environment impact defense

8/12/2019 Environment Impact Defense

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Uniqueness


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General

Environment improvingreject alarmist scenariosLomborg 11Bjorn, associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of

Aarhus, Denmark, directs the Copenhagen Consensus Center, A Roadmap for the Planet,http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/06/12/bjorn-lomborg-explains-how-to-save-the-planet.html#Climate alarmists and campaigning environmentalists argue thatthe industrializedcountries of the world have made sizable withdrawals on natures fixed allowance, and unlesswe change our ways, and soon, we are doomed to an abrupt end. Take the recentproclamation from the United Nations Environment Program, which argued that governmentsshould dramatically cut back on the use of resources. The mantra has become commonplace:our current way of living is selfish and unsustainable. We are wrecking the world. We aregobbling up the last resources. We are cutting down the rainforest. We are polluting thewater. We are polluting the air. We are killing plants and animals, destroying the ozonelayer, burning the worldthrough our addiction to fossil fuels, and leaving a devastated planetfor future generations.In other words, humanity is doomed.

It is a compelling story, no doubt. It is also fundamentally wrong , and the

consequences are severe. Tragically, exaggerated environmental worriesand the willingnessof so many to believe themcould ultimately prevent us from finding smarter ways to actuallyhelp our planet and ensure the health of the environment for future generations.Because, our fears notwithstanding, we actually get smarter. Although Westerners were oncereliant on whale oil for lighting, we never actually ran out of whales. Why? High demand andrising prices for whale oil spurred a search for and investment in the 19th-century version ofalternative energy. First, kerosene from petroleum replaced whale oil. We didnt run out ofkerosene, either: electricity supplanted it because it was a superior way to light our planet.

For generations, we have consistently underestimated our capacity for innovation. Therewas a time when we worried that all of London would be covered with horse manure because ofthe increasing use of horse-drawn carriages. Thanks to the invention of the car, London has 7million inhabitants today. Dung disaster averted.

In fact, would-be catastrophes have regularly been pushed aside throughout human

history, and so often because of innovation and technological development. We never justcontinue to do the same old thing. We innovate and avoid the anticipated problems.Think of the whales, and then think of the debate over cutting emissions today. Instead ofsinglemindedly trying to force people to do without carbon-emitting fuels, we must recognizethat we wont make any real progress in cutting CO2 emissions until we can create affordable,efficient alternatives. We are far from that point today: much-hyped technologies such as windand solar energy remain very expensive and inefficient compared with cheap fossil fuels.

Globally, wind provides just 0.3 percent of our energy, and solar a minuscule 0.1 percent.Current technology is so inefficient that, to take just one example, if we were serious about windpower, we would have to blanket most countries with wind turbines to generate enough energyfor everybody, and we would still have the massive problem of storage. We dont know what todo when the wind doesnt blow.Making the necessary breakthroughs will require mass improvements across manytechnologies. The sustainable response to global warming, then, is one that sees us get muchmore serious about investment into alternative-energy research and development. This has a


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much greater likelihood of leaving future generations at least the same opportunities as we havetoday.Because what, exactly, is sustainability? Fourteen years ago, the United Nations WorldCommission on Environment and Development report Our Common Future, chaired by GroHarlem Brundtland, provided the most-quoted definition. Sustainable development meets theneeds of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs. The measure of success, then, is whether or not we give future generations the sameopportunities that we have had.This prompts the question: have we lived unsustainably in the past?In fact, by almost any measure, humans have left a legacy of increased opportunity fortheir descendants. And this is true not just for the rich world but also for developing countries.In the last couple of hundred years we have become much richer than in all previous history.Available production per capitathe amount that an average individual can consumeincreased eightfold between 1800 and 2000. In the past six decades, poverty has fallen morethan in the previous 500 years. This decade alone, China will by itself lift 200 million individualsout of poverty. While one in every two people in the developing world was poor just 25 yearsago, today it is one in four. Although much remains to be done, developing countries havebecome much more affluent, with a fivefold increase in real per capita income between 1950

and today.But its not just about money. The world has generally become a much better educatedplace, too. Illiteracy in the developing world has fallenfrom about 75 percent for the peopleborn in the early part of the 1900s to about 12 percent among the young of today. More andmore people have gained access to clean water and sanitation, improving health and income.

And according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the percentage of undernourishedpeople in the developing world has dropped from more than 50 percent in 1950 to 16 percenttoday.

As humans have become richer and more educated, we have been able to enjoy more leisuretime. In most developed countries, where there are available data, yearly working hours havefallen drastically since the end of the 19th century: today we work only about half as much aswe did then. Over the last 30 years or so, total free time for men and women has increased,

thanks to reductions in workload and housework. Globally, life expectancy today is 69. Comparethis with an average life span of 52 in 1960, or of about 30 in 1900. Advances in public healthand technological innovation have dramatically lengthened our lives.We have consistently achieved these remarkable developments by focusing on technologicalinnovation and investment designed to create a richer future. And while major challengesremain, the future appears to hold great promise, too. The U.N. estimates that over this century,the planets human inhabitants will become 14 times richer and the average person in thedeveloping world a whopping 24 times richer. By the end of the century, the U.N. estimates wewill live to be 85 on average, and virtually everyone will read, write, and have access to food,water, and sanitation. Thats not too shabby.Rather than celebrating this amazing progress, many find it distasteful. Instead ofacknowledging and learning from it, we bathe ourselves in guilt, fretting about our supposed

unsustainable lives. Certainly many argue that while the past may have improved, surely itdoesnt matter for the future, because we are destroying the environment!But not so fast. In recent decades, air quality in wealthy countries has vastly improved . Invirtually every developed country, the air is more breathableand the water is moredrinkablethan they were in 1970. London, renowned for centuries for its infamous smog andsevere pollution, today has the cleanest air that it has had since the Middle Ages.Today, some of the most polluted places in the world are the megacities of the developingworld, such as Beijing, New Delhi, and Mexico City. But remember what happened in developedcountries. Over a period of several hundred years, increasing incomes were matched by


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increasing pollution. In the 1930s and 1940s, London was more polluted than Beijing, NewDelhi, or Mexico City are today.Eventually, with increased affluence, developed countries gradually were better able toafford a cleaner environment. That is happening already today in some of the richestdeveloping countries: air-pollution levels in Mexico City have been droppingpreciselybecause of better technology and more wealth. Though air pollution is by far the most menacing

for humans, water quality has similarly been getting better. Forests, too, are regrowingin richcountries, though still being lost in poor places where slash-and-burn is preferable to starvation.These days, of course, the specter of global warming overshadows any discussion of theenvironment. Even if we are making progress elsewhere on air pollution, water pollution, orreforestation, what difference does it make when we are overheating the planet? Globalwarming is caused by our reliance on fossil fuels. It is going to exacerbate many of the issuesthat we experience today, and in some of the worlds poorest regions it will slow our progress

against malnutrition and disease. It is certainly a real problem. However, far too often we

exaggerate its impact and indulge in fearmongering with imagery of devastation

of biblical proportions .


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Ext. General

Current environmental innovation solvesproduces new mechanisms forsolutions

Ewing 2012J. Jackson, Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Environmental Security and ClimateChange and Food Security Programmes, at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS)Studies in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity, BACK TO THE FUTURE: IS RIO+20 A 1992 REDUX OR IS THERE CAUSE FOROPTIMISM?, http://www.rsis.edu.sg/nts/html-newsletter/alert/nts-alert-may-1201.htmlThe fracture points between environmental and economic considerations are not cause forabandoning sustainable development approaches nor do they negate the potential value ofRio+20. Judiciously developing resources is a long-term social imperative, particularly ifintergenerational equity is considered. It is also an avenue from which immediate and near-term progress can be made on issues of development, quality of life and politicalstability.

