. ¶ BECC’s
participation in the program has been instrumental in solidifying bi-national ¶ collaboration in the
development of projects, which have
provided tangible results
and ¶ basic scientific information on environmental and
human health conditions along the ¶ border. ¶ Project Development Assistance Program (PDAP) ¶ As mentioned in Section 3, the BECC has
distributed approximately $34.5 million ¶ through the PDAP into 203 water, wastewater collection, and wastewater treatment ¶ projects. ¶ Of
the 203 projects, approximately 72% (146) have been implemented or are under ¶ development resulting in 85% of PDAP funds ($29.4M)
invested in these projects. This ¶ demonstrates a successful management of the program. Approximately $19.5M in ¶ PDAP funding has led to
BECC certified projects and has leveraged $1.2B in funds from ¶ programs and institutions such as the Border Environmental Infrastructure
Fund (BEIF), ¶ NADB Loans, USDA, CONAGUA and state and municipal programs. This provides a ratio ¶ is $1dollar of PDAP to about $61 dollars
of construction funding for certified projects,¶ further demonstrating the successful
financial management of the
technical assistance ¶ program. ¶ In addition, $7M in PDAP funding has led to the implementation of projects through ¶ other agencies,
of which the final construction costs are to be determined. This would ¶ increase the leveraging effect of PDAP. ¶ SECTION 5: TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE – THE MAIN SOLUTION ¶ A Technical Assistance for the Border Region ¶ The
BECC has worked a considerable
amount on projects in its “core” sectors of water, ¶ wastewater, and solid waste for over 15 years. The technical
assistance programs that ¶ have been utilized by the BECC have been effective and successful in
creating projects ¶ for the NADB to finance and, most importantly, have contributed to dramatic ¶
improvements in the quality of life in the U.S.-Mexico border region. However, the next ¶ generation of public
sector infrastructure activity will require a new type of technical ¶ assistance focused on impacting air quality
and climate change tied to energy efficiency, ¶ clean energy and transportation. ¶ A technical assistance program
for clean and efficient energy and transportation project ¶ development and related capacity building could have the following
outcomes: ¶ 1. Border communities would have access to targeted resources in grants and ¶ technical expertise in
these sectors. ¶ 2. The BECC’s role would provide for a high degree for success given its track record ¶ and
management of environmental programs. ¶ 3. Border communities would see their capacity to plan,
develop, and manage ¶ clean energy and transportation projects improve. ¶ 4. Clean energy and transportation
infrastructure projects tied to the public sector ¶ would begin to be implemented more frequently.¶ Border States’
Priority Technical Assistance Needs ¶ As part of the interview process with the border state government environmental and ¶
energy agencies, they were queried about what they considered priority technical ¶ assistance needs in
their state. Their responses track similarly to the priority projects in ¶ that they show a clear and ample need for
technical assistance in the focus sectors.
Renewables solve quickly – outside expertise is key
Carus 13 - UK journalist, regularly reporting on clean energy policy and finance from California for a global audience
(Felicity, “Mexico offers tantalising prospect of a dawning major market,” http://www.pvtech.org/editors_blog/mexico_offers_tantalising_prospect_of_a_dawning_major_market)//BB
Solar investors in the US and further afield would really love to get their hands on Mexico's solar market: great resource on cheap desert land
located squarely in the southern sun-belt. Some experts estimate that it
would only take PV panels spread over just
25km2 of land in Chihuahua or the Sonoran desert to supply Mexico’s electricity demand .¶ National
legislation to reduce carbon emissions 30% by 2020 and constrained natural gas supplies are pushing companies to renewable choices like
never before. There is only one utility company to deal with, the state-owned Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).¶ And its nearest
neighbour is a guzzler of imported electricity and already linked through the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. ¶ Electricity
trade
between the United States and Mexico started in 1905, when privately owned utilities located in remote towns on both
sides of the border helped "balance" electricity demand with a couple of low voltage lines, according to the US Energy Information Agency.¶
Since 2006, Mexico has been a very small net exporter of electricity to the US. But electricity imports will likely
boom after the Department of Energy granted a permit to a subsidiary of Sempra International for a 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission line that will
carry electricity from a Mexican wind farm to the California market.¶ Meanwhile, Baja California is the location for Latin America's largest solar
installation to date, a 30MW project to be completed by the end of this year.¶ When US president Barack Obama met Mexican president
Enrique Peña Nieto earlier this month, renewable energy was firmly on the agenda (along with gun control, economic cooperation and illegal
drugs).¶ Unlike the US, however, Mexico even has an energy policy. The freshly minted National Energy Strategy 2013-2027 agreed only in April
estimates that 6GW of solar energy could be developed by 2020.¶ Some say that estimate is way too conservative and forecast that PV will
