1ac 2009

Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 Contention 1 is Inherency 1. 150 Coal-run plants are trying to be added in the United States Datamonitor 08 (Datamonitor is a premium business information company, May 1st, “Coal Use Set to Increase in the Global Energy Mix”, Redorbit, http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1366237/coal_use_set_to_increase_in_the_global_energy_mix)

A combination of strong demand, record oil and gas prices, concerns over energy security and a reluctance to recommit to nuclear energy, has seen a renaissance of coal in the European energy mix. This is a trend closely mirrored in the US and Asia. However, while coal might help to fill growing energy security gaps, it raises some profound environmental questions. No less than 50 coal-fired plants have been slated for construction over the next five years in the EU alone, while India and China are currently constructing a new coal-fired plant every week. Coal is also continuing to gather momentum in the US; 150 proposals for coal-fired plants were put forward in 2007, most of which are likely to gain permits. The fact that coal is becoming more prominent in the generation mix should, however, come as little surprise. The International Energy Agency has long projected a rise in coal usage based on energy security grounds. Indeed, there are 200 years worth of coal reserves in geographically dispersed areas, with deposits evenly distributed between the US (27%), Russia (17%), China (13%) and India (10%). Latest estimates suggest that coal will account for 27% of the global generation mix by 2030, up from the 24% that it holds today. Coal also accounts for 60% of global energy resources.

2. Obama will support the expansion of coal–fired power plants to appease Republicans Wall Street Journal January 15th 2009, Coal Industry Digs Itself Out of a Hole in the Capitol, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123198153797183981.html

Big Coal is on a roll in the nation's capital, winning early rounds this week in what promises to be a long fight over fossil fuels and climate change. Despite a well-funded ad campaign by environmentalists attacking the industry, and a huge coal-ash spill in Tennessee that has led to calls for more regulation, the industry has received positive assurances this week from President-elect Barack Obama's nominees that the new administration is committed to keeping coal a big part of the nation's energy source. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, described coal to a Senate panel as "a vital resource" for the country. A day earlier, Mr. Obama's nominee to run the Energy Department, physicist Steven Chu, referred to coal as a "great natural resource." Two years ago, he called the expansion of coal-fired power plants his "worst nightmare." The comments indicated the new administration is trying to steer toward the center in the debate over the costs associated with curbing fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they produce.

Thus, the plan: The United States federal government will, over the next four years starting immediately, phase out all federal subsidy support for coal extraction and coal-derived energy in the United States, for companies who do not make a substantial investment, at least equal to their subsidization, into the commercial production of renewable energy alternatives to coal. We can clarify.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 Contention 2 is Solvency 1. The plan eliminates artificial support for coal and allows renewable energy to be economically competitive Davis 02 Seattle University Law Review Fall, 2002 26 Seattle Univ. L. R. 197 ARTICLE: Elimination of the Depletion Deduction for Fossil Fuels NAME: Wendy B. Davis, Dean of Students and Assistant Professor, Appalachian School of Law As coal, oil, and other fossil fuels become more expensive following the elimination of the depletion deduction and the removal of artificial price supports, renewable energy sources will become more competitively priced. Affordable re-newable energy

would improve the economy, environment, and public health because (1) the threat of shortages, price increases, and political embargoes will subside following the removal of reliance on fossil fuels; n81 (2) smog and acid rain would be eliminated or reduced because combustion would not be necessary; n82 and (3) the threat of global warming would be abated. n83 Renewable resources are becoming more economical n84 and could become cheaper than fossil fuels if the tax incentives for nonrenewable energy sources were eliminated. n85 Currently, oil and coal prices are kept artificially low by the depletion deduction, among other tax incentives. n86 In comparison, solar cell panels that cost $ 1,000 per watt in the 1960s declined to only $ 4.00 per watt by the

mid-1990s, with the cost likely to decline even further in the future. n87 "Wind already provides energy more cheaply than many oil, coal, and nuclear-fired power plants." n88 Today, hydro-power can produce electricity at seven-tenths of a cent per kilowatthour. That equates to one-third the cost of fossil fuel or nuclear-generated electricity, and one-sixth the cost of natural gas, according to the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Authority. n89 Even with the artificially reduced costs of fossil fuels, renewable [*209] resources are cost-competitive when the cost of fossil fuel's harm to the environment is taken into account. n90

2. Shifts in funding have been empirically proven to accelerate use of renewable energies and create jobs Brown 06 (Lester, Founder of the Worldwatch Institute, 2006, Chapter 12, Plan B 2.0, “Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble”, http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch12_ss2.htm)

The need for tax shifting—lowering income taxes while raising levies on environmentally destructive activities—in order to get the market to tell the truth has been widely endorsed by economists. For example, a tax on coal that incorporated the increased health care costs associated with breathing polluted air, the costs of damage from acid rain, and the costs of climate disruption would encourage investment in renewable sources of energy such as wind or geothermal. With this concept in hand, it is a short step to tax shifting. A number of countries in Western Europe are already shifting taxes in a process known there as environmental tax reform, to achieve the environmental goals outlined in preceding chapters. Among the various environmentally damaging activities taxed in Europe are carbon emissions, the generation of garbage (so-called landfill taxes), and the excessive number of cars in cities. A four-year plan adopted in Germany in

1999 systematically shifted taxes from labor to energy. By 2001, this plan had lowered fuel use by 5 percent. It had also accelerated growth in the renewable energy sector, creating some 45,400 jobs by 2003 in the wind industry alone, a number that is projected to rise to 103,000 by 2010. 3. Plan increases the global price of coal encouraging renewables world-wide Anderson 97 (Kym, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution, Nov. , “Reducing Coal Subsidies and Trade Barriers: Their Contributions to Greenhouse Gas Abatement Climate and Energy Economics, Climate Change, Global Economics, Energy Security, Environment”, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/1997/11globaleconomics_anderson/bdp135.pdf)

Now suppose this economy has in fact put in place a tax on coal consumption that has raised the domestic price to Pc* and reduced coal use to the optimal level of OC*; but instead of also putting in place a tax on domestic production it has subsidised coal mining by offering a producer price of Pq which has induced production to the level OQq and thus lowered imports to QqC*.6 Removing that inappropriate production subsidy would lower production by QQq and producer welfare by aeru, but it would also lower government outlays by atru and boost the welfare of those outside this market who are harmed by coal mining activities by emnr, hence net economic welfare would be greater by emnt.7 (If the government not only abolished the producer subsidy but also imposed the optimal producer tax of PwPq*, there would be the additional net social welfare gain of hme, or a total gain of hnt.) Thus both the economy and the environment in this reforming economy would improve by removing that coal production subsidy. Should enough small open economies simultaneously remove their subsidies to coal mining (and replace any associated coal import tariff with an optimal consumption tax – see footnotes 2 and 3), import demand for and hence the price of coal in the international market would rise.

That would reduce coal consumption globally and induce a substitution towards using other fuels, virtually all of which are less environmentally damaging and in particular contribute less greenhouse gases than coal. Thus there would be an environmental improvement not only in the reforming economies (less local damage from coal mining and burning) but also in the world at large (less greenhouse gas emissions of methane and carbon). Should domestically mined coal in the reforming countries also be more sulphuric than imported coal, the substitution by consumers away from domestic to imported coal in these countries also would reduce acid rain at home and in neighbouring down-wind countries.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 Contention 3 is the Advantages Advantage 1 is Air Pollution 1. Coal is the leading cause of air pollution Rhodes 02 (Richard, nuclear author and expert, “Nuclear Power and Proliferation” in Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, ed by Leventhal, Tanzer, and Dolley, p. 59-60)

Most air pollution in this country, including greenhouse gases, comes from coal burning and transportation. Coal burning also releases a hundred times as much radioactivity into the environment, megawatt for megawatt, as nuclear power does, because coal contains radioactive uranium and thoriurn and coal mining releases trapped radon. The Harvard School of Public Health estimates that air pollution from coal burning kills fifteen thousand people every year in the United States alone. Other estimates go as high as thirty thousand people every year. Although coal is cheap, it is also deadly. 2. Coal-caused air pollution causes 2.3 million deaths annually Dunn 99 (Seth Dunn is a Research Associate at Worldwatch. Mr. Dunn served as an intern with the Climate Action Network, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a research assistant with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He is a graduate of Yale University, where he studied history and environmental studies. August 30th, “Cut Back on the Global Use of Coal”, International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/1999/08/30/eddunn.t.php)

Two main ingredients of coal smoke are particulate and sulfur dioxide pollution, which cause 500,000 premature deaths and millions of new respiratory illnesses each year in urban areas worldwide. Several cities, including Beijing and Delhi, are near the pollution levels that London experienced during its famous "fog" that took 4,000 lives in 1952. Today's fogs are transcontinental travelers: dust clouds from Asian coal now reach the U.S. West Coast. In rural areas, coal smoke from cooking accounts for as many as 1.8 million deaths globally. Piecemeal attempts to deal with coal's health and environmental effects have created new, more chronic problems. Higher smokestacks, built to lessen coal's local air pollution, have led to widespread acid rain and deposition. Acid rain legislation initially focused on reducing emissions of sulfur, but declining sulfur levels have in many places been offset by nitrogen emissions. Primarily because of nitrogen overload, hundreds of European lakes remain acid-stressed, and half the U.S. Adirondacks' lakes and ponds are projected to become unable to support life by 2040. Meanwhile, acid hazes cover the Indian Ocean, reduce wheat yields in India, and cause $14 billion annually in damages in China. Acid rain legislation has had other unintended environmental consequences, including a hunt for low-sulfur coal which has resulted in massive strip mining near World Heritage Sites in Canada, mountaintop removal in West Virginia, and the uprooting of indigenous peoples from Australia to Arizona.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 3. Air pollution prevents bee pollination Eilperin 2008 (Juliet, Washington Post Staff Writer, May 5th, “Air Pollution Impedes Bees' Ability to Find Flowers”, LexisNexis)

Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests. Their findings may help unlock part of the mystery surrounding the current pollination crisis that is affecting a wide variety of crops. Scientists are seeking to determine why honeybees and bumblebees are dying off in the United States and in other countries, and the new study indicates that emissions from power plants and automobiles may play a part in the insects' demise. Scientists already knew that scent-bearing hydrocarbon molecules released by flowers can be destroyed when they come into contact with ozone and other pollutants. Environmental sciences professor Jose D. Fuentes at the University of Virginia -- working with graduate students Quinn S. McFrederick and James C. Kathilankal -- used a mathematical model to determine how flowers' scents travel with the wind and how quickly they come into contact with pollutants that can destroy them. They described their results in the March issue of the journal Atmospheric Environment. In the prevailing conditions before the 1800s, the researchers calculated that a flower's scent could travel between 3,280 feet and 4,000 feet, Fuentes said in an interview, but today, that scent might travel 650 feet to 1,000 feet in highly polluted areas such as the District of Columbia, Los Angeles or Houston. "That's where we basically have all the problems," Fuentes said, adding that ozone levels are particularly high during summer. "The impacts of pollution on pollinator activity are pronounced during the summer months."This phenomenon triggers a cycle, the authors noted, in which the pollinators have trouble finding sufficient food, and as a result their populations decline. That, in turn, translates into decreased pollination and keeps flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables, from proliferating. Fuentes said scientists now have a more sophisticated understanding of the signals for which insects are searching, and that air pollution rapidly eliminates as much as 90 percent of flowers' aroma. "We now know what the pollinators are looking for when they're actually looking for the flowers," he said. Most bees have poor eyesight, which makes scent particularly important, the researchers wrote. Since 2006, honeybee colonies in the United States have been suffering from a widespread phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which adult worker bees abandon an otherwise-healthy hive. John P. Burand, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who is studying bee colony collapses, said the effects of air pollution described in the new study are probably not directly related to that phenomenon. But, he added in an e-mail: "There is no doubt that air pollution and air quality is having an effect on bees and other pollinators. It appears there is more than one factor that is contributing to the CCD phenomenon we are seeing with bees, and certainly air pollution in some fashion may be playing a role." 4. The impact is human extinction via mass starvation within four years Hayes 07 (Jerry, President of the Apiary Inspectors of America, March 14th, “Loss of honey bee populations a threat to U.S. agriculture”, Southeast Farm Press, http://southeastfarmpress.com/mag/farming_loss_honey_bee) GENDER MODIFIED

Honey Bees are the foundational, keystone pollinator specie of modern production agriculture. Albert Einstein said, “If the honey bee becomes extinct, [HU]mankind will follow within four years.” Without fertilization a seed does not form and the plant has no reason to expend the energy to build a fruit around that seed. Apples have generally 10 seeds, cucumbers 100s, watermelons 1,000s. Each seed must be fertilized or a flat sided apple or curved cucumber or funny shaped watermelon is formed. Many insects can pollinate. Some are even more effective at collecting and transferring pollen than honey bees. Bumble bees, blue orchard bees, Osmia and many others are excellent pollinators. However, their colonies are either very small, comprising maybe several hundred individuals such as bumble bees, or made up of single individual females such as blue orchard bee and Osmia. The advantages of honey bees is that their nest or colony can be picked up and moved without greatly disrupting the life cycle of the bees. What honey bees lack in efficiency is vastly compensated for in repetition. Honey bees visit flowers multiple times to ensure complete pollination. If the pollen is viable, and the receiving flower is healthy, fertilization takes place and maximum fruit, vegetable, nut or seed set is the result. A grower can have the best location, the best soil, the best fertilization, the best pest control, the best fungus control, the best irrigation and the very best cultivars, but if there are no honey bees, to take pollen from point A to point B, there will be no saleable, marketable crop.

Advantage 2 is the economy

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 1. Substantial investment in renewable energies would transform the economy and create jobs through economic investment in renewables Obama 2008 (Barack, President-elect and former junior Senator from Illinois, August 4th, Obama’s Speech in Lansing, Michigan as provided by CQ Transcriptions, Inc. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/us/politics/04text-obama.html)

Creating a new energy economy isn't just a challenge to meet, it's an opportunity to seize -- an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs. Jobs that pay well. Jobs that can't be outsourced. Good, union jobs. For a state that has lost so many and struggled so much in recent years, this is an opportunity to rebuild and revive your economy. As your wonderful Governor has said, "Any time you pick up a newspaper and see the terms 'climate change' or 'global warming,' just think: 'jobs for Michigan.'" You are seeing the potential already. Already, there are 50,000 jobs in your clean energy sector and 300 companies. But now is the time to accelerate that growth, both here and across the nation.

2. Green energy is the biggest opportunity available to re-spark investment and growth UPI 09 United Press International, ROSALIE WESTENSKOW, January 8th, Clean energy technology pitched as savior of U.S. economy, http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/01/08/Clean_energy_technology_pitched_as_savior_of_US_economy/UPI-19391231448033/

As Congress begins discussions on a second stimulus package for the ailing U.S. economy, momentum is growing to use part of the money to create clean, American-made technology that would green energy at home and compete internationally. A number of policymakers hope to green the nation's energy supply and create new jobs through measures in the next stimulus legislation, expected to be one of the top priorities for President-elect Barack Obama and the next Congress. "By investing in green technology, we can create the jobs we need today to be competitive in the future," Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., said Wednesday at a briefing in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. International competitiveness in the energy sector is essential for economic recovery because the market is so big, said John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the top venture capital firms for clean energy technology. "Going green may be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century," he said. "It is the mother of all markets."

3. US deflation due to lack of consumption and investment will cause the global economy to stagnate or shrink by the end of 2009 – evidence that’s any older will be already outdated because the economic situation is deteriorating so rapidly Gary Duncan January 15th 2009, Gary, Economics Editor for The Times, Global economy to shrink; deflation greatest threat, says UN, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5526579.ece

The deepening global recession means that the world economy as a whole could shrink next year and will battle to avoid destructive Thirties-style deflation, the United Nations said yesterday. The UN alert over what threatens to be the worst year for the global economy since the Second World War came as fears of deflation were stoked when US producer price inflation slid into negative territory, registering an annual fall of 1.5 per cent last month. In a bleak assessment of world prospects, the UN said that the global economy was now deteriorating at such a pace that its main projections in yesterday’s grim report were already out of date. Rather than its main published forecast for world growth this year of a meagre 1 per cent, the UN said that its more pessimistic scenario of zero growth, or outright global decline by 0.4 per cent, was now more realistic. 2. If the global economy stagnates or shrinks we face global nuclear war Mead 92 (Walter Russell, Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, Analyst, World Policy Institute New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol. 9 No. 3, Summer)

If so, this new failure – the failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide depression – will open their eyes to their folly. Hundreds of millions—billions—of people have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles--and drawn closer to the West--because they believe that our system can work for them. But what if it can't? What if the global economy stagnates—or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia, China, India—these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the '30s. Advantage 3 is Global Warming 1. Antarctic study proves humans are causing warming globally – there’s no room for alternate causality Scientific American 2008

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 (2008, “Warmer Antarctica Shows Climate Changing on Every Continent", http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=warmer-antarctica-provesglobal-climate-change)

Humanity's impact on climate has been detected on every continent except Antarctica, or so said the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2007. No longer: scientists, comparing decades of records from 17 Antarctic weather stations with computer simulations of Earth's climate, found that human-induced global warming has been heating up the continent that is home to the South Pole, as well. "We have detected the human fingerprint in both the Arctic and Antarctic region[s]," says Peter Stott, a climate modeler at the U.K. Met (meteorological) Office's Hadley Center, and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The researchers compared 100 years of weather records from the Arctic and 50-plus years of those kept on Antarctica with the results of four computer models. Their findings: natural influences such as changes in the amount of sunlight or volcanic eruptions did not explain the warming trends, but the results matched when increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions were added to the mix. 2. Coal causes over 80 percent of current CO2 emissions which contribute to warming EIA 06 (Environmental Information Administration, June, "U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy Sources 2005 Flash Estimate", http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp#return36)

Burning fossil fuels such as coal releases carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, making energy use the single largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. and the world.33 Currently there is 30% more CO2 in the atmosphere than there was at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and we are well on the way to doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere during this century. Although the US has only four percent of the world's population it emits about 25% of global warming pollution. Power plants emit 40% of total U.S. carbon dioxide pollution, the primary global warming pollutant.36 Although coal-fired power plants account for just over half of the electricity produced in the U.S. each year, they have been responsible for over 83% of the CO2 pollution since 1990.37 Coal-fired power plants have the highest output rate of CO2 per unit of electricity among all fossil fuels.38 The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases reached a new high in the 1990s, the hottest decade on record.39 Average global temperatures have risen already by one degree Fahrenheit, and projections indicate an increase of two to ten degrees within this century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world's ecosystems with worsening heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Unfortunately, global warming problems continue to grow as more greenhouse gases are spewed into our atmosphere. 3. Visible US action against warming will reduce coal use in China and around the world Blakemore 07 (Bill, ABC News Correspondent, Sept. 24th, “U.N. Leader on Global Warming: We Need U.S. Leadership”, ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/Story?id=3645491)

The United States has long been the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, though China, with its booming economy, much of its boom powered by coal-fired power plants, has now about caught up and is on track to surge ahead. But Chinese leaders said that they will not impose strict carbon emissions caps on themselves until the United States, which has long enjoyed the benefits of economic boom, takes the lead. Ban Ki-Moon -- like many leaders around the world -- agrees, saying the United States must set the example if humanity is to have any chance of controlling the problem. "I need American leadership," the secretary general told us, sitting under the shade trees along the U.N.'s riverside promenade. "America is the biggest emitter," he noted, adding, however, that America also has the greatest financial, technical and political resources to set global action in motion. "United States and other industrialized countries should demonstrate their political leadership, a historical leadership," said Ban. "They are the greatest emitters, which have been making these problems. They should feel more responsibility on this." 4. Global warming alters weather patterns to induce overwhelming drought resulting in resource wars causing genocide and instability Ban Ki Moon 07 (United Nations Secretary-General, June 16th, “A Climate Culprit In Darfur”, Washington Post, 07/10/08, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html)

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 It would be natural to view these as distinct developments. In fact, they are linked. Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand -- an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change. Two decades ago, the rains in southern Sudan began to fail. According to U.N. statistics, average precipitation has declined some 40 percent since the early 1980s. Scientists at first considered this to be an unfortunate quirk of nature. But subsequent investigation found that it coincided with a rise in temperatures of the Indian Ocean, disrupting seasonal monsoons. This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming. It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought. Until then, Arab nomadic herders had lived amicably with settled farmers. A recent Atlantic Monthly article by Stephan Faris describes how black farmers would welcome herders as they crisscrossed the land, grazing their camels and sharing wells. But once the rains stopped, farmers fenced their land for fear it would be ruined by the passing herds. For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out. By 2003, it evolved into the full-fledged tragedy we witness today. 5. African instability is the most likely scenario for global nuclear war Deutsch 02 The Rabid Tiger Newsletter, Vol. II, No. 9 November 18, 2002 Dr. Jeffrey Deutsch Founder, Rabid Tiger Project, BA in Government from Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, and an MA and PhD in Economics from George Mason University, in Fairfax, VA. http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html

The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect - not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help - financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 6. Even absent global warming, Ocean acidification from CO2 will collapse marine biodiversity Orr et al October 16th (Dr. James Orr of the IAEA and Chairman of meeting, 2008, “Scientists confirm oceans acidifying at unprecedented speed”, from UNESCOPRESS, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=43690&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html)

The acidification of the world’s oceans, caused by the absorption of huge volumes of carbon dioxide, is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, threatening marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of tens of millions of people, concluded scientists attending the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World held in Monaco from 6-9 October. The meeting, attended by 250 marine scientists from 32 countries, was organized by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP), with the support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and several other partners. “Our oceans are sick. We don’t quite know how sick, but there is enough evidence now for us to say that ocean chemistry in changing, that as a result some marine organisms will be affected, and that decision makers need to sit up and take notice,” said James Orr of the IAEA and Chairman of the meeting. Acidification results from the ocean’s capacity to absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide, about one-third of what we emit to the atmosphere from combustion of fossil fuels. Currently, the ocean absorbs about eight billion tonnes of CO2 annually that would otherwise stay in the atmosphere. It thus plays an important role in mitigating global warming. But at what price? “Since the industrial revolution, the acidity of ocean surface waters has increased by 30 percent. This change is greater and happening about 100 times faster than for previous acidification events experienced in many millions of years,” said Dr. Orr. “Published research indicates that by 2030, the Southern Ocean will start to become corrosive to the shells of some marine snails that swim in surface waters. These snails provide a major source of food for Pacific Salmon. If they decline or disappear in some regions, such as the North Pacific, what will happen to the salmon – and the salmon fishing industry? And what will happen as ocean acidification increasingly affects coral reefs, which are home to one-quarter of the world’s fish during at least part of their lifetime, and which support a multi-billion dollar tourist industry?” he continued. “Previous acidification events provide a clue,” said Carole Turley from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (U.K). “The evidence indicates mass extermination of shell bearing organisms for example. This bears out with studies of the ocean floor around existing natural CO2 vents today, where the sea water is already highly acidified, and which show a steep decline in biodiversity and the appearance of invasive species.” 7. Marine biodiversity collapse causes extinction Craig 03 (Robin Kundis, Associate Profess of Law at Indiana, Winter, “Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii”, Lexis)

The world’s oceans contain many resources and provide many services that humans consider valuable. “Occupying more than seventy percent of the Earth’s surface and ninety-five percent of the biosphere,” oceans provide food; marketable goods such as shells, aquarium fish, and pharmaceuticals; life support processes, including carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and weather mechanics; and quality of life, both aesthetic and economic, for millions of people worldwide. Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the importance of the ocean to humanity’s well-being: “The ocean is the cradle of life on our planet, and it remains the axis of existence, the locus of planetary biodiversity, and the engine of the chemical and hydrological cycles that create and maintain our atmosphere and climate.” Ocean and coastal ecosystem services have been calculated to be worth over twenty billion dollars per year, worldwide. In addition, many people assign heritage and existence value to the ocean and its creatures, viewing the world’s seas as a common legacy to be passed on relatively intact to future generations. (It continues…) 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, phosphorous, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements”. In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet’s ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem’s ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, “indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable. (It continues…) We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: If we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, 863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." 864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 Global economic collapse causes extinction Kerpen—2008 (Phil Kerpen, Policy Director for Americans for Prosperity, an organization of grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels, 10/28/08, “From Panic to Depression?,” The National Review, Available Online at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...JiNWVkMTIxMmU=)

It’s important that we avoid all these policy errors — not just for the sake of our prosperity, but for our survival. The Great Depression, after all, didn’t end until the advent of World War II, the most destructive war in the history of the planet. In a world of nuclear and biological weapons and non-state terrorist organizations that breed on poverty and despair, another global economic breakdown of such extended duration would risk armed conflicts on an even greater scale.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008

More: Addressing the electricity sector is the best policy option to solve warming and save the world Hemsath August 27th (Dr. Klaus H. has worked as scientist, process engineer, Director of R&D, Corporate Vice President of R&D, Company President, Chief Executive Officer, and Inventor, 2008, “Halt Global Warming by Stopping Fossil Fuel Combustion”, Article Base, http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/halt-global-warming-by-stopping-fossilfuel-combustion-498654.html) Mr. Gore has realized that conservation measures and "Cap and Trade" measures do not work. The world can be saved only, if we completely eliminate all carbon dioxide emissions during the next forty years. Converting the electric power generating sector first, does make the most sense. All major technologies for generating electric power from renewable energy sources are in various stages of development. Installations using wind power, solar energy, geothermal heat, and marine power have been started up and are slowly gaining a measurable foothold. At present, coal fired power plants generate the least expensive electricity. Therefore, market forces will never lead to the shutdown of the most egregious greenhouse gas emitters. Only legislative action can prevent the construction of any new, coal fired power plants. Coal use is projected to increase by at least 60% worldwide by 2025 BESR 07 (Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, National Academy of Sciences, “Coal: Research and Development to Support National Energy Policy” http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11977) Along with domestic projections, the EIA also publishes scenarios for international energy use in its annual International Energy Outlook. Figure 2.6 summarizes the most recent EIA projections of world coal use in 2010, 2020, and 2025, for three groups of countries—mature market economies (including most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] countries), emerging economies (such as China and India), and transitional economies (including the former Soviet Union, non-OECD Europe, and Eurasia). Again, these scenarios reflect variations in different growth rate parameters, but do not include policy scenarios such as future GHG constraints. In the absence of such policy constraints, world coal use is projected to grow dramatically in the emerging economies, primarily China and India. Much smaller tonnage growth is projected in the rest of the world, although relative growth rates are projected to be high in several other countries. By 2025, worldwide coal use increases by approximately 60 percent over 2002 levels in the reference case and by nearly 80 percent in the high economic growth scenario. 100 percent of scientific peer-reviewed journals agree warming is real and human-induced Hendricks and Inslee 07 (Bracken, Senior Fellow with American Progress, Jay, Representative from Washington, Apollo’s Fire, pg.7) All of these statements represent the consensus of an enormously diverse community of scientists from around the world. At a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in July 2006, organized to challenge the science of global warming, even the witnesses called to question the science ended up agreeing to these basic findings. And of 928 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals randomly selected from the thousands that have been published in the last decade, not one questioned these fundamental conclusions. Like the tobacco industry of the 1960s, which declared, “Doubt is our product,” some in industry have nonetheless continued to stress uncertainty to promote inaction; but questioning the basic fact pattern is no longer acceptable in public debate, and many signs of change are emerging. As an example of how far the conversation has moved, even Shell Oil has come out in favor of managing CO2 to reduce the threat of global warming, and Exxon has dropped some of its support for groups questioning global warming science.

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 1. Plan eliminates $1,000,000,000,000 in coal subsidies so that wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and other renewable energies are cost-competitive with coal Kennedy June 08 (Robert F., Environmental activist and lawyer, June 30th, “CNN LARRY KING LIVE Gas Crisis”, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0806/30/lkl.01.html)

The other point I would make is what John Stossel is saying, a free market would be good. We don't have a free market in the energy industry. Everybody knows that. We give a trillion a year in subsidies, direct and indirect subsidies, to oil, and somewhere near a trillion dollars to coal. We also -- nuclear energy is also highly subsidized. If we had a real free market that does what a market is supposed to do, which is to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior and inefficiency, wind, solar, geothermal and tidal would easily triumph in the marketplace. You would see them immediately taking over the marketplace. The biggest impediment is these huge subsidies we're pouring into incumbents.

U.S. beekeepers have lost 36% of their hives

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Coal 1AC George Washington High School 2008 Bloomberg December 30th Alan Bjerja, 2008, Colony Collapse May Cause 60% of U.S. Bee Losses, Study Says http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ad8Q_xzx5lBQ&refer=us

U.S. beekeepers lost about 36 percent of their hives between September 2007 and March, and in 60 percent of those cases, the hives were found without any bees inside, according to the study being released today by PLoS One, an online publisher of scientific research papers. Bee disappearance is a telltale sign of CCD, which may disorient bees and cause them to flee their hives before dropping dead. US economic growth is key to prevent the collapse of the world economy Mead 04 (Walter Russell, Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy, March 1st, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2504)

Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United States--government and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments--more and more of them have acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system. A collapse of the U.S. economy and the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other countries fear to break with the United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and the United States must continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a vengeance. 6. We have a moral obligation to prevent genocide Washington Post 04 (“As Genocide Unfolds.” June 20th, p. B06, Editorial, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54947-2004Jun19.html)

THE BUSH administration is waking up to Darfur, the western Sudanese province where Arab death squads have herded African villagers into refugee camps and are waiting for them to die. Two weeks ago Andrew Natsios, the administration's top aid official, estimated that at least a third of a million refugees are likely to perish for lack of food or basic medicines, and earlier this month Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged to the New York Times that the death squads have been supported by Sudan's government. Mr. Powell added that State Department lawyers are determining whether the killing, which the administration has already characterized as ethnic cleansing, may qualify for the term "genocide" -- a determination that would impose moral, political and arguably also legal obligations to intervene in Darfur. The Darfur killings do look very much like genocide. The U.N. Convention on Genocide defines it as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" by, for example, "deliberately inflicting on members of the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." In keeping with this language, the Darfur violence has been targeted at a group defined by its black skin, with the objective not merely of looting land or cattle but of physical destruction. Aerial maps, interviews with refugees and reports from the region show that villages with ethnic African populations have been singled out for destruction; in one area, U.N. fact-finders came upon 23 African villages burned to the ground, while ethnic Arab villages, some separated from an African one by as little as 500 yards, were unscathed. Moreover, the refugees from the burned villages now face death not as some byproduct of conflict; their extermination is a main objective of the death squads and Sudan's government. The death squads attack refugees who venture out of their camps in search of food or firewood, and the government deliberately hampers international humanitarian efforts to deliver relief supplies. After a rebellion began in Darfur early last year, the Sudanese regime appears to have decided that, by wiping out a large fraction of the civilian population, it could deter copy-cat rebellions elsewhere. Whatever label one attaches to these killings, there is a moral obligation to do everything possible to stop them. To ignore slaughter on this scale is to subscribe to an intolerably cramped view of Western interests, one that would drain foreign policy of its moral content, undermine its support among voters and damage the West's reputation in developing countries that already seek to paint high-minded Western rhetoric as hypocritical. The Bush administration, to its credit, understands this. But its strategy is out of kilter with the crisis on the ground.

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