However, these benefits will require that difficult decisions be made and creativecompromises foundthat assuage the concerns of parties with a multitude of competinginterests. It is here that the deliberations of Rio+20 can have their greatest impact , even if theseimpacts are not readily evident from the formalised outcomes. The meetings will facilitatewhat Andonova and Hoffman (2012:60) have termed collective wondering about newpathways for solutionsto problems spanning environmental and economic spheres.

As Andonova and Hoffman (2012:58) state, it has been the somewhat unintended result of

global environmental dialogue that innovation and experimentation outside the

formal, multilateral processeshave expanded mightily . Creative and potentially

effective policy mechanismsin areas such as the valuation of environmental and socialexternalities, payments for ecological services, and transboundary environmental justice havehad their genesis in collaborative international meetings. The goalposts have shifted as aresult of such connections created through diligent international dialogue, and Rio+20 will againbring together multi-sector stakeholders with a wide array of skills and ideas. The legacy of theimpending discussions will be written and judged on the tangible agreements and mechanismsthat are proffered at the international level, and sending effective signals from this lofty perch isno doubt necessary. However, it is likely that effective mechanisms for managingenvironmental problems will comeless from top-down agreements than from coordinatinginnovative approaches among national and subnational actors. In this sense, inclusivemeetings such as Rio+20 remain invaluable.

Global innovation and non-state environmental management increasingnowAndonova and Hoffmann 2012Liliana B., Professor of Political Science and Deputy Director of the Center forInternational Environmental Studies at the Graduate Institute of International and DevelopmentStudies, Geneva, Matthew J., Associate Professor of International Relations in the Departmentof Social Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, From Rio to Rio and Beyond:Innovation in Global Environmental Governance, Journal of Environment & Development, 21(1)5761, http://jed.sagepub.com/content/21/1/57.full.pdf+htmlPathways to Governing Complex Systems
http://jed.sagepub.com/content/21/1/57.full.pdf+htmlhttp://jed.sagepub.com/content/21/1/57.full.pdf+html


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The Rio conference was an expression, and perhaps the quintessential one, of the growingtrend of large-scale multilateralismglobal conferences and negotiations encompassingessentially all nation-states. Following a legacy of universal-membership internationalorganizations and the rise of multilateral environmental treaties (e.g., The United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea, later treaties on Ozone Depletion), the Earth Summitushered in an era where multilateralism was seen as the way to govern global problems. The

Rio conference cemented this trend, institutionalizing the idea that regular global negotiationswould be the worlds approach to key environmental problems (climate change, biodiversityloss, forests, desertification). It is ironic, but nonetheless true, that one somewhat unintendedlegacyof multilateralism has been to spur innovation and experimentation outside theformal, multilateral processes.The substance of the discussions at the 1992 Earth Summit would prove transformative. Byadvancing the concept of sustainable development as its organizing principle, the Summitbrought into sharp relief the complexity of the task of addressing environmental problems. Itreflected the growing recognition that they are inextricably linked with other global issues suchas development and trade. Scientific assessments that formed the foundation for negotiationsreflected understanding of complex human-ecological systems making it obvious thatchallenges such as climate change or biodiversity loss were more than isolated environmental

problems subject to the same kind of governance mechanisms that served the internationalcommunity in dealing with transboundary pollution and even ozone depletion.The complex nature of global environmental problems would serve to make multilateralcooperation challenging and simultaneously spur experimentation. The twointergovernmental conventions adopted in 1992 at Riothe United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)are a case in point of how attempting to regulate issues of unenviable complexity enhanced therecognition of the multiscalar nature of environmental challenges and catalyzed momentumbehind innovation and experimentation. The breadth and depth of the undertakingembodiedin the implementation efforts that followed the agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol of theUNFCCC, awoke a range of actors at multiple levels to the scale of the problems and thetypes of activities that would be called on to implement global solutions. NGOs and

corporations began to work on developing the infrastructurefor carbon markets,transnational city networks emergedto prepare local governments for climate action, andcommunity-based efforts for conservation and livelihoods proliferated. The multilateralprocess floundered in part because of the profound mismatch between a single, centralized,topdown global governance system and the inherently complex nature of environmentalproblems. The resulting uncertainty about fragmentation and appropriate scales of interventionshas only been enhanced by processes of globalization and growing incentives and capacity ofnonstate actors to engage in direct action for the environment.Private Authority and PublicPrivate PartnershipsThe conditions that made possible a flurry of multilevel, multiactor activity for the environmentcan also be traced to political dynamics that came to a head at Rio. The 1992 Earth Summitwas one of the first major international meetings where what Rosenau (1990) has dubbed the

multicentric world engaged with the state-centric world on a global stage. NGOs, localgovernments, corporations, and a host of civil society actors converged on Rio, sharing theirexperiences, urging action, networking, and considering their roles in the global governance ofenvironmental problems. This widening of participation in global environmental governanceemerged and was potent precisely because the conference reflected another trend in globalgovernance, the pluralization of global authority. Since the 1990s, growing marketization ofpolitics and society (key aspects of globalization) has gained significant momentum. Theseglobalization dynamics coupled with the recognition of the multiscalar nature ofenvironmental problemsaltered a system that had state sovereignty as its foundation and


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resulted in a proliferation of actors that considered themselves to be authoritative agentsundertaking actions for the environment.The resulting infusion of nonstate actorsin environmental politics opened new space in theglobal public domain for experimentationwith new instruments that seek to influencebehavior and environmental outcomes via markets, norms, and networks. The NGO-led ForestStewardship Council (FSC) certificationand the business-led ISO14001 certification are two

well-documented schemes of regulation beyond the state. FSC certification gained groundrapidly since its creation in 1995, more than doubling after 2005 to 148 million hectares offorests, across 80 countries with more than 1,000 certificates issues (Forest StewardshipCouncil, 2011). The ISO14001 environmental management standard, which was inspired byefficiency and wasteminimization approaches advocated at Rio, similarly diffused rapidly from13,994 certificates in 1999 to 223,149 in 2009. These prominent examples are just the tip ofa multitude of nonstate initiatives undertaken by networks of advocacy or businessactors, which have proliferated across multiple domains such as carbon markets, voluntaryemission reductions, conservation, sustainable production, or chemical safety.We do not suggest, however, that private authority has sidelined or substituted for public andintergovernmental institutions in environmental governance. On the contrary,intergovernmental frameworkssuch as the UNFCC and its Kyoto Protocol and the CBD

provide the normative foundation and often specific incentives for nonstate actors as wellas substate public authorities such as cities, regions, and communities to engage in directenvironmental action. International organizations and units of national governments havefurthermore actively facilitated the opening of the multilateral system to an array of publicprivate interventions for the environment. Publicprivate partnerships have diffused across theglobe taking a variety of forms. Thousands of community-based partnerships forbiodiversity management, energy efficiency, transportation, or agriculture coexist withlarge global partnershipsplatforms for corporate social responsibility, renewable energydiffusion, or resource management. International organizations and regimes are slowly startingto come to grips with the flurry of decentralized governance innovations and to evaluate theirimplications for advancing environmental objectives.