boom under these conditions, perhaps even 150-fold, while shorter term solar growth could go from today's estimated 50MW-70MW capacity
to 250MW by 2015.¶ Oh, and did I mention its growing population of 114 million inhabitants and an annual GDP growth rate last year of 4%? As
if that weren't good enough news, the grid has been overbuilt by 50% to accommodate anticipated growth as the
country recoups its losses from the global recession.¶ John Skibinski is executive director at Global Renewables Group, which is based in Las
Vegas with a subsidiary in Mexico called Socios Energeticos de Mexico Verde.¶ During a webinar ahead of the Mexican International Renewable
Energy Congress in Mexico City next week, Skibinski said:¶ "Within two and a half years at most, Mexico will explode in solar energy because its
infrastructure is ready for it. Its economic climate is now accelerating, its government climate is favourable towards solar and wind … there is so
much desert land available at low cost. We should see 250MW by 2015 of deployed solar farms in Mexico easily."¶ He said that energyintensive industry was facing a price on carbon that could force more interest in renewables.¶ "What we found from one steel mill was that for
every 3MW of natural gas [electricity] production, they need 1MW of solar to [reduce their] emissions footprint,” said Skibinski.¶ “Even at the
corporate level, not just national level, corporations are saying, hey if I'm going to keep my production on full, I've got to do something about
[greenhouse gas] (GHG) reductions. So a lot of people are going to be turning to solar to keep their production going as well as ramp up.¶
"Mexico is the 11th largest economy in the world, and it's also the 11th largest carbon polluter in the world. It's the second largest polluter in
Latin America, so it's highly focused on what it should do with solar and wind."¶ Skibinski, who has clearly sweated it out in the field, cautioned
half-hearted solar developers hopeful of striking Mexican gold.¶ "You've got to bring your own support when you come to this country, there
is nobody here that knows solar, there is nobody here that knows wind,” he said.¶ “It's new to the
country and it requires training , development as well as pilot installations. We've done that for the utilities, the
banks and the government we've shown with pilot installations how we can reduce GHG emissions. They are highly interested in new
technology – they don't want solar panels that are 15 years old, 100W panels not going to cut it and they are already looking at 115W."¶
Skibinski has already seen some developers get burned by the Mexican sun.¶ "I
have seen 50 independent power producers
apply for power plant generation – two of them got approved," he said.¶ "The other 48 were on the wrong place on
the grid. You've got to do your homework when you want to put in an installation into Mexico. A utility will deny your application if it doesn't fit
their needs, they are very good at what they do in terms of their grid."¶ Brian Schmidly, the chief executive of Rio Grande Solar, said he was
more cautious about the speed of deployment in Mexico, where his company has development partners.¶ "You're going to see growth in the PV
industry," he said. "I just think it's going to be slow this year and pick up a little bit of steam in 2014, but you could potentially see 250MW by
2015."¶ Schmidly said that government subsidies for electricity and bespoke deals between commercial and industrial consumers and their
electricity provider were major barriers to the development of solar in Mexico. Retail rates for electricity varied between 10c per kwh and 15c
per kwh, way too wide a variation for investor appetite.¶ "Most consumers negotiate rates with CFE - subsidised electricity rates makes solar
difficult to compete," he said.¶ Recent reversals in price declines for PV panels could also compound the problem and slow PV plant
development in Mexico, he said.¶ "Panel prices [have] moved north for first time in three to four years," he said.¶ "[Panels] usually represent
about 40% of a PV plant's cost. So if that's a trend that we're going to continue to see as a result of the Japanese and Asian markets turning
round a little bit faster than everyone was expecting, then you could see some of the cost advantages for Mexico coming down and that's a
trend that we need to watch."¶ Ernesto Hanhausen, managing director of Emerging Energy & Environment's CleanTech Fund, said that the push
for PV installations might come more from "emergency needs for power than regulation and willingness of the government".¶ He compared
Mexico's grid system to North Korea in that its electricity system is so centralised. But the Mexican government had been creative in its
approach to stimulating private sector investments such as "banking power" where CFE will take excess electricity and store it, reimbursing the
generator up to 85% of retail value.¶ But Hanhausen warned that constrained natural gas supplies were both a boon and a challenge for
renewables. "In the north-west, there's big demand for natural gas and that's where the largest development of PV could be," he said.¶ He
added that construction of a natural
gas pipeline from the US could supply areas with greatest demand for electricity such as in the north,
but that progress was slow, whereas renewables could be deployed more quickly .¶ " In the [next] five years ,
the best way for Mexico to be able to cope with electrical demand is to really exploit the possibility of
developing renewable energy because that can come into play much faster than the installation of potential
gas pipelines,” said Hanhausen.
US Key:
First, technical assistance
Farnsworth, 13 --- vice president of the Council of the Americas and Americas Society (4/11/2013, Eric, “ENERGY SECURITY
OPPORTUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA
AND THE CARIBBEAN, HEARING BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE,
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20130411/100622/HHRG-113-FA07-Wstate-FarnsworthE-20130411.pdf, JMP)
More broadly, the
U nited S tates has a strategic interest in working with willing nations in the hemisphere to
develop their own energy resources effectively, while promoting models that reduce the negative if
unintended consequences of regional energy development, including a lack of transparency and
official corruption, the distorting impact of consumption subsidies, an over-reliance on a single
commodity or sector, environmental concerns, and a concentration of wealth and political power
around the sector. In order to develop their respective industries, nations need U.S. technology , management
expertise, and investment dollars. They need our education system to develop their engineers and
seismologists, they need help to understand regulatory, tax, and policy models that work, they need
to be exposed to best practices in environmental mitigation, and they need our technical assistance
to improve the investment climate and the rule of law.
Second, binational agreements
Wood 10 – PhD in Political Studies @ Queen’s, Professor @ ITAM in Mexico City
(Duncan, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
http://www.statealliancepartnership.org/resources_files/USMexico_Cooperation_Renewable_Energies.pdf)//BB
However, much greater
economic potential exists in exporting the electricity across the border to California.
As California and other US states enact minimum renewable energy content legislation, they must
rapidly find sources of clean energy that be channeled into their electricity supplies. In the case of California,
the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) was established in 2002 under Senate Bill 1078 and accelerated in 2006 under Senate Bill 107, and
mandates a minimum level of 20% renewable energy in electricity generation by the end of 2010. By 2008, the three largest Californian utilities
operators had only achieved an average of 13% renewable energy in their portfolios, driving them to search for further sources. In the same
year, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-14-08, establishing a 33% minimum standard for the state by 2020.¶
The Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI), created in 2007 by the State of California, identified in-state renewable energy sources as
well as those in neighboring states and produced a comprehensive analysis of the potential supply and costs of these. Baja California appeared
in the top four out-of-state sources for RE in terms of cost, and was by far the leader in terms of easily accessible surplus capacity. The cost
advantages of Baja wind energy is even more remarkable because providers in US states are able to benefit from tax incentives and other
subsidies; were firms in Baja to benefit from similar incentives, Mexican
wind power would be far and away the most
competitive in terms of price.¶ The notion of moving electricity across the border is, of course, not a new one, and already
electricity, produced in Baja California, is exported to California from Sempra's 600 MW Mexicali-based power plant. Though this project was
criticized by environmentalists for exporting pollution to Mexico that will then return to the United States, the project has
been a major
success . The future of cross border power sales, however, will likely take on a much greener hue and Sempra itself is already heavily
involved.¶ To meet the growing demand for renewable energy on the other side of the border, a host of private firms have entered La
Rumorosa and have registered plans for wind farms. Again the Spanish electricity sector is well represented, with Union Fenosa building a 1 GW
park in two stages, and Mexico's Fuerza Eolica is planning a 300 MW plant. This time, however, US energy firm Sempra has ambitious plans to
participate, with an initial 100 MW plant that will eventually grow to around 1 GW.¶ A 2009 report on the future of the US-Mexico border,
prepared by the Pacific Council for International Policy (PCIP) and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI)/'0 identified the potential
of the La¶ Rumorosa region for wind power generation for export, although it greatly underestimated its full capacity, claiming that the region
might eventually produce up to 1 GW, whereas more accurate assessments now put it at around 3 GW. This same report noted that there
remain significant obstacles to the development of a true cross-border energy market, not the least of which was
that:¶ At present, however, there is no such a thing as an energy agenda for the border region: no true market for electricity
across the border, no binational plan for electricity generation or transmission, and no program to develop
new technologies or energy reserves.¶ One of the major problems facing the future development of the wind energy for export
market is the lack of cross-border transmission lines. At present there is one transmission line that can accommodate the 10 MW
state government wind project, but further expansion of capacity and possible export will necessitate significant investment ,
as well as cross-border cooperation .
Federal action is key – agency oversight
GNEB 11 – Good Neighbor Environmental Board, The Good Neighbor Environmental Board was created in 1992 by the Enterprise for the Americas ¶ Initiative Act, Public Law 102-532.The purpose of the Board is to
“advise the President and the ¶ Congress on the need for implementation of environmental and infrastructure projects (including ¶ projects that affect agriculture, rural development, and human nutrition) within the States of the
¶ United States contiguous to Mexico in order to improve the quality of life of persons residing on ¶ the United States side of the border.” ¶ The Board is charged with submitting an annual report to the President and the Congress.
¶ Management responsibilities for the Board were delegated to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by Executive Order 12916 on May 13, 1994
(“The Potential Environmental and Economic Benefits of Renewable Energy Development in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region,” http://www.epa.gov/ofacmo/gneb/gneb14threport/English-GNEB-14th-Report.pdf)//BB
Several U.S. federal agencies play a role in regulating and promoting renewable energy along the ¶
border. The Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for implementing Executive Order (EO) ¶ 10485, which was amended by EO 12038.
It authorizes exports of electric energy and issues Presidential permits for the construction, operation,
maintenance, and connection of electricity transmission facilities at the international border. Before a
permit can be issued, DOE must establish that the ¶ permit is consistent with the public interest and has received favorable
recommendations from the ¶ U.S. Departments of State and Defense. In determining consistency with the public
interest, DOE ¶ considers the potential environmental impacts of the proposed project under the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), implements other relevant executive orders such as EO 13186 ¶ regarding the responsibilities
of federal agencies to protect migratory birds, determines the project’s ¶ impact on electric system reliability (including
whether the proposed project would adversely affect ¶ the operation of the U.S. electric power supply system under normal and contingency
conditions), ¶ and
considers any other factors that DOE may find relevant to the public interest. DOE also
finances ¶ research and development for renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. ¶ Many other
federal agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD), Agriculture ¶ (USDA), and Interior (DOI), are responsible for
managing certain lands and properties within the ¶ border region and are involved directly in renewable energy development
there. The Department of ¶ Housing and Urban Development is responsible for national policy and programs that address housing ¶ needs and
for improving and developing U.S. border communities. The agency’s Energy Efficient ¶ Mortgage program helps homebuyers or homeowners
finance the cost of adding energy efficiency features to new or existing housing as part of their Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured
home ¶ purchase or mortgage refinancing. The Department of Transportation oversees the national transportation system, promotes
intermodal transportation, and negotiates and implements international transportation agreements. The U.S. Section of the International
Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), ¶ United States and Mexico, operates and maintains the U.S. hydropower plants at Falcon and
Amistad ¶ International Dams on the Rio Grande. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
is responsible ¶ for developing and
maintaining regulations, policies, and guidance for the protection of human health ¶ and the environment, working closely with state, tribal,
and local governments to accomplish this. ¶ EPA also has developed a variety of voluntary programs and partnerships to help address and
identify clean energy opportunities. Other
federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the ¶ Department of State,
direct
responsibilities that affect renewable energy development ¶ within this region. All of these agencies also must
and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the interstate ¶ transmission of electricity, also have
comply with NEPA and implement executive orders.
Pre-empts
Contention 3 is no war
No war – economic interdependence and nuclear deterrence
Deudney and Ikenberry, 09 — MA and PhD in Political Science, Professor, Political Science, Johns
Hopkins University; PhD, Professor, International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, Princeton University (Daniel and G. John, January/February 2009, “The Myth of the
Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail,” Foreign Affairs Volume 88, Issue 1, ProQuest,
Hensel)
This bleak outlook is based on an exaggeration of recent developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors and forces. Indeed, contrary to what the
revivalists describe, the
most striking features of the contemporary international landscape are the
intensification of economic globalization, thickening institutions, and shared problems of
interdependence. The overall structure of the international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century. Compared to older orders, the
contemporary liberal-centered international order provides a set of constraints and opportunities -- of
pushes and pulls -- that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict while creating strong imperatives for
cooperative problem solving. Those invoking the nineteenth century as a model for the twenty-first also fail to acknowledge the extent to which
war as a path to conflict resolution and great-power expansion has become largely obsolete. Most important, nuclear
weapons have transformed great-power war from a routine feature of international politics into an exercise in national
suicide. With all of the great powers possessing nuclear weapons and ample means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among these states has
truly become an option of last resort. The prospect of such great losses has instilled in the great powers a level of
caution and restraint that effectively precludes major revisionist efforts. Furthermore, the diffusion of small
arms and the near universality of nationalism have severely limited the ability of great powers to
conquer and occupy territory inhabited by resisting populations (as Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have
demonstrated). Unlike during the days of empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate great asymmetries
of power into effective territorial control; at most, they can hope for loose hegemonic relationships that require them to give something in
return. Also unlike in the nineteenth century, today the density of trade, investment, and production networks across
international borders raises even more the costs of war. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to take one of the most plausible cases of a
future interstate war, would pose for the Chinese communist regime daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken together, these
changes in the economy of violence mean that the international system is far more primed for peace
than the autocratic revivalists acknowledge. The autocratic revival thesis neglects other key features of the international system as well. In
the nineteenth century, rising states faced an international environment in which they could reasonably expect to translate their growing clout into geopolitical
changes that would benefit themselves. But in
the twenty-first century, the status quo is much more difficult to
overturn. Simple comparisons between China and the United States with regard to aggregate economic size and capability do not reflect the fact that the
United States does not stand alone but rather is the head of a coalition of liberal capitalist states in Europe and East Asia whose aggregate assets far exceed those of
China or even of a coalition of autocratic states. Moreover, potentially
revisionist autocratic states, most notably China and
Russia, are already substantial players and stakeholders in an ensemble of global institutions that make
up the status quo, not least the UN Security Council (in which they have permanent seats and veto power). Many other global institutions, such as the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are configured in such a way that rising states can increase their voice only by buying into the institutions. The
pathway to modernity for rising states is not outside and against the status quo but rather inside and
through the flexible and accommodating institutions of the liberal international order. The fact that
these autocracies are capitalist has profound implications for the nature of their international interests
that point toward integration and accommodation in the future. The domestic viability of these regimes hinges on their ability
to sustain high economic growth rates, which in turn is crucially dependent on international trade and investment; today's autocracies may be illiberal, but they
remain fundamentally dependent on a liberal international capitalist system. It is not surprising that China made major domestic changes in order to join the WTO
or that Russia is seeking to do so now. The dependence of autocratic capitalist states on foreign trade and investment means that they have a fundamental interest
in maintaining an open, rule-based economic system. (Although these autocratic states do pursue bilateral trade and investment deals, particularly in energy and
raw materials, this does not obviate their more basic dependence on and commitment to the WTO order.) In the case of China, because of its extensive dependence
on industrial exports, the WTO may act as a vital bulwark against protectionist tendencies in importing states. Given their position in this system, which so serves
their interests, the autocratic states are unlikely to become champions of an alternative global or regional economic order, let alone spoilers intent on seriously
damaging the existing one. The prospects for revisionist behavior on the part of the capitalist autocracies are further reduced by the large and growing social
networks across international borders. Not only have these states joined the world economy, but their people -- particularly upwardly mobile and educated elites -have increasingly joined the world community. In large and growing numbers, citizens
of autocratic capitalist states are participating
in a sprawling array of transnational educational, business, and avocational networks. As individuals are
socialized into the values and orientations of these networks, stark "us versus them" cleavages become
more difficult to generate and sustain. As the Harvard political scientist Alastair Iain Johnston has argued, China's ruling elite has also been
socialized, as its foreign policy establishment has internalized the norms and practices of the international diplomatic community. China, far from cultivating causes
for territorial dispute with its neighbors, has instead sought to resolve numerous historically inherited border conflicts, acting like a satisfied status quo state. These
social and diplomatic processes and developments suggest that there are strong tendencies toward normalization operating here. Finally, there
is an
emerging set of global problems stemming from industrialism and economic globalization that will
create common interests across states regardless of regime type. Autocratic China is as dependent on imported oil as
are democratic Europe, India, Japan, and the United States, suggesting an alignment of interests against
petroleum-exporting autocracies, such as Iran and Russia. These states share a common interest in price stability
and supply security that could form the basis for a revitalization of the International Energy Agency, the consumer association created during the oil
turmoil of the 1970s. The emergence of global warming and climate change as significant problems also suggests possibilities for
alignments and cooperative ventures cutting across the autocratic-democratic divide. Like the United States, China is not only a major
contributor to greenhouse gas accumulation but also likely to be a major victim of climate-induced desertification and coastal flooding. Its rapid industrialization
and consequent pollution means that China, like other developed countries, will increasingly need to import technologies and innovative solutions for
environmental management. Resource scarcity and environmental deterioration pose global threats that no state will be able to solve alone, thus placing a further
premium on political integration and cooperative institution building .
Analogies between the nineteenth century and the twentyfirst are based on a severe mischaracterization of the actual conditions of the new era. The declining
utility of war, the thickening of international transactions and institutions, and emerging resource and
environmental interdependencies together undercut scenarios of international conflict and instability
based on autocratic-democratic rivalry and autocratic revisionism. In fact, the conditions of the twenty-first century point to the
renewed value of international integration and cooperation.
Even if it does occur, it will never involve great powers
Tepperman 9 Deputy Editor of Newsweek, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, now Managing
Editor of Foreign Affairs, holds a B.A. in English Literature from Yale University, an M.A. in Jurisprudence
from Oxford University, and an LL.M. in International Law from New York University (Jonathan, "Why
Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb," 8/28/09,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-to-love-thebomb.html)//AM
These efforts are all grounded in the same proposition: that, as Obama has said several times, nuclear weapons
represent the "gravest threat" to U.S. security. This argument has a lot going for it. It's strongly intuitive, as anyone who's
ever seen pictures of Hiroshima or Nagasaki knows. It's also popular; U.S. presidents have been making similar noises since the Eisenhower
administration, and halting the spread of nukes (if not eliminating them altogether) is one of the few things Obama, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao,
and Benjamin Netanyahu can all agree on. There's just one problem with the reasoning: it may well be wrong.¶ A
growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most
people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds
so obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes
would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be
unlikely to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the effort. There are more important measures
the U.S. government can and should take to make the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free
planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable.¶ The
argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of peace
as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First, nuclear weapons have not
been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even a nonnuclear, war between two
states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is,
especially given the singular viciousness of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a
professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's
striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not been any
war among nuclear states."¶ To understand why—and why the next 64 years are likely to play out the same way—you need to start
by recognizing that all states are rational on some basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but
they tend to do things only when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start
a fight only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or Saddam waged wars
they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that leaders often make the wrong
gamble and underestimate the other side—and millions of innocents pay the price.¶ Nuclear weapons change all that
by making the costs of war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn
the other to ashes with the push of a button—and everybody knows it—the basic math shifts. Even the craziest tin-pot dictator is
forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus not worth the effort. As Waltz puts
it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?"¶ Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured
destruction is so compelling, it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch
since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did fight proxy wars, ranging
from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never matched the furious destruction of full-on, greatpower war (World War II alone was responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And since the end of the Cold War,
such bloodshed has declined precipitously. Meanwhile, the nuclear powers have scrupulously avoided
direct combat, and there's very good reason to think they always will. There have been some near misses, but a
close look at these cases is fundamentally reassuring—because in each instance, very different leaders all came to the same safe conclusion.
Nuclear war doesn’t cause extinction – prefer models
Seitz 6 - former associate of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs (Russell,
“The' Nuclear Winter ' Meltdown Photoshopping the Apocalypse”, http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/12/preherein_honor.html)//AM
All that remains of Sagan's Big Chill are curves such as this , but history is full of prophets of doom who fail to deliver, not all are without honor
in their own land. The 1983 'Nuclear Winter " papers inScience were so politicized that even the eminently liberal President of The Council for a
Liveable World called "The worst example ofthe misrepesentation of science to the public in my memory." Among the authors was Stanford
President Donald Kennedy. Today he edits Science , the nation's major arbiter of climate science--and policy.¶ Below, a case illustrating the midrange of the ~.7 to ~1.6 degree C maximum cooling the 2006 studies suggest is superimposed in color on the Blackly Apocalyptic predictions
published in Science Vol. 222, 1983 . They're worth comparing, because the range of soot concentrations in the new models overlaps with cases
assumed to have dire climatic consequences in the widely publicized 1983 scenarios --"Apocalyptic
predictions require, to be
taken seriously,higher standards of evidence than do assertions on other matters where the stakes
are not as great." wrote Sagan in Foreign Affairs , Winter 1983 -84. But that "evidence" was never
forthcoming.'Nuclear Winter' never existed outside of a computer except as air-brushed animation
commissioned by the a PR firm - Porter Novelli Inc. Yet Sagan predicted "the extinction of the human species " as temperatures plummeted 35
degrees C and the world froze in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Last year, Sagan's cohort tried to reanimate the ghost in a machine antinuclear activists invoked in the depths of the Cold War, by re-running equally arbitrary scenarios on a modern interactive Global Circulation
Model. But the
Cold War is history in more ways than one. It is a credit to post-modern computer climate
simulations that they do not reproduce the apocalyptic results of what Sagan oxymoronically termed
"a sophisticated one dimensional model." The subzero 'baseline case' has melted down into a tepid
1.3 degrees of average cooling- grey skies do not a Ragnarok make . What remains is just not the stuff that End of
the World myths are made of.¶ It is hard to exaggerate how seriously " nuclear winter "was once taken by policy analysts who
ought to have known better. Many were taken aback by the sheer force of Sagan's rhetoric Remarkably, Science's news coverage of the new
results fails to graphically compare them with the old ones Editor Kennedy and other recent executives of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, once proudly co-authored and helped to publicize.¶ You can't say they didn't try to reproduce this Cold War icon.
Once again, soot from ¶ imaginary software materializes in midair by the megaton , flying higher than Mount Everest . This is not physics, but a
crude exercise in ' garbage in, gospel out' parameter forcing designed to maximize and extend the cooling an aeosol can generate, by sparing it
from realistic attrition by rainout in the lower atmosphere. Despite decades of progress in modeling atmospheric chemistry , there is none in
this computer simulation, and ignoring photochemistry further extends its impact. Fortunately , the history of science is as hard to erase as it is
easy to ignore. Their past mastery of semantic agression cannot spare the authors of "Nuclear Winter Lite " direct comparison of their new
results and their old.¶ Dark
smoke clouds in the lower atmosphere don't last long enough to spread across
the globe. Cloud droplets and rainfall remove them. rapidly washing them out of the sky in a matter of days to weeksnot long enough to sustain a global pall. Real world weather brings down particles much as soot is scrubbed out of power plant smoke by the
water sprays in smoke stack scrubbers Robock acknowledges this- not even a single degree of cooling results when soot is released at lower
elevations in he models . The workaround is to inject the imaginary aerosol at truly Himalayan elevations - pressure altitudes of 300 millibar and
higher , where the computer model's vertical transport function modules pass it off to their even higher neighbors in the stratosphere , where it
does not rain and particles linger.. The new studies like the old suffer from the disconnect between a desire to paint the sky black and the
vicissitudes of natural history. As with many exercise in worst case models both at invoke rare phenomena as commonplace, claiming it prudent
to assume the worst.