1AC Warming

Global warming is real and human induced top climate scientists agree
Anderegg et al 10 PhD Candidate @ Stanford in Biology
(William, Expert credibility in climate change, National Academy of Sciences, p. 12107-
12109)//BB
Preliminary reviews of scientific literature and surveys of cli- mate scientists indicate
striking agreement with the primary conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC): anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for
most of the unequivocal warming of the Earths average global temperature over the
second half of the 20th century (13). Nonetheless, substantial and growing public doubt
remains about the anthropogenic cause and scientific agreement about the role of
anthropogenic greenhouse gases in climate change (4, 5). A vocal minority of researchers
and other critics contest the conclusions of the mainstream scientific assessment,
frequently citing large numbers of scientists whom they believe support their claims (6
8). This group, often termed climate change skeptics, contrarians, or deniers, has received
large amounts of media attention and wields significant influence in the societal debate
about climate change impacts and policy (7, 914). An extensive literature examines what
constitutes expertise or credibility in technical and policy-relevant scientific research (15).
Though our aim is not to expand upon that literature here, we wish to draw upon several
important observations from this literature in examining expert credibility in climate
change. First, though the degree of contextual, political, epistemological, and cultural in-
fluences in determining who counts as an expert and who is credible remains debated,
many scholars acknowledge the need to identify credible experts and account for expert
opinion in tech- nical (e.g., science-based) decision-making (1519). Furthermore,
delineating expertise and the relative credibility of claims is critical, especially in areas
where it may be difficult for the majority of decision-makers and the lay public to
evaluate the full complexities of a technical issue (12, 15). Ultimately, however, societal
decisions regarding response to ACC must necessarily include input from many diverse
and nonexpert stakeholders. Because the timeline of decision-making is often more rapid
than scientific consensus, examining the landscape of expert opinion can greatly inform
such decision-making (15, 19). Here, we examine a metric of climate-specific expertise
and a metric of overall sci- entific prominence as two dimensions of expert credibility in
two groups of researchers. We provide a broad assessment of the rel- ative credibility of
researchers convinced by the evidence (CE) of ACC and those unconvinced by the
evidence (UE) of ACC. Our consideration of UE researchers differs from previous work on
climate change skeptics and contrarians in that we primarily focus on researchers that
have published extensively in the climate field, although we consider all
skeptics/contrarians that have signed pro- minent statements concerning ACC (68). Such
expert analysis can illuminate public and policy discussions about ACC and the extent of
consensus in the expert scientific community. We compiled a database of 1,372 climate
researchers based on authorship of scientific assessment reports and membership on
multisignatory statements about ACC (SI Materials and Methods). We tallied the number
of climate-relevant publications authored or coauthored by each researcher (defined here
as expertise) and counted the number of citations for each of the researchers four
highest-cited papers (defined here as prominence) using Google Scholar. We then
imposed an a priori criterion that a researcher must have authored a minimum of 20
climate publications to be considered a climate researcher, thus reducing the database to
908 researchers. Varying this minimum publication cutoff did not ma- terially alter results
(Materials and Methods). We ranked researchers based on the total number of climate
publications authored. Though our compiled researcher list is not comprehensive nor
designed to be representative of the entire cli- mate science community, we have drawn
researchers from the most high-profile reports and public statements about ACC.
Therefore, we have likely compiled the strongest and most credentialed re- searchers in
CE and UE groups. Citation and publication analyses must be treated with caution in
inferring scientific credibility, but we suggest that our methods and our expertise and
prominence criteria provide conservative, robust, and relevant indicators of relative
credibility of CE and UE groups of climate researchers (Materials and Methods). Results
and Discussion The UE [unconvinced by evidence] group comprises only 2% of the top
50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of
researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in
both groups (Materials and Methods). This result closely agrees with expert surveys,
indicating that 97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with
the tenets of ACC (2). Furthermore, this finding complements direct polling of the climate
researcher community, which yields quali- tative and self-reported researcher expertise
(2). Our findings capture the added dimension of the distribution of researcher expertise,
quantify agreement among the highest expertise climate researchers, and provide an
independent assessment of level of scientific consensus concerning ACC. In addition to
the striking difference in number of expert researchers between CE and UE groups, the
distribution of expertise of the UE group is far below that of the CE group (Fig. 1). Mean
expertise of the UE group was around half (60 publications) that of the CE group (119
pub- lications; MannWhitney U test: W = 57,020; P < 1014), as was median expertise
(UE = 34 publications; CE = 84 publications). Furthermore, researchers with fewer than 20
climate publications comprise 80% the UE group, as opposed to less than 10% of the CE
group. This indicates that the bulk of UE researchers on the most prominent
multisignatory statements about climate change have not published extensively in the
peer-reviewed climate literature. We examined a subsample of the 50 most-published
(highest- expertise) researchers from each group. Such subsampling facili- tates
comparison of relative expertise between groups (normalizing differences between
absolute numbers). This method reveals large differences in relative expertise between
CE and UE groups (Fig. 2). Though the top-published researchers in the CE group have an
average of 408 climate publications (median = 344), the top UE re- searchers average only
89 publications (median = 68; Mann Whitney U test: W = 2,455; P < 1015). Thus, this
suggests that not all experts are equal, and top CE researchers have much stronger
expertise in climate science than those in the top UE group. Finally, our prominence
criterion provides an independent and approximate estimate of the relative scientific
significance of CE and UE publications. Citation analysis complements publication analysis
because it can, in general terms, capture the quality and impact of a researchers
contributiona critical component to overall scientific credibilityas opposed to
measuring a research- ers involvement in a field, or expertise (Materials and Methods).
The citation analysis conducted here further complements the publication analysis
because it does not examine solely climate- relevant publications and thus captures
highly prominent re- searchers who may not be directly involved with the climate field.
We examined the top four most-cited papers for each CE and UE researcher with 20 or
more climate publications and found immense disparity in scientific prominence between
CE and UE communities (MannWhitney U test: W = 50,710; P < 106; Fig. 3). CE
researchers top papers were cited an average of 172 times, compared with 105 times for
UE researchers. Because a single, highly cited paper does not establish a highly credible
reputation but might instead reflect the controversial nature of that paper (often called
the single-paper effect), we also considered the av- erage the citation count of the second
through fourth most-highly cited papers of each researcher. Results were robust when
only these papers were considered (CE mean: 133; UE mean: 84; MannWhitney U test:
W = 50,492; P < 106). Results were ro- bust when all 1,372 researchers, including those
with fewer than 20 climate publications, were considered (CE mean: 126; UE mean: 59;
MannWhitney U test: W = 3.5 105; P < 1015). Number of citations is an imperfect but
useful benchmark for a groups scientific prominence (Materials and Methods), and we
show here that even considering all (e.g., climate and nonclimate) publications, the UE
researcher group has substantially lower prominence than the CE group. We provide a
large-scale quantitative assessment of the relative level of agreement, expertise, and
prominence in the climate re- searcher community. We show that the expertise and
prominence, two integral components of overall expert credibility, of climate researchers
convinced by the evidence of ACC vastly overshadows that of the climate change
skeptics and contrarians. This divide is even starker when considering the top researchers
in each group. Despite media tendencies to present both sides in ACC debates (9), which
can contribute to continued public misunderstanding re- garding ACC (7, 11, 12, 14), not
all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise in the climate
system. This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers
suggests a strong role for considering expert credibi- lity in the relative weight of and
attention to these groups of re- searchers in future discussions in media, policy, and
public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.
shows, for the first time, that at least one of the CGCMs used to predict future climate is
capable of reproducing both the timing and amplitude of climate evolution seen in the
past under realistic climate forcing.
CO2 is the cause
ORLCF 12 (Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, 4/4/12,
http://www.olcf.ornl.gov/2012/04/04/carbon-dioxide-caused-global-warming-at-ice-
ages-end-pioneering-simulation-shows/)

Climate science has an equivalent to the what came firstthe chicken or the egg?
question: What came first, greenhouse gases or global warming? A multi-
institutional team led by researchers at Harvard, Oregon State University,
and the University of Wisconsin used a global dataset of paleoclimate
records and the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL) to find the answer (spoiler alert: carbon dioxide drives warming).
The results, published in the April 5 issue of Nature, analyze 15,000 years of
climate history. Scientists hope amassing knowledge of the causes of natural global
climate change will aid understanding of human-caused climate change. We
constructed the first-ever record of global temperature spanning the end of
the last ice age based on 80 proxy temperature records from around the
world, said Jeremy Shakun, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Climate and Global Change postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard and Columbia Universities and first author of the paper. Its no small
task to get at global mean temperature. Even for studies of the present day you need lots
of locations, quality-controlled data, careful statistics. For the past 21,000 years, its
even harder. But because the data set is large enough, these proxy data provide a
reasonable estimate of global mean temperature. Proxy records from around the
worldderived from ice cores and ocean and lake sedimentsprovide
estimates of local surface temperature throughout history, and carbon-14
dating indicates when those temperatures occurred. For example, water
molecules harboring the oxygen-18 isotope rain out faster than those containing oxygen-
16 as an air mass cools, so the ratio of these isotopes in glacial ice layers tells scientists
how cold it was when the snow fell. Likewise, the amount of magnesium incorporated
into the shells of marine plankton depends on the temperature of the water they live in,
and these shells get preserved on the seafloor when they die. The authors combined
these local temperature records to produce a reconstruction of global mean
temperature. Additionally, samples of ancient atmosphere are trapped as air bubbles in
glaciers, providing a direct measure of carbon dioxide levels through time that could be
compared to the global temperature record. Being the first to reconstruct global
mean temperatures throughout this time interval allowed the researchers
to show what many suspected but none could yet prove: This is the first
paper to definitively show the role carbon dioxide played in helping to end
the last ice age, said Shakun, who co-wrote the paper with Peter Clark of Oregon
State University. We found that global temperature mirrored and generally
lagged behind rising carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation, which
points to carbon dioxide as the major driver of global warming. Prior results
based on Antarctic ice cores had indicated that local temperatures in Antarctica started
warming before carbon dioxide began rising, which implied that carbon dioxide was a
feedback to some other leading driver of warming. The delay of global temperature
behind carbon dioxide found in this study, however, shows that the ice-core perspective
does not apply to the globe as a whole and instead suggests that carbon dioxide was the
primary driver of worldwide warming. While the geologic record showed a
remarkable correlation between carbon dioxide and global temperature,
the researchers also turned to state-of-the-art model simulations to further
pin down the direction of causation suggested by the temperature lag.
Jaguar recently ran approximately 14 million processor hours to simulate
the most recent 21,000 years of Earths climate. Feng He of the University of
Wisconsin, Madison, a postdoctoral researcher, plugged the main forcings driving global
climate over this time interval into an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)class model called the Community Climate System Model version 3, a global
climate model that couples interactions between atmosphere, oceans, lands, and sea ice.
The climate science community developed the model with support from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and
National Aeronautics and Space Administration and used many codes
developed by university researchers. Our model results are the first IPCC-
class Coupled General Circulation Model (CGCM) simulation of such a long
duration ,
Scenario 1 is collapse warming will cause unprecedented economic devastation leading to
extinction.
Mazo 10 PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA
(Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security and
Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, 3-2010, Climate
Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it, pg. 122)//BB

The best estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C
above pre-industrial levels, depending on the scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the
low end of the likely range is 1.goC, and in the worst 'business as usual' projections, which
actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1--7.1C.
Even keeping emissions at constant 2000 levels (which have already been exceeded),
global temperature would still be expected to reach 1.2C (O'9""1.5C)above pre-
industrial levels by the end of the century." Without early and severe reductions in
emissions, the effects of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are
likely to be catastrophic for the stability and security of countries in the developing
world - not to mention the associated human tragedy. Climate change could even
undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced economies, beyond the
knock-on effects on security of widespread state failure and collapse in developing
countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many
informed observers believe that unmitigated climate change beyond the end of the
century could pose an existential threat to civilisation." What is certain is that there is
no precedent in human experience for such rapid change or such climatic conditions,
and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social,
cultural and political changes.
Scenario 2 is extinction
Deibel 7 (Terry L. Deibel, professor of IR at National War College, Foreign Affairs Strategy,
Conclusion: American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today Anthropogenic caused by CO2)

Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a
nonviolent nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of
global warming to the stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends . Scientists
worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three decades now, and what
was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty. Indeed not one
of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals from
1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. In legitimate scientific
circles, writes Elizabeth Kolbert, it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement
over the fundamentals of global warming. Evidence from a vast international scientific
monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an
international panel predicts brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet
over the next century; climate change could literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge
portions of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria; glaciers in the
Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than expected, andworldwide, plants are
blooming several days earlier than a decade ago; rising sea temperatures have been
accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes; NASA
scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest
year on record, with 1998 a close second; Earths warming climate is estimated to contribute
to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year as disease spreads; widespread
bleaching from Texas to Trinidadkilled broad swaths of corals due to a 2-degree rise in sea
temperatures. The world is slowly disintegrating, concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who
lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. They call it climate changebut we just call it breaking
up. From the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the
industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at
about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by
2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric
CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their
increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how
serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above show, we are already
experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass
die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying
countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or
less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of
rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolinas outer banks, swamp the southern third of
Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic
effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter
weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline
once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6
percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most
frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the
buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface
temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average
global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-
increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can
conclude is that humankinds continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin
to playing Russian roulette with the earths climate and humanitys life support system. At
worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, were just going to burn
everything up; were going to heat the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the
Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse.
During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe
how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only
destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global warming is the post-Cold
War eras equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported
scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers from terrorism and traditional military
challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States,
but potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet.
Extinction is forever the entire planet will be engulfed in the infernoerr aff. Extinction
outweighs everything
Brandenburg, 1999 [John, PhD, Visiting Professor Researcher at Florida Space Institute, with
Monica Rix Paxson, Science Writer, Dead Mars, Dying Earth, pp. 244-245]