New UN blueprint solvesStocchetti 2013Marikki, doctoral candidate in Development Studies at the University of Helsinki, researcher atthe Finnish Institute of International Affairs, The UN Blueprint for the Post-2015 Development

Agenda > Enabling optimism or true transformation?, The Finnish Institute of InternationalAffairs, April, http://www.fiia.fi/en/publication/335/In September2015 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly is to agree on a new globalagenda for international development(2015-2030) as the era of Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) comes to an end. Over 50 development expertsfrom different UN entities andother international organizations were tasked with reporting on the lessons learnt from theMDGs, and with proposing a fresh blueprint for the future. The resulting document, Realizing

the Future We Want for All, is serving as the first referencefor consultations across the globe.Two intertwined challenges make thisUN-led endeavour particularly difficult. The firstofthese relates to the magnitude of the international development agendaand the work thatstill needs to be done. Several of the MDGs remain unrealized, while priorities that were notsufficiently covered by the current framework compete for attention and resources. Most notableof these are employment and livelihoods, peace and security, as well as human rights andenvironmentalconcerns. However, the second challengeis almost as huge as the workloadahead, namely, thealmost paralyzing degree of passivism and disinterest among politicalleaders.


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It is this raft of problems that the UN Task Team is aiming to tackle. At the core of theblueprint lies the notion of enabling development through shared responsibilitybetweencountries and actors. This marks a shift from a pessimistic focus on the developingcountries own problems to a wider viewwhereby developed nations and private sectoractors would play a much bigger role.To make this happen, the UN Task Team is structuring the proposal around three core values

for all stakeholders to share. These are human rights, equality and sustainability. Theenvisioned post-2015 agenda in itself consists of four key dimensions. These include 1)inclusive social development, 2) inclusive economic development, 3) environmentalsustainability and 4) peace and security. Each of these dimensions will be completed withconcrete goals, targets, indicators and means of implementation now that the complexconsultation process has run its course.Yet the ground-breaking suggestion that the UN team is making relates to the factors thatunderpin each of the four dimensions. The UN System Task Team calls them enablers.Theseenablers can be understoodas prerequisites that need to be in place in order to achieve any ofthe future development goals. They are included to guide policy-makers and private actors toact more coherently. For instance, the achievement of inclusive economic development-relatedobjectives calls for fair and stable global trading and financial systems as well as affordable

access to technology and knowledge. By the same token, the fate of environmentalsustainability goals will be determined by the way in which we use natural resources. Peace andsecurity also hinge on good governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Moreover,the four dimensions are interconnected. This implies that failures and successes in each sectorinfluence one another. The same interdependence is highlighted between national andinternational levels.The UN Blueprint broadens the conventional approach to development well beyond thetradition donor-recipient relationship and development cooperation. It also points to theunderlying weakness of the current international agenda and discusses failures to address theroot causes and incoherencies behind poverty and unsustainability. In so doing, the UN TaskTeam has reignited the debate over Global partnership for development, which has beenthe largely unfulfilled MDG for developed countries to support poorer countries with effective

aid, better trade rules, and access to technology and knowledge.Hence, the overriding strength of the UN Blueprint is that it connects the present MDGs fordeveloping countries to the wider frame of sustainable development. While advocating anagenda for global transformation, the UN Task Team acknowledges the power of the presentMDGs to galvanize international attention and much-needed development assistance forthe poorest countries. Indeed, the MDGs have had a positive impact on decreasingabsolute poverty, and improving access to primary education, as well as to cleandrinking water. Yet much more is needed to stay on track and to ensure the full attainment ofall MDGs. Among them are the still unrealized objectives of better nutrition as well as lower childand maternal mortality rates, which cannot be reached by development aid only.


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at: climatedoha solves

Doha created momentum to solve climateHedegaard 2012Connie, Why the Doha climate conference was a success,http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/doha-climate-conference-success

In Doha, we changed the very structure of our negotiations . Before, we had different

working groups based on the sharp distinction between developed and developing countries.Now, we have one negotiation forum, the Durban Platform, for all countries. Check.This is not a small achievement. Today, the average emission per capita in China is already7.2 tonnes and increasing. Europe's is 7.5 tonnes and decreasing. The world cannot fightclimate change without emerging economies committing. That is why crossing thebridge from the old system to the new system was so important. And we did it.

And this bridge is being constructed by the EU and a handful of other developed countriescommitting to a second Kyoto Protocol period. Too many years of hard work would have beenlost if we had not renewed Kyoto, which is still the only existing treaty that requires emission

cuts. We simply couldn't afford that. Another check.We have ensured continuity up to the new global deal in 2020, with the EU succeeding in

negotiating an eight-year extension of the protocol. Check.

We have finally resolvedthe long-running problem of "hot air"surplus of unused carboncredits from the first Kyoto period. Buyers will be limited in how much they can purchase.The EU's law doesn't allow using them and all potential buyers made declarations that they willnot buy them anyway. Moreover, the new rules prevent the creation of additional hot air. This isa strong environmental outcome. Check.Despite the difficult economic times in Europe, we also continued to provide climate fundingin Doha. Several EU member states and the European Commission came forward withsome 7bn in climate fundsfor 2013 and 2014, which represents an increase from the pasttwo years. Check.

The EU also requested that Doha set out a schedule of what must be done from now until 2015.We now have a workplan. Check.

But before the future legal regime kicks in 2020, the EU insisted on identifying furthermeasures to reduce emissions in order to hold global warming below 2C. Doha deliveredthat. And all Kyoto and non-Kyoto countries' targets will be revisited by 2014 with a view to

considering raising their ambition. Check.


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at: overpopulationwrong

Overpopulation is alarmist fantasyBerezow 2013

Alex B., editor of RealClearScience, Humanity is not a plague on earth: Column,http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/05/humanity-is-not-a-plague-on-earth-column/1965485/In January, David Attenborough, an internationally renowned host of nature documentaries,revealed how disconnected he is from nature. Mankind, he recently warned, is a "plague on theearth." He said, "Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us."Nobody told him that world population growth is already slowing in nearly every part of theworld. In many countries, demographers worry more about a shrinking populationthan anexploding one.

Americans haven't gotten the memo, either. A Center for Biological Diversity poll released lastweek reports that a majority of Americans worry about population growth sparking globalwarming, killing off endangered species or causing other environmental mayhem. And, they say,we have a "moral responsibility" to do something about it.Nevertheless, the notion that humanity is a blight upon the planet is a long discredited

idea, long nurtured by a vocal cadre of fearful prophets .

Fearful historyThomas Malthus predicted more than 200 years ago that world population growth wouldoutpace food production, triggering mass starvations and disease. In 1977, Paul and AnneEhrlich, along with Obama administration "science czar" John Holdren, authored a textbook thatdiscussed population control, including the unsavory possibility of compulsory abortions. Asrecently as 2011, Anne Ehrlich compared humans to cancer cells.Yet, science says otherwise. Indeed, what Attenborough, the Ehrlichs and Holdren all have incommon is an ignorance of demographic trends. Anyone who believes that humans will overrunthe earth like ants at a picnic is ignoring the data .

Wealth plays roleAccording to the World Bank, the world's fertility rate is 2.45, slightly above the replacement rateof 2.1. Some demographers believe that by 2020, global fertility will drop below thereplacement rate for the first time in history. Why? Because the world is getting richer.As people become wealthier, they have fewer kids. When times are good, instead ofreproducing exponentially (like rabbits), people prefer to spend resources nurturing fewerchildren, for instance by investing in education and saving money for the future. This trendtoward smaller families has been observed throughout the developed world, from theUnited States to Europe to Asia.The poorest parts of the world, most notably sub-Saharan Africa, still have sky-high fertilityrates, but they are declining. The solution is just what it has been elsewhere: more education,easier access to contraception and economic growth. Catastrophe avoided.

Consequently, no serious demographer believes that human population growth resembles canceror the plague. On the contrary, the United Nations projects a global population of 9.3 billion by2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. In other words, it will take about 40 years to add 2 billion people,but 50 years to add 1 billion after that. After world population peaks, it is quite possible that it willstop growing altogether and might even decline.Despite all indications to the contrary, global population cataclysm isn't at hand and neverwill be unless the well-established and widely researched trends reverse themselves.That's not likely.


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Ext. overpop wrong

Population growth slowingdecline inevitableWise 2013Jeff, science writer, About That Overpopulation Problem,http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/01/world_population_may_actually_start_declining_not_exploding.single.html

A somewhat more arcane milestone, meanwhile, generated no media coverage at all: It tookhumankind 13 years to add its 7 billionth. Thats longer than the 12 years it took to add the 6billionththe first time in human history that interval had grown. (The 2 billionth, 3 billionth,4 billionth, and 5 billionth took 123, 33, 14, and 13 years, respectively.) In other words, the rate

of global population growth has slowed. And itsexpected to keep slowing . Indeed,

according to experts best estimates, the total population of Earth willstop growingwithin the lifespan of people alive today.

And then it will fall.This is a counterintuitive notion in the United States, where weve heard often and loudly that

world population growth is a perilous and perhaps unavoidable threat to our future as a species.But population decline is a very familiar concept in the rest of the developed world, wherefertility has long since fallen far belowthe 2.1 live births per woman required to maintainpopulation equilibrium. In Germany, the birthrate has sunk to just 1.36, worse even than itslow-fertility neighbors Spain (1.48) and Italy (1.4). The way things are going, Western Europe asa whole will most likely shrink from 460 million to just 350 million by the end of the century.Thats not so bad compared with Russia and China, each of whose populations could fall byhalf. As you may not be surprised to learn, the Germans have coined a polysyllabic word for thisquandary: Schrumpf-Gesellschaft, or shrinking society.American media have largely ignored the issueof population declinefor the simple reason thatit hasnt happened here yet. Unlike Europe, the United States has long been the beneficiary ofrobust immigration. This has helped us not only by directly bolstering the number of people

calling the United States home but also by propping up the birthrate, since immigrant womentend to produce far more children than the native-born do.But both those advantages look to diminish in years to come. A report issued last month by thePew Research Center found that immigrant births fell from 102 per 1,000 women in 2007 to87.8 per 1,000 in 2012. That helped bring the overall U.S. birthrate to a mere 64 per 1,000womennot enough to sustain our current population.Moreover, the poor, highly fertile countries that once churned out immigrants by theboatload are now experiencing birthrate declines of their own. From 1960 to 2009,Mexicos fertility rate tumbledfrom 7.3 live births per woman to 2.4, Indias dropped fromsix to 2.5, and Brazils fell from 6.15to 1.9. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where the averagebirthrate remains a relatively blistering 4.66, fertility is projected to fall below replacementlevelby the 2070s. This change in developing countries will affect not only the U.S. population,

of course, but eventually the worlds.Why is this happening? Scientists who study population dynamics point to a phenomenon calleddemographic transition.For hundreds of thousands of years, explains Warren Sanderson, a professor of economics atStony Brook University, in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics and wars andfamine, birthrates had to be very high. Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates started tofall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In time, though, birthratesfell as well, and the population leveled out. The same pattern has repeated in countries aroundthe world. Demographic transition, Sanderson says, is a shift betweentwo very different


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long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and lowbirthrates. Not only is the pattern well-documented, its well under way: Already, morethan half the worlds population is reproducing at below the replacement rate.If the Germany of today is the rest of the world tomorrow, then the future is going to look a lotdifferent than we thought. Instead of skyrocketing toward uncountable Malthusian multitudes,researchers at Austrias International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis foresee the global

population maxing out at 9 billion some time around 2070. On the bright side, the long-dreadedresource shortage may turn out not to be a problem at all . On the not-so-bright side, thedemographic shift toward more retirees and fewer workers could throw the rest of the world intothe kind of interminable economic stagnation that Japan is experiencing right now.


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at: overpopconsumption not population

Consumption in wealthy countries overwhelms coming population boomPearce 2009Fred, freelance author and journalist based in the UK, environment consultant for New Scientistmagazine, Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat,http://e360.yale.edu/feature/consumption_dwarfs_population_as_main_environmental_threat/2140/I do not deny that fast-rising populations can create serious local environmental crisesthrough overgrazing, destructive farming and fishing, and deforestation. My argument here isthat viewed at the global scale, it is overconsumptionthat has been driving humanitys impactson the planets vital life-support systems during at least the past century. But what of the future?We cannot be sure how the global economic downturn will play out. But let us assume thatJeffrey Sachs, in his book Common Wealth, is right to predict a 600 percent increase in globaleconomic output by 2050. Most projections put world population then at no more than 40percent above todays level, so its contribution to future growth in economic activity will besmall.Of course, economic activity is not the same as ecological impact. So lets go back tocarbon dioxide emissions. Virtually all of the extra 2 billion or so people expectedon thisplanet in the coming 40 years will be in the poor half of the world. They will raise thepopulation of the poor world from approaching 3.5 billion to about 5.5 billion, making them thepoor two-thirds.Sounds nasty, but based on Pacalas calculationsand if we assume for the purposes ofthe argument that per-capita emissions in every country stay roughly the same as today those extra two billion people would raise the share of emissions contributed by the poorworld from 7 percent to 11 percent.Look at it another way. Just five countries are likely to produce most of the worlds populationgrowth in the coming decades: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The carbonemissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20

Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians.

Even if we could today achieve zero population growth , that would barely touch the

climate problem where we need to cut emissions by 50 to 80 percent by mid-century.

Given existing income inequalities, it is inescapable that overconsumption by the rich few is thekey problem, rather than overpopulation of the poor many.


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at: droughts

Drought fears are corporate alarmismPosel 2013Susanne, April 24th, Chief Editor of OccupyCorporatism and the globally syndicated host of theRegion 10 Report broadcast on American Freedom Radio, Alarmist Decry Global DroughtWhile Water Privatization Controls Resources,http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2013/04/24/alarmist-decry-global-drought-while-water-privatization-controls-resources/The securitization of water is a conflict of control over society and the right to life. It is a non-negotiable aspect of life on Earth. The false flag threat of water pollution(which is beingcommitted by the global Elite through multi-national corporations) is a cover story for themarch toward complete control over all basic necessities required to live .Precipitation levels and drought have been correlated by alarmist scientiststo explainagricultural conditions that have been changing without long term studies to proveemphatically that the two are conditional upon each other.Five years later, the IPCC published a study that explained that droughts have manydifferent factors involved and narrowing down the blame on climate change is notapparent; although they maintain that man-made global warming will cause an intensification ofthose effects.

Alarmist scientists are claiming that global warming is causational to the deterioration ofpublic health, farming conditions, and the draining of the Great Lakes. This report wascommissioned by the US government by way of 13 agencies working under the US GlobalChange Research Program (GCRP).GCRP states that human activity; primarily fossil fuel usage is responsible for climate change forthe last 50 years. As a result, temperatures have heated up since the Industrial Revolution witha culmination revealing itself in recent years which demands a reaction.Experimentsconducting last year bythe United Arab Emirates (UAE), successfullymanufactured fifty rainstormsby scientists using large ionizers to generate negatively

charged particle fields. These structures promote cloud formation. Metro Systems International(MSI), the technology purveyors, claims to have achieved a number of rainfalls.


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too late

The environment is getting significantly worsebiodiversity is dying andby 2030 we will need two Earths to sustain the population

Hale 12(Erin Hale, Earth's environment getting worse, not better, says WWF ahead ofRio+20Swelling population, mass migration to cities, increasing energy useand soaring CO2 emissions squeeze planet's resources,http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/15/earth-environment-wwf-rio20, Guardian News, Woojae)Twenty years on from the Rio Earth summit, the environment of the planet is gettingworse not better, according toa report from WWF. Swelling population, mass migration tocities, increasing energy use and soaring carbon dioxide emissions mean humanity isputting a greater squeeze on the planet's resources then ever before. Particularly hard hitis the diversity of animals and plants, upon whichmany natural resources such as clean

water are based.

"The Rio+20 conference next month is an opportunity for the world to get serious about theneed for development to become sustainable. Our report indicates that we haven't yet done thatsince the last Rio summit," said David Nussbaum, WWF-UK chief executive.The latest Living Planet report, published on Tuesday, estimates that global demand fornatural resources has doubled since1996 andthat it now takes 1.5 years to regeneratethe renewable resources used in one year by humans. By2030, the report predicts it willtake the equivalent of two planets to meet the current demand for resources.Most alarming,says the report, is that many of these changes have accelerated in the pastdecade, despite the plethora of international conventions signed since the initial RioSummit in 1992. Climate-warming carbon emissions have increased 40% in the past 20years, but two-thirds of that rise occurred in the past decade.The report, compiled by WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global FootprintNetwork, compiles data from around the world on the ecological footprints of eachcountry and the status of resources like water and forests. It also examines changes inpopulations of 2,688 animal species,with the latest available data coming from 2008.The eighth report of its kind, the new Living Planet document, comes five weeks before Rio+20,the latest United Nations conference on sustainable development.


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Ext. too late

Were past the tipping points impactsare inevitableHughes et al 03(T. P. HughesA. H. Baird

1,D. R. Bellwood

work at Centre for Coral Reef Biodiversity, James Cook University, ,M. Card

Environmental Protection AgencyP. Marshall Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Climate Change, Human Impacts, and theResilience of Coral Reefs Science 15 August 2003: Vol. 301 no. 5635 pp. 929-933http://www.sciencemag.org/content/301/5635/929.full)

Coral reefs are critically important for the ecosystem goods and services they provide tomaritime tropical and subtropical nations (1). Yet reefs are in serious decline; an

estimated 30%are already severely damaged, and close to 60% may be lost

by 2030 (2). There are no pristine reefs left (34). Local successes at

protecting coral reefs over the past 30 years have failed to reverse regionalscale

declines, and global management of reefs must undergo a radical change in emphasis andimplementation if it is to make a real difference. Here, we review current knowledge of the statusof coral reefs, the human threats to them now and in the near future, and new directions for

research in support of management of these vital natural resources. Until recently, the directand indirect effects of overfishing and pollution from agriculture and land development havebeen the major drivers of massive and accelerating decreases in abundance of coral reefspecies, causing widespread changes in reef ecosystems over the past two centuries (35). With increased human populations and improved storage and transport systems, thescale of human impacts on reefs has grown exponentially. For example, markets for fishesand other natural resources have become global, supplying demand for reef resources farremoved from their tropical sources (6) (Fig. 1). On many reefs, reduced stocks of herbivorousfishes and added nutrients from land-based activities have caused ecological shifts, from theoriginal dominance by corals to a preponderance of fleshy seaweed (5, 7). Importantly, thesechanges to reefs, which can often be managed successfully at a local scale, are compoundedby the more recent, superimposed impacts of global climate change.
http://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=T.+P.+Hughes&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=T.+P.+Hughes&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=A.+H.+Baird&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=A.+H.+Baird&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=D.+R.+Bellwood&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=D.+R.+Bellwood&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=M.+Card&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=P.+Marshall&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=P.+Marshall&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=M.+Card&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=D.+R.+Bellwood&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=A.+H.+Baird&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://www.sciencemag.org/search?author1=T.+P.+Hughes&sortspec=date&submit=Submit


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Link


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Oil Spillno impact

Oil Spill impact exaggeratedSchwennesen 2010Paul, MA in government from Harvard University and a BS in History and Science (biologyconcentration) from the U.S. Air Force Academy, completed a fellowship at the Property &Environment Research Center (PERC), The Catastrophe That Wasnt: The Gulf Oil Spill inPerspective, http://www.masterresource.org/2010/08/false-catastrophe-bp-spill/Picture your neighbors pool. Unless you live in Malibu, itll contain about 6,000 gallons.Thats the Gulffor purposes of discussion. Now go to your garage, get a quart of oil andpour it in when hes not looking. Pretty good sense of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, right?Nope, not even close. Put a drop ofthat oilonto a sheet of paper and carefully cut it in half.Now do it again and toss that quarter of a drop into the deep end. Even this quarter droplet(about the size of the comma in this sentence) is about 10% too large, but NOW you havea sense of what 4.9 million barrels of oil in the Gulf looks like.[1]Now that weve grappled with the issue of scale, lets look at the aftermath of this catastrophe.According to the government scientists, seventy-five percent of that sliver of a droplethas now evaporated, been eaten by microbes, skimmed or burnt. (This estimate is indispute, but every day the released oil is being reduced to get to that figure, if not beyond it.)Now, youre going to need to borrow your kids microscope for the rest of this exercise.Ah, says the ecologist in you, but oil is like poison to an ecosystem, andso any amount is

disproportionately harmful. Well, the science doesntagree , but lets assume for the

moment that youre right. Ignoring that the vast majority of this poison-oil has already beenhappily consumed by portions of this delicate ecosystem, lets pretend that oil is to the Gulfwhat botulinum toxin is to man (really bad news, as its the deadliest substance known).Distributed uniformly, oil would contaminate the water of the Gulf at a ratio of eight thousandmillionths per gallon. If the same concentration of botulinum existed in your swimming pool, youcould safely spend the day in it without a second thought.[2] Sure, oil is not distributed

uniformly, but shrill cries about the collapse of the Gulfs ecosystem imply that it effectsare. It is indeed true that every action has reverberating ecological consequences, but if wedelude ourselves into thinking this means disintegration then we risk making poor policychoices.Good Intentions, Good Analysis, Good PolicyPlease dont misunderstand. I am firmly in the camp of those who think the Gulf ecosystem isa wonderful and valuable thingthat we should never take for granted. Furthermore, its notmy intention here to dismiss or minimize BPs bungle. Neither am I suggesting cleanupshouldnt continue with the utmost diligence. After all, scale matters not one whit if that sliverof oil washes into your crab pots. Legally, BP should be held to account for their negligenceand must make whole anyone whose property or livelihood they have harmed.But two lessons rise to the surface here. The first is to never underestimate the power of

ecosystems to absorb shocks and adapt to change. While we should not treat Nature withreckless disregard, we should also not dishonor her by intimating that she stands in precariousbalance, perennially on the brink of human-caused collapse. As ecology continues to developas a science, I expect that it will be the extraordinary resilience of natural systems that willbecome the prevailing acknowledgment.

The second lesson is that we must demand a sense of perspective when dealing

with issues of environmental concern . The natural inclination when faced with torrents

of extremely focused media coverage is to extrapolate broadly to the ecosystem at large.


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Hysteria and fear do not make for good policy, however. An inability to properly understandecological sensitivity leads to dire predictions which fuel misguided regulatory reaction.For instance, President Obamas intuition told him that, everybody understands that when weare fouling the Earth like this, it has concrete implications not just for this generation, but forfuture generations. A true statement, of course, since every action necessarily has concreteimplications. The question is, how big are these implications? Do the imagined implications of

this oil spill (foodweb collapse, fishery destruction, economic implosion of the Gulf Coast)warrant the sort of unwise knee-jerk decisions like the now-beleaguered six-month drillingmoratorium which would have very surely precipitated vastly more destructive results?The ecological implications of this spill, I submit, will be relatively transitory and minimal. Whileconceding that nobody really knows the long-term effects, scientists generally agree thatthe sky isnt falling. Comparable disasters such as the 1991 Persian Gulf spill(in whichthe retreating Iraqi Army perpetrated the largest spill in history) or the Ixtoc 1 spill off thecoast of Yucatan(which gushed 3.5 million barrels for 290 days) can give us clues. In bothcases, within three years the ecology had returned to pre-spill equilibrium.It would not be naively optimistic to expect a significantly more rapid recovery in the Gulf:conditions lend themselves well to natural oil degradation and very little oil has ended up in the

vibrant coastal regions where life mostly congregates. It would be safe to assume that 99% of

the spillseffects (economic loss, fishery damage, species diversity/habitat loss) will have

disappeared along with the oil in one year or less .


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Ext. Oil Spillno impact

Your predictions are wrong. Other factors play out in ecological effectsother than oil.

Kotta et al 2008 Estonian Marine Institute(R. Aps Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu,Tallinn, Estonia and K. Herkl Institute of Zoology and Hydrobiology. Predicting ecological resilience of marine benthic communitiesfacing a high risk of oil spills EnvironmentalProblemsinCoastalRegionsVII 1012008http://www.ensaco.fi/media/Environmental%20Atlas%20seminar%20No.%202%20Helsinki/kotta%20et%20al%20oil%20spill%2008_ok.pdf)

The impacts of oil spills to biological communities are difficult to predict because

physical conditions interact with the community response. Furthermore biologicalsystems are complex and impacts often result from indirect effects rather than direct

toxicological impacts[1]. Often factors other than oil largely determine community

structure resulting in confounded effects of the spill. Thus, the study designs that do not

include the measurement of other environmental factors or lack the baseline data must be

interpreted with particular care [2, 30].

Ecosystems correct for spillsSiegel 10(Alan Siegel, journalist, Is an Oil Spill Ever Good for Animals? Slate, July 8, 2010,http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.html,date accessed 7/02/13, Woojae)Yes. Scientists don't know what makes it so resilient to the health effects of oil, but the blood-red-colored bristle worm known as Capitella capitata seems able to survive in a pollutedenvironment. Indeed, it thrives. The worm's natural predatorsshrimp, fish, and crabsstart todie off after a spill, leaving room for what's called ecological succession: The population of onespecies grows to fill a gap left by damage to another. At up to 10 centimeters in length and

about the width of a human hair, Capitella capitata may seem like the oil spill's tiny grim reaper.In fact, it could help to restore the Gulf ecosystem. The animals burrow into the sea floor to feedon organic matter deposited there. This movement circulates new water into the sediments andaddresses one of the major problems after an oil spillthe depletion of oxygen in the ocean bythe hungry bacteria that are working to break down pollutants. By churning up mud at thebottom of the Gulf, the worms release and recycle pockets of anoxic water, which in turnallows sediment bacteria to degrade more oil.(The flourishing micro-organisms also serveas food for the bristle worms.) The ecological interplay between worms and bacteria pavesthe way for the return of other species. Bolstered by higher oxygen levels and moreworms to eat, the populations of fish, crab, and shrimp begin to increase.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/is_an_oil_spill_ever_good_for_animals.html


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DrillingNo Impact

No impact oil drilling has little effect on the ecosystemCarter et al 06(Assheton Stewart Carter_, Keith Alger_, Larry Gorenflo_, Patricia Zurita (MainstreamingBiodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Development Prepared for BiodiversityOpportunities in Latin American and the Caribbean: The Role of the IDB A workshop at theInter-American Development Bank July 28, 2006 CI Policy Paperhttp://www.conservation.org/global/celb/Documents/idb_paper_oilgasdevelopment.pdf)Developing an oil or gas field is a precise operationlike a root canaland if done wellwill have little physicaland mostly local impacts,compared to the very grave andlandscape-scale impacts of growing agricultural commodities for export , for example.Yet, large natural resource companies, especially multinationals developing oil, gas and mineralresources in developing countries, have a poor environmental record (Warhurst 1992) and aturbulent history regarding relationships with their workforce and local communities (StewartCarter 1999). Developing oil and gas resources is not an environmentally benign activity.


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Lifting Embargo Bad

Turnlifting the embargo would devastate the Cuban marine ecosystemand diverse environmentPBS 10

(PBS, September 29, 2010, Cuba: The Accidental Eden,http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/,6/28/13, Woojae)

Cuba may have been restricted politically and economically for the past 50 years, but its bordershave remained open to wildlife for which Cubas undeveloped islands are an irresistible draw.While many islands in the Caribbean have poisoned or paved over their ecological riches onland and in the sea in pursuit of a growing tourist industry, Cubas wild landscapes haveremained virtually untouched, creating a safe haven for rare and intriguing indigenous animals,as well as for hundreds of species of migrating birds and marine creatures. Coral reefs havebenefited, too. Independent research has shown that Cubas corals are doing much better thanothers both in the Caribbean and around the world.Scientific research in Cuba on creatures such as the notoriously aggressive jumping crocodile,and the famous painted snails, paired with long-term ecological efforts on behalf of sea turtles,has been conducted primarily by devoted local experts. Conservation and research in Cubacan be a constant struggle for scientists who earn little for their work. But their work is theirpassion, and no less important than that of those collecting larger salaries. NATURE followsthese scientists as they explore the crocodile population of Zapata swamp, the birth of baby seaturtles, and the mysteries of evolution demonstrated by creatures that travel no more than 60yards in a lifetime.

As the possibility of an end to the U.S. trade embargo looms, Cubas wildlife hangs in thebalance. Most experts predict that the end of the embargo could have devastating results.Tourism could double, and the economic development associated with tourism and otherindustries could change the face of what was once a nearly pristine ecosystem. Or Cuba couldset an example for development and conservation around the world, defining a new era ofsustainability well beyond Cubas borders.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-the-accidental-eden/introduction/5728/


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Impact


24/51

at: climate changewrong/inev

No impact or its inevitableRucker 2012Craig, Masters of Public Administration from the State University of New York at Albany,Executive Director and co-founder of Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT),Global Climate Planning: Down But Not Out (Dohas bitter defeat does not mean its over)http://www.masterresource.org/2012/12/doha-defeat-but-not-over/For people who believe humans can prevent catastrophic climate change by adjustingatmospheric carbon dioxide levels by a few parts per million or are determined to crave controlof destructive fossil fuels and unsustainable economic systems Doha was a failure.Only 37 of 194 nations signed the treaty that replaces the Kyoto Protocol, which expiresDecember 31and several countries may withdraw their consent. That means the newagreementislegally non-binding and covers only at best 15% of global carbon dioxideemissions.While the European Union joined in and remains committed to carbon trading (making formerUNFCC chair Yvo DeBoer happy in his new role as a carbon trader, la Al Gore), the UnitedStates, Brazil, Russia, India, China, Canada, Japan and other major emitters refused to sign,and the new treaty sets no binding emission limits. Atmospheric CO2 levels will thuscontinue to climband climate campaigners will remain distraught over allegedly disastrousweather events, imminent habitat devastation, species extinctions, injustice for the worlds poor,and the disappearance of island nations beneath the waves.For those who say computer models are meaningless, climate change and weather extremesare natural, and economic growth should be sustained to lift more billions out of poverty Doharepresents a partial success. Few nations signed the treaty, even the Obama Administration didnot commit to it, the document is not binding, and countless billions of dollars will be availablefor continued economic development and disaster reliefinstead of being squandered onfruitless attempts to control Earths infinitely complex climate and weather.Even Christina Figueres, DeBoers successor at the UN Framework Convention on ClimateChange, could proclaim victory. She wants to keep the planets temperature from rising morethan the internationally agreed maximum of two degrees Celsius. That goal has arguably beenreached already. There has been no detectable increase in average global temperaturesfor 16 years.In fact, while last summer was hot and dry in much of the continental USA, nearing records setduring the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, it was a very cold summer in Alaskaandparts ofEurope. Winter2012 wassnowy and nasty in Central Europe and very cold in South Africaand South America. Britainjust had its coldest autumn in nineteen years, Himalayanglaciers are growing, interior Greenland is not melting, summer Antarctic sea ice is nearrecord extent, and seas are not risingany faster.

All this helps explain why climate alarmists keep changing their rhetoric : from global

cooling to global warming, to climate change to climate disruption, and now to extreme weather.Indeed, they now try to link every unusual weather event to CO2(and now methane, ornatural gas, the fuel produced through hydraulic fracturing or fracking). However, as Dr. RogerPielke Jr. has noted, when the Atlantic hurricane season starts next June 1, it will have been

2,777 days since a category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane made landfall along the U.S. coast the

longest such period since 1900 . 2012 also marked the quietest U.S. tornado season on

record; only twelve tornadoes touched down in the United States in July 2012.


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Of course, there are always disasters and human tragedies at the hands of a not-always-benevolent Mother Nature. Hardly a year has ever gone by without many such weather eventssomewhere on Planet Earth.This year, however, climate alarmists have blamed virtually all of them on humans and CO2emissionsfrom Sandy in the USA to 2011 and 2012 typhoons in the Philippines, and droughtsin Africa. Its easy to see why. As a Greenpeace director cogently explained, The key issue is

money as in the redistribution of wealth from rich, formerly rich and soon-to-be formerly richnations to still poor countries. The other issue is power and control: as in who gets to makeenergy, economic, and human health and welfare decisions: individuals, families, communitiesand nationsor eco-activists and UN bureaucrats.That brings us to the in-between: the uncharted waters separating bitter failure and partialsuccess.

As climate activists and media journalists have observed, there is no legally bindingagreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The worlds two biggest CO2emitters, China and the United States, did not sign. What was agreed to contains only vaguepromises that, beginning in 2020, at least $100 billion a year will flow from public, private andother sources to poor countries, supposedly to help them cope with the devastating effects ofclimate change and extreme weather. There is no agreement as to where that $1 trillion per

decade will come from, or how much will be available annually between now and 2020,especially if the global economic downturn continues.But dont believe the vague promises, bitter failure, bitterly disappointed rhetoric. The climatealarmistsgot a lot of what they came for, they gave up little or nothing, theyll be back for more,and in the meantime they will still get billions of dollars annually from taxpayerstoconduct climate change causation, mitigation, adaptation and compensation research, issuebalanced reports, and attend many more conferences (all expenses paid) where virtually noone except alarmists is allowed to speak or participate in official discussions andnegotiations.More than 7,000 environmental NGO activists attended the Doha confaband next time aroundthey wont forget who sent them, now that Jonathan Pershing, chief U.S. negotiator for climatechange at Doha, has pointedly reminded them who paid for their presence in Qatar. They and

the official delegates will be there for specific objectives: more money, more power, morecontrol.In Doha, they reached several benchmarks that they had achieved during previous COP events.Most important, they enshrined in the treaty the concept of loss and damage supposedlyresulting from manmade climate change and secured pledges from rich nations that poorcountries would receive billions of dollars per year in aid to repair any loss and damage, aspart of a climate compensation mechanism. They also incorporated principles of equity andjustice and common but differentiated responsibilitiesto distinguish between nations thatcaused climate change and extreme weather events and countries that presumably did notor are especially vulnerable.It is true that words like compensation, fault and liability were excised from the final treatylanguageand that it will be all but impossible to determine how much, if any, loss and damage

from a tornado, hurricane, typhoon, flood or drought was due to manmade climate changeversus how much from natural climate change and natural, normal extreme weather events.Who will pay how much, from existing aid programs versus new programs, and through whatUN or other conduits, will likewise have to be decided at one of the presumably many futureConferences Of Parties to the new climate agreement.This is just the beginning of the process, a Greenpeace activist helpfully explained.Indeed, the parties and thus their taxpayers, food and energy consumers, and citizenshoping to pursue their dreamsare slowly but surely, piece by piece, surrendering their rights,freedoms, sovereignty and hard-earned wealth to a gaggle of unelected and unaccountable


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activists, agitators, bureaucrats, autocrats and kleptocrats. The slippery slope is just ahead, ifwe are not already on it.The scientific case for manmade global warming disasters grows weaker by the day. Butno one should ever underestimatethe desperation, audacity and political brilliance of thosewho have staked their careers, reputations, salaries and pensions on the notion that ourenergy use and quest for improved living standards for all humanity have somehow usurped the

natural forces that have driven climate changes from time immemorial. We underestimate thealarmists at our peril.


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at: biodiversityhumans resilient

Fossil fuels and tech has made humans resilient to loss of ecosystemsRaudsepp-Hearne et alt 10 (Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne recently completed her PhD in the Department ofGeography, Elena M. Bennett is an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resource Science, Graham K. MacDonald is a

doctoral student in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, and Laura Pfeifer is a master's student in the Department ofNatural Resource Sciences and the McGill School of Environment Maria Teng was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department ofGeography at McGill University when this manuscript was prepared and is currently a researcher at the Department of SystemsEcology and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox: Why Is Human Well-being Increasing asEcosystem Services Degrade? BioScience , Vol. 60, No. 8 (September 2010), pp. 576-589http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.4)

Fossil fuels, technology, and innovation have allowed people to substitute reliance on

engineered services for ecosystem services . Fossil fuels have greatly enhanced

human well-being with minimal additional use of ecosystem services by allowing peopleto make use of energy accumulated over the history of the biosphere. Furthermore,medicine, improved sanitation, and better water sources have compensated forwidespread deterioration in water quality and have greatly reduced child mortality (Cohen1995). The construction and operation of infrastructure to replace degraded ecosystemservicesfor example, irrigation and flood control, the breeding of novel crop varieties,and the use of fossil fuels to produce artificial fertilizers and pesticideshave increasedthe benefits people are able to extract from agriculture(Evenson and Gollin 2003). Smil(2002)estimated that about 40% of all protein in human diets depends on nitrogen fertilizerproduced from fossil fuel. To date, productivity gains from artificial fertilization have exceededlosses resulting from declines in natural soil fertility and water infiltration in soil, and slowed theexpansion of agriculture into other ecosystems (Tilman et al. 2002).

No impact four reasons why humans have continued to adapt throughecological degradation.

Raudsepp-Hearne et alt 10(Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne recently completed her PhD in the Department of Geography, ElenaM. Bennett is an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resource Science, Graham K.MacDonald is a doctoral student in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, and LauraPfeifer is a master's student in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and the McGillSchool of Environment Maria Teng was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geographyat McGill University when this manuscript was prepared and is currently a researcher at theDepartment of Systems Ecology and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Untangling theEnvironmentalist's Paradox: Why Is Human Well-being Increasing as Ecosystem ServicesDegrade? BioScience , Vol. 60, No. 8 (September 2010), pp. 576-589http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.4)Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in thewell-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium EcosystemAssessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite largeglobal declines in most ecosystem services.We assess four explanations of these divergenttrends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) well-being is dependent on foodservices, which are increasing, and not on other services that are declining; (3)technology has decoupled well-being from nature; (4) time lags may lead to futuredeclines in well-being. Our findings discount the first hypothesis, but elements of theremaining three appear plausible. Although ecologists have convincingly documentedecological decline, science does not adequately understand the implications of this


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decline for human well-being. Untangling how human well-being has increased as ecosystemconditions decline is critical to guiding future management of ecosystem services; we proposefour research areas to help achieve this goal.


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at: marine biodresilient

Marine ecosystems are resilientdifferent from the organisms that diedout in the past

Dupont 6/27(Sam Dupont and Hans Portner, Senior postdoctoral fellowDepartment of Biological andEnvironmental SciencesKristineberg and coordinator of the Ocean Acidification InfrastructureFacility at Kristineberg, NatureInternational Journal of Science, Marine science: Get ready forocean acidification,http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7455/full/498429a.html, dateaccessed 6/30, Woojae)Surprising resilience? We have known for decades that ocean acidification threatens calcifyingorganisms such as corals, clams, mussels and brittlestars some to the point of possibleextinction within decades. It came as a surprise in the past few years that some calcifier speciesare resilient to acidification, such as the mussels that thrive in Kiel fjord in Germany despite aseasonal flow of CO2-rich waters1. Other organisms can be both vulnerable and resilient atdifferent times in their life cycles, such as some phytoplankton, fish and sea urchins. Initially,

female green sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) that are exposed to acidificationproduce around one-fifth the number of eggs produced by urchins in current ocean pHconditions. But after 16 months, adults acclimatize and reproduce as normal.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7455/full/498429a.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7455/full/498429a.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7455/full/498429a.html


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Ext. marine biod resilient

Marine ecosystems are resilientstudies proveCraig 12(Robin Kundis Craig, 5/28/12, Journal, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, Marine Biodiversity, Climate Change, and

Governance of the Oceans,https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rja,Woojae)

As the world copes with the climate change era, improved marine governance will be of ever-increasing importance if we are to maintain anything approaching broad and resilient marinebiodiversity in the face of pervasive ecological, chemical, and physical changes to the oceansenvironments. Notably, there is already evidence of the oceans resilience, because in enoughcases to encourage conservation, the Census of Marine Life documented the recovery of somespecies

Ecosystems are resilient adaptation solvesMagnus et al 2000(Coral reef disturbance and resilience in a human-dominated environment Magnus Nystrm CarlFolke Fredrik Moberg Dept of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, S-106 91, Stockholm,

SwedenVolume 15, Issue 10,1 October 2000, Pages 413417http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-

5347(00)01948-0)The concept of ecosystem resiliencethus captures the ability to resist, reorganize and re-establish from disturbance, as well as maintaining a diversity of options for developmentand evolution15. This concept broadens the perspective from recovery at the siteimpacted by disturbance to include the sources of resilience of the surrounding areasthat are required for self-organization and reorganization to sustain the reef in a coral-dominated

stable state. Human impacts on ecosystem resilienceModern reefs might always have possessed several features that favor multiple stablestates11. However, studies from the Pleistocene coral reef fossil record suggest thatreefs have shown remarkable persistence in their community structure for tens tohundreds of thousands of years, in spite of global environmental change anddisturbance16. A unique feature of recent decades is that shifts from one stable state toanother might have become more frequent and less reversible and that shifts areinfluenced, even driven, by human impact.A growing body of literature addresses phaseshifts in coral reefs in relation to human activities

Coral reef recovery is inevitable even in the case of an impact

ystro m and Folke 2001 Department of Systems Ecology(Magnus Departmentof Systems Ecology and Carl Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics SpatialResilience of Coral ReefsEcosystemsAugust 2001, Volume 4,Issue 5,pp 406-417http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10021-001-0019-y.pdf)

There is ample literature on coral reef recovery after disturbance, particularly at the level

of individual reefs. Although recovery following disturbance can be delayed(for

example, see Loya 1990; Wilkinson 1999; Karlson 1999), it has generally been assumed

that recovery will eventually occur. The sources of reorganization and reestablishment of
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01695347/15/10http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01948-0http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01948-0http://link.springer.com/journal/10021http://link.springer.com/journal/10021http://link.springer.com/journal/10021/4/5/page/1http://link.springer.com/journal/10021/4/5/page/1http://link.springer.com/journal/10021http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01948-0http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01948-0http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01695347/15/10https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rjahttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=66&ved=0CFgQFjAFODw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1424-2818%2F4%2F2%2F224%2Fpdf&ei=pNDNUcvyKsuM0QH94oC4Ag&usg=AFQjCNHM4RHKxFJdGdTC3GIRwvV2BykehQ&sig2=puYofPoZgckFm3pBqcQP1w&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&cad=rja


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reef organisms and community interactions in the seascape have , to a lesser extent,

been investigated. In the following section, we review spatial links in the seascape that

support reef resilience and development following disturbance.Currents andRecruitmentReorganization of a coral reef is related to the degree of openness to itssurrounding. Openness depends on whether the reef is located in a shallow or semi-enclosed

basin, on the margin of a continental shelf, or in the open ocean (for example, atolls). Opennessis supported, or discouraged, by the prevailing currents (Roberts 1997). The degree to whichthese currents link areas depends on their magnitude and direction, the distance between eco-systems, and the influence of primarily climatic disturbance regimes.

Marine ecosystems are resilientpast spills proveHuntNo date cited(Alex Hunt, no date cited, the senior technical advisor to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited, Effects ofOil Spills,http://kjpt.msa.gov.cn/ckfinder/userfiles/files/%E6%BA%A2%E6%B2%B9%E7%9A%84%E5%BD%B1%E5%93%8D.pdf,date accessed 6/28/13, Woojae)

Experience from past spills shows that:Damages may be profound at the individual levelPopulations are naturally resilient to acute impactsNatural recovery processes are capable of repairing damageEcosystem structure & function is typically restoredMany impacts are documented in the scientific literatureNot all effects of spills are completely understoodOverall scale and duration of impact can usually be deducedPolarization of the scientific community is common & balanced views are rareDoes significant damage occur?... sometimes yes, sometimes no depends on many factorsMeasