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Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008

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Food Prices Disad Index General Food Prices Shell Pakistan Food Crisis Shell Uniqueness – World on Brink of Crisis Uniqueness – UN alleviating Food Crisis Uniqueness – Food Prices Low Uniqueness – Ethanol Uniqueness – India/Pakistan tensions Uniqueness – Pakistan on Brink Link – Oil Prices Link – Solar power Link- Renewable Energy Link – Energy Link – Alternative Energy Link – Increasing Energy Cost Links – Ethanol Links – Biofuels Link – Biodiesel Fuel Link – Bioplastic Links – Overconsumption Link – Meat Link – Inflation Link – Hydroelectric Link – Nuclear Power Link – Global Warming Internal Link – Poor Suffer Most Small changes in food prices = big effect Impact – Global Economy

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Impact – US economy Impacts – Terrorism Impacts – Pakistan Instability Impacts – India/Pakistan War Impacts – Moral Obligation Answer To: Growth Causes Increase Answer To: Food Shortages Answer to: Food prices High Answer To: Plenty of Land Answer To: Global Warming Out-weights Answers To: Rising Food Prices Good Answers To: No Impact outside of US

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Aff Answers Non-Unique – Prices Increasing Now 51 Food Prices will be Permanently High 53 Alt Causality: Other Reasons Prices Increase 54 Alternative Decrease Oil Prices 55 Alternative Energy Answers 56 Increasing Food Prices Good 57 Answer To: Moral Obligation 58 Answer To: Biofuels Link 59 Environment Outweights 60 Kritik of Agribusiness Shell 61 Agribusiness Extensions 63

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General Food Prices Shell A. The world is on the brink of a serious food crisis David Adam, 2008 (“Food Price Rises Threaten Global Security – UN”, Environment correspondent, Common Dreams, April 9) Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world. Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40% on average globally since last summer. "The security implications (of the food crisis) should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," Holmes said. "Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."

B. The link 1. Alternatives that need incentives will be even more expensive than gas now Ernest Istook, 2008 (The Heritage Foundation, “Gasoline ignites political firestorm”, May 2, http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed050108b.cfm) Encourage alternative energy through the free market system, not by subsidies for special interests. Any fuel that needs a subsidy to compete with $120-a-barrel oil is never going to be affordable for consumers. Every day of high prices makes alternative energy more affordable by comparison, but still a stretch for most family budgets. Alternatives that need subsidies would obviously be even more expensive for consumers than $4-agallon gasoline.

2. Rise in food costs is directly linked to rise in energy costs Targeted News Service, 2008 (NFU Statement: Suspending Deliveries to Oil Reserve, lexis) "The biggest culprit for increasing food prices is sky-high energy costs. With the average food item traveling more than 1500 miles before reaching the final consumer, it is no wonder that food costs are increasing when gasoline prices have increased by nearly 200 percent over the past seven years. "Farmers and ranchers have felt the effects of rising energy costs as well. Fuel, fertilizer and other inputs are at record levels. And because farmers are price takers, not price makers, they cannot pass on these increases.

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C. The impact scenario 1. The food crisis is as dangerous as terrorism – an uncontrolled food crisis is a breeding ground for terrorism SYED ALI ZAFAR, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, 2008 (The Nation, “Urban hunger: a ticking time bomb”, May 28, p. lexis) No immediate solution is in sight. According to FAO people will face at least 10 more years of expensive food by which time of course revolutions and rebellions would have taken place in those countries who do not take effective counter measures. Clearly the global food crisis are just as dangerous as terrorism - it is a ticking time bomb indeed the world is witnessing the new side of hunger - urban hunger where food is available on the shelves but no one can afford to purchase it. An uncontrolled food crisis and spiralling prices will surely cripple the poor and marginalised society and create ready breeding grounds for terrorism.

2. Terrorism will destroy the entire planet Mohamed Sid-Ahmed writes for Al-Ahram new paper. 2004 (Extinction! http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm. Sept 1st.) Actually, the idea of linking terrorism to prohibited weapons of mass destruction came from Bush, not from the terrorists themselves, and was aimed at establishing some sort of link between Iraq and terrorism to legitimise his war against Saddam Hussein. We have reached a point in human history where the phenomenon of terrorism has to be completely uprooted, not through persecution and oppression, but by removing the reasons that make particular sections of the world population resort to terrorism. This means that fundamental changes must be brought to the world system itself. The phenomenon of terrorism is even more dangerous than is generally believed. We are in for surprises no less serious than 9/11 and with far more devastating consequences. A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain -- the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody. So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons have been used only to threaten. Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out, these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harbouring WMD, proved to be unfounded. What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.

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Pakistan Food Crisis Shell A. Pakistan teetering on the brink of food riots The Economist, 2008 (“Three-way struggle”, May 10, p. lexis) LESS than three months after surprisingly free general elections on February 18th and the smooth formation of coalition governments across the country, Pakistan is in a mess again. It is teetering on the brink of food riots, industrial lay-offs and strikes against daily 12-hour nationwide power cuts. The economy is slipping. Capital flight has taken nearly 5% off the value of the rupee against the dollar in the past few weeks. The war against extremists in the tribal badlands is going nowhere.

B. The link 1. Alternatives that need incentives will be even more expensive than gas now Ernest Istook, 2008 (The Heritage Foundation, “Gasoline ignites political firestorm”, May 2, http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed050108b.cfm) Encourage alternative energy through the free market system, not by subsidies for special interests. Any fuel that needs a subsidy to compete with $120-a-barrel oil is never going to be affordable for consumers. Every day of high prices makes alternative energy more affordable by comparison, but still a stretch for most family budgets. Alternatives that need subsidies would obviously be even more expensive for consumers than $4-agallon gasoline.

2. Rise in food costs is directly linked to rise in energy costs Targeted News Service, 2008 (NFU Statement: Suspending Deliveries to Oil Reserve, lexis) "The biggest culprit for increasing food prices is sky-high energy costs. With the average food item traveling more than 1500 miles before reaching the final consumer, it is no wonder that food costs are increasing when gasoline prices have increased by nearly 200 percent over the past seven years. "Farmers and ranchers have felt the effects of rising energy costs as well. Fuel, fertilizer and other inputs are at record levels. And because farmers are price takers, not price makers, they cannot pass on these increases.

C. The Impact 1. Pakistan economic crisis results in wide spread violence and break down of the social fabric of Pakistan The Pakistan Newswire, 2008 (“Pakistan - unraveling of the democratic farce”, May 17, p. lexis) The impact of this severe socio-economic crisis has implications for the state and politics. The widespread violence, civil wars and bombings ravaging Pakistans social fabric are a graphic example of this. Similarly, different institutions of the state are rotting and in a state of a rapid internal decay because of this crisis. Ultimately the intense instability of society is a reflection of this crisis. Imperialist exploitation and capitalist lust for more and more profits, further exacerbates these contradictions and intensifies turmoil.

2. Indo-Pak war is the most likely chance of extinction. Fai, 2001, Executive Director of the Washington-based Kashmiri American Council (Dr. Ghulam Nabi, “India Pakistan Summit and the Issue of Kashmir,” 7/8, Washington Times, http://www.pakistanlink.com/Letters/2001/July/13/05.html) The foreign policy of the United States in South Asia should move from the lackadaisical and distant (with India crowned with a unilateral veto power) to aggressive involvement at the vortex. The most dangerous place on the planet is Kashmir, a disputed territory convulsed and illegally occupied for more than 53 years and sandwiched between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan. It has ignited two wars between the estranged South Asian rivals in 1948 and 1965, and a third could trigger nuclear volleys and a nuclear winter threatening the entire globe. The United States would enjoy no sanctuary. This apocalyptic vision is no idiosyncratic view. The Director of Central Intelligence, the Department of Defense, and world experts generally place Kashmir at the peak of their nuclear worries. Both India and Pakistan are racing like thoroughbreds to bolster their nuclear arsenals and advanced delivery vehicles. Their defense budgets are climbing despite widespread misery amongst their populations. Neither country has initialed the Nuclear Non-

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Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or indicated an inclination to ratify an impending Fissile Material/Cut-off Convention.

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Uniqueness – World on Brink of Crisis World food crisis on the brink – riots are breaking out – 100 million will plunge into hunger Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!, 2008, (Ticker Tape Ain't Spaghetti, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17521 May 02) Food riots are erupting around the world. Protests have occurred in Egypt, Cameroon, the Philippines, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal. Sarata Guisse, a Senegalese demonstrator, told Reuters: "We are holding this demonstration because we are hungry. We need to eat, we need to work, we are hungry. That's all. We are hungry." United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has convened a task force to confront the problem, which threatens, he said, "the specter of widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale." The World Food Program has called the food crisis the worst in 45 years, dubbing it a "silent tsunami" that will plunge 100 million more people into hunger.

World agriculture is in a new politically risky period The Economist, April 19, 2008, lexis magazines, The new face of hunger - Food and the poor; Food and the poor, LEXIS

SAMAKE BAKARY sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai rice which, at 400 CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popular variety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky to sell half that. “People ask the price and go away without buying anything,” he complains. In early April they went away and rioted: two days of violence persuaded the government to postpone planned elections. “World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,” says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting “We're hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. “It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d'Ivoire's chamber of commerce.

Riots could break out in 33 countries Ian Angus, is the editor of Climate and Capitalism, 2008, (FOOD CRISIS (Part One), http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17632. May 14) Similar protests have taken place in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Zambia. On April 2, the president of the World Bank told a meeting in Washington that there are 33 countries where price hikes could cause social unrest.

World on brink of food crisis – protests are building Joseph Stiglitz, 2008 (Scarcity in an Age of Plenty, professor at Columbia University, Common Dreams, June 16) Around the world, protests against soaring food and fuel prices are mounting. The poor - and even the middle classes - are seeing their incomes squeezed as the global economy enters a slowdown. Politicians want to respond to their constituents' legitimate concerns, but do not know what to do.

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World on the brink of a food crisis St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2008 (“Growing catastrophe”, April 13, p. lexis) The world is on the brink of a food crisis. In some places, it's over the brink. Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, said last week that "while many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day." Serious world leaders still can head off catastrophe. But they better hurry.

Food prices putting us on the brink of crisis Aditya Chakrabortty, producer on the BBC's Newsnight,Friday July 4, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy “Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat." Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation". President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."

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Uniqueness – UN alleviating Food Crisis UN giving food to Help with the Crisis bbc news.june 6th 2008."UN plan to increase food supplies" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7439015.stm. Leaders from 181 countries made the commitment in Rome at the close of a three-day summit on food shortages. They also agreed to bolster humanitarian interventions to help deal with shortages and soaring prices. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned up to $20bn (£10.2bn) a year was needed to alleviate the crisis. Government representatives and aid agencies welcomed the concluding statement as a signal that agriculture - particularly the support of small farmers in the developing world - was now firmly back on the agenda. "For the first time agriculture has been put at the centre of the world stage. For years it has been on the periphery," South Africa's Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana told the BBC. The summit participants stated that the reality of 862 million people worldwide continuing to be malnourished was wholly unacceptable given the resources available.

UN fights food crisis to try and end hunger. Business News. May 23, 2008, UN seeks agriculture renaissance while fighting food crisis (Feature). http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1407249.php/UN_seeks_ag riculture_renaissance_while_fighting_food_crisis__Feature. New York - With food and energy prices already spiraling upwards, the United Nations has feared defeat of its plans to eliminate poverty and hunger. One solution is an agricultural renaissance that includes steering farm subsidies from developed countries to poorer nations . Japan's donation of 47.8 million dollars to the World Food Programme on Friday to alleviate severe food shortages in Africa, Asia and the Middle East will not be the last generosity from rich countries. Other nations and the World Bank have begun sending out big checks, but any global solution to fill hungry stomachs, or prevent social unrest, is still beyond reach. Rich oil-exporting Saudi Arabia, which reaps huge profits from high gasoline prices, gave 500 million dollars to WFP, prompting a thankyou note from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The UN Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC, ended this week a series of meetings to formulate a solution to the food crisis before world governments meet in Rome June 3-5 for the first debate on the food crisis. In July, the world's eight most industrialized nations will meet in Japan and in September a special UN General Assembly session will also discuss the food crisis.

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The UN is helping with situation in Haiti. UN news centere, 2008 (Haitians caught up in food crisis receive helping hand from UN, April 29th, Volunteers.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26508&Cr=haiti&Cr1=food) 29 April 2008 – United Nations Volunteers (UNV) working in Haiti have helped provide emergency relief to elderly and handicapped residents suffering from the current global food crisis. Working with the Community Violence Reduction (CVR) section of the UN mission in the Caribbean nation, known as MINUSTAH, UNV assisted in providing some 1,000 elderly and handicapped people with rice and beans. Earlier this month, violent protests erupted in the capital Port-au-Prince in response to the soaring price of staple foods. In Haiti, the volunteers have focused on helping the country foster political and institutional stability, and played a pivotal role during the 2006 elections when they were the only monitors operating in parts of the Caribbean island nation.

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Uniqueness – Food Prices Low Food prices are cheap The Economist, Dec 8th 2007, lexis magazines, The end of cheap food - The end of cheap food, Food prices, LEXIS FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.

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Uniqueness – Ethanol Without the plan, there is no demand for ethanol – the risk is all in the aff direction Hungry for Ethanol, National Review, May 19, 2008, THE ECONOMY, The Editors The U.S. government can do little to make gasoline less expensive and nothing about the weather in Australia. The production of ethanol, on the other hand, is directly related to government policies that subsidize it and require its use in gasoline. Absent government intervention, there would be little demand for ethanol as fuel. It has lower energy content than gasoline, is not significantly cheaper, and is more difficult to transport to points of sale.

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Uniqueness – India/Pakistan tensions Tension between Pakistan and India are increasing MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer. July 10, 2008.( “Pakistan accuses India of violating ceasefire” Associated Press Online. Lexis) Pakistan's army spokesman accused Indian forces of violating a 2003 cease-fire in Kashmir on Thursday, but a top Indian official denied the country's army had fired on Pakistan's positions in the disputed Himalayan region.Pakistan's Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the Indian army fired mortars and small arms without any provocation in the Battal sector of Kashmir. Pakistan's forces returned fire, he said.The local Pakistani commander lodged a protest with his Indian counterpart, Abbas said. The army's director general of military operations later spoke to his Indian counterpart to set up a meeting on the matter, he said."The Indian army opened fire at 2 p.m. today without any provocation, and our forces deployed there also returned fire," Abbas said. "The Indian army is to be blamed for the breach of cease-fire."Indian army spokesman Lt. Col. S.D. Goswami denied its forces targeted Pakistani positions, and claimed Pakistan-based militants had opened fire on Indian forces as the militants tried to slip into Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Tensions increasing between India and Pakistan Dugger, Celia. W. 2002. (India Test-Fires Intermediate-Range Missile. New york times. jan. 25 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EFDA163AF936A15752C0A9649C8B63.) India this morning successfully test-fired an intermediate-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead a distance of ''less than 700 kilometers,'' Indian officials said. The launch of the Agni missile, which has not yet been inducted for use into the army, is likely to profoundly alarm India's rival, Pakistan, and a world that is worried these two hostile neighbors may go to war. An Indian spokeswoman said that the decision to launch the missile, known as the Agni, from an island off the coast of the eastern state of Orissa at 8:50 a.m. was unrelated to the current political and military crisis between India and Pakistan. She also said that Pakistan, the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Britain and other European countries had been informed in advance about the test.

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Uniqueness – Pakistan on Brink of Food Crisis 80 million people at risk of starvation in Pakistan SYED ALI ZAFAR, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, 2008 (The Nation, “Urban hunger: a ticking time bomb”, May 28, p. lexis) Take the worldwide food crisis which have already caused rioting in many countries. Pakistan is no exception and the WFO has issued warnings that nearly 80 million people in Pakistan are at risk of facing food shortage due to rise in prices. Statistics are that food prices have arisen by more than 30 percent in the past year and have diluted the purchasing power of the poor by almost 50 percent. India is a relevant example where milk costs have gone up 11 percent from the last year, edible oil prices have climbed 40 percent. According to the World Bank: "Increase in global wheat prices reached 181 percent over 36 months leading up to February, and the overall global food prices increased by 83 percent." Indian Economist Thakurta while writing for BBC warns: "Food inflation is bad news for the ruling politicians because the poor in India vote in much larger numbers than the affluent." Pakistan's political parties should pay heed to this.

Pakistan is rationing food to prevent riots LYN COCKBURN, 2008 (Edmonton Sun, “Fuel, food, fury and politics”, June 6, p. 11) Food riots have occurred in countries as disparate as Hungary, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Haiti and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has introduced food rationing for the first time in decades, even sending out troops to guard imported wheat.

Food prices are putting Pakistan on the brink of food riots The Pakistan Newswire, 2008 (“Pakistan - unraveling of the democratic farce”, May 17, p. lexis) According to the officials of the World Food Programme more than half of Pakistans nearly170 million people are now short of food due to a surge in prices. According to the WFP survey, the food insecure had risen from 60million to 77million in March. But since installation of the present PPP led government food insecurity has risen at a horrendous pace. The WFP report says: There is a very big gap between the increase in prices and increase in wages... the purchasing power of the poor has gone down by almost 50 percent. And that was in March. UNICEF says that 200,000 Pakistani children die annually because of unsafe drinking water, dysentery, diarrhoea, typhoid and gastroenteritis.

Increasing food prices are starting riots in some parts of Pakistan Omar Waraich & Andrew Buncombe, 2008 (The Independent, “Pakistan's lawyers demand return of ousted judges”, June 15, What none of this rhetoric - nor indeed the marching - tackles, however, are the very real economic problems that Pakistan is facing. Soaring food prices have led to riots in some parts of the country, and there is continued concern about the threat from militants, despite efforts by the new government to broker a peace deal with extremists operating in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

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Link – Oil Prices Raising oil prices, increases the cost of food production Alexander Muller, (We're Only at the Beginning' of the Food Crisis” Spiegel online) SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is the main reason for food production no longer keeping up with demand? Müller: Various factors, including very significantly the rising oil price. Traditional agriculture is itself very energy intensive: It needs oil for fertilizer, pesticides, tractors and transport. To get away from that, many governments are promoting fuels made from agricultural products. This is turn links the price of bread to the price of oil.

Rising oil prices cause food prices to soar Fred Magdoff, is a professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont in Burlington and a director of the Monthly Review Foundation. 2008 (The World Food Crisis, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17742. May 26) The reasons for these soaring food prices are fairly clear. First, there are a number of issues related directly or indirectly to the increase in petroleum prices. In the United States, Europe, and many other countries this has brought a new emphasis on growing crops that can be used for fuel—called biofuels (or agrofuels). Thus, producing corn to make ethanol or soybean and palm oil to make diesel fuel is in direct competition with the use of these crops for food. Last year over 20 percent of the entire corn crop in the United States was used to produce ethanol—a process that does not yield much additional energy over that which goes into producing it. (It is estimated that over the next decade about one-third of the U.S. corn crop will be devoted to ethanol production [Bloomberg, February 21, 2008].) Additionally, many of the inputs for large-scale commercial agricultural production are based on petroleum and natural gas—from building and running tractors and harvesting equipment to producing fertilizers and pesticides and drying crops for storage. The price of nitrogen fertilizer, the most commonly used fertilizer worldwide, is directly tied to the price of energy because it takes so much energy to produce.

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Link – Solar power Solar power expansion has been halted due to various land management moratoriums throughout the nation GOING GREEN; CONGRESS MUST FEEL URGENCY OF BOOSTING RENEWABLE ENERGY, The Post-Standard, July 1, 2008, lexis magazine Solar power is taking another hit. The federal Bureau of Land Management has slapped a moratorium on all new solar projects on public land. The moratorium is for a valid reason -- to allow time for an environmental study on how the projects would affect millions of acres of habitat in sun-baked Western states. But the study is expected to take nearly two years -- freezing dozens of newly proposed solar projects that have the potential to power 20 million homes.

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Link- Renewable Energy Renewable energy programs that don’t alter consumption will push food prices up Joseph Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, 2008 (Scarcity in an Age of Plenty, Common Dreams, June 16,) Two factors set off today's crisis: the Iraq war contributed to the run-up in oil prices, including through increased instability in the Middle East, the low cost provider of oil, while bio-fuels have meant that food and energy markets are increasingly integrated. Although the focus on renewable energy sources is welcome, policies that distort food supply are not. America's subsidies for corn-based ethanol contribute more to the coffers of ethanol producers than they do to curtailing global warming. Huge agriculture subsidies in the US and the European Union have weakened agriculture in the developing world, where too little international assistance was directed at improving agriculture productivity. Development aid for agriculture has fallen from a high of 17% of total aid to just 3% today, with some international donors demanding that fertiliser subsidies be eliminated, making it even more difficult for cash-strapped farmers to compete. Rich countries must reduce, if not eliminate, distortional agriculture and energy policies, and help those in the poorest countries improve their capacity to produce food. But this is just a start: we have treated our most precious resources - clean water and air - as if they were free. Only new patterns of consumption and production - a new economic model - can address this most fundamental resource problem.

Renewable energy requires land for development Renewable-energy push puts all eyes on a sunny Southwest, Copley News Service, June 6, 2008, Mike Lee, lexis magazine Speculators have filed applications to develop more than 1 million acres of desert in Southern California with solar, wind and geothermal power plants, setting up a classic clash over land use with environmentalists and off-road enthusiasts. They have submitted at least 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all of the territory, in recent years and especially since 2007. The interest is in California, Nevada and Arizona lands, is so hot that even if many of the projects fall through, the remaining ones would change the look of the arid landscape. California, particularly the southern half, is the epicenter of the nation's push for renewable energy. While some of the bureau's parcels in the state already contain wind and geothermal facilities, the agency hasn't approved any solar project there or elsewhere.

Renewable energy requires new land that displaces plants and animals Renewable-energy push puts all eyes on a sunny Southwest, Copley News Service, June 6, 2008, Mike Lee, lexis magazine Officials for the Bureau of Land Management said they are trying to balance the mounting demand to tap renewable sources of energy with the traditional value of desert land as habitat for numerous plants and animals. They said the agency has rejected about a dozen energy applications in recent months because the companies that filed them didn't provide enough information or wanted to use ecologically sensitive lands. "We try to discourage applicants from applying for projects within the most important habitat areas," said Alan Stein, a top bureau official in Southern California.

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Link – Energy New energy allows us to continue our destructive lifestyle From The Wilderness Publications, 2003 (“Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy”, May 27, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html) An answer to the problem of energy depletion lies not in developing new energy sources so that we may continue our destructive, consumer lifestyles. Rather, the answer lies in developing new lifestyles that strive toward self-sufficiency and sustainability.

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Link – Alternative Energy Alternatives require the use of fossil fuels in the production of the alternative energy – Ronald R. Cooke, 2006 (Financial Sense, “ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: It's Time to Evaluate Our Options” http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2006/0318.html) Use of conventional fuels. Some alternative energy proposals will ultimately fail because they assume the availability of low cost oil and natural gas. Wrong! If oil and natural gas are in short supply, or only available at a sharply higher price, they have to be removed from the energy equation. For example, with the exception of small scale applications or devices, we can not assume the use of natural gas to power fuel cells. We have to be careful with the calculation of net energy from biomass if the production process uses excessive amounts of diesel and gasoline fuels. Ethanol is not a good idea if it assumes increased consumption of oil or natural gas based herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. The list of questionable alternative energy solutions goes on and on. Any alternative technology that assumes the use of conventional fuels is suspect.

Alternative energies use energy and emit greenhouse gas Rhena Howard, 2002 (The McGill Tribune, “Environmental apocalypse: time to overhaul the system”, 9/17, http://media.www.mcgilltribune.com/media/storage/paper234/news/2002/09/17/Features/Environmental. Apocalypse.Time.To.Overhaul.The.System-274844.shtml) "Burning of fossil fuels, land use change, production of fertilizers, industrial activities, production of hydro-electric power. Anything we do requires energy, and any use of energy requires some emission of greenhouse gases in most cases," Roulet explains. "We have always had greenhouse gases, [but] human activity is adding a little bit each year, so we are enhancing the green house gases."

Alternative energy causes environmental damage to land. Ian Sample, science correspondent. Wednesday July 25, 2007. "Renewable energy projects will devour huge amounts of land, warns researcher" the gaurdian.http://weblog.xanga.com/bartoncii/606227379/renewable-energy-nuclear-power-and-theenvironment.html) Large-scale renewable energy projects will cause widespread environmental damage by industrialising vast swaths of countryside, a leading scientist claims today. The warning follows an analysis of the amount of land that renewable energy resources, including wind farms, biofuel crops and photovoltaic solar cells, require to produce substantial amounts of power.

Scramble for alternative energy is increasing food prices VIJAY JOSHI, 2008 (AP, Malaysia, Indonesia say food, oil crises are 'grave threats' to world economy, July 8, p. lexis) Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a speech the challenge of food and energy security has surpassed the challenge of globalization, which he said has led to the marginalization of many poor countries. "There is no quick fix that will sweep aside this challenge, but we must act on it at once and in concert. To delay concerted action on this great challenge of our time is to court disaster," Yudhoyono said. The "rising price of crude oil, the scramble for alternative sources of energy, and the threat of global warming" have exacerbated the food crisis, he said.

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Link – Increasing Energy Cost Increasing energy costs increases food prices. States News Service 2008 (ALLARD ADDRESSES DRAMATIC INCREASES IN ENERGY COSTS. June 11, lexis) (R-Colo.), took to the floor of the Senate today to address the soaring cost of energy. The founder of the Senate Renewable Energy Caucus, Allard pointed out the impact of energy prices on the American public and the failure of the Democratic leadership in Congress to provide relief. A portion of Allard's comments are below:

"The price of gas sets new highs almost every day and the price of oil continues to climb," said Allard in his speech. "And in the face of this the Democrats in this body think that the proper response is to increase taxes and regulations on the energy industry. "It reminds me of a saying from the Reagan era: if it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it, and if it stops moving subsidize it. The bill the Democrats are trying to force on the American people would do at least two of those things. Increasing taxes and regulations does nothing to bring down the increases in fixed costs that result from high energy prices. "Americans are feeling pain at the pump due to high gas prices, but increasingly they are feeling pain at the kitchen table too. As gas prices go up so do food prices. America's farmers and ranchers produce the safest and most affordable food in the world. But rising energy prices have affected almost every level of agriculture. It has caused the cost of everything from fertilizer processing to increase. The high price of diesel and other types of energy are forcing up production costs, which also forces up food prices.

The price of energy costs shoot up transportation costs and in turn food costs Associated Press Online 2008 (Wholesale inflation slows in April after March increase, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4147 370300&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T4147370304&cisb= 22_T4147370303&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=147876&docNo=15. May 20) For April, food prices were unchanged, reflecting wide cross currents with the price of eggs and vegetables showing big declines while the price of rice jumped by 17.4 percent, the biggest one-month gain in more than 14 years. The cost of pasta, chicken and dairy products also posted big increases. The Agriculture Department on Monday boosted its estimate of how much food costs will rise this year, projecting a gain in the range of 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent, approaching levels not seen in the United States since 1990. The higher food prices have been blamed on a variety of factors from rising global demand to higher energy prices pushing up transportation costs and the diversion of cropland to the production of corn for ethanol rather than food.

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Links – Ethanol Filling up your tank with ethanol is taking food from a person for an entire year. The Economist, Dec 8th 2007, lexis magazines, The end of cheap food - The end of cheap food, Food prices, LEXIS But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

Ethanol increases the price of food – it costs farmers more Max Schulz, 2007 (Corny Bush's CAFÉ, National Review, May 15, 2007, National Review, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research) By artificially creating a demand for ethanol where none before existed, the original renewable-fuels standard has already helped drive up food prices. As the Associated Press wrote back in March, "People don't eat the kind of corn that makes ethanol, but cows, pigs and chickens do. And people eat other grains that will become less plentiful as farmers plant more corn. Demand for ethanol is pushing feed prices higher and enticing farmers to switch from other crops." The prices of chicken and eggs have gone up roughly 15 percent since the mandate kicked in last year. The price of corn syrup has jumped, too, meaning higher prices for everything from bread and ketchup and Coca-Cola to infant formula and frozen foods.

Ethanol subsidies drive up food costs The Economist, Dec 8th 2007, lexis magazines, The end of cheap food - The end of cheap food, Food prices, LEXIS

That, at least, is the lesson of half a century of food policy. Whatever the supposed threat—the lack of food security, rural poverty, environmental stewardship—the world seems to have only one solution: government intervention. Most of the subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty. Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land. Even a vast subsidy cannot reverse that. With agflation, policy has reached a new level of self-parody. Take America's supposedly verdant ethanol subsidies. It is not just that they are supporting a relatively dirty version of ethanol (far better to import Brazil's sugar-based liquor); they are also offsetting older grain subsidies that lowered prices by encouraging overproduction. Intervention multiplies like lies. Now countries such as Russia and Venezuela have imposed price controls—an aid to consumers—to offset America's aid to ethanol producers. Meanwhile, high grain prices are persuading people to clear forests to plant more maize. Dearer food is a chance to break this dizzying cycle. Higher market prices make it possible to reduce subsidies without hurting incomes. A farm bill is now going through America's Congress. The European Union has promised a root-and-branch review (not yet reform) of its farm-support scheme. The reforms of the past few decades have, in fact, grappled with the rich world's farm programmes—but only timidly. Now comes the chance for politicians to show that they are serious when they say they want to put agriculture right. Cutting rich-world subsidies and trade barriers would help taxpayers; it could revive the stalled Doha round of world trade talks, boosting the world economy; and, most important, it would directly help many of the world's poor. In terms of economic policy, it is hard to think of a greater good.

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ETHONAL THE REASON OF PRICE INCREASE ON CROPS SUCH AS CORN The Economist, December 8, 2007,lexis magazines, Cheap no more - Food prices, lexis nexis Because this change in diet has been slow and incremental, it cannot explain the dramatic price movements of the past year. The second change can: the rampant demand for ethanol as fuel for American cars. In 2000 around 15m tonnes of America’s maize crop was turned into ethanol; this year the quantity is likely to be around 85m tonnes. America is easily the world’s largest maize exporter—and it now uses more of its maize crop for ethanol than it sells abroad.Ethanol is the dominant reason for this year’s increase in grain prices. It accounts for the rise in the price of maize because the federal government has in practice waded into the market to mop up about one-third of America’s corn harvest. A big expansion of the ethanol programme in 2005 explains why maize prices started rising in the first place. Ethanol accounts for some of the rise in the prices of other crops and foods too. Partly this is because maize is fed to animals, which are now more expensive to rear. Partly it is because America’s farmers, eager to take advantage of the biofuels bonanza, went all out to produce maize this year, planting it on land previously devoted to wheat and soyabeans. This year America’s maize harvest will be a jawdropping 335m tonnes, beating last year’s by more than a quarter. The increase has been achieved partly at the expense of other food crops.This year the overall decline in stockpiles of all cereals will be about 53m tonnes—a very rough indication of by how much demand is outstripping supply. The increase in the amount of American maize going just to ethanol is about 30m tonnes. In other words, the demands of America’s ethanol programme alone account for over half the world’s unmet need for cereals. Without that programme, food prices would not be rising anything like as quickly as they have been. According to the World Bank, the grain needed to fill up an SUV would feed a person for a year.America’s ethanol programme is a product of government subsidies. There are more than 200 different kinds, as well as a 54 cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. That keeps out greener Brazilian ethanol, which is made from sugar rather than maize. Federal subsidies alone cost $7 billion a year (equal to around $1.90 a gallon).

We should choose feeding people over ethanol St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2008 (“Growing catastrophe”, April 13, p. lexis) America also should rethink carefully its new-found commitment to corn-based ethanol. Mr. Zoellick said last week that half of corn's price increase was the result of a third of the U.S. corn crop being turned into ethanol. The moral calculus here is not difficult. Using that much corn for ethanol may knock a few cents off the price of a gallon of gas. It means the country imports slightly less oil from Arab nations. Those are social goods. Feeding hungry people is a social better, one that will do far more for the long-term security of the United States.

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Links – Biofuels Burning biofuels rather than feeding people is a crime against humanity Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!," 2008, (Ticker Tape Ain't Spaghetti, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17521. May 02) The rise in food prices is generally attributed to a perfect storm caused by increased food demand from India and China, diminished food supplies caused by drought and other climate-change-related problems, increased fuel costs to grow and transport the food, and the increased demand for biofuels, which has diverted food supplies like corn into ethanol production. This week, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, called for the suspension of biofuels production: "Burning food today so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries is a crime against humanity." He's asked the U.N. to impose a five-year ban on food-based biofuels production. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a group of 8,000 scientists globally, is also speaking out against biofuels. The scientists are pushing for a plant called switchgrass to be used as the source for biofuels, reserving corn and other food plants to be used solely as food.

Biofuels cause food prices to soar Fred Magdoff, is a professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont in Burlington and a director of the Monthly Review Foundation. 2008 (The World Food Crisis, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17742. May 26) The reasons for these soaring food prices are fairly clear. First, there are a number of issues related directly or indirectly to the increase in petroleum prices. In the United States, Europe, and many other countries this has brought a new emphasis on growing crops that can be used for fuel—called biofuels (or agrofuels). Thus, producing corn to make ethanol or soybean and palm oil to make diesel fuel is in direct competition with the use of these crops for food. Last year over 20 percent of the entire corn crop in the United States was used to produce ethanol—a process that does not yield much additional energy over that which goes into producing it. (It is estimated that over the next decade about one-third of the U.S. corn crop will be devoted to ethanol production [Bloomberg, February 21, 2008].) Additionally, many of the inputs for large-scale commercial agricultural production are based on petroleum and natural gas—from building and running tractors and harvesting equipment to producing fertilizers and pesticides and drying crops for storage. The price of nitrogen fertilizer, the most commonly used fertilizer worldwide, is directly tied to the price of energy because it takes so much energy to produce.

Use of Biomass to create fuel steals from food resources. Walden Bello, is a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a program of Chulalongkorn University's Social Research Institute, and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), 2008 (Destroying African Agriculture, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17864. June 08) Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains. Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets. . African agriculture is a case study of how doctrinaire economics serving corporate interests can destroy a whole continent's productive base.

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Biofuels have a devastating impact on food prices Fidel Castro Ruz, 2007 ( The Debate Heats Up, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/castro110507p.html . May 9) The devastating impact of increased food prices, which will inexorably happen as the land is used either for food or for fuel, was demonstrated in the work of C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer,

two distinguished professors from the University of Minnesota, in an article published in the English language edition of the Foreign Affairs magazine whose title says it all: "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor." The authors claim that in the United States the growth of the agrifuel industry has given rise to increases not only in the price of corn, oleaginous seeds, and other grains, but also in the prices of apparently unrelated crops and products. The use of land to grow corn which will feed the jaws of ethanol is reducing the area for other crops. The food processors using crops such as peas and young corn have been forced to pay higher prices in order to ensure their supplies. This is a cost that will eventually be passed on to the consumer. The increase in food prices is also hitting the livestock and poultry industries. The higher costs have produced an abrupt decrease in income, especially in the poultry and pork sectors. If income continues to decrease, so will production, and the prices of chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs will increase. They warn that the most devastating

effects of increasing food prices will be felt especially in Third World countries.

Biofuels are a massive euthanasia on the poor Fidel Castro Ruz, 2007 (The Debate Heats Up, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/castro110507p.html . May 9) Energy is conceived of as just merchandise. Like Marx warned us, this is not due to the perversity or

callousness of some individual capitalist or another, but rather the consequence of the logic of the accumulation process, which is prone to the ceaseless "mercantilism" that touches on all components of social life, both material and symbolic. The mercantilist process did not stop with the human being, but simultaneously extended to nature. The land and its products, the rivers and the mountains, the jungles and the forests became the target of its irrepressible pillage. Foodstuffs, of course, could not escape this hellish dynamic. Capitalism turns everything that crosses its path into merchandise. Foodstuffs are transformed into fuels to make viable the irrationality of a civilization that, to sustain the wealth and privilege of a few, is brutally assaulting the environment and the ecologic conditions which made it possible for life to appear on Earth. Transforming food into fuels is a monstrosity. Capitalism is preparing to perpetrate a massive euthanasia on the poor, and particularly on the poor of the South, since it is there that the greatest reserves of the earth's biomass required to produce biofuels are found. Regardless of numerous official statements assuring that this is not a choice between food and fuel, reality shows that this, and no other, is exactly the alternative: either the land is used to produce food or to produce biofuels.

Biofuels increase the price of rice, wheat, and corn Cha, Ariana Eunjung, 2008 (Washington post, April 4, “rasing grain prices panic developing world”)

The price of grains -- corn, wheat, and rice -- has been rising since 2005 under pressure from farmers who would rather plant crops for biofuels than for food, the lack of technological breakthroughs in crop yields, and drought and disease. The sharpest increase has been this year, with the price of Thai rice, a world benchmark, nearly doubling since January, to $760 per metric ton. Some analysts expect that price to reach $1,000 in the next three months.

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Biofuels raise prices more than expected Aditya Chakrabortty, 2008 (The Guardian, July 4, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy) Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Biofuels a bigger factor in pushing up prices than other factors Aditya Chakrabortty, 2008 (The Guardian, July 4, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy) Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices. Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher."Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period. It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher. Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.

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Link – Biodiesel Fuel Biodiesel fuel requires increased land use Chris Stefan, JD candidate at American University Washington College of Law., 2007 (Exploring How Today’s Development Affects Future Generations Around The Globe: In This Issue: Sustainable Energy: Fueling The Future: A Policy-Based Comparison Of Alternative Automotive Fuel Sources, Dec.) Biodiesel Biodiesel is considered a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources (such as new and used vegetable oils and animal fats), that results in reduced carbon emissions. Additionally, biodiesel proponents argue that the process of growing plants to manufacture the fuel will act as carbon sinks, offsetting the emissions. However widespread use of bio-diesel will likely lead to land use change, another major contributing factor to climate change. n21 Concerns over water consumption also exist, as hydro-politics in many areas are currently complex. In addition, research suggests that biodiesel use may lead to increased human health impacts.

Ethanol and bio-diesel fuels have many consequences such as a dependence on weather and having to sustain a food source and a fuel source which could lead to problems with food supply Chris Stefan, JD candidate at American University Washington College of Law., 2007 (Exploring How Today’s Development Affects Future Generations Around The Globe: In This Issue: Sustainable Energy: Fueling The Future: A Policy-Based Comparison Of Alternative Automotive Fuel Sources, Dec.) Common Problems With Agriculturally-Derived Fuels Both bio-diesel and ethanol share common problems. By relying on society's ability to grow a necessary food source, we would be placing our fuel supply at the mercy of the climate that is currently changing and may impact agriculture. Heat waves, forest fires, droughts, and other potential impacts from climate change could place the food and energy supply in jeopardy. The regulatory measures that need to address this problem include requiring a reserve capacity of whatever fuel utilized. This would require the producers of these fuel sources to be able to supply more fuel than the market demands, thus, the efficiency of either source would have to increase dramatically to be a reliable source. The environmental impacts of a large-scale transition to agriculturally-based energy products are not entirely known. However, increases in land-use change, increased use of fertilizer and pesticides, increased water consumption, and perhaps increases in air or water pollution depending upon the method of production are all possible negative effects. Further, in areas of food scarcity using agriculture to produce fuel may result in dire conflicts.

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Link – Bioplastic Bioplastics are taking away land bases needed for food crops. Guardian Weekly 2008 (Guardian Weekly: Science: Bioplastics problems, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4147 152646&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T4147152650&cisb= 22_T4147152648&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8010&docNo=1 . May 9) The effort by supermarkets and industry to replace conventional oil-based plastic with eco-friendly "bioplastics" made from plants is causing environmental problems and consumer confusion, a Guardian study says. The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in Britain. Many bioplastics are also

contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for food. The market for bioplastics, which are made from crops, is growing by 20%-30% a year.

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Links – Overconsumption American over-consumption is the cause of numerous famines across the globe Heather Timmons, May 14, 2008 (The International Herald Tribune, Indians Bristle at US Criticism on Food Prices) The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain. If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates,” Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added.

Continuing our rate of consumption will destroy humans and nature Holmes Rolston III, 2003 (“Environmental Ethics”, Feed People Versus Saving Nature?, University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, pg. 457)

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Link – Meat Meat centered diet wastes important land base for food “Diet for a Dead Planet”, Agricultural Apocalypse, 2004, Christopher D. Cook, investigative journalist for Harper's Magazine, pg. 25

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Link – Inflation INFLATION LEADS TO FOOD PRICES INCREASE The Associated Press, U.S. seeing worst food inflation in 17 years, Food vendors are forced to explain higher prices; poor squeezed, April. 15, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24127314/ The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it’s getting worse. That’s putting the squeeze on poor families and forcing bakeries, bagel shops and delis to explain price increases to their customers. U.S. food prices rose 4 percent in 2007, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says 2008 could be worse, with a rise of as much as 4.5 percent. Higher prices for food and energy are again expected to play a leading role in pushing the government’s consumer price index higher for March.

INFLATION CAUSES MAJOR EXPORTS TO RETHINK THEIR SHIPMENTS John W. Schoen, Senior Producer MSNBC, June. 17, 2008, Midwest floods feed grain price inflation, Rising demand, slack production send global food costs soaring, Eye on the Economy, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25196080/ Concerns about rising demand and stagnant production have lead some grain-producing countries to halt exports, which has further crimped supplies for countries dependent on imports and driven up prices. High demand coupled with tight supplies means that a disaster like the Midwest flooding could have a rapid and lasting impact. “The issue of food security is becoming a big deal for a lot of food-producing nations,” said Ewen Cameron Watt, a market strategist at BlackRock Merrill Lynch. “There’s a whole host of foodproducing nations — Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia come to mind — who have effectively stopped exporting their surplus product because they’re concerned about potential shortages domestically and their effects on the domestic inflation.”

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Link – Hydroelectric Hydroelectric power waste lands for a small amount of energy Milloy, 200 7. (Steven. The heartland institute. Renewable Energy Harms Environment, Says Leading Environmental Activist. Environment & Climate News. october 1 http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21985) For example, if you could collect the average annual rainfall of the 900,000 square kilometer Canadian province of Ontario--about 680,000 billion liters of water--and store it behind a dam 60 meters tall, you would produce a regular output of about 11,000 megawatts of electricity--which is only about 80 percent of the output of Canada's 25 nuclear power stations, Ausubel says. In other words, this works out to a power production rate of 0.012 watts per square meter of land. It would take 1 square kilometer of land to provide enough electricity for about 12 Canadians, according to Ausubel. He says this inefficiency is a key reason environmentalists have reduced their demands for greater use of hydroelectric power.

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Link – Nuclear Power Nuclear accidents contaminate food crops Meikle, 1999. (James. may 1st "Chernobyl legacy lingers down on the farm" guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/may/01/jamesmeikle) A year or more later, soil scientists came to take samples on his 400 hectare (1,000 acre) farm, which soars from about 250 metres (800ft) to 900 metres (3,000ft) on the Aran mountains. He asked one when the 'situation' would be over: the reply was 'never'. Scientists have recently recommended changes to reduce the government's testing and compensation bill, so far nearing £13.5 million, and to make life easier for farmers. But in Wales, putting up stockproof fences to stop sheep wandering, as against relying on boundaries such as roads and rivers, could be difficult. Britain was lucky to get off so lightly from Chernobyl. An agricultural food counter-measures group is looking at emergency action should a nuclear accident result in far more widespread contamination, involving=2 0dairy farms or cereal and fruit crops. Pouring radioactive milk into the sea a solution after the great Windscale fire of 1957 in Cumbria would be a non-starter now. Mr Roberts said: 'People need reminding about the danger of nuclear. I think man has got too clever and yet not clever enough.' He backs wind and water power to generate electricity instead of nuclear power. 'When turbines come to the end of their life, you can dismantle them and take them away.' Buildings at the Trawsfynydd nuclear plant 12 miles from his farm, which closed in 1994, are to be encased in stainless steel for 135 years. Officials come regularly to Mr Roberts's farm and hold scanners to animals he wishes to move or sell. Three readings are taken to measure radioactivity, and the average must read below 1,000 becquerels per kilogram. Most now pass.

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Link – Global Warming Global warming will destroy crops Matthew F. Pawa & Benjamin A. Krass, 2005 (Fordham Environmental Law Review, “A NEW LEGAL FRONTIER IN THE FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING: ARTICLE: GLOBAL WARMING AS A PUBLIC NUISANCE: CONNECTICUT V. AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER”, 16 Fordham Envtl. Law Rev. 407) Plaintiffs Iowa and Wisconsin allege that global warming will harm their agriculture. Iowa is particularly dependent upon agriculture: there are over 90,000 farms in Iowa and every city and town has businesses that support agriculture. Iowa is a leader in corn, soybean and livestock production. Plaintiffs allege that by increasing the frequency and duration of summertime heat waves, global warming will increase crop stress and reduce yields. Heat stress also reduces livestock productivity and can result in livestock death; the same heat wave that killed over 700 Chicagoans in 1995 also killed 4,000 feedlot cattle in Iowa and Nebraska and resulted in $ 28 million in livestock losses in Iowa. Increased frequency of intense summertime precipitation will increase the likelihood of flooding of farm fields, thus resulting in crop loss, soil loss, and property damage.

GLOBAL WARMING INCREASES THE CHANCES OF FARMERS BREAKDOWN Voice Of America News, Global Warming Batters Nigerian Ecosystems, Global warming, hunger and poverty, April 25, 2008, http://desertification.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/global-warming-hunger-and-poverty-willem/ “Rainfall in the Sahel has been declining steadily since the 1960’s. The result has been the loss of farmlands and conflicts between farmers and herdsmen over ever decreasing land. Many different communities, including fishermen, farmers and herdsmen, are now confronted with difficulties arising from climatic changes. Peoples’ livelihoods are being harmed, and people who are already poor are becoming even more impoverished. Climate refugees are being created, as the changes make some land unlivable and affect water supplies.” Indeed, recognizing the importance of the discussion on global warming, one should be aware that the more “immediate” problems are: Loss of farmlands. Poverty. Climate refugees. Unlivable land. Poor water supplies. Desertification.

Global Warming increases food prices BILL BLAKEMORE and CLAYTON SANDELL, 2006 (BBC WORLDNEWS, FRESNO, Calif., Aug. 5, Global Warming Could Slam Food Supply, Food Prices Could Rise as Farmers in California's Prolific San Joaquin Valley Feel the Effects, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/GlobalWarming/Story?id=2277893&page=1) The threat to the state's $30 billion agriculture industry has farmers and legislators battling over differing ideas about how to deal with what climatologists tell them future temperatures in the Golden State will likely be before midcentury. In the very short term, a number of food prices will be creeping up over the next few months as the impact of the 21-day double heat wave of 2006 works its way from withered fields to the market shelves. In that double heat wave, Fresno County, Calif., alone suffered $85 million in beef, dairy and poultry losses. That's not surprising, as they had 20 days exceeding 100 degrees, including three consecutive days of 113 degrees. Scientists have linked this latest heat assault to man-made global warming in a number of ways, most simply because it fit exactly the global warming pattern of more frequent and more intense heat waves predicted 30 years ago.

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GLOBAL WARMING DEPLETES THE WATER CYCLE IN AREAS WHICH CAUSES FOOD SCARCE AND INCREASES FOOD PRICES BILL BLAKEMORE and CLAYTON SANDELL, ABC WORLDNEWS, FRESNO, Calif., Aug. 5, 2006, Global Warming Could Slam Food Supply, Food Prices Could Rise as Farmers in California's Prolific San Joaquin Valley Feel the Effects, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/GlobalWarming/Story?id=2277893&page=1

Even though the Sierras had a snowfall far above average this past winter, as did many of the western mountain regions, in most places that didn't help the valleys much because the snowpack melted weeks too soon as it has been doing for some years with global temperature rising. And snowpack provides about three-fourths of the West's water. The trouble is, as scientists studying the change explain, water normally used to trickle out over the summer. Now, running downhill too soon, it is leaving many valleys dry by midsummer, and crops withering. San Joaquin farmers like Dan Errotabere, whose family corporation farms thousands of acres in the San Joaquin Valley, will get through this summer. But they must strain to use every drop. Errotabere, like most working the rich ground, metes out water to his almond trees through pressurized tanks and lines. The water distribution station next to his almond groves looks more like what you'd expect to find in a high-tech chemical factory -- shiny, round metal flasks, three feet in diameter, sealed tight against sun and drippage, interconnected by varying sizes of pipes and supports. "It's all contained," Errotabere said, "so the only place that water should leak out is at the drip system." For the farmers, it's as precious as oil. We found water meters spinning at the corners of fields all over the great valley. Like oil, it's expensive. Top of Form, Bottom of Form "Water is a big piece of our farm budget" he said. And if water becomes even more scarce, thus more costly? "Food prices will go up," he said matter of factly.

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Internal Link – Poor Suffer Most INCREASE IN FOOD PRICES HARM THE POOR COMMUNITIES The Economist, Dec 8th 2007, lexis magazines, The end of cheap food - The end of cheap food, Food prices, LEXIS Dearer food has the capacity to do enormous good and enormous harm. It will hurt urban consumers, especially in poor countries, by increasing the price of what is already the most expensive item in their household budgets. It will benefit farmers and agricultural communities by increasing the rewards of their labour; in many poor rural places it will boost the most important source of jobs and economic growth. Although the cost of food is determined by fundamental patterns of demand and supply, the balance between good and ill also depends in part on governments. If politicians do nothing, or the wrong things, the world faces more misery, especially among the urban poor. If they get policy right, they can help increase the wealth of the poorest nations, aid the rural poor, rescue farming from subsidies and neglect—and minimise the harm to the slum-dwellers and landless labourers. So far, the auguries look gloomy.

Increasing food costs crush the South. Fidel Castro Ruz, 2007 (The Debate Heats Up, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/castro110507p.html. May 9) The struggle against hunger -- and there are some 2 billion people who suffer from hunger in the world -- will be seriously impaired by the expansion of land taken over by agrifuel crops. Countries where hunger is a universal scourge will bear witness to the rapid transformation of agriculture that would feed the insatiable demand for fuels needed by a civilization based on their irrational use. The only result possible is an increase in the cost of food and, thus, the worsening of the social situation in the South countries. Moreover, the world population grows by 76 million people every year who will obviously demand food that will be steadily more expensive and farther out of their reach.

The poor have no safety net Laurie Goering, 2008 (Chicago Tribune, “UN predicts food prices will dip, but maintain higher average levels”, May 29, p. lexis) The higher food prices represent a substantial threat to the world's poorest nations, particularly those that import much of their food and have few resources to provide any social safety net to the most vulnerable. At a global summit next week in Rome on the world's growing food crunch, experts are expected to call for a rethinking of policies that promote the production of biofuels. "Coherent action is urgently needed by the international community to deal with the impact of higher prices on the hungry and poor," Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said at the launch of his agency's report Thursday in Paris. "The poor, and in particular the urban poor in net food importing countries, will suffer more" as higher food prices become the norm, the report predicted. In nations such as Haiti, Kenya and Bangladesh, where people already spend more than half their income on food, price increases "will push more people into undernourishment," the report warned.

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Food prices hit the poor the hardest Naomi Spencer, Author ,22 December 2007, Severe food shortages, price spikes threaten world population, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/food-d22.shtml

The USDA has cautioned that wheat exporters in the US have already sold more than 90 percent of what the department had expected to be exported during the fiscal year ending June 2008. This has dire consequences for the world’s poor, whose diets consist largely of cereal grains imported from the United States and other major producers. More than 850 million people around the world suffer from chronic hunger and other associated miseries of extreme poverty. According to the FAO, 37 countries—20 in Africa, 9 in Asia, 6 in Latin America, and 2 in Eastern Europe—currently face exceptional shortfalls in food production and supplies. Those most affected live in countries dependent on imports. The poorest people, whose diets consist heavily of cereal grains, are most vulnerable. Already the poor spend the majority of their income on staple foods—up to 80 percent in some regions, according to the FAO. Everrising prices will lead to a distinct deterioration in the diets of these sections of the population.

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Small changes in food prices = big effect Even a tiny increase in the cost of food would starve millions around the world Daily Tarheel, 2007 ("The new circle of life: Uncle Sam's plan.", Aug 23, http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885 /news/2007/08/23/Opinion/TheNew.Circle.Of.Life.Uncle.Sams.Plan-2934799.shtml) Unfortunately, the president plumb forgot that using something edible to make fuel would drive up world food prices. In the rich world, where food constitutes a small fraction of living costs, an extra 50 cents for a box of cereal is no big deal. But in poor countries, many people live on less than a dollar per day and spend up to 80 percent of their income on food, so higher costs can starve millions.

Small increases in food prices kill billions on extremely low budget Earth Policy Institute, 2004 ("Outgrowing the earth", book, http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Out/index.htm) "Many Americans see terrorism as the principal threat to security," said Brown, "but for much of humanity, the effect of water shortages and rising temperatures on food security are far more important issues. For the 3 billion people who live on 2 dollars a day or less and who spend up to 70 percent of their income on food, even a modest rise in food prices can quickly become life-threatening. For them, it is the next meal that is the overriding concern."

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Impact – Global Economy High fuel and food prices harm the global economy. Fackler, Martin.June 15 2008. "surging oil and food prices threated the world economy, finance ministers warn" new york times.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/worldbusiness/15ministers.html?ref=business OSAKA, Japan — The global economy faces a one-two punch from slowing growth and soaring fuel and food prices, finance ministers from the world’s richest nations warned Saturday, though they stopped short of offering concrete solutions. Finance ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized nations wrapped up a two-day meeting in Japan that was dominated by talk of rising petroleum prices, which have set off street protests across the world. In a statement, the ministers said higher prices of oil and other commodities threatened the world economy at a time when it was still reeling from the collapse of the housing market in the United States. The ministers urged oil-rich nations to increase production to help reverse a trend that has pushed up oil prices to nearly $140 a barrel, a record. The ministers also warned that the rising cost of oil and other commodities could spur broader increases 20of prices and wages. The specter of fighting inflation as the ministers try to revive their flagging economies would “make our policy choices more complicated,” the statement said. The combination of inflation and low growth, known as stagflation, is difficult to escape because steps to spur economic activity, like lowering interest rates, can also lead to price increases. “For a long time, the world economy enjoyed a combination of robust growth and low inflation, but it now faces headwinds,” the statement said. “Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide.”

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Impact – US economy The affect of the World Food crisis will be devastating for the United States Economy. Dan La Botz, is a Cincinnati-based teacher, writer, and activist 2008 (The Economic Crisis, the American Working Class, and the Left: The Situation Today and the Situation in 1930 http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/labotz170308.html . March 17) Josette Sheeran, World Food Program Chief for the United Nations, recently stated that the world economy "has now entered a perfect storm for the world's hungry." A series of developments -- soaring energy and oil prices, climate change, production of biofuels, and rising demand from India and China -- will make it increasingly difficult for millions to afford food. "This is leading to a new face of hunger in

the world, what we call the newly hungry. These are people who have money, but have been priced out of being able to buy food," she said. "Higher food prices will increase social unrest in a number of countries which are sensitive to inflationary pressures and are import-dependent. We will see a repeat of the riots we have already reported on the streets such as we have seen in Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Senegal."

When a recession occurs, companies fail, plants close, those that survive lay off workers, and unemployment rises. If the current crisis turns out to be merely a recession, unemployment is expected to rise to 6.4 percent by 2009, according to Goldman Sachs, while African American unemployment would reach 11.0 percent. (Blacks' unemployment is generally twice that of whites.)5 However, if this turns out to be a more serious recession such as those we have experienced in the last 25 years, then unemployment could reach 8.84 percent as it did in 1975 or 9.71 percent as it did in 1982. And, if this is the kind of economic crisis which many fear, a crisis along the lines of the Great Depression, then we would be talking about an unemployment rate of 25 percent, and for African Americans, 50 percent as it was in the 1930s. Deep recessions and depressions have historically been accompanied by shorter workweeks and wage cuts, so income also falls for those who have work.

Rising food prices crash tens of millions of Americans Jim Weill, 2008 (Food Research and Action Center, “Presentation at the House Hunger Caucus Briefing”, April 16, http://www.frac.org/pdf/JWhungercaucus_apr08.pdf) For millions of American families, the rising food prices and the recession we are seeing unfortunately do not come as a sudden change in fortune. Instead, they come as an exacerbation of an already difficult situation. Tens of millions of people in this country, even before these events, were suffering from low and stagnant wages, inadequate benefits, and inadequate and often shrinking public supports. As a result, many of them were suffering real hardship even in the better times for the economy as a whole – at least better times as measured by GDP.

35 million Americans on the brink of food insecurity Jim Weill, 2008 (Food Research and Action Center, “Presentation at the House Hunger Caucus Briefing”, April 16, http://www.frac.org/pdf/JWhungercaucus_apr08.pdf) One important form of this hardship has been food insecurity. The Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Agriculture tell as that, before these most recent economic troubles began, 11 percent of households in this country, with 35 million people in them, were “food insecure.” (These are the latest, 2006 data.) And families with children were even more likely to be food insecure – 15.6 percent of such households were food insecure. “Food insecurity” means that the households, because of shortages of resources, are running out of food during the month, or parents are skipping meals so children can have enough to eat, or the family can’t purchase a minimally adequate, balanced and healthy diet, or otherwise the families are struggling with hunger.

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Food costs spill over into other parts of a household budget Jim Weill, 2008 (Food Research and Action Center, “Presentation at the House Hunger Caucus Briefing”, April 16, http://www.frac.org/pdf/JWhungercaucus_apr08.pdf) Rising food (and energy) prices create special havoc for the poor in one further way: every month lowincome people have to pay certain fixed costs: the rent or mortgage; health insurance premiums; minimum credit card or payday loan payments; gasoline to drive to and from work; car insurance. Their most malleable costs may be food, out-of pocket medical bills, and heat. But these are expenditures that are pared down only at a high price in terms of health and well-being – for adults certainly, and even greater cost often for children.

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Impacts – Terrorism Increasing food prices cause global insecurity that empirically causes terrorism Matthew Perkins, ABC Perth, May 28, 2008, The global food crisis, http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/05/28/2258644.htm "As all these shortages emerge, and as oil prices rise [and] the cost of growing food goes up, you're bound to get food shortages. It was absolutely obvious but not a factor that Australian politicians were aware of." As a nation, we can make a contribution to the solution, though, Professor Cribb reassures us. "Australia feeds about 60 million people a year, 20 million at home and about 40 million overseas with our exports. So, we can't feed an awful lot of people [given that] there are 850 million people that are hungry in the world and that's rising to a billion. But we do know how to farm under very difficult conditions and that is knowledge that these countries need."

And the concern is that this situation could lead to global insecurity and possibly greater terrorism because of the movements of people. "The only real example we've got is Ireland in the 1850s, in the potato famine, when 2 million people, one quarter of the population of Ireland, left," Professor Cribb reflects. "Imagine if one quarter of the population of India left India. “He'd like to see a "very dramatic increase in international investment in agricultural science, a very dramatic increase in getting the knowledge into the hands of poor farmers, major awareness that we cannot keep robbing farmers of water, in certain countries, concessional prices for fertilisers because in Africa they can't afford fertilisers and they're just running down the soils, so Africa's ability to produce food is declining, [and] getting knowledge into the hands of the 2,000 million little farmers in the world."

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Impacts – Pakistan Instability The crisis has the potential to explode The Pakistan Newswire, 2008 (“Pakistan - unraveling of the democratic farce”, May 17, p. lexis) In this worsening crisis, on the one hand there will be more turbulence and turmoil, but on the other hand another mass explosion is also a strong possibility. The workers in telecommunications, the railways, Water & Power and several other sectors of the economy, have started to move in protest demonstrations and rallies against these policies of the PPP-led regime. These protests will intensify in the coming period and a movement can explode on the industrial front as a reaction to the deceit and betrayal they have suffered on the electoral plane.

Food price hikes put the Pakistan economy in freefall The Pakistan Newswire, 2008 (“Pakistan - unraveling of the democratic farce”, May 17, p. lexis) But the real issue has been the unprecedented price hikes, the high rate of inflation, and the rise in poverty levels that have shaken society. In the first twenty-eight days of this new democratic set up, hailed by almost every body from US imperialism to the ex-left NGOs, there have been more price hikes than in the last five years of the preceding regime. Pakistans economy is now in a free fall. The highest ever inflation, trade deficit, current account deficit and worst ever macro-economic indicators are evidence of the rot and the terminal sickness of Pakistani capitalism. The economy is teetering on the verge of a sharp steep recession compounded by a global economic crisis. The rot is far greater than just the budgetary overruns and current account deficit. Pakistans economy faces high inflation, a global financial, oil and food crisis, energy shortages, capital flight, stagnant exports, falling foreign exchange reserves, a rapidly depreciating currency and decline in investment levels. The main brunt of this capitalist crisis has once again to be faced by the already impoverished toiling masses of Pakistan.

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Impacts – India/Pakistan War A nuclear war between India and Pakistan kills one billion at least Medical News Today, 08. (“Doctors Warn Of Climate Havoc Resulting In Global Disease Epidemics And Famine” http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/84469.php) Even a limited, regional nuclear war, such as an exchange between India and Pakistan, would cause world wide climate disruption and lead to global famine, according to papers being presented at an international conference at the Royal Society of Medicine this week. "An Assessment of the Extent of Projected Global Famine Resulting from Limited, Regional Nuclear War" by Dr Ira Helfand, an emergency medicine specialist from Massachusetts, projects "a total global death toll in the range of one billion from starvation alone." Dr Helfand and Professor Alan Robock and Dr Owen Toon, (who will also be present at the briefing), will demonstrate that debris ejected into the atmosphere from the nuclear explosions and subsequent fires would cause sudden global cooling and decreased precipitation for up to 10 years. Shorter growing seasons with significantly lower production would result in harvest failure in many grain producing areas

An India/Pakistan nuclear war would kill 3 million in a limited nuclear war Edwards, 2002. (Rob. May Three million would die in "limited" nuclear war over Kashmir. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2326-three-million-would-die-in-limited-nuclear-war-overkashmir.html) A minimum of three million people would be killed and 1.5 million seriously injured if even a "limited" nuclear war broke out between India and Pakistan, warns a new study uncovered by New Scientist. The estimates are comprised of the immediate casualty list from blast, fire and radiation if only a tenth of both countries' nuclear weapons were exploded above 10 of their largest cities. It does not take account of the inevitable suffering that would result from the loss of homes, hospitals, water and energy supplies, or the cancers that could develop in future years.

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Impacts – Moral Obligation The alleviation of hunger is a moral responsibility. Failure to do so is an admission of the loss of humanity. Suzanne C. Toton, 1982 (World Hunger, p. 77) The alleviation of the poverty and hunger of the Third World, Goulet holds, is at once a moral responsibility of the First World and a challenge to its own humanity: The rich are now “responsible” for abolishing absolute want in others even if they have not been “guilty” of producing it in the past. The distinction between responsibility and guilt is crucial. Responsibility concerns the present and the future; it presupposes freedom – that is, the possibility of responding to an exigency which is perceived and accepted. Responsibility is founded on the belief that human agents are not always subject to absolute determinisms, but rather that they can respond to the solicitation of goals perceived by them as humanly worthy. Precisely because they are human, men are “responsible” for creating conditions which optimize the humanization of life. In sum, if the goal of development is the good life, the First World clearly has a responsibility, according to Goulet, to maximize life sustenance, freedom, and esteem in the Third World and in its own society. To refuse to do so is an admission of the loss of both our freedom and humanity.

Prioritize food over the aff case which serves US luxuries Suzanne C. Toton, 1982 (World Hunger, p. 74-75) Life sustenance. All sane human beings value human life. Even in societies in which human life was sacrificed to the gods, Goulet points out, the human sacrifice was performed for the purpose of increasing the overall vitality of the life of the family or the community. Nevertheless, to live full human lives or to live at all, human beings require certain goods. Goods, Goulet argues, are so important for human existence that without a minimum amount of some goods, we cannot exist. It is not necessary to own the goods that we need for our existence, but it is necessary to own the goods that we need for our existence, but it is necessary to have access to them in order to “assimilate [them] for vital inner purposes. Goods can be classified, Goulet thinks, according to whether they are needed for purposes of survival, enhancement, or luxury. Survival goods are just what the term implies – food, clothing, shelter, and also goods needed for our security and protection, such as storage facilities to protect crops between harvests, farm implements, and even basic training or education. Enhancement goods enable people to actualize their potentials – to invent, explore, and bring their capacities to fulfillment. He writes: Men and societies need to go beyond what they already are in the hope of achieving what they can become. Because they are simultaneously individual organism and social beings, men need physical objects to test their possibilities. They require goods – freely provided by nature or created by men’s economic activity – to give material support to their actualizing and transcending activities … Beyond sustenance, survival, and all useful functions, man in society has had an endless range of enhancement needs, the satisfaction of which perfects him, actualized his potentialities, thrusts him beyond perceived limits and into new environment he himself creates. Finally, luxury goods are goods that are not needed either for purposes of survival or enhancement. While they may contribute to the enrichment of civilization, such goods can be a source of destruction and alienation for individuals and societies. According to Goulet, individuals and societies should give as a rule their priority to satisfying the life-sustenance and enhancement needs of all human beings before satisfying their own luxury needs. In fact, he goes so far as to state that when masses of humanity lack he basic goods needed to survive to develop their human potential, it is “morally irresponsible” for individuals or societies to pursue luxury goods.

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Answer To: Growth Causes Increase Developing country growth not responsible for rising prices Yves Smith, heads Aurora Advisors, ,July 03, 2008, http://www.globalstrategywatch.com/independentinsight/5a452ec401efc124129ac49cdf5a3ccd President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases." Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices. Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.

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Answer To: Food Shortages There are no food shortages in the world today. Ian Angus, is the editor of Climate and Capitalism 2008, (FOOD CRISIS (Part Two), http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17632. May 14) The starting point for our analysis must be this: there is no shortage of food in the world today.

Contrary to the 18th century warnings of Thomas Malthus and his modern followers, study after study shows that global food production has consistently outstripped population growth, and that there is more than enough food to feed everyone. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, enough food is produced in the world to provide over 2800 calories a day to everyone — substantially more than the minimum required for good health, and about 18% more calories per person than in the 1960s, despite a significant increase in total population.[1] As the Food First Institute points out, "abundance, not scarcity, best describes the supply of food in the world today."[

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Answer to: Food prices High Food prices dip is coming in the next couple of months Laurie Goering, 2008 (Chicago Tribune, “UN predicts food prices will dip, but maintain higher average levels”, May 29, p. lexis) Soaring world food prices may dip in coming months, but steadily rising demand means higher food costs are probably here to stay over the coming decade. That could fuel growing hunger and unrest in the world's poorest and most vulnerable nations, a United Nations agency reported Thursday.

High food prices won’t stick Market News International, 2005 (“US BLS:Record Gasoline Hits Sept CPI”, Oct. 17, p. lexis) And aside from airline fares earlier in the year, the CPI price surveys are still not picking up any secondary effects of the energy increase, Jackman said. Apparently "a lot of people don't think these prices will stick," he said. Elsewhere in the CPI report, food prices had a "little blip," he said, a volatility that was routine. For the past three months food is up 1.9% at an annual rate.

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Answer To: Plenty of Land No land to farm on – its put aside for conservation Glenn Beck, reporter for CNN,2008 (Food, Gas Top Issues for Americans; Trucking Industry Feeling the Pinch; Author: Traditional Values Key to Happiness, lexis) Dan Glickman is a former U.S. secretary of agriculture. Dan, I looked this -- I looked this up today, because I didn`t want to be a little Chicken Little when I saw what the secretary of agriculture has said, that the threat is real and urgent, America`s wheat supply is the least secure it`s ever been. He never said this about the bird flu or Mad Cow or anything like this. This is a significant statement, is it not? GLICKMAN: Well, actually, I`ve been in politics in rural America for a long time. For years and years farm prices were very low. They`re actually pretty good right now in most cases, if you have a crop to sell. So the real problem in terms of agriculture is that over the years in this country we have restricted the amount of commodities that our farmers could grow, and a lot of that land is put into conservation areas, where they`re not permitted to grow. That may change. If we`re running out of food capability, we have some additional land that we can plant on.

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Answer To: Global Warming Out-weights Hunger outweighs global warming Voice Of America News, 2008 (Global Warming Batters Nigerian Ecosystems, Global warming, hunger and poverty, April 25, http://desertification.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/global-warming-hunger-and-poverty-willem/) Poor rural people in the drylands, climate refugees, drought and political migrants, they all may show some concern over climate change and global warming. However, their most urgent wishes, their basic priorities are not directly related to the climate, but to their empty stomach and poverty. If there is any option for us, then let us first take care of their water and food problems. For no one can be fully active with an empty stomach! And let us not forget: the cost-effective solutions are well-known. Is the bell ringing?

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Answers To: Rising Food Prices Good Rising food prices are reversing poverty reduction measures Alejandra Viveros & Amy Stilwell, 2008 (The World Bank, “Rising Food Prices Threaten Poverty Reduction”, 4/9, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21722688~pagePK:64257043~piPK:4373 76~theSitePK:4607,00.html High food prices are threatening recent gains in overcoming poverty and malnutrition, and are likely to persist over the medium term, says a new World Bank Group policy note released today. “Poor people are suffering daily from the impact of high food prices, especially in urban areas and in low income countries,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “In some countries, hard-won gains in overcoming poverty may now be reversed. As an international community we must rally not only to offer immediate support, but to help countries identify actions and policies to reduce the impact on the world’s most vulnerable.”

Food prices don’t benefit families; even if they make more, they have to spend more – at best it’s a wash Daniela Estrada, 2008 (IPS, “LATIN AMERICA: Can Rising Food Prices Help Small Family Farms?”, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42118) Can the current rise in food prices be turned into an opportunity for campesino family farming in the region? Dirven and da Silva believe that one of the main obstacles is the fact that profits are not shared equitably among the different components of the chain of production. "It is the non-agricultural intermediary sector that has benefited the most, especially the wholesalers," stressed da Silva. In those cases where there actually has been a positive impact on the income of small farmers, noted Dirven, "there has also been an impact on expenditures, which means that their situation has not improved overall."

Only Agribusiness benefits from rising food prices Daniela Estrada, 2008 (IPS, “LATIN AMERICA: Can Rising Food Prices Help Small Family Farms?”, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42118) When asked by IPS whether the rise in food prices has benefited this sector, Diego Montón of the National Campesino and Indigenous People’s Movement responded, "No, quite the opposite." "We have seen no benefits for 30 years. All of the government’s policies are aimed at promoting agribusiness, and family farming has only regressed even further. Many farmers have been directly evicted from their lands," reported Montón, who is himself a farmer from Lavalle in the western province of Mendoza. "The only factor that is taken into account by the government is profitability. There is no consideration of community life. There are almost no government policies for us. Only five percent of the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture is allocated to assistance programmes for our sector, but not as part of a transforming policy, and merely as small subsidies that don’t lead to any kind of structural changes," he maintained.

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Answers To: No Impact outside of US First world cheap food meant that the 3rd world has become dependent on food imports Philip McMichael and Laura T. Raynolds, 1994 (Capitalism and Development, Leslie Sklair - editor., p. 322) First World dumping of inexpensive agricultural commodities has encouraged Third World countries to increase their reliance on imported foodstuffs at the expense of local food production. Since importing food has been cheaper than producing it locally, most Third World governments have neglected domestic production, diverting scarce resources to higher priority industrial projects. Africa has witnessed by far the greatest deterioration in local food production, with the continent’s food self-sufficiency ratio falling from 98 per cent in 1961 to 78 per cent in 1978 (Bradley and Carter 1989:104). While per capita production of cereal declined precipitously, African cereal imports increased fourfold between 1961 and 1978 (UNFAO 1961:112, 1980:108). Over recent decades, food self-sufficiency has declined in many parts of the Third World—even in areas such as Central America which have abundant natural resources (Barkin 1987; Garst and Barry 1990). Since many Third World countries rely on imports for their staple foods, the nutritional well-being of their populations has become increasingly dependent on shifting First World farm policies and volatile international market conditions (Raikes 1988; Sanderson 1989).

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

****AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS*********

51 Food Prices DA

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

52 Food Prices DA

Non-Unique – Prices Increasing Now Food prices already increasing The Economist, April 19, 2008, lexis magazines, The new face of hunger - Food and the poor; Food and the poor, LEXIS SAMAKE BAKARY sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai rice which, at 400 CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popular variety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky to sell half that. “People ask the price and go away without buying anything,” he complains. In early April they went away and rioted: two days of violence persuaded the government to postpone planned elections. “World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,” says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting “We're hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. “It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d'Ivoire's chamber of commerce. Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16% (see chart 1). These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: “Rice is very expensive, but we don't know why.” The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.

Global food prices already up by 1/3 Matt Leighton & Patrick Grumley , April 10, 2008 University Wire - Minnesota Daily “Why you will never eat cheaply again” Solving world hunger should be a goal commonly shared. Activists have long spoken out that the developed world enjoyed a glut of cheap food while the poor world was left out. Similarly, critics fretted that the low prices kept foreign farmers impoverished. Many rash fixes were developed (like Fair Trade), but to no avail. My, how things have changed. Global food prices have risen over a third this past year alone and are at their highest since 1845. Many things have caused this; some good, and some bad. In the past, price shocks came from food scarcity. No longer. The root cause is that Asia's development has reached greater levels. Now, millions who once starved in China and India have more money to spend on food, and they buy meat. It takes about seven to eight kilograms of feed to produce one kilogram of meat. So grain prices have commensurately risen, as over 200 million more tons of it are now needed to feed livestock when compared to 20 years ago. And as Asian incomes continue to rise, so will the amount of meat they consume oil and food prices trade off, because oil is so high right now so are food prices

Non-unique: Food prices already rising and riots already happening Associated Press, 2008 (Khaleej Times, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on the food crisis, June 4, p. lexis) Food prices have risen 71 per cent over the past two years to a 30-year high in real terms, 100 million people are estimated pushed into hunger worldwide, food production will need to double by 2050 to accommodate increasing demand and population numbers and food riots have erupted in Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, besides collapsing the government in Haiti.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

53 Food Prices DA

Food prices increasing since 2005 The Economist, Dec 8th 2007, lexis magazines, The end of cheap food - The end of cheap food, Food prices, LEXIS That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun—maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it—is at or near a peak in nominal terms. The Economist's food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years. That is because “agflation” is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.

We have already seen some of the sharpest rises in food prices this year The Economist, April 19, 2008, lexis magazines, The new face of hunger - Food and the poor; Food and the poor, LEXIS Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16% (see chart 1). These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: “Rice is very expensive, but we don't know why.” The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets

Food Prices are high now and have been for the last three years. Sam Urquhart, is is a freelance journalist from London, UK who writes about social justice and environmental issues. He is also an activist with the Campaign Against Climate Change, which fights for a socially just and effective global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emission. 2008 (Their Crisis or Ours? The Battle over the World's Food Supply Relocates to Rome http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/urquhart030608.html . June 3 )

In the past couple of months, the attention of the world has been directed at the issue of food availability and production, but poor people across the world have felt its effects for years. Global food prices have risen 83% over the last three years -- recent price rises have only accelerated this trend. According to the FAO, there has been a 45% increase in its world food price index during just the past nine months while The Economist's food price index puts wheat prices 130 percent above last year's levels.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Food Prices will be Permanently High Food prices will be permanently higher Laurie Goering, 2008 (Chicago Tribune, “UN predicts food prices will dip, but maintain higher average levels”, May 29, p. lexis) In one of the strongest statements yet of the potential scale and impact of the world food price crunch, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said there is ample reason to believe that "permanent factors" and not just inclement weather are behind the current rise in prices and that those will keep food costs at "higher average levels than in the past." Compared with the past 10 years, wheat and corn prices are likely to be 40 to 60 percent higher, sugar prices 30 percent higher, and butter and oil prices 60 to 80 percent higher in current dollars over the coming decade, though the real increases could be somewhat less when inflation is taken into account, the organization said Thursday in its annual outlook report on world agriculture.

Food Prices are at record highs now – we have seen the end of low food prices The Economist, December 8, 2007,lexis magazines, Cheap no more - Food prices, lexis nexis ONE of the odder features of last weekend’s vote in Venezuela was that staple foods were in short supply. Something similar happened in Russia before its parliamentary election. Governments in both oil-rich countries had imposed controls on food prices, with the usual consequences. Such controls have been surprisingly widespread—a knee-jerk response to one of the most remarkable changes that food markets, indeed any markets, have seen for years: the end of cheap food. In early September the world price of wheat rose to over $400 a tonne, the highest ever recorded. In May it had been around $200. Though in real terms its price is far below the heights it scaled in 1974, it is still twice the average of the past 25 years. Earlier this year the price of maize (corn) exceeded $175 a tonne, again a world record. It has fallen from its peak, as has that of wheat, but at $150 a tonne is still 50% above the average for 2006. As the price of one crop shoots up, farmers plant it to take advantage, switching land from other uses. So a rise in wheat prices has knock-on effects on other crops. Rice prices have hit records this year, although their rise has been slower. The Economist’s food-price index is now at its highest since it began in 1845, having risen by one-third in the past year. Normally, sky-high food prices reflect scarcity caused by crop failure. Stocks are run down as everyone lives off last year’s stores. This year harvests have been poor in some places, notably Australia, where the drought-hit wheat crop failed for the second year running. And world cereals stocks as a proportion of production are the lowest ever recorded. The run-down has been accentuated by the decision of large countries (America and China) to reduce stocks to save money.Yet what is most remarkable about the present bout of “agflation” is that record prices are being achieved at a time not of scarcity but of abundance. According to the International Grains Council, a trade body based in London, this year’s total cereals crop will be 1.66 billion tonnes, the largest on record and 89m tonnes more than last year’s harvest, another bumper crop. That the biggest grain harvest the world has ever seen is not enough to forestall scarcity prices tells you that something fundamental is affecting the world’s demand for cereals.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

55 Food Prices DA

Alt Causality: Other Reasons Prices Increase China and India demand more food which increases the cost Laurie Goering, 2008 (Chicago Tribune, “UN predicts food prices will dip, but maintain higher average levels”, May 29, p. lexis) Such price boosts are largely the result of increased demand for food from developing countries such as China and India, where economic growth has boosted incomes and allowed people to broaden their diets, as well as from the growing production of biofuels in response to record oil costs.

Food demand will inevitably increase – price increases are long term – not a blip Laurie Goering, 2008 (Chicago Tribune, “UN predicts food prices will dip, but maintain higher average levels”, May 29, p. lexis) The World Bank projects that demand for food will rise 60 percent worldwide by 2030, a particular challenge in light of the fact that only about 12 percent of the world's arable land is still unused and a further 16 percent of current farmland is already considered degraded, said Alex Evans, a London-based expert on development economics and fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. Those numbers suggest that rising food prices "are not a blip," Evans said.

Many reasons that food prices will increase that are totally unrelated to the plan Naomi Spencer, Author ,22 December 2007, Severe food shortages, price spikes threaten world population, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/food-d22.shtml

Driving these increases are a complex range of developments, including rapid urbanization of populations and growing demand for food stuffs in key developing countries such as China and India, speculation in the commodities markets, increased diversion of feedstock crops into the production of biofuels, and extreme weather conditions and other natural disasters associated with climate change. Because of the long-term and compounding nature of all of these factors, the problems of rising prices and decreasing supplies in the food system are not temporary or one-time occurrences, and cannot be understood as cyclical fluctuations in supply and demand. The world reserves of cereals are dwindling. In the past year, wheat stores declined 11 percent. The FAO notes that this is the lowest level since the UN began keeping records in 1980, while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that world wheat stocks may have fallen to 47-year lows. By FAO figures, the falloff in wheat stores equals about 12 weeks worth of global consumption.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Alternative Decrease Oil Prices Renewable resources increasing will ultimately free us from dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuel. Al Pasini, served as the director of the Missouri Energy Office from 1981 to 1985, 2008, (July 3, Given the right conditions, oil price bubble will burst, http://tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080703/BUSINESS/807030343/1003 Political flip-flopping about offshore oil drilling may be just the right strategy at the right time. With current oil prices largely driven by speculation, any serious move to expand the areas available for offshore oil exploration and drilling will by itself is a catalyst to lower oil prices. Let me say from the start that I have been involved in energy policy and economic matters since the early 1980s, and remain a staunch advocate of energy conservation, alternative energy, and yes, production of our indigenous sources of energy, where economically feasible. There is no doubt that conservation and the use of renewable resources must be an increasing part of our energy future to ultimately free us from dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuel. The current oil fundamentals (world production, supply and demand) do not justify today's price. There is plenty of crude oil in inventory in the U.S., and even more inventory of refined products. After 17 years of continued gasoline demand growth, Americans have finally reduced their gasoline consumption. We have always wondered what it would take for consumption to level off and actually fall; now we know. But driving up oil prices are the financial and hedge fund institutions that are buying and trading oil futures at what they believe are cheap prices based on what future prices could be. It is a panicky, psychological paper-transaction game that has created a real price bubble in the market. Like other booms, it too can bust. If Congress permits more offshore oil drilling, oil and gas prices will tumble on the news of drilling rig construction. Speculators will sell their futures fast and the price bubble will burst.

Demand drives up oil prices – our aff reduces demand which logically means prices will go down Moin A Siddiqi, 2000 (The Middle East, “Oil Prices Hit New Highs as Winter Demand Bites”, p. 29) A cold snap in the prime markets of northwest Europe and northeast America, after two relatively warm northern hemisphere winters, would deplete stocks in leading OECD countries. Declining inventories of heating oil and other refined products will buoy futures oil prices. A strong demand during the northern winter for heating oil, coupled with increasing worldwide industrial production could increase crude prices to $28 per barrel, or even to a a high of $30 per barrel in the first quarter of 2000, especially in the event of substantial global stock drawdown. The IEA projects growth of 2.5 per cent, or 1.9 million b/d in world oil demand in 2000, compared to a 1.5 per cent rise in consumption during 1999.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Alternative Energy Answers Alternatives to fossil fuels are now cost competitive Martin LaMonica. 2008. (Economics of alternative energy improve. June 17, http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_39970517-54.html?hhTest=1) "The economics of traditional fuels are changing," said Richard Keiser, global technology strategist at Bernstein Research. "The perceived environmental costs of these (fossil) fuels is no longer zero." As a result, wind and geothermal power are now cost-competitive with operating fossil fuel-powered plants. Keiser predicted that wind growth will be in the double digits for at least the next decade.

Alternative energy is cost competitive. Martin LaMonica. June 17, 2008.Economics of alternative energy improve. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9970517-54.html?hhTest=1. Many household budgets are feeling the impact of high gasoline prices. Imagine if you ran a power plant. Two reports released on Tuesday make the case that alternative forms of energy--everything from plug-in hybrid cars to solar power plants--are becoming more cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Clean-energy research firm Clean Edge, in a report done with nonprofit Co-op America, said that the United States could get 10 percent of its electricity from solar energy by 2025 under the right circumstances.

Increase in energy cost are a reason to move to alternative energy sources STEVE LeBLANC, 2008 (Associated Press Writer, July 10th, "Governors call for boost in home heating aid", p. lexis) Lynch's worries were echoed by other governors, who said the Northeast, with its cold winters and reliance on oil heat, is particularly vulnerable to rising energy costs. "New England is more tied to home heating oil as a region than the rest of the country," said Maine Gov. John Baldacci. "We are more dependent on foreign sources of energy into our region." During the 2005-2006 winter, the region received about $313 million through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but the governors said that only helped poorer families buy enough fuel to get less than halfway through the winter. To fully fund the program, given the rising energy costs and expanded need, would cost nearly $1 billion, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said."It's a serious concern," he said. Patrick said

rising fuel costs will put pressure on middle income families too, and urged residents to contact their utility companies for an energy audit to find ways to conserve fuel during the winter. Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri agreed, saying government can only do so much, and that while some help may be on the way for the neediest, most residents will have to take actions on their own. "The impact on that for middle income families is going to be dramatic," he said. "The notion that we're going to get money out of Washington to solve this problem is not likely to happen."The governors said the rising fuel costs show the increased need for alternative energy sources, including nuclear.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Increasing Food Prices Good Rising food prices will reduce poverty John Crockett, master’s in African economics, 2008 (Devex, “Can Rising Food Prices Reduce Poverty?” June 30, http://www.devex.com/articles/can-rising-food-prices-reduce-poverty) At the opening of the UN Food Summit in Rome recently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon noted that food prices threaten to harm the world's poorest. But lost amid all the talk of "food crisis" is the possibility that higher food prices may actually reduce poverty in the poorest areas of poor nations: the countryside. Most generalizations about the effect of food prices on poverty fall apart when examined at the household level in developing countries, where several patterns are evident. First, urban households tend to have higher average incomes than rural households. Second, net buyers of food tend to be richer than net sellers of food. Third, net consumers of food in rural areas derive large shares of their income from farm work. These gaps imply that-all things being equal-a rise in food prices will transfer wealth from urban households to rural households and from higher-income food consumers to lower-income food producers. In other words, higher food prices may reduce the extreme poverty often found in rural areas, where about three-quarters of the world's poorest live today. Depending on the concentration of rural and urban populations, higher food prices may also reduce income inequality in some countries.

Limiting food prices discriminates against rural families who will profit John Crockett, master’s in African economics, 2008 (Devex, “Can Rising Food Prices Reduce Poverty?” June 30, http://www.devex.com/articles/can-rising-food-prices-reduce-poverty) Of course, don't expect rural poverty or inequality to fall anytime soon. Governments in food-stressed countries, along with bilateral donors and international organizations are busy designing approaches to prevent this reversal of misfortune. Currently, the global alarm over food prices reflects a basic political axiom of most developing countries: urban groups have a far greater political voice than rural groups. Rural areas in developing nations have long been discriminated against through a series of economic policies designed to transfer wealth to the cities. Policies that limit crop prices or that raise input costs for agriculture are among the clearest indicators of these distortions. Although in recent years the well-known "urban bias" in development has lessened-and the urban-rural gap has closed-some legacies of decades of pro-urban planning have left their imprint, mainly in the form of tax policies and public expenditures that favor cities at the expense of the countryside.

Rising food prices benefit farmers – helps reduce poverty Daniela Estrada, 2008 (IPS, “LATIN AMERICA: Can Rising Food Prices Help Small Family Farms?”, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42118) According to the most recent agricultural census, carried out in 1995-1996, there were 4.2 million family farming units in Brazil, with two million families living in poverty. "The rise in prices benefits family agriculture without a significant inflationary effect in Brazil, because the supply is solid," said João Luiz Guadagnin, director of Financing and Protection of Rural Production at the Ministry of Agricultural Development. Small dairy farmers have particularly benefited, he told IPS.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

59 Food Prices DA

Answer To: Moral Obligation Food cannot always be our first priority Holmes Rolston III, 2003 (“Environmental Ethics”, Feed People Versus Saving Nature?, University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, pg. 452

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

60 Food Prices DA

Answer To: Biofuels Link Cellulosic ethanol does not come from human food and increasing the land resources to grow food Mongabay, 2007 (“Biofuels demand will increase, not decrease, world food supplies” March 27, http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0327-ethanol.html) We grow animal feed, not human food in the United States," Dale said. "We could feed the country's population with 25 million acres of cropland, and we currently have 500 million acres. Most of our agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. It's a lot simpler to integrate animal feed production into cellulosic ethanol production than it is to integrate human food production. With cellulosic ethanol, the 'food vs. fuel' debate goes away." Dale believes that demand for cellulosic ethanol, which is made from the stems, leaves, stalks and trunks of plants, will result in greater production of grasses and woody materials grown specifically for their energy content. He says that these "energy crops" can be grown on marginal lands not currently used for food of animal feed production. This will reduce pressure on our land resources," said Dale. "We'll be able to get more raw material out of one acre of land." "The evidence indicates that large-scale biofuel production will increase, not decrease, world food supplies by making animal feed production much more efficient," Dale argued.

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Environment Outweights Saving people is not always the 1st Priority Holmes Rolston III, 2003 (“Environmental Ethics”, Feed People Versus Saving Nature?, University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, pg. 459

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

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Kritik of Agribusiness Shell A. Food prices are high not because of the plan, but because agribusiness drives up the cost Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 150-151

B. Agribusiness food will increase poverty, hunger, and environmental destruction Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 4)

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C. The alternative – We need a new way we think about food because the agribusiness approach is depleting our ability to produce food for the future Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 10

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

64 Food Prices DA

Agribusiness Extensions Turn- supermarket system will inflate food prices

Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p.. 17

Corporate supermarket possess is becoming increasingly large, effecting everything from the public food market to what foods are available for consumption Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 14

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

65 Food Prices DA

The food market is based on an economic system of surplus and has entirely too much food!!! Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 25

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

66 Food Prices DA

Major food retailers are currently dominating the food market and ensure the same practices continue Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 18

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

67 Food Prices DA

The “price spread” largely benefits the supermarkets while taking a devastating toll on farmer and consumer wallets Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 18

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

68 Food Prices DA

Due to the lack of accessibility of supermarkets in lower income communities, poor families have to settle for overpriced, unhealthy food that may have severe health risk in the near future Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p. 24

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 Nielson/Ward

69 Food Prices DA

Ending supermarket segregation is critical to achieving social and health equity Cook, prize-winning author ,2004 (Christopher D., Diet For Dead A Planet, How The Food Industry Is Killing Us, p.. 25