The 20th century, and the second millennium, are drawing to a close. A new century, a new
millennium and, hopefully, a new age dawns. In our journey across time and space we have
searched for truths that would help us at this threshold. To live is to be exposed to danger; to
experience -apprehension is a condition of existence. To follow reason and awareness, we must
be responsible. We have seen how the storms of Mars first warned us of our collective
madness. You now know how Venus became an inferno and how the Shoemaker-Levy impacts
caused atmospheric firestorms as big as the Earth to erupt on Jupiter. We have been warned of
potential threats to come. We cannot deny what we have seen, and we are responsible for this
knowledge now. The planetary environment we possess is precious, it is fragileand events
within our control, both human and natural, can destroy it utterly. We now know that a whole
planet can die, and that we can expect no agency to help us if we do not help ourselves. With
this knowledge, we become responsible. We are responsible because we can act. Carbon
dioxide, that most rugged and simple of molecules, is the substance that remains when the
inferno has burned itself out, when all that can draw breath breathes no more. Carbon dioxide
is the lowest common denominator, the substance that remains after all the fine things,
chlorophyll, water, and hope, have been lost. It inherits planets after all planetary disasters
have run their course. We are in the beginnings of such planetary disaster now. Like passengers
on the Titanic, weve only just felt a slight bump and noticed that the ship has stopped. Here in
the First World, we note that the ships officers seem unusually activemaybe a bit too
cheerful and reassuringand they seem to be locking all the doors between steerage and the
open decks. This is how a disaster looks when it begins. We see the evolving probability field of
the catastrophe around us
Scenario 3 is diseases
Warming unleashes new ones
ScienceDaily 8 *June 25, Extreme Weather Events Can Unleash A 'Perfect Storm' Of Infectious
Diseases, Research Study Says,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625073804.htm]

An international research team, including University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer,
has found the first clear example of how climate extremes, such as the increased frequency of
droughts and floods expected with global warming, can create conditions in which diseases
that are tolerated individually may converge and cause mass die-offs of livestock or wildlife.
The study suggests that extreme climatic conditions are capable of altering normal host-
pathogen relationships and causing a "perfect storm" of multiple infectious outbreaks that
could trigger epidemics with catastrophic mortality . Led by scientists at the University of
California, Davis, the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota, the research team
examined outbreaks of canine distemper virus (CDV) in 1994 and 2001 that resulted in
unusually high mortality of lions in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro
Crater. CDV periodically strikes these ecosystems, and most epidemics have caused little or
no harm to the lions. But the fatal virus outbreaks of 1994 and 2001 were both preceded by
extreme drought conditions that led to debilitated populations of Cape buffalo, a major prey
species of lions. The buffalo suffered heavy tick infestations and became even more common
in the lions' diet, resulting in unusually high levels of tick-borne blood parasites in the lions.
(These parasites are normally present in lions at harmlessly low levels.) The canine distemper
virus suppressed the lions' immunity, which allowed the elevated levels of blood parasites to
reach fatally high levels, leading to mass die-offs of lions. In 1994 the number of lions in the
Serengeti study area dropped by over 35 percent after the double infection. Similar losses
occurred in the Crater die-off in 2001. The lion populations recovered within 3-4 years after
each event, but most climate change models predict increasing frequency of droughts in East
Africa. "The study illustrates how ecological factors can produce unprecedented mortality
events and suggests that co-infections may lie at the heart of many of the most serious die-
offs in nature," said Packer, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Ecology,
Evolution and Behavior at the
Extinction
Daswani 96
[Kavita Daswani, South China Morning Post Leading the way to a cure for AIDS, 1-4, L/N]

Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-
Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he
believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this
makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS,
the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that
has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-
Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of
virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or
nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV.
"An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a
rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one
person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable . It is a tragedy waiting to
happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said
history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact
of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only
way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because
it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an
outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next
20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has
prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat
of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in
New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting
worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a
preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses
to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu
outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new
"mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-
carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very
real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a
large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
Scenario 4 is oxygen
Burning fossil fuels leads to oxygen depletion causes extinction
Tatchell 8 [Peter, 8/13/08, The oxygen crisis: Could the decline of oxygen in the
atmosphere undermine our health and threaten human survival?, The Guardian, Aug
13,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.climatecha
nge]

The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global
warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in
oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects. Compared to prehistoric times,
the level of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has declined by over a third
and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the
makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health.
Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth,
according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis. I am not a
scientist, but this seems a reasonable concern. It is a possibility that we should examine
and assess. So, what's the evidence? Around 10,000 years ago, the planet's forest cover
was at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half
the amount of oxygen. Desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this
long-term loss of oxygen sources. The story at sea is much the same. Nasa reports
that in the north Pacific ocean oxygen-producing phytoplankton
concentrations are 30% lower today, compared to the 1980s. This is a huge
drop in just three decades. Moreover, the UN environment programme
confirmed in 2004 that there were nearly 150 "dead zones" in the world's
oceans where discharged sewage and industrial waste, farm fertiliser run-off and other
pollutants have reduced oxygen levels to such an extent that most or all sea creatures
can no longer live there. This oxygen starvation is reducing regional fish stocks
and diminishing the food supplies of populations that are dependent on fishing. It also
causes genetic mutations and hormonal changes that can affect the reproductive
capacity of sea life, which could further diminish global fish supplies. Professor
Robert Berner of Yale University has researched oxygen levels in
prehistoric times by chemically analysing air bubbles trapped in fossilised
tree amber. He suggests that humans breathed a much more oxygen-rich air
10,000 years ago. [] Further back, the oxygen levels were even greater. Robert
Sloan has listed the percentage of oxygen in samples of dinosaur-era amber as: 28%
(130m years ago), 29% (115m years ago), 35% (95m years ago), 33% (88m years ago),
35% (75m years ago), 35% (70m years ago), 35% (68m years ago), 31% (65.2m years
ago), and 29% (65m years ago).[] Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University
and Professor Jon Harrison of the University of Arizona concur. Like most
other scientists they accept that oxygen levels in the atmosphere in prehistoric times
averaged around 30% to 35%, compared to only 21% today and that the levels are even
less in densely populated, polluted city centres and industrial complexes, perhaps only
15 % or lower. Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human
activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. The
Professor of Geological Sciences at Notre Dame University in Indiana, J Keith Rigby,
was quoted in 1993-1994 as saying: [] In the 20th century, humanity has pumped
increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning the
carbon stored in coal, petroleum and natural gas. In the process, we've also been
consuming oxygen and destroying plant life cutting down forests at an alarming
rate and thereby short-circuiting the cycle's natural rebound. We're artificially slowing
down one process and speeding up another, forcing a change in the atmosphere. []
Very interesting. But does this decline in oxygen matter? Are there any practical
consequences that we ought to be concerned about? What is the effect of lower oxygen
levels on the human body? Does it disrupt and impair our immune systems and
therefore make us more prone to cancer and degenerative diseases? Surprisingly, no
significant research has been done, perhaps on the following presumption: the decline
in oxygen levels has taken place over millions of years of our planet's existence. The
changes during the shorter period of human life have also been slow and incremental
until the last two centuries of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Surely, this
mostly gradual decline has allowed the human body to evolve and adapt to lower
concentrations of oxygen? Maybe, maybe not. The pace of oxygen loss is likely to
have speeded up massively in the last three decades, with the industrialisation
of China, India, South Korea and other countries, and as a consequence of the
massive worldwide increase in the burning of fossil fuels . In the view of
Professor Ervin Laszlo, the drop in atmospheric oxygen has potentially
serious consequences. A UN advisor who has been a professor of philosophy and
systems sciences, Laszlo writes: [] Evidence from prehistoric times indicates
that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume
that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of
coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth's
atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12<to 17% over
the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient
oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body
cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the
levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to
develop. And , 7% life can no longer be sustained.[]

Scenario 5 is oceans
CO2 emissions cause ocean acidification
Ward, professor of geology, 10 professor of biology and earth and space sciences at the
University of Washington in Seattle (Peter D., Ph.D., Professor of geological sciences, Professor
of zoology, Curator of paleontology at the University of Washington in Seattle, 6/29/10, The
Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps, pp. 57-58, p. Google Books)

CARBON DIOXIDE AND OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
Not only do greenhouse gases destroy ice caps, but they themselves are lethal as well. The
activity of these gases directly kills by carbon-dioxide or methane toxicity. To this we can add
another potentially lethal process: acidification. To understand it, we have to digress briefly
into ocean chemistry.16
Carbon dioxide participates in reactions with many other molecules. Several of these
reactions are directly involved in maintaining the acidity7 or alkalinity of the ocean. The
chemical species bicarbonate (HCO3) forms part of the chemical buffer system that maintains a
relatively neutral level of the oceans, making them neither acid nor base. However, if
atmospheric CO2 rises, the ocean becomes more acidic through a chemical reaction leading
to formation of hydrogen (H+) ions in the sea. We measure the concentration of this H+ level
using the pH scale, with lower values corresponding to higher acid levels. At small levels, a rise
in acidity poses no danger to organisms. But if the levels rise enough, organisms are directly
threatened. Rising acidity is most dangerous to organisms that produce calcareous shells,
such as coral reefs and a type of phytoplankton called coccolithophorids. Moreover, once the
acid levels rise, they linger at high levels for a long time: an ocean pH change would persist for
thousands of years . Because the rise caused by carbon dioxide in fossil fuel happens faster
than natural CO2 increases have in the past, the ocean will be acidified to a much greater
extent than has occurred naturally in at least the past 800,000 years .
If through most of geological time the CO2 level in the atmosphere was higher than now, does
that mean the oceans were once more acidic? At least for the past 100 million years, this was
probably not the case. If there is lots of calcium carbonate in the upper reaches of the ocean
(as there is when there are abundant blooms of the organisms that make chalk, the
coccolithophorids. or another group called foraminifera), the ocean is described as
"buffered"neutrality is maintained despite the high CO2. But buffering takes time, and that
is the biggest difference between the effect of today's rise in COs compared to any time in
the past . During slow natural changes, the carbon system in the oceans has time to interact
with sediments and therefore stays approximately in steady state with them. For example, if
the deep oceans start to become more acidic, some carbonate will be dissolved from
sediments, a process that tends to buffer the chemistry of the seawater and lessen pH changes.
But what humans are doing in terms of injecting carbon dioxide into the oceans from human-
made emissions is unprecedented.
The present-day rise in CO2 seems to eclipse any other past rate of rise . This rapid rise
outstrips natures buffering systems , resulting in ocean acidification. Past atmospheric
concentrations probably would not have led to a significantly lower pH in the oceans. The
fastest natural changes we are sure about are those occurring at the ends of the recent ice
ages, when CO2 rose about 80 ppm in the space of 6,000 years. That rate is about one-
hundredth of the changes we are witnessing now.
It kills ocean biodiversity
McKie 11 science and technology editor for the Observer (Robin, 5/29/11, Ocean
acidification is latest manifestation of global warming, The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/global-warming-threat-to-oceans)

But Vulcano's importance today has nothing to do with the rock and lava it has spewed out for
millennia. It is the volcano's output of invisible carbon dioxide about 10 tonnes a day that
now interests scientists. They have found that the gas is bubbling through underground vents
and is making the island's coastal waters more and more acidic. The consequences for sea life
are grim with dozens of species having been eliminated. That discovery is highly revealing, and
worrying, because Vulcano's afflictions are being repeated today on a global scale, in every
ocean on the planet not from volcanic sources but from the industrial plants, power
stations, cars and planes that are pumping out growing amounts of carbon dioxide and which
are making our seas increasingly acidic. Millions of marine species are now threatened with
extinction; fisheries face eradication; while reefs that protect coastal areas are starting to
erode. Ocean acidification is now one of the most worrying threats to the planet , say marine
biologists. "Just as Vulcano is pumping carbon dioxide into the waters around it, humanity is
pouring more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, a
marine biologist at Plymouth University, told a conference on the island last week. "Some of
the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide we emit each year lingers in the atmosphere and
causes it to heat up, driving global warming. But about 30% of that gas is absorbed by the
oceans where it turns to carbonic acid. It is beginning to kill off coral reefs and shellfish beds
and threaten stocks of fish. Very little can live in water that gets too acidic." Hence science's
renewed interest in Vulcano. Its carbon dioxide springs which bubble up like burst water
mains below the shallow seabed provide researchers with a natural laboratory for testing
the global impact of ocean acidification. "These vents and the carbonic acid they generate tell
us a great deal about how carbon dioxide is going to affect the oceans and marine life this
century," said Hall-Spencer. "And we should be worried. This problem is a train coming
straight at us." Scientists estimate that oceans absorb around a million tonnes of carbon dioxide
every hour and our seas are 30% more acidic than they were last century. This increased
acidity plays havoc with levels of calcium carbonate, which forms the shells and skeletons of
many sea creatures, and also disrupts reproductive activity. Among the warning signs
recently noted have been the failures of commercial oyster and other shell fish beds on the
Pacific coasts of the US and Canada. In addition, coral reefs already bleached by rising
global temperatures have suffered calamitous disintegration in many regions. And at the
poles and high latitudes, where the impact of ocean acidification is particularly serious, tiny
shellfish called pteropods the basic foodstuff of fish, whales and seabirds in those regions
have suffered noticeable drops in numbers. In each case, ocean acidification is thought to be
involved. The problem was recently highlighted by the head of the US National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Dr Jane Lubchenco. She described ocean acidification as global
warming's "equally evil twin". It is a powerful comparison, though it is clear that of the two,
the crisis facing our seas has received far less attention. The last UN climate assessment report
was more than 400 pages long but had only two pages on ocean acidification mainly because
studies of the phenomenon are less well advanced than meteorological and atmospheric
research in general. The workshop, held last week on Vulcano, is part of the campaign to
understand the likely impact of ocean acidification. Dozens of young oceanographers,
geologists and ecologists gathered for the meeting run by the Mediterranean Sea Acidification
(MedSeA) programme. Dr Maoz Fine, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, reported work on coral
reef organisms that had been exposed to waters of different levels of acidity, temperature and
light in his laboratory. "We found that species of coral reef respond differently to rising carbon
dioxide levels," he said. "Bigger corals suffer but survive while smaller, branching varieties
become less able to fight disease and die off. That sort of thing just makes it even more difficult
to predict exactly what is going to happen to our oceans." Few scientists doubt that the impact
on reefs will be anything short of devastating, however. The Caribbean has already lost about
80% of its coral reefs to bleaching caused by rising temperatures and by overfishing which
removes species that normally aid coral growth. Acidification threatens to do the same for
the rest of the world's coral reefs. "By the middle of the century there will probably be only a
few pockets in the North Sea and the Pacific. Millions of species of fish, shellfish and micro-
organisms will be wiped out ," said Fine. Acidification has affected the oceans in the past.
However, these prehistoric events occurred at a far slower rate, said Dr Jerry Blackford of
Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "The waters of the world take around 500 years to circulate the
globe," he said. "If carbon dioxide was rising slowly, in terms of thousands of years, natural
factors could then compensate. Sediments could buffer the carbonic acid, for example." But
levels of carbon dioxide are rising much faster today. By the end of the century, surface
seawater will be 150% more acidic than it was in 1800. "There is simply not enough time for
buffering to come into effect and lessen the impact," said Blackford. "The result will be
significant acid build-up in the upper parts of the oceans which, of course, are the parts that are
of greatest importance to humans."
Extinction
Craig, professor of law, 3 Associate Prof Law, Indiana U School Law [McGeorge Law Review, 34
McGeorge L. Rev. 155 Lexis]

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist,
just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised
in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically
valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms
and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs'
value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive
ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean
ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that
represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus,
and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and
direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability
to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of
marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep
functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating
that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly
dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of
interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs
than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that
produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise
insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus,
maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and
restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine
ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill
in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness.
However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even
primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have
considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition
of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine
ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it
was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is
occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every
problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and
policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the
sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the
United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique
in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the
ocean we kill ourselves , and we will take most of the biosphere with us.
Technical assistance for renewables significantly reduces greenhouse gases
COCEF 12 - La Comisin de Cooperacin Ecolgica Fronteriza
(Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Transportation: Project Opportunities in the U.S.
Mexico Border Region,
http://www.cocef.org/Eng/VLibrary/Publications/SpecialReports/BECC%20WP%20%20Nov%20
2011%20index.pdf)//BB
This white paper describes the current deficit in the U.S.-Mexico border region in terms
of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and transportation projects focused on the
reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG). In the presentation, the argument is made that
the primary reason this project deficit exists is due to: 1. limited resources for project
development, 2. lack of capacity building, at the most fundamental level, in the public
and publicprivate sectors, and 3. lack of technical assistance program to address this
deficit Specifically targeting a technical assistance program for renewable energy,
energy efficiency, and transportation projects <would be invaluable in promoting an
environment for effective climate action in border communities. A proposed technical
assistance program could help public sector entities build the bases on which they can
develop both mitigation and adaptation greenhouse gas projects. Mitigation projects
are the priority of the program since they are intended to directly reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. Adaptation projects are important as well, and it is recommended they
be developed as capacity building initiatives to assist municipalities better manage
the current realities of climate change. Ultimately, these project types do need
technical assistance funds , and the funds will need a highly capacitated and
experienced program manager .
Action now is critical to stop the world from triggering critical tipping
points
Council on Foreign Relations 6/19, The Global Climate Change Regime Council
on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/climate-change/global-climate-change-
regime/p21831
Climate change is one of the most significant threats facing the world today.
According to the American Meteorological Society, there is a 90 percent
probability that global temperatures will rise by 3.5,o 7.4 degrees
Celsius (6.3 to 13.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in less than one hundred years, with even
greater increases over land and the poles. These seemingly minor shifts in
temperature could trigger widespread disasters in the form of rising sea
levels, violent and volatile weather patterns, desertification, famine, water
shortages, and other secondary effects including conflict. In November 2011, the
International Energy Agency warned that the world may be fast approaching
a tipping point concerning climate change, and suggested that the next five
years will be crucial for greenhouse gas reduction efforts.

Were obligated to actthe magnitude of warming is an independent reason to act.
Brandenburg, 1999 [John, PhD, Visiting Professor Researcher at Florida Space Institute, with
Monica Rix Paxson, Science Writer, Dead Mars, Dying Earth, pp. 44-45]

It is not a time for seeking certainties, it is a time for estimating risks-the probability of human
complicity in global change, multiplied by the damage that will accrue if we do not desist. Since
the potential damage is terrible, even a low probability is enough to argue that certain
activities should cease. There are scientists who insist that all the effects, from deformed frogs
to ozone holes, to, finally, greenhouse gas-induced global warming trends, are either illusory or
misunderstood natural effects. How certain can they be? Given the potentially life-threatening
consequences, shouldn't we err on the side of safety? Having identified the probable human
causes, isn't it better to dramatically curtail these activities? If we are cautious, even overly
cautious, little damage will ensue other than a slowing down in economic growth. But if we fail
to act, to act conservatively-to conserve life on Earth-then the real price in catastrophic
economic losses could bring the U.S. economy and the world's economy to their knees. British
Environment Minister Michael Meacher has suggested that, "People are starting to wake up to
the cost of devastating climate change." He warned that the economic costs of rising seas,
hurricanes, flooding and heat waves will "dwarf the costs of trying to prevent them."" It is
reasonable to ask how problems such as global warming can be remedied with the minimum of
economic detriment and dislocation, especially for the poor. Economic dislocation kills people
as surely as does pollution or climatic change. But it is also reasonable to consider that, while
the economic costs of environmental problems accrue to everyone, as with most
environmental problems, the burdens fall disproportionately on the poor. Yet, economic
consequences can cut both ways, since there may also be economic benefits for those
companies and organizations that innovate and develop new energy solutions, as Amory Lovins
at the Aspen Institute points out so powerfully. Nevertheless, fears about the economy do not
represent an adequate justification to delay solving the problems of carbon dioxide. If we are
truly committed to a vibrant world economy, the best strategy would be to make an all-out
effort to ensure that safe, low-cost, lowcarbon energy is available to everyone.
1AC No War
War is not an impact
A. Integration
Deudney and Ikenberry, professors of politics, 9 *Professor of Political Science at Johns
Hopkins University AND **Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at
Princeton University (Daniel, Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University; and G. John,
Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University, former Transatlantic Fellow at the German
Marshall Fund, former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former
Hitachi International Affairs Fellow (awarded by the Council on Foreign Relations);
January/February 2009, The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will
Prevail, Foreign Affairs, Volume 88, Number 1, pp. 77-93, p. ProQuest)

Fortunately, this new conventional wisdom about autocratic revival is as much an exaggeration
of a few years of headlines as was the proclamation of the end of history at the end of the Cold
War. The proposition that autocracies have achieved a new lease on life and are emerging
today as a viable alternative within the global capitalist system is wrong. Just as important, the
policies promoted by the autocratic revivalists are unlikely to be successful and, if anything,
would be counterproductivedriving autocracies away from the liberal system and thereby
creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although today's autocracies may be more competent and
more adept at accommodating capitalism than their predecessors were, they are nonetheless
fundamentally constrained by deep-seated incapacities that promise to limit their viability over
the long run. Ultimately, autocracies will move toward liberalism. The success of regimes such
as those in China and Russia is not a refutation of the liberal vision; the recent success of
autocratic states has depended on their access to the international liberal order, and they
remain dependent on its success. Furthermore, the relentless imperatives of rising global
interdependence create powerful and growing incentives for states to engage in international
cooperation regardless of regime type. The resilience of autocracies calls not for abandoning or
retreating from liberal internationalism but rather for refining and strengthening it. If liberal
democratic states react to revived autocracies solely with policies of containment, arms
competition, and exclusive bloc building, as neoconservatives advise, the result is likely to be a
strengthening and encouragement of illiberal tendencies in these countries. In contrast,
cooperatively tackling common global problems-such as climate change, energy security, and
disease-will increase the stakes that autocratic regimes have in the liberal order. Western states
must also find ways to accommodate rising states-whether autocratic or democraticand
integrate them into the governance of international institutions. Given the powerful logic that
connects modernization and liberalization, autocratic regimes face strong incentives to
liberalize. The more accommodating and appealing the liberal path is, the more quickly and
easily the world's current illiberal powers will choose the path of political reform. RECALLING
THE GREAT DEBATE THE RECENT prophecies of autocratic revival mark a new stage in the
debate over the prospects for liberal democratic capitalism. This debate began with the
Industrial Revolution. The question then was whether there were multiple modernities or only
one path to progress-and, if the latter, what that path was. Leading theorists, most notably
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Max Weber, offered alternative claims about which socioeconomic
and political systems would prove most viable given the constraints and opportunities of the
Industrial Revolution. In these grand debates, the question of who was on "the right side of
history" was contested and unresolved. It is often forgotten that as late as the 1940s, the
authoritarian alternative was not only embodied in such states as Nazi Germany but also
seriously advanced by some social theorists as the best model for industrial modernity. Indeed,
when the American theorist James Burnham claimed in 1941 that "capitalism is not going to
continue much longer," this was hardly an outlandish sentiment. Even with the defeat of the
Axis states, the theoretical question of whether communism and socialism offered a
fundamental alternative to liberal capitalism persisted through much of the Cold War. Two
decades ago, the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union and the international communist
bloc seemed to resolve this debate in favor of the liberal side once and for all. The ability of the
Western states to generate wealth and power seemed to prove that liberal democracy
represented the sole pathway to sustained modernization; there was but one successful model,
pioneered and embodied in the West. It was this juncture that heady proclamations of the end
of history seemed so plausible. The near-universal eagerness of peoples and states to join the
expanding capitalist international system gave further credibility to this liberal vision. The
debate was not simply about rival socioeconomic systems within states but also about rival
ways of ordering international politics. Just as the Nazis envisioned a "new order" for Europe
and the Soviet Union designed an interstate economic and political order, so, too, did the
liberal West. Beginning in the late 1940s, responding to the crisis of industrial capitalism of the
Great Depression in the 1930s and taking advantage of U.S. geopolitical dominance in the wake
of World War II, the United States spearheaded the creation of a set of international rules and
institutions, most notably the Bretton Woods system, the un, and various security partnerships.
Taken together, U.S. hegemony and this liberal international order gave liberal democratic
states a greater presence in world politics than they had ever experienced before; they also
provided a structure that other states could engage with and join, one that could reorient those
states in a liberal direction. It is against this backdrop that the recent claims of autocratic
viability are being advanced. The spectacular rates of capitalist growth in autocratic China and
the reassertion of a tsarist central state in a growing Russia have reopened the great debate.
These developments have led many observers to conclude that there are multiple paths to
capitalist modernity and that authoritarianism is quite compatible with capitalism. The historian
Azar Gat has argued in these pages ("The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers," July/August
2007) that China and Russia mark "a return of economically successful authoritarian capitalist
powers" and "may represent a viable alternative path to modernity." This implies that there is
no inevitable connection between the economic liberalization associated with capitalism and
economic globalization, on the one hand, and the political liberalization associated with liberal
democracy and limited-government constitutionalism, on the other. Within the two centuries
of the debate over industrial modernity, the autocratic revival thesis represents a broadening
from the "end of history" position but, importantly, accepts that it is capitalism, not socialism,
that is the sole viable economic system. Kagan acknowledges that "in the long run, rising
prosperity may well produce political liberalism," but he holds that the long run "may be too
long to have any strategic or geopolitical relevance." The supposed autocratic revival has also
triggered a reassessment of why earlier autocratic states failed. Gat, for example, contends that
the earlier failure of authoritarian capitalist states was a product of contingent factors rather
than some deep misfit between industrial capitalism and closed authoritarian political systems.
He argues that the failure of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan-both of which were capitalist
states-resulted from their insufficient territorial size and industrial bases rather than some
more essential flaw. Conversely, the U. S.-British victory derived not from the advantages of
liberal democratic political institutions but rather from advantages in territory, population, and
economic output. In short, the selection out of these earlier authoritarian capitalist states was
inappropriately attributed by the liberal narrative to intrinsic weaknesses of the model rather
than to contingent circumstances. This historical revisionism fails, however, to acknowledge the
ways in which the relative war performance of the Axis and Allied powers in World War II was
profoundly affected by their radically different political systems. First, the formation of grand
strategy by Hitler s Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Tojos Japan was marked by colossal blunders
in assessing adversaries and initiating military campaigns. Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union
and declaration of war against the United States not only doomed his regime but also were
intimate manifestations of his particular worldview, which was given complete reign by the
regime's closed and dictatorial rule. Second, the way in which the authoritarian and totalitarian
states mobilized for war was haphazard and often grossly inefficient-again reflecting
unaccountable decision-making. Despite its extraordinarily ambitious grand strategic goals,
Germany did not fully mobilize its industrial economy until late in the war because Hider was
afraid of popular discontent; the imperial Japanese army and navy not only did not
communicate or coordinate strategy but also maintained separate and incompatible industrial
production systems. And finally, the alliance coordination between the United States and the
United Kingdom, although marked by constant petty frictions, was vastly superior to that of the
Axis states, who were allies more in name than in fact. In short, the relative performance of
democratic and autocratic regimes in World War II was profoundly shaped by the features of
their political systems, giving heavy advantages to the Allies. A WEAK REVIVAL How compatible
are authoritarian political systems with privateproperty-based capitalist economies today? The
autocratic revivalists claim that the combination of authoritarian political systems and
capitalism in major countries such as China and Russia is not a fleeting stage of transition but a
durable alternative to the Western combination of political democracy and capitalism. If this is
true, then the prospects for liberal democracy are far less bright than the liberal narrative
stretching from the Enlightenment to the 1990s allows. The autocratic revival thesis holds that
deep political incompatibilities between states will persist alongside the ongoing spread of
capitalism, dashing hopes for the transformation of international politics into a universal liberal
peace. This thesis, however, has several profound weaknesses. Proponents of the autocratic
viability argument set up something of a straw man in their insistence that the absence of
political liberalization in China and Russia refutes the liberal vision. The spectacular end of the
Cold War and the rush of political and economic change in its wake produced unrealistic
expectations. And their inevitable disappointment has provided the opening for the larger
claims of autocratic revival. On the U.S. political scene, the debate during the Clinton era about
the pros and cons of Chinese ascension to the World Trade Organization (wto) was
accompanied by assertions that China's opening up to international capitalism would soon bear
fruits of political liberalization. These expectations for rapid political opening, however, had
little basis in the theories connecting capitalist modernization with political liberalization. (The
theories did not claim that the political consequences would be immediate and acknowledged
that there would be uneven and lagging transitions.) Also, there are compelling explanations for
the short-term persistence of autocracy in China and Russia, related to their historical
experience as multiethnic states subject to fragmentation and foreign great-power
encroachment. These external and historical factors slowing liberalization were long in the
making, but they can be ameliorated by the engagement and accommodation of the Western
powers. Contrary to the autocratic revival thesis, there are in fact deep contradictions between
authoritarian political systems and capitalist economic systems. These contradictions exist in
todays capitalist autocracies, and the resolution of these contradictions is likely to lead to
political liberalization. There are many ways in which capitalism connects to political
democracy, but three are most important. First, rising levels of wealth and education create
demands for political participation and accountability. The basic logic behind this link is that
rising living standards made possible because of capitalism over time generate a socioeconomic
strata-loosely, the middle class-whose interests come to challenge closed political decision-
making. Second is the relationship between capitalist property systems and the rule of law. In a
capitalist economic system, by definition, the means of production are held as private property
and economic transactions occur through contracts. For capitalism to function, the
enforcement of contracts and the adjudication of business disputes require court systems and
the rule of law. The practice of independent rights in the economic sphere and the institutions
they require are an intrinsic limitation on state power and, over time, create demands for wider
political rights. Third, the economic development propelled by capitalism leads to a divergence
of interests. Modem industrial societies are marked by an explosion of complexity and the
emergence of specialized activities and occupations, thus producing a plural polity rather than a
mass polity. The increasing diversity of socioeconomic interests leads to demands for
competitive elections between multiple parties. This bleak outlook is based on an exaggeration
of recent developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors and forces. Indeed,
contrary to what the revivalists describe, the most striking features of the contemporary
international landscape are the intensification of economic globalization, thickening
institutions , and shared problems of interdependence. The overall structure of the
international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century. Compared to older
orders, the contemporary liberal-centered international order provides a set of constraints and
opportunities-of pushes and pulls-that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict while creating
strong imperatives for cooperative problem solving. Those invoking the nineteenth century as a
model for the twenty-first also fail to acknowledge the extent to which war as a path to conflict
resolution and great-power expansion has become largely obsolete . Most important, nuclear
weapons have transformed great-power war from a routine feature of international politics
into an exercise in national suicide. With all of the great powers possessing nuclear weapons
and ample means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among these states has
truly become an option of last resort. The prospect of such great losses has instilled in the great
powers a level of caution and restraint that effectively precludes major revisionist efforts.
Furthermore, the diffusion of small arms and the near universality of nationalism have severely
limited the ability of great powers to conquer and occupy territory inhabited by resisting
populations (as Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have demonstrated). Unlike during
the days of empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate great
asymmetries of power into effective territorial control; at most, they can hope for loose
hegemonic relationships that require them to give something in return. Also unlike in the
nineteenth century, today the density of trade, investment, and production networks across
international borders raises even more the costs of war. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to take
one of the most plausible cases of a future interstate war, would pose for the Chinese
communist regime daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken together,
these changes in the economy of violence mean that the international system is far more
primed for peace than the autocratic revivalists acknowledge. The autocratic revival thesis
neglects other key features of the international system as well. In the nineteenth century, rising
states faced an international environment in which they could reasonably expect to translate
their growing clout into geopolitical changes that would benefit themselves. But in the twenty-
first century, the status quo is much more difficult to overturn. Simple comparisons between
China and the United States with regard to aggregate economic size and capability do not
reflect the fact that the United States does not stand alone but rather is the head of a coalition
of liberal capitalist states in Europe and East Asia whose aggregate assets far exceed those of
China or even of a coalition of autocratic states. Moreover, potentially revisionist autocratic
states, most notably China and Russia, are already substantial players and stakeholders in an
ensemble of global institutions that make up the status quo, not least the un Security Council
(in which they have permanent seats and veto power). Many other global institutions, such as
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are configured in such a way that rising
states can increase their voice only by buying into the institutions. The pathway to modernity
for rising states is not outside and against the status quo but rather inside and through the
flexible and accommodating institutions of the liberal international order. The fact that these
autocracies are capitalist has profound implications for the nature of their international
interests that point toward integration and accommodation in the future. The domestic
viability of these regimes hinges on their ability to sustain high economic growth rates, which in
turn is crucially dependent on international trade and investment; today's autocracies may be
illiberal, but they remain fundamentally dependent on a liberal international capitalist system.
It is not surprising that China made major domestic changes in order to join the WTO or that
Russia is seeking to do so now. The dependence of autocratic capitalist states on foreign trade
and investment means that they have a fundamental interest in maintaining an open, rule-
based economic system. (Although these autocratic states do pursue bilateral trade and
investment deals, particularly in energy and raw materials, this does not obviate their more
basic dependence on and commitment to the wto order.) In the case of China, because of its
extensive dependence on industrial exports, the wto may act as a vital bulwark against
protectionist tendencies in importing states. Given their position in this system, which so serves
their interests, the autocratic states are unlikely to become champions of an alternative global
or regional economic order, let alone spoilers intent on seriously damaging the existing one.
The prospects for revisionist behavior on the part of the capitalist autocracies are further
reduced by the large and growing social net- works across international borders. Not only
have these states joined the world economy, but their people - particularly upwardly mobile
and educated elites - have increasingly joined the world community. In large and growing
numbers, citizens of autocratic capitalist states are participating in a sprawling array of
transnational educational, business, and avocational networks. As individuals are socialized into
the values and orientations of these networks, stark "us versus them" cleavages become more
difficult to generate and sustain. As the Harvard political scientist Alastair Iain Johnston has
argued, China's ruling elite has also been socialized, as its foreign policy establishment has
internalized the norms and practices of the international diplomatic community. China, far from
cultivating causes for territorial dispute with its neighbors, has instead sought to resolve
numerous historically inherited border conflicts, acting like a satisfied status quo state. These
social and diplomatic processes and developments suggest that there are strong tendencies
toward normalization operating here. Finally, there is an emerging set of global problems
stemming from industrialism and economic globalization that will create common interests
across states regardless of regime type. Autocratic China is as dependent on imported oil as are
democratic Europe, India, Japan, and the United States, suggesting an alignment of interests
against petroleum-exporting autocracies, such as Iran and Russia. These states share a common
interest in price stability and supply security that could form the basis for a revitalization of the
International Energy Agency, the consumer association created during the oil turmoil of the
1970s. The emergence of global warming and climate change as significant problems also
suggests possibilities for alignments and cooperative ventures cutting across the autocratic-
democratic divide. Like the United States, China is not only a major contributor to greenhouse
gas accumulation but also likely to be a major victim of climate-induced desertification and
coastal flooding. Its rapid industrialization and consequent pollution means that China, like
other developed countries, will increasingly need to import technologies and innovative
solutions for environmental management. Resource scarcity and environmental deterioration
pose global threats that no state will be able to solve alone, thus placing a further premium on
political integration and cooperative institution building. Analogies between the nineteenth
century and the twenty-first are based on a severe mischaracterization of the actual conditions
of the new era. The declining utility of war, the thickening of international transactions and
institutions, and emerging resource and environmental interdependencies together undercut
scenarios of international conflict and instability based on autocratic-democratic rivalry and
autocratic revisionism. In fact, the conditions of the twenty-first century point to the renewed
value of international integration and cooperation.

Statistics provenot only is war unlikely, powerful trade economies would be unlikely to
engage in war.
Boudreux, professor of economics, 6 (Donald J., Chair of the Economics Department at George
Mason University, Want World Peace? Support Free Trade, November 20,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1120/p09s02-coop.html)

During the past 30 years, Solomon Polachek, an economist at the State University of New York
at Binghamton, has researched the relationship between trade and peace. In his most recent
paper on the topic, he and co-author Carlos Seiglie of Rutgers University review the massive
amount of research on trade, war, and peace. They find that "the overwhelming evidence
indicates that trade reduces conflict. " Likewise for foreign investment. The greater the
amounts that foreigners invest in the United States, or the more that Americans invest abroad,
the lower is the likelihood of war between America and those countries with which it has
investment relationships. Professors Polachek and Seiglie conclude that, "The policy implication
of our finding is that further international cooperation in reducing barriers to both trade and
capital flows can promote a more peaceful world." Columbia University political scientist Erik
Gartzke reaches a similar but more general conclusion: Peace is fostered by economic freedom.
Economic freedom certainly includes, but is broader than, the freedom of ordinary people to
trade internationally. It includes also low and transparent rates of taxation, the easy ability of
entrepreneurs to start new businesses, the lightness of regulations on labor, product, and
credit markets, ready access to sound money, and other factors that encourage the allocation
of resources by markets rather than by government officials. Professor Gartzke ranks countries
on an economic-freedom index from 1 to 10, with 1 being very unfree and 10 being very free.
He then examines military conflicts from 1816 through 2000. His findings are powerful:
Countries that rank lowest on an economic-freedom index - with scores of 2 or less - are 14
times more likely to be involved in military conflicts than are countries whose people enjoy
significant economic freedom (that is, countries with scores of 8 or higher). Also important, the
findings of Polachek and Gartzke improve our understanding of the long-recognized reluctance
of democratic nations to wage war against one another. These scholars argue that the so-called
democratic peace is really the capitalist peace. Democratic institutions are heavily concentrated
in countries that also have strong protections for private property rights, openness to foreign
commerce, and other features broadly consistent with capitalism. That's why the observation
that any two democracies are quite unlikely to go to war against each other might reflect the
consequences of capitalism more than democracy. And that's just what the data show.
Polachek and Seiglie find that openness to trade is much more effective at encouraging peace
than is democracy per se. Similarly, Gartzke discovered that, "When measures of both
economic freedom and democracy are included in a statistical study, economic freedom is
about 50 times more effective than democracy in diminishing violent conflict." These findings
make sense. By promoting prosperity, economic freedom gives ordinary people a large stake in
peace. This prosperity is threatened during wartime. War almost always gives government
more control over resources and imposes the burdens of higher taxes, higher inflation, and
other disruptions of the everyday commercial relationships that support prosperity. When
commerce reaches across political borders, the peace-promoting effects of economic freedom
intensify. Why? It's bad for the bottom line to shoot your customers or your suppliers, so the
more you trade with foreigners the less likely you are to seek, or even to tolerate, harm to
these foreigners.

B. Nuclear deterrence
Tepperman, citing Waltz, professor of politics, 9 Deputy Editor and Managing Editor at
Newsweek International (Jonathan, LL.M. in International Law from NYU, former Deputy
Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs; citing Kenneth Waltz (Adjunct Professor of Political Science
at Columbia University); 8/28/09, Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-to-love-the-
bomb.html)

These efforts are all grounded in the same proposition: that, as Obama has said several times,
nuclear weapons represent the "gravest threat" to U.S. security. This argument has a lot going
for it. It's strongly intuitive, as anyone who's ever seen pictures of Hiroshima or Nagasaki
knows. It's also popular; U.S. presidents have been making similar noises since the Eisenhower
administration, and halting the spread of nukes (if not eliminating them altogether) is one of
the few things Obama, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Benjamin Netanyahu can all agree on.
There's just one problem with the reasoning: it may well be wrong. A growing and compelling
body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more
dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this
era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so obviously wrongheaded
that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the
truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic
campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely to get far (past
presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the effort. There are
more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make the real world
safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free planet) that's
both unrealistic and possibly undesirable. The argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of
peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First, nuclear
weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even a
nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think about
that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness of the
20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus of
political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima.
It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not
been any war among nuclear states ." To understand whyand why the next 64 years are
likely to play out the same wayyou need to start by recognizing that all states are rational
on some basic level . Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do
things only when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start
a fight only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even
Hitler or Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has
been that leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other sideand
millions of innocents pay the price. Nuclear weapons change all that by making the costs of
war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn
the other to ashes with the push of a buttonand everybody knows itthe basic math shifts.
Even the craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is
unwinnable and thus not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and
might lose everything?" Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured
destruction is so compelling, it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually
unprecedented stretch since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers
have avoided coming to blows. They did fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to
Angola to Latin America. But these never matched the furious destruction of full-on, great-
power war (World War II alone was responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And
since the end of the Cold War, such bloodshed has declined precipitously . Meanwhile, the
nuclear powers have scrupulously avoided direct combat , and there's very good reason to
think they always will. There have been some near misses, but a close look at these cases is
fundamentally reassuringbecause in each instance, very different leaders all came to the
same safe conclusion. Take the mother of all nuclear standoffs: the Cuban missile crisis. For 13
days in October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union each threatened the other with
destruction. But both countries soon stepped back from the brink when they recognized that a
war would have meant curtains for everyone. As important as the fact that they did is the
reason why: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's aide Fyodor Burlatsky said later on, "It is
impossible to win a nuclear war, and both sides realized that, maybe for the first time." The
record since then shows the same pattern repeating: nuclear-armed enemies slide toward
war, then pull back , always for the same reasons. The best recent example is India and
Pakistan, which fought three bloody wars after independence before acquiring their own nukes
in 1998. Getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction didn't do anything to lessen their
animosity. But it did dramatically mellow their behavior. Since acquiring atomic weapons, the
two sides have never fought another war, despite severe provocations (like Pakistani-based
terrorist attacks on India in 2001 and 2008). They have skirmished once. But during that flare-
up, in Kashmir in 1999, both countries were careful to keep the fighting limited and to avoid
threatening the other's vital interests. Sumit Ganguly, an Indiana University professor and
coauthor of the forthcoming India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, has found that on both sides,
officials' thinking was strikingly similar to that of the Russians and Americans in 1962. The
prospect of war brought Delhi and Islamabad face to face with a nuclear holocaust, and leaders
in each country did what they had to do to avoid it. Nuclear pessimistsand there are many
insist that even if this pattern has held in the past, it's crazy to rely on it in the future, for
several reasons. The first is that today's nuclear wannabes are so completely unhinged, you'd
be mad to trust them with a bomb. Take the sybaritic Kim Jong Il, who's never missed a chance
to demonstrate his battiness, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the Holocaust and
promised the destruction of Israel, and who, according to some respected Middle East scholars,
runs a messianic martyrdom cult that would welcome nuclear obliteration. These regimes are
the ultimate rogues, the thinking goesand there's no deterring rogues. But are Kim and
Ahmadinejad really scarier and crazier than were Stalin and Mao? It might look that way from
Seoul or Tel Aviv, but history says otherwise. Khrushchev, remember, threatened to "bury" the
United States, and in 1957, Mao blithely declared that a nuclear war with America wouldn't be
so bad because even "if half of mankind died the whole world would become socialist."
Pyongyang and Tehran support terrorismbut so did Moscow and Beijing. And as for seeming
suicidal, Michael Desch of the University of Notre Dame points out that Stalin and Mao are the
real record holders here: both were responsible for the deaths of some 20 million of their own
citizens. Yet when push came to shove, their regimes balked at nuclear suicide, and so would
today's international bogeymen. For all of Ahmadinejad's antics, his power is limited, and the
clerical regime has always proved rational and pragmatic when its life is on the line.
Revolutionary Iran has never started a war, has done deals with both Washington and
Jerusalem, and sued for peace in its war with Iraq (which Saddam started) once it realized it
couldn't win. North Korea, meanwhile, is a tiny, impoverished, family-run country with a history
of being invaded; its overwhelming preoccupation is survival, and every time it becomes more
belligerent it reverses itself a few months later (witness last week, when Pyongyang told Seoul
and Washington it was ready to return to the bargaining table). These countries may be brutally
oppressive, but nothing in their behavior suggests they have a death wish.

C. Miscalculation and accidents are unlikely
Quinlan, professor of war, 9 Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King's
College, London (Sir Michael, Consulting Fellow for South Asia at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, former Permanent Under-Secretary of State in the UK Ministry of Defence,
former Director of the Ditchley Foundation, 4/15/09, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons:
Principles, Problems, Prospects, pp. 67-71, p. Google Books)

There have certainly been, across the decades since 1945, many known accidents involving
nuclear weapons, from transporters skidding off roads to bomber aircraft crashing with or
accidentally dropping the weapons they carried (in past days when such carriage was a
frequent feature of readiness arrangementsit no longer is). A few of these accidents may
have released into the nearby environment highly toxic material. None however has entailed a
nuclear detonation. Some commentators suggest that this reflects bizarrely good fortune amid
such massive activity and deployment over so many years. A more rational deduction from the
facts of this long experience would however be that the probability of any accident triggering a
nuclear explosion is extremely low. It might be further noted that the mechanisms needed to
set off such an explosion are technically demanding, and that in a large number of ways the
past sixty years have seen extensive improvements in safety arrangements for both the design
and the handling of weapons. It is undoubtedly possible to see respects in which, after the cold
war, some of the factors bearing upon risk may be new or more adverse; but some are now
plainly less so. The years which the world has come through entirely without accidental or
unauthorized detonation have included early decades in which knowledge was sketchier,
precautions were less developed, and weapon designs were less ultra-safe than they later
became, as well as substantial periods in which weapon numbers were larger, deployments
more widespread and diverse, movements more frequent, and several aspects of doctrine and
readiness arrangements more tense. Similar considerations apply to the hypothesis of nuclear
war being mistakenly triggered by false alarm. Critics again point to the fact, as it is understood,
of numerous occasions when initial steps in alert sequences for US nuclear forces were
embarked upon, or at least called for, by indicators mistaken or misconstrued. In no ne of
these instances , it is accepted, did matters get at all near to nuclear launch extraordinary
good fortune again, critics have suggested. But the rival and more logical inference from
hundreds of events stretching over sixty years of experience presents itself once more: that
the probability of initial misinterpretation leading far towards mistaken launch is remote .
Precisely because any nuclear-weapon possessor recognizes the vast gravity of any launch,
release sequences have many steps, and human decision is repeatedly interposed as well as
capping the sequences. To convey that because a first step was prompted the world somehow
came close to accidental nuclear war is wild hyperbole, rather like asserting, when a tennis
champion has lost his opening service game, that he was nearly beaten in straight sets. History
anyway scarcely offers any ready example of major war started by accident even before the
nuclear revolution imposed an order-of-magnitude increase in caution. It was occasionally
conjectured that nuclear war might be triggered by the real but accidental or unauthorized
launch of a strategic nuclear-weapon delivery system in the direction of a potential adversary.
No such launch is known to have occurred in over sixty years. The probability of it is therefore
very low. But even if it did happen, the further hypothesis of its initiating a general nuclear
exchange is far-fetched. It fails to consider the real situation of decision-makers, as pages 63-4
have brought out. The notion that cosmic holocaust might be mistakenly precipitated in this
way belongs to science fiction. One special form of miscalculation appeared sporadically in the
speculations of academic commentators, though it was scarcely ever to be encounteredat
least so far as my own observation wentin the utterances of practical planners within
government. This is the idea that nuclear war might be erroneously triggered, or erroneously
widened, through a state under attack misreading either what sort of attack it was being
subjected to, or where the attack came from. The postulated misreading of the nature of the
attack referred in particular to the hypothesis that if a delivery systemnormally a missile
that was known to be capable of carrying either a nuclear or a conventional warhead was
launched in a conventional role, the target country might, on detecting the launch through its
early- warning systems, misconstrue the mission as an imminent nuclear strike and immediately
unleash a nuclear counter-strike of its own. This conjecture was voiced, for example, as a
criticism of the proposals for giving the US Trident SLBM, long associated with nuclear missions,
a capability to deliver conventional warheads. Whatever the merit of those proposals (it is not
explored here), it is hard to regard this particular apprehension as having any real-life
credibility. The flight time of a ballistic missile would not exceed about thirty minutes, and that
of a cruise missile a few hours, before arrival on target made its characterconventional or
nuclearunmistakable. No government will need, and no non- lunatic government could wish,
to take within so short a span of time a step as enormous and irrevocable as the execution of a
nuclear strike on the basis of early-warning information alone without knowing the true nature
of the incoming attack. The speculation tends moreover to be expressed without reference
either to any realistic political or conflict-related context thought to render the episode
plausible, or to the manifest interest of the launching country, should there be any risk of
doubt, in ensuringby explicit communication if necessarythat there was no
misinterpretation of its conventionally armed launch. It may be objected to this analysis that in
the cold war the two opposing superpowers had concepts of launch-on-warning. That seems to
be true, at least in the sense that successive US administrations declined to rule out such an
option and indeed included in their contingency plans both this and the possibility of launch-
under-attack (that is launch after some strikes had been suffered and while the sequence of
them was evidently continuing). The Soviet Union was not likely to have had more relaxed
practices. But the colossal gravity of activating any such arrangements must always have been
recognized. It could have been contemplated only in circumstances where the entire political
context made a pre-emptive attack by the adversary plainly a serious and imminent possibility,
and where moreover the available information unmistakably indicated that a massive assault
with hundreds or thousands of missiles was on the way. That was a scenario wholly unlike that
implicit in the supposition that a conventional missile attack might be briefly mistaken for a
nuclear one. The other sort of misunderstanding conjecturedthat of misreading the source of
attackenvisaged, typically, that SLBMs launched by France or the United Kingdom might
erroneously be supposed to be coming from US submarines, and so might initiate a super-
power exchange which the United States did not in fact intend. (An occasional variant on this
was the notion that 'triggering' in this way might actually be an element in deliberate French or
UK deterrent concepts. There was never any truth in this guess in relation to the United
Kingdom, and French thinking is unlikely to have been different.) The unreality in this category
of conjecture lay in the implication that such a scenario could develop without the US
government making the most determined efforts to ensure that Soviet (or now Russian) leaders
knew that the United States was not responsible for the attack, and with those leaders for their
part resorting, on unproven suspicion, to action that was virtually certain to provoke nuclear
counter-action from the United States. There used occasionally to be another speculation, that
if the Soviet Union suffered heavy nuclear strikes known to come from France or the United
Kingdom, it might judge its interests to be best served by ensuring that the United States did
not remain an unscathed bystander. But even if that were somehow thought marginally less
implausible, it would have been a different matter from misinterpretation of the initial strike.
As was noted earlier in this chapter, the arrangements under which nuclear-weapon inventories
are now managed are in several important respects already much less open to concern than
they were during much of the cold war. Worries voiced more recently sometimes relate to
'cyber-attack'hostile interference, whether by states or by other actors such as terrorists,
with information systems used in the control of armouries. It is highly unlikely, though details
are (again understandably) not made public, that regular reviews of control arrangements are
oblivious to any such risks. Perceptions of them do however reinforce the already-strong case
that whatever arrangements still remain in place for continuous high readiness to launch
nuclear action at short notice should be abandoned. Chapter 13 returns to this.

And even if it happens, nuclear war doesnt cause extinction
A. Number of weapons
Ball, professor of defense, 6 Special Professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at
the Australian National University (Desmond, May 2006, The Probabilities of On the Beach:
Assessing Armageddon Scenarios in the 21st Century,
http://kms1.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/18659/ipublicationdocument_singledocument
/572903b0-04ba-4180-8bcb-a249d8120feb/en/SDSC_WP_401.pdf)

The leading populariser of the Nuclear Winter hypothesis was Carl Sagan, the brilliant
planetary scientist and humanist. He had noticed in 1971, when Mariner 1 was examining
Mars, that the planet was subject to global dust storms which markedly affected the
atmospheric and surface temperatures. Large amounts of dust in the upper atmosphere
absorbed sunlight, heating the atmosphere but cooling the surface, spreading cold and
darkness over the planet. He recognised that wholesale ground-bursts of nuclear weapons and
the incineration of hundreds of cities could produce sufficient dust and smoke to cause a similar
effect on the Earth. Sagan even postulated the existence of some threshold level around 100
million tonnes of smokefor production of Nuclear Winter.7 I argued vigorously with
Sagan about the Nuclear Winter hypothesis, both in lengthy correspondence and, in
August-September 1985, when I was a guest in the lovely house he and Ann Druyan had
overlooking Ithaca in up-state New York. I argued that, with more realistic data about the
operational characteristics of the respective US and Soviet force configurations (such as
bomber delivery profiles, impact footprints of MIRVed warheads) and more plausible
exchange scenarios, it was impossible to generate anywhere near the postulated levels of
smoke. The megatonnage expended on cities (economic/industrial targets) was more likely
to be around 140-650 than over 1,000; the amount of smoke generated would have ranged
from around 18 million tonnes to perhaps 80 million tonnes. In the case of counter-force
scenarios, most missile forces were (and still are) located in either ploughed fields or
tundra and, even where they are generally located in forested or grassed areas, very few
of the actual missile silos are less than several kilometres from combustible material. A
target-by-target analysis of the actual locations of the strategic nuclear forces in the
United States and the Soviet Union showed that the actual amount of smoke produced
even by a 4,000 megaton counter-force scenario would range from only 300 tonnes (if the
exchange occurred in January) to 2,000 tonnes (for an exchange in July)the worst case
being a factor of 40 smaller than that postulated by the Nuclear Winter theorists. I thought
that it was just as wrong to overestimate the possible consequences of nuclear war, and
to raise the spectre of extermination of human life as a serious likelihood, as to
underestimate them (e.g., by omitting fallout casualties
B. No impact to fallout
Martin, 84 research assistant in the Department of Applied Mathematics in the Faculty of
Science at Australian National University (Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests
include stratospheric modeling, member of SANA, SANA UPDATE, MARCH)

Yet in spite of the widespread belief in nuclear extinction, there was almost no scientific
support for such a possibility. The scenario of the book and movie On the Beach [2], with
fallout clouds gradually enveloping the earth and wiping out all life, was and is fiction. The
scientific evidence is that fallout would only kill people who are immediately downwind of
surface nuclear explosions and who are heavily exposed during the first few days. Global
fallout has no potential for causing massive immediate death (though it could cause up to
millions of cancers worldwide over many decades) [3]. In spite of the lack of evidence, large
sections of the peace movement have left unaddressed the question of whether nuclear war
inevitably means global extinction.
C. No nuclear winter present arsenals wouldnt even be as bad as volcanoes.
Martin, 82 research assistant in the Department of Applied Mathematics in the Faculty of
Science at Australian National University (Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests
include stratospheric modeling, member of SANA, Current Affairs Bulletin, December,
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82cab/index.html)
Stratospheric dust from a nuclear war seems unlikely to cause such climatic change. In 1883
the volcanic eruption at Krakatoa deposited some 10 to 100 thousand million tonnes of dust
in the stratosphere, and the 1963 Mt Agung eruption about half as much. These injections
seem to have caused a minor cooling of the surface temperature of the earth, at most about
half a degree Celsius, lasting a few years, with no long term consequences. A nuclear war
involving 4000Mt from present arsenals would probably deposit much less dust in the
stratosphere than either the Krakatoa or Mt Agung eruptions.[38]



Lifes a pre-requisite to value
Schwartz 2002 [Lisa, Medical
Ethics, http://www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf]

The second assertion made by supporters of the quality of life as a criterion for
decision- making is closely related to the first, but with an added dimension. This
assertion suggests that the determination of the value of the quality of a given life is a
subjective determi-nation to be made by the person experiencing that life. The
important addition here is that the decision is a personal one that, ideally, ought not to
be made externally by another person but internally by the individual involved.
Katherine Lewis made this decision for herself based on a comparison between two
stages of her life. So did James Brady. Without this element, decisions based on quality
of life criteria lack salient information and the patients concerned cannot give informed
consent. Patients must be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they
think their lives are worth living or not. To ignore or overlookpatients judgement in
this matter is to violate their autonomy and their freedom to decide for themselves on
the basis of relevant informa- tion about their future, and comparative con- sideration
of their past. As the deontological position puts it so well,to do so is to violate the
imperative that we must treat persons as rational and as ends in themselves. It is
important to remember the subjectiv-ity assertion in this context, so as to empha-size
that the judgement made about the value of a life ought to be made only by the
person concerned and not by others.
Extinction mathematically outweighs
Bostrom, professor of philosophy, 12 (Nick, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford
University, founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, founding Director of the
Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology within the Oxford Martin School, Ph.D. in
Philosophy from the London School of Economics, 2012, Existential Risk Prevention as the
Most Important Task for Humanity, revised draft, forthcoming in Global Policy,
http://www.existential-risk.org/concept.html) [we do not endorse gendered language [hu]
added]

But even this reflection fails to bring out the seriousness of existential risk. What makes
existential catastrophes especially bad is not that they would show up robustly on a plot like
the one in figure 3, causing a precipitous drop in world population or average quality of life.
Instead, their significance lies primarily in the fact that they would destroy the future. The
philosopher Derek Parfit made a similar point with the following thought experiment: I believe
that if we destroy [hu]mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most
people think. Compare three outcomes: (1) Peace. (2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of the
worlds existing population. (3) A nuclear war that kills 100%. (2) would be worse than (1),
and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people
believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between
(2) and (3) is very much greater. The Earth will remain habitable for at least another billion
years. Civilization began only a few thousand years ago. If we do not destroy [hu]mankind,
these few thousand years may be only a tiny fraction of the whole of civilized human history.
The difference between (2) and (3) may thus be the difference between this tiny fraction and
all of the rest of this history. If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so
far is only a fraction of a second. (10: 453-454) To calculate the loss associated with an
existential catastrophe, we must consider how much value would come to exist in its absence.
It turns out that the ultimate potential for Earth-originating intelligent life is literally
astronomical. One gets a large number even if one confines ones consideration to the
potential for biological human beings living on Earth. If we suppose with Parfit that our
planet will remain habitable for at least another billion years, and we assume that at least
one billion people could live on it sustainably, then the potential exist for at least 10
16
human
lives. These lives could also be considerably better than the average contemporary human
life, which is so often marred by disease, poverty, injustice, and various biological limitations
that could be partly overcome through continuing technological and moral progress.
However, the relevant figure is not how many people could live on Earth but how many
descendants we could have in total. One lower bound of the number of biological human life-
years in the future accessible universe (based on current cosmological estimates) is 10
34

years.[7] Another estimate, which assumes that future minds will be mainly implemented in
computational hardware instead of biological neuronal wetware, produces a lower bound of
10
54
human-brain-emulation subjective life-years (or 10
71
basic computational
operations).(4)[8] If we make the less conservative assumption that future civilizations could
eventually press close to the absolute bounds of known physics (using some as yet
unimagined technology), we get radically higher estimates of the amount of computation and
memory storage that is achievable and thus of the number of years of subjective experience
that could be realized.[9] Even if we use the most conservative of these estimates, which
entirely ignores the possibility of space colonization and software minds, we find that the
expected loss of an existential catastrophe is greater than the value of 10
16
human lives. This
implies that the expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one millionth of one
percentage point is at least a hundred times the value of a million human lives. The more
technologically comprehensive estimate of 10
54
human-brain-emulation subjective life-years
(or 10
52
lives of ordinary length) makes the same point even more starkly. Even if we give this
allegedly lower bound on the cumulative output potential of a technologically mature
civilization a mere 1% chance of being correct, we find that the expected value of reducing
existential risk by a mere one billionth of one billionth of one percentage point is worth a
hundred billion times as much as a billion human lives.

Plan
The USFG should substantially increase its economic engagement with Mexico by providing
renewable energy assistance to Mexico.
1AC Solvency
An expanded BECC role quickly facilitates a Mexican green economy
COCEF 12 - La Comisin de Cooperacin Ecolgica Fronteriza
(Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Transportation: Project Opportunities in the U.S.
Mexico Border Region,
http://www.cocef.org/Eng/VLibrary/Publications/SpecialReports/BECC%20WP%20%20Nov%20
2011%20index.pdf)//BB
SECTION 4: BECC THE BORDER TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROVIDER 25 Since 1995, the
BECC [Border Environmental Cooperation Commission] has demonstrated a very
strong capacity to manage technical assistance programs for capacity building and
project development. They have administered millions of dollars in technical
assistance funds for hundreds of projects across the border region. Two of the most
noteworthy technical assistance programs that BECC has been entrusted with by the
U.S. EPA are: Border 2012 Program (2005) and the Project Develop Assistance Program
(1997). Border 2012 In 2005, EPA requested that BECC assist in administering the
Border 2012 program. Since 2006 when the first program funds were provided for
environmental projects, the BECC has distributed over $10 M in funds and managed
over 183 projects, of which 95 are complete and 71 in progress. BECC provides
logistical support for the work groups, assists in identifying priority areas for grant
funding, reviews requests for proposals, assists in project selection and project
management, and ensures quality of deliverables and compliance with work plans.
BECCs participation in the program has been instrumental in solidifying bi-national
collaboration in the development of projects, which have provided tangible results
and basic scientific information on environmental and human health conditions along
the border. Project Development Assistance Program (PDAP) As mentioned in
Section 3, the BECC has distributed approximately $34.5 million through the PDAP into
203 water, wastewater collection, and wastewater treatment projects. Of the 203
projects, approximately 72% (146) have been implemented or are under development
resulting in 85% of PDAP funds ($29.4M) invested in these projects. This demonstrates
a successful management of the program. Approximately $19.5M in PDAP funding has
led to BECC certified projects and has leveraged $1.2B in funds from programs and
institutions such as the Border Environmental Infrastructure Fund (BEIF), NADB Loans,
USDA, CONAGUA and state and municipal programs. This provides a ratio is $1dollar of
PDAP to about $61 dollars of construction funding for certified projects, further
demonstrating the successful financial management of the technical assistance
program. In addition, $7M in PDAP funding has led to the implementation of projects
through other agencies, of which the final construction costs are to be determined. This
would increase the leveraging effect of PDAP. SECTION 5: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
THE MAIN SOLUTION A Technical Assistance for the Border Region The BECC has
worked a considerable amount on projects in its core sectors of water, wastewater,
and solid waste for over 15 years. The tech< assistance programs that have been
utilized by the BECC have been effective and successful in creating projects for the
NADB to finance and, most importantly, have contributed to dramatic improvements
in the quality of life in the U.S.-Mexico border region. However, the next generation of
public sector infrastructure activity will require a new type of technical assistance
focused on impacting air quality and climate change tied to energy efficiency, clean
energy and transportation. A technical assistance program for clean and efficient
energy and transportation project development and related capacity building could
have the following outcomes: 1. Border communities would have access to targeted
resources in grants and technical expertise in these sectors. 2. The BECCs role would
provide for a high degree for success given its track record and management of
environmental programs. 3. Border communities would see their capacity to plan,
develop, and manage clean energy and transportation projects improve. 4. Clean
energy and transportation infrastructure projects tied to the public sector would begin
to be implemented more frequently. Border States Priority Technical Assistance Needs
As part of the interview process with the border state government environmental and
energy agencies, they were queried about what they considered priority technical
assistance needs in their state. Their responses track similarly to the priority projects in
that they show a clear and ample need for technical assistance in the focus sectors.
Renewables are critical for survival.
Criekmans, Ph.D in Geopolitics 11[Dr. David Criekmans, PhD in Global
Geopolitics and Assistant Professor of International Relations at University College
Roosevelt, The geopolitics of renewable energy: different or similar to the geopolitics
of conventional energy?, March 19, 2011,
http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/Publication_Criekemans_David_Geopolitics_of_
Renewable_Energy_Technology_Desertec_North_Seas_Countries_Offshore_Grid_Ini
tiative_CO2_Emissions_Investments_Germany.html]

Renewable energy has come into the picture in the past years as a result of a
number of combing factors and trends. First, the last decades have clearly
shown that the burning of non-renewable, fossil fuels leads to CO2-
emissions, the exhausting of resources, local environmental degradation
and climate change. Second, the entering into the world economic scene of
a couple of billion people in especially Asia structurally impacts the demand
for energy, as a result of which (conventional) energy scarcity could become a
real possibility in the coming decades. All these elements push decision makers to
make new choices in the direction of more renewable forms of energy. Also the
markets influence this process, although this evolved jerkily in the past couple of years.
When the stock markets think a situation of scarcity might develop, like was the case in
the summer of 2008 (when a barrel of oil reached the staggering record price of 147$),
then the prices of fossil energy can multiply in a short time frame and
create volatility in the market. As a result of this, renewable energy becomes more
interesting and economic in comparison to traditional forms of energy. When a few
months later in 2008 the energy prices collapsed as a result of the economic crisis, a
reverse process seemed to develop in the market resulting finally in decreasing
investments in renewable energy. Such dynamics make the study of renewable energy
within a broader geo-economical and geopolitical context not very easy. Many variables
are at play. Nevertheless, humanity will have to make the transition towards
more renewable energy if she is to survive the century. The stakes could never
have been higher. Who will be the winners, who will be the losers?
The plans feasible but now is key
Renewable Energy World 12(No author; renewable energy world. 1/24/07. Renewable Energy
World.com - started in 1998 by a group of Renewable Energy professionals who wanted their
work to relate to their passion for renewable energy. With this passion and the desire to create
a long term sustainable business, we have created perhaps the single most recognized and
trusted source for Renewable Energy News and Information on the Internet.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/corporate/about)
Landmark analysis released by Greenpeace USA, European Renewable Energy Council (EREC)
and other climate and energy advocates shows that the United States can indeed address
global warming without relying on nuclear power or so-called "clean coal" -- as some in the
ongoing energy debate claim. The new report, "Energy Revolution: A Blueprint for Solving
Global Warming" details a worldwide energy scenario where nearly 80% of U.S. electricity can
be produced by renewable energy sources; where carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced
50% globally and 72% in the U.S. without resorting to an increase in dangerous nuclear power
or new coal technologies; and where America's oil use can be cut by more than 50% by 2050
by using much more efficient cars and trucks (potentially plug-in hybrids), increased use of
biofuels and a greater reliance on electricity for transportation. The 92-page report,
commissioned by the German Aerospace Center, used input on all technologies of the
renewable energy industry, including wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, biomass power
plants, solar thermal collectors, and biofuels, all of which "are rapidly becoming mainstream."
"The world cannot afford to stick to the conventional energy development path, relying on
fossil fuels, nuclear, and other outdated technologies. Energy efficiency improvements and
renewable energy must play leading roles in the world's energy future." -- Arthouros Zervos of
the European Renewable Energy Council and John Coequyt of Greenpeace USA Introduction
from the Report The good news first. Renewable[s] energy, combined with energy efficiency,
can meet half of the world's energy needs by 2050. This new report, "Energy Revolution: A
Blueprint for Solving Global Warming," shows that it is not only economically feasible, but also
economically desirable, to cut U.S. CO2 emissions by almost 75% within the next 43 years.
These reductions can be achieved without nuclear power, and while virtually ending U.S.
dependence on coal. Contrary to popular opinion, a massive uptake of renewable[s]
energy and efficiency improvements alone can solve our global warming problem. All
that is missing is the right policy support from the President and Congress. The bad news is that
time is running out. The overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is that the global climate
is changing and that this change is caused in large part by human activities; if left unchecked, it
will have disastrous consequences for Earth's ecosystems and societies. Furthermore, there is
solid scientific evidence that we must act now. This is reflected in the conclusions of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collaborative
effort involving more than 1,000 scientists. Its next report, due for release early this
year, is expected to make the case for urgent action even stronger. In the United States there is
a groundswell of activity at the local and state levels. Many mayors, governors, and public and
business leaders are doing their part to address climate change. But they can only do so much;
action is needed at the federal level. Now is the time for a national, science-based cap on
greenhouse gas emissions. It's time for a national plan to address global warming. Such a plan
will create jobs, improve the security of America's energy supply, and protect Americans from
volatile energy prices. It will restore America's moral leadership on the critical international
issue of climate change. And real action in the United States will inspire confidence as the rest
of the world negotiates future global commitments to address climate change. In addition to
global warming, other energy-related challenges have become extremely pressing. Worldwide
energy demand is growing at a staggering rate. Over-reliance on energy imports from a few,
often politically unstable, countries, and volatile oil and gas prices, have together pushed
energy security to the top of the political agenda, while threatening to inflict a massive drain
on the global economy. But while there is a broad consensus that we need to change the way
we produce and consume energy, there is still disagreement about what changes are needed
and how they should be achieved. The Energy Scenario The European Renewable Energy
Council (EREC) and Greenpeace International commissioned this report from the Department of
Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment (Institute of Technical Thermodynamics) at the
German Aerospace Centre (DLR). The Worldwatch Institute was hired to serve as a technical
consultant for the U.S. and North American portions of the report. The report presents a
scenario for how the United States can reduce CO2 emissions dramatically and secure an
affordable energy supply on the basis of steady worldwide economic development through
the year 2050. Both of these important aims can be achieved simultaneously. The scenario
relies primarily on improvements in energy efficiency and deployment of renewable energy to
achieve these goals. The future potential for renewable energy sources has been assessed with
input from all sectors of the renewable energy industry, and forms the basis of the Energy
[R]evolution Scenario. The Potential for Renewable Energy Renewable energy technologies
such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, biomass power plants, solar thermal
collectors, and biofuels are rapidly becoming mainstream. The global market for renewable
energy is growing dramatically; global investment in 2006 reached US$38 billion, 26% higher
than the previous year. The time window available for making the transition from fossil fuels to
renewable energy is relatively short. Today, energy companies have plans to build well over 100
coal-burning power plants across the United States; if those plants are built, it will be
impossible to reduce CO2 emissions in time to avoid dangerous climate impacts. But it is not
too late yet. We can solve global warming, save money, and improve air and water quality
without compromising our quality of life. Strict technical standards are the only reliable way to
ensure that only the most efficient transportation systems, industrial equipment, buildings,
heating and cooling systems, and appliances will be produced and sold. Consumers should have
the opportunity to buy products that minimise both their energy bills and their impact on the
global climate. From Vision to Reality This report shows that business as usual is a recipe for
climate chaos. If the world continues on its current course, CO2 emissions will almost double
by 2050, with catastrophic consequences for the natural environment, the global economy,
and human society as a whole. We have the opportunity now to change that course, but the
window is narrow and closing quickly. The policy choices of the coming years will determine
the world's environmental and economic situation for many decades to come. The world
cannot afford to stick to the conventional energy development path, relying on fossil fuels,
nuclear, and other outdated technologies. Energy efficiency improvements and renewable
energy must play leading roles in the world's energy future. For the sake of a sound
environment, political stability, and thriving economies, now is the time to commit to a truly
secure and sustainable energy future - a future built on clean technologies, economic
development, millions of new jobs, and a livable environment. Arthouros Zervos, European
Renewable Energy Council (EREC) John Coequyt, Climate & Energy Unit, Greenpeace USA
January 2007

Renewables solve quickly outside expertise is key
Carus 13 - UK journalist, regularly reporting on clean energy policy and finance from California
for a global audience
(Felicity, Mexico offers tantalising prospect of a dawning major market, http://www.pv-
tech.org/editors_blog/mexico_offers_tantalising_prospect_of_a_dawning_major_market)//BB
Solar investors in the US and further afield would really love to get their hands on Mexico's
solar market: great resource on cheap desert land located squarely in the southern sun-belt.
Some experts estimate that it would only take PV panels spread over just 25km2 of land in
Chihuahua or the Sonoran desert to supply Mexicos electricity demand . National legislation
to reduce carbon emissions 30% by 2020 and constrained natural gas supplies are pushing
companies to renewable choices like never before. There is only one utility company to deal
with, the state-owned Comisin Federal de Electricidad (CFE). And its nearest neighbour is a
guzzler of imported electricity and already linked through the Western Electricity Coordinating
Council. Electricity trade between the United States and Mexico started in 1905, when
privately owned utilities located in remote towns on both sides of the border helped "balance"
electricity demand with a couple of low voltage lines, according to the US Energy Information
Agency. Since 2006, Mexico has been a very small net exporter of electricity to the US. But
electricity imports will likely boom after the Department of Energy granted a permit to a
subsidiary of Sempra International for a 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission line that will carry
electricity from a Mexican wind farm to the California market. Meanwhile, Baja California is
the location for Latin America's largest solar installation to date, a 30MW project to be
completed by the end of this year. When US president Barack Obama met Mexican president
Enrique Pea Nieto earlier this month, renewable energy was firmly on the agenda (along with
gun control, economic cooperation and illegal drugs). Unlike the US, however, Mexico even
has an energy policy. The freshly minted National Energy Strategy 2013-2027 agreed only in
April estimates that 6GW of solar energy could be developed by 2020. Some say that estimate
is way too conservative and forecast that PV will boom under these conditions, perhaps even
150-fold, while shorter term solar growth could go from today's estimated 50MW-70MW
capacity to 250MW by 2015. Oh, and did I mention its growing population of 114 million
inhabitants and an annual GDP growth rate last year of 4%? As if that weren't good enough
news, the grid has been overbuilt by 50% to accommodate anticipated growth as the country
recoups its losses from the global recession. John Skibinski is executive director at Global
Renewables Group, which is based in Las Vegas with a subsidiary in Mexico called Socios
Energeticos de Mexico Verde. During a webinar ahead of the Mexican International
Renewable Energy Congress in Mexico City next week, Skibinski said: "Within two and a half
years at most, Mexico will explode in solar energy because its infrastructure is ready for it. Its
economic climate is now accelerating, its government climate is favourable towards solar and
wind there is so much desert land available at low cost. We should see 250MW by 2015 of
deployed solar farms in Mexico easily." He said that energy-intensive industry was facing a
price on carbon that could force more interest in renewables. "What we found from one steel
mill was that for every 3MW of natural gas [electricity] production, they need 1MW of solar to
*reduce their+ emissions footprint, said Skibinski. Even at the corporate level, not just
national level, corporations are saying, hey if I'm going to keep my production on full, I've got to
do something about [greenhouse gas] (GHG) reductions. So a lot of people are going to be
turning to solar to keep their production going as well as ramp up. "Mexico is the 11th largest
economy in the world, and it's also the 11th largest carbon polluter in the world. It's the second
largest polluter in Latin America, so it's highly focused on what it should do with solar and
wind." Skibinski, who has clearly sweated it out in the field, cautioned half-hearted solar
developers hopeful of striking Mexican gold. "You've got to bring your own support when you
come to this country, there is nobody here that knows solar, there is nobody here that
knows wind, he said. It's new to the country and it requires training , development as
well as pilot installations. We've done that for the utilities, the banks and the government
we've shown with pilot installations how we can reduce GHG emissions. They are highly
interested in new technology they don't want solar panels that are 15 years old, 100W panels
not going to cut it and they are already looking at 115W." Skibinski has already seen some
developers get burned by the Mexican sun. "I have seen 50 independent power producers
apply for power plant generation two of them got approved," he said. "The other 48 were
on the wrong place on the grid. You've got to do your homework when you want to put in an
installation into Mexico. A utility will deny your application if it doesn't fit their needs, they are
very good at what they do in terms of their grid." Brian Schmidly, the chief executive of Rio
Grande Solar, said he was more cautious about the speed of deployment in Mexico, where his
company has development partners. "You're going to see growth in the PV industry," he said.
"I just think it's going to be slow this year and pick up a little bit of steam in 2014, but you could
potentially see 250MW by 2015." Schmidly said that government subsidies for electricity and
bespoke deals between commercial and industrial consumers and their electricity provider
were major barriers to the development of solar in Mexico. Retail rates for electricity varied
between 10c per kwh and 15c per kwh, way too wide a variation for investor appetite. "Most
consumers negotiate rates with CFE - subsidised electricity rates makes solar difficult to
compete," he said. Recent reversals in price declines for PV panels could also compound the
problem and slow PV plant development in Mexico, he said. "Panel prices [have] moved north
for first time in three to four years," he said. "[Panels] usually represent about 40% of a PV
plant's cost. So if that's a trend that we're going to continue to see as a result of the Japanese
and Asian markets turning round a little bit faster than everyone was expecting, then you could
see some of the cost advantages for Mexico coming down and that's a trend that we need to
watch." Ernesto Hanhausen, managing director of Emerging Energy & Environment's
CleanTech Fund, said that the push for PV installations might come more from "emergency
needs for power than regulation and willingness of the government". He compared Mexico's
grid system to North Korea in that its electricity system is so centralised. But the Mexican
government had been creative in its approach to stimulating private sector investments such as
"banking power" where CFE will take excess electricity and store it, reimbursing the generator
up to 85% of retail value. But Hanhausen warned that constrained natural gas supplies were
both a boon and a challenge for renewables. "In the north-west, there's big demand for natural
gas and that's where the largest development of PV could be," he said. He added that
construction of a natural gas pipeline from the US could supply areas with greatest demand for
electricity such as in the north, but that progress was slow, whereas renewables could be
deployed more quickly . " In the [next] five years , the best way for Mexico to be able to
cope with electrical demand is to really exploit the possibility of developing renewable energy
because that can come into play much faster than the installation of potential gas pipelines,
said Hanhausen.
Renewable energy investment spurs economic growth means Mexico will
say yes.
Wood 12
(Duncan Wood, professor and director of the International Relations Program and the
Canadian Studies Program and the Instituto Technologico Autonomo de Mexico, head
researcher for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholors in Mexico, RE-
ENERGIZING THE BORDER: RENEWABLE ENERGY, GREEN JOBS AND BORDER
INFRASTRUCTURE, May 2012,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/RE_Energizing_Border_Wood.pdf)
Economic spillover: It is clear that the development of renewable energy
projects brings economic benefits to the areas in which they are located,
not merely through the generation of electricity or the production of fuel, but
also through the spillover effect in terms of employment, infrastructure
spending, services, and the potential for creating industries focused on
manufacturing equipment and components. Renewable energy
technologies tend to create more jobs per unit of energy generated than
their conventional energy counterparts. This is because the RE sector tends to
create jobs not only in the generation of electricity and fuel and in the
manufacture of equipment and parts, but also indirectly in the form of
maintenance, repairs and services . It is estimated that more than three million
people are employed in the RE sector worldwide, and in Mexico the government has
suggested that the sector could employ up to 100, 000 people if it were
implemented alongside a complementary industrial policy.3 A second level of
economic benefit stems from the potential for energy cost savings for local
authorities who decide to purchase their electricity from renewable energy
sources. In Mexico, for example, the lower cost of wind energy in relation to
power generated through conventional means by the Comisin Federal de
Electricidad (CFE), has encouraged municipal authorities to purchase wind energy for
public lighting and buildings. These cost savings mean that the government has
the opportunity to use those funds for other public purposes . If public
authorities such as state governments are themselves partners in green energy
generation projects, the resulting profits may be employed as a way of
providing subsidies to the local population. This will help to secure local approval
of RE projects. Lastly, we should point to the significant infrastructure
investments that often accompany renewable energy projects. As wind and
solar plants are often located in remote areas, it may be necessary to build
roads and bring in water supplies to make them viable. Of course transmission
lines will also be needed to transport the electrons generated to market. All of this
infrastructure spending is another potential source of employment and
income for local citizens and businesses, but also implies a potential obstacle
due to financing limitations.
Mexican renewable energy is key to stopping climate change but absent
investment, warming efforts will fail.
W.W.F., 6/4/13, (World Wildlife Fund), "WWF welcomes Mexico's 2050 Climate
Vision; now global funding must be made available to implement such strategies,"
http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?208932/WWF-welcomes-Mexicos-2050-Climate-
Vision-now-global-funding-must-be-made-available-to-implement-such-strategies

Mexicos launch today of a 2050 Climate Change Vision report is a welcome
next step in its path to a low-carbon future, says WWF. A number of the
measures included in Mexico's 2050 Vision Strategy are shown to have the potential for
significant and positive impacts on the Mexican economy. However, there is an
important bundle of measures that imply short-term financial burdens.
Despite the positives in the report, even the best strategies will be waylaid if
funding to implement them is not made available, says WWFs Global Climate &
Energy Initiative leader Samantha Smith. All the elements needed to achieve Mexico's
ambitious 2050 goal to reduce emissions by 50% compared to year 2000 levels are
included in the report. And now it is time for global funders like the Green Climate
Fund (GCF) to act if efforts such as those in Mexico are to be encouraged,
says Smith. The GCF was established as a mechanism within the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change to provide finance from wealthy, high-
emitting countries to countries including Mexico that are combating climate change
through cutting emissions and adaptation efforts. In October 2012, Mexico enacted its
landmark General Climate Change Law which required, among other things, the
development of an over-arching long-term climate strategy. The Climate Change
Vision for 2050 includes massive deployment of public transport systems and a ,
renewable energy and these are all the right elements for achieving a low-emissions
economy. The report shows Mexicos continued commitment to combating
climate change and is an example to the world on the critical importance of
climate legislation, says WWF-Mexico Climate Change Director Vanessa Prez-
Cirera. We now need to support leader countries such as Mexico to achieve
what they have set themselves to achieve. Otherwise our global efforts to
keep global warming below 2C will be thwarted, she added.

Coop gets modeled globally Mexicos the vital link between the US and the
rest of the world.
Selee, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute, and
Wilson, associate with the Mexico Institute, 2012
(Andrew and Christopher, November, Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, A New Agenda With Mexico,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf,
accessed 7-6-13, EB)
Over the past few years, the U.S. and Mexican governments have expanded
beyond the bilateral agenda , on global issues, from climate change to
international trade and the economic crisis. The U.S. government should continue
to take advantage of the opportunities this creates for joint problem-
solving. Mexicos active participation in the G-20, which it hosted in 2012, and
in the U.N. Framework on Climate Change, which it hosted in 2010, have helped
spur this collaboration, and the recent accession of Mexico into the Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiations provides one obvious avenue to continue it. The two countries
also coordinate more extensively than ever before on diplomatic issues, ranging from
the breakdown of democratic order in Honduras to Irans nuclear ambitions. Mexico is
likely to play an increasingly active role on global economic and
environmental issues, areas where the country has significant expe - rience, and
through cooperative efforts the U.S. can take advantage of Mexicos role as a
bridge between the developed and developing worlds, and between North
America and Latin America.


Mexico is key:
First production they have ENORMOUS renewable energy potential
Wood 10 PhD in Political Studies @ Queens, Professor @ ITAM in Mexico City
(Duncan, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
http://www.statealliancepartnership.org/resources_files/USMexico_Cooperation_Renewable_
Energies.pdf)//BB
The North American context The North American economic region is experiencing an
impact from all of the issues mentioned above. Climate change, population growth,
tightening energy markets and the need for sustainable development pose a series of
challenges for policy makers at both the national and regional levels. A number of
studies , some dating from the early years of the 2000s, have called for the creation of
North American renewable energy markets, with adequate integration of electricity
transmission systems, funding programs and intergovernmental cooperation 3. The
demand for integration of RE markets is urgent. As nations, states and municipalities
struggle to meet carbon emissions targets, they are looking to their neighbors to satisfy
demand for RE and to benefit from synergies across sectors. Unfortunately, we are still a
long way away from such integration. There is still a lack of knowledge about the full
extent of renewable energy resources across the region and differences in regulatory
regimes, both within and between countries remains an obstacle. A comprehensive study
and database of renewable energy resources is a vital component for developing RE in
the region that was attempted in 2003 by the North American Commission on
Environmental Cooperation (CEC)'1, but which sadly came to nothing. However, it is
encouraging that significant progress has been made in recent years on both the
technological and the regulatory fronts, and there is significant interest from the private
sector in exploiting renewable energy across borders in the region. The industry in
Mexico Mexico enjoys one of << positions in terms of its potential to generate
renewable energy. Possessing tropical, temperate and arid climates, very long
coastlines, areas of high wind velocity and stability, geothermal activity, and high levels
of solar irradiation, Mexico is naturally extremely well endowed . However there has
been very little development of the renewable sector in Mexico until very recently (with
the exception of hydro-electric and geothermal electricity generation). This lack of
development can be explained by; The dominance of energy thinking by issues related
to oil and, to a lesser extent, gas The absence of any consideration of energy security
issues due to the abundance of hydrocarbons A lack of awareness on the part of the
executive branch and legislators of the potential for renewable energy generation A
low level of environmental consciousness on the part of government, society and the
private sector The absence of economic and financial incentives for public or private
sector development of renewable resources
Second technology transfer Mexico will spread the green tech globally
ENS 12 Environmental News Service
(U.S., Canada, Mexico Vow Continental Energy Grid,
http://www.reepedia.com/archives/4568)//BB
The leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada today pledged to develop
continental energy, including electricity generation and interconnection across national
borders and welcomed increasing North American energy trade. Meeting in
Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadas President Stephen Harper and
Mexicos President Felipe Calderon committed their governments to enhance their
collective energy security, to facilitate seamless energy flows on the interconnected
grid and to promote trade and investment in clean energy technologies. They will
cooperate in expanding cooperation to create clean energy jobs and combat climate
change, the leaders said in a joint statement. Enhanced electricity interconnection in
the Americas would advance the goals of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the
Americas to reduce energy poverty and increase the use of renewable sources of
energy, the three leaders said. They recognized Mexicos leadership in supporting
inter-connections in Central America and reaffirmed their support to bring affordable,
reliable, and increasingly renewable power to businesses and homes in Central America
and the Caribbean while opening wider markets for clean energy and green
technology. During a joint news conference this afternoon, President Obama said,
Between us, we represent nearly half-a-billion citizens, from Nunavut in the Canadian
north to Chiapas in southern Mexico. In between, the diversity of our peoples and
cultures is extraordinary. But wherever they live, they wake up every day with similar
hopes to provide for their families, to be safe in their communities, to give their
children a better life. And in each of our countries, the daily lives of our citizens are
shaped profoundly by what happens in the other two. And thats why were here.
Energy cooperation reduces the cost of doing business and enhances economic
competitiveness in North America, the three leaders said. We recognize the growing
regional and federal cooperation in the area of continental energy, including electricity
generation and interconnection and welcome increasing North American energy trade.
Third international cooperation Mexican leadership leads to GLOBAL climate agreements
ONeill 13 PhD in Government @ Harvard, senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan foreign-policy think tank and membership
organization
(Shannon, Mexico Makes It: A Transformed Society, Economy, and Government, Foreign
Affairs, 92.2)//BB
If Mexico addresses these challenges, it will emerge as a powerful player on the
international stage. A democratic and safe Mexico would attract billions of dollars in
foreign investment and propel the country into the world's top economic ranks. Robust
growth would both reduce northbound emigration and increase southbound trade,
benefiting U.S. employers and employees alike. Already influential in the G-20 and other
multilateral organizations, Mexico could become even more of a power broker in
global institutions and help construct new international financial, trade, and
climatechange accords .

Specifically the US is key
--aid is high now, but should be re-oriented towards renewables
Hartsoch 11 MA @ San Jose State, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for SolFocus
(Nancy, A Sunny Future for Border Relations?,
http://breakingenergy.com/2011/05/10/featured-a-sunny-future-for-border-relations/)//BB
Amidst the darkening cloud of violence that grips the US-Mexico border region, a
surprising ray of sunlight illuminates a prosperous, cleaner future. Quietly above the
hustle of Boulevard Tomas Fernandez in Ciudad Jurez, 25-year resident Daniel Chacn is
greeted each day by what he calls giant sun flowers, solar panels that flank his office at
the US-Mexico Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC). The serene
landscape of solar panels turning with the sun-in a dance, as Daniel would say-runs in
stark contrast to the Ciudad Jurez that America perceives: a city besieged by crime.
Headlines from his hometown have reflected the strained relations between the U.S.
and Mexico in their efforts to thwart the violent trade of narcotics across the border.
Daniel sees a new and vital path in clean energy, and a path the US must facilitate . A
brighter future of bilateral trade and collaboration lies in the creation of
environmentally sustainable business opportunities that address the critical need for
clean energy in the region. This collaborative partnership to create sustainable
economic opportunity and jobs exists on both sides of the border. The sun doesnt
recognize political boundaries. Together the countries can use clean energy to alleviate
the poverty and suffering in the border region and at the same time produce clean,
emissions-free energy to power one of Mexicos most important industrial centers. The
US-Mexico Border region has tremendous solar resources. A constant flood of intense
sunrays provide an annual average of 7-8 kilowatt hours per square meter daily. Thats
enough energy to power municipalities, airports, colleges, and industrial complexes.
With intelligent development efforts into renewable energy, the region could be a
showcase for sustainable economic development and trade. BECC grasps that idea and
is taking positive steps to promote it. Chartered to integrate environmental solutions to
preserve and enhance human health and the environment, BECC has taken the next step
in fulfilling this commitment by deploying advanced solar energy technology. This is a
refreshing development in the region and BECCs efforts should be loudly applauded by
its board of directors from both nations, which includes representation from the US
Department of State, US Treasury, the US EPA, and their Mexican counterpart
agencies. BECCs offices are showcasing advanced concentrator photovoltaic (CPV)
technology provided by California-based SolFocus. The two CPV arrays installed at the
facility harness the suns rays more effectively than traditional solar equipment by
concentrating the suns power 650 times onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells. Daniel
checks the meters on these systems daily, and finds them powering roughly one-third of
the office buildings needs. With the war on narcotics claiming so many lives, coupled
with the devastation of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its unknown effects on the
Gulf ecosystem, the people and businesses in the border region desperately need
positive, grass-roots efforts to inspire a sustainable economic future. Daniel has seen
firsthand the power that clean energy has to inspire his community. Local schools,
officials, family members, and curious residents visit the site to get a glimpse of the
giant girasols panels flanking the BECC offices. The opportunity is real and the time
is now to change border communities to places where individuals like Daniels three
granddaughters can have well-paying careers and a clean and healthy environment.
Today US aid flows to President Caldern in support of anti-narco trafficking
enforcement. While important, providing aid to support solar energy project
development in the region would be a more effective means to creating a peaceful,
prosperous, cleaner future.


Energy cooperation is key to a SUSTAINABLE partnership boosts regional economy, solves
Mexican violence and reverses Latin anti-US sentiment
Reyes 13 JD, member of the USA Today Board of Contributors
(Raul, April, Opinion: President Obama has the chance to improve US/Mexico relations,
http://nbclatino.com/2013/04/29/opinion-president-obama-has-the-chance-to-improve-
usmexico-relations/)//BB
Obama will arrive in Mexico with good and bad news. On the positive side, he can
highlight the progress his administration has made towards overhauling our immigration
system. The border is more secure than ever, and the Senate has unveiled a proposal
that creates new pathways for legal immigration. On the negative side, Obama bears
responsibility for his failure to reform U.S. gun laws. ThinkProgress reports that the
expiration of the assault weapons ban has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans
in cartel violence. Even worse, Americas demand for illegal drugs fuels the growth of
these cartels. However, Obama would be wise to recognize that relations with Mexico
should not center on these issues alone. As president-elect, Pea Nieto wrote in The
Washington Post that, It is a mistake to limit our bilateral relationship to drugs and
security concerns. Our mutual interests are too vast and complex to be restricted in this
short-sighted way. He wants a deeper relationship , one that is defined by shared
economic goals . Thats the smart way forward. Since 2008, Mexico has seen steady
economic growth, which has been a net benefit to the U.S. The U.S. exports more to
Mexico than to China and Japan combined, and U.S./Mexico trade hit almost $500 billion
in 2012. Obama should build on these ties to create greater economic integration . If he
and Pea Nieto were to collaborate on ways of matching Mexicos young labor force
with American technology and training, it would be a recipe for a regional economic
boom. Greater U.S. investment in Mexico will make the country safer, as the cartels
generally leave multinational operations alone. Politically, Obama cannot afford to
take Mexico for granted. Consider that Mexico has been fully engaged with Cuba since
the revolution in 1959 (which was launched from Mexico). And although the U.S. has not
recognized Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro as successor to Hugo Chavez, Mexico recognized
his election on April 19. So Mexico is not an ally that automatically falls in lockstep with
American interests. Perhaps with more attention from the Obama administration, Pea
Nieto could be persuaded to be more supportive of U.S. policies for the region. True,
there are legitimate reasons why Mexico has been viewed warily by past administrations.
Mexico has historically been the largest source of our undocumented population. Border
towns have long feared spillover violence from the drug cartels. But illegal immigration is
at net zero, and the fears of violence on the U.S. side of the border have proved largely
unfounded. Obama should take the lead in encouraging more communication and
cooperation with Mexico. Already, Pea Nieto favors opening Mexicos energy sector
to private investment, and he may even allow foreign investment in its state oil
company. President Obama has the chance to turn a page in U.S./Mexico relations,
and he should not miss it. Its time for a foreign policy with Mexico based on its
potential, not on its problems.

Latin energy connectivity is key to growth
Noriega and Cardenas 12 *Former US State Dept Official, ** director with Vision Americas
(An action plan for US policy in the Americas, December,
http://www.aei.org/outlook/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/latin-america/an-action-plan-
for-us-policy-in-the-americas/)//BB
Key points in this Outlook:
Americas economic crisis and threats to US security have undermined its traditional
global-leadership role and weakened its connections to Latin American nations that
continue to modernize their economies. The United States must recover its regional
credibility by taking bold initiatives to restore its fiscal solvency, while aggressively
promoting trade , energy interdependence , technology transfer , and economic
growth . The United States must then retool its strategy for its partners in the Americas
by working with them to combat threats such as cross-border criminality and radical
populism, encouraging dialogue with regional leaders, and ensuring law enforcement
cooperation to develop a mutually beneficial relationship. A stable and prosperous
Americas is indispensable to US economic success and security. The region is home to
three of the top four foreign sources of energy to the United States, as well as the
fastest-growing destinations for US exports and investment. Clearly, geography and
shared values predetermine a united destiny for the United States and its neighbors in
the Americas. How positive and fruitful that destiny will be depends on whether US
policymakers, private businesses, and civil society move with a greater sense of purpose
toward seizing promising opportunities and meeting critical challenges. Times have
changed. The US fiscal crisis and preoccupation with two distant wars have distracted
policymakers in Washington and undermined US leadership in the Americas. Although
access to the US market, investment, technology, and other economic benefits are highly
valued by most countries in the Western Hemisphere, today, the United States is no
longer the only major partner to choose from. Asia (principally China) and Europe are
making important inroads. So, as US policymakers retool their strategy for the Americas,
they must shelve the paternalism of the past and be much more energetic in forming
meaningful partnerships with willing neighbors. Of course, the United States must
recover its credibility by making bold decisions to restore its own fiscal solvency, while
aggressively promoting trade, energy interdependence, technology transfer, and
economic growth. Then, Washington will be better positioned to cultivate greater
economic and political cooperation among its neighbors, beginning with an open and
candid dialogue with the regions leaders about their vision, their challenges, and their
priorities. Partnerships can thus be built on common ground. The security challenges in
the Americas are very real and growing more complicated every day. Illegal narcotics
trafficking, transnational organized crime, and radical populism fueled by petrodollars
and allied with dangerous extraregional forces pose daunting challenges. Although it is
wise to prioritize a positive socioeconomic and political agenda, assessing and addressing
threats is an indispensable prerequisite to achieving US security and regional leadership.
To make the most of their united destiny, the United States and its partners in the
Americas should: Promote and defend democracy, the rule of law, and human rights
and private property as the building blocks of just societies, accountable governments,
and prosperous economies; Advocate and support the empowerment of individuals
through the development of strong free-market economies, healthy private sectors, and
free trade among nations; Assist neighbors in addressing their essential security needs
so they can grow in peace and be more effective allies to prevent or confront common
threats; Incentivize capital markets and encourage new and innovative technology
cooperation to develop a regional community that is interdependent in the production
and distribution of a range of products and servicesparticularly energy ; Confront
international organized crime in Mexico and Central America by supporting effective law-
enforcement institutions and competent judicial systems; Work with willing allies to
restore the Organization of American States to its essential mission of promoting and
defending common values and meeting common threats; Address the role of China and
Russia in the Americas by encouraging open and transparent regional investment and
trade and rejecting exploitive policies that undermine local societies, regional security,
and economic growth; Combat threats posed by authoritarian regimes and their ties
with Iran, Hezbollah, and transnational criminal organizations; Assist the Cuban people
in transitioning to a postCastro Cuba by helping to jump-start their private sector,
rehabilitate their economy, and restore their political freedoms when the dictatorship
collapses. Maximizing Mutual Global Competitiveness Expanding regional economic
cooperation is crucial to US economic growth . An aggressive trade promotion and
investment strategy in todays hypercompetitive, globalized economy is not a policy
option; it is an imperative . Clearly, prosperity at home depends on success abroad. The
economic opportunities in the Western Hemisphere are enormous, and US policy-
makers and the private sector must recognize them as critical to US economic
growth . In 2011, US exports reached a record $2.1 trillion in total value, despite the
fact that only 1 percent of US businesses export their products to foreign markets. The
United States must expand on these opportunities. Exports benefit the US economy by
offering companies opportunities to tap new markets, expand their production, and earn
more consumer dollars. Today, 95 percent of the worlds consumers live outside the
United States, and the International Monetary Fund predicts that, through 2015, some 80
percent of economic growth will take place beyond US shores. It is indisputable that an
aggressive US trade policymeaning selling US goods and services in as many markets as
possibleis essential for the US economy to hone its competitive edge in the 21st
century. In this sense, Americas future is inextricably linked to the future of its
neighbors in its own hemisphere. A prosperous hemisphere means a more prosperous
United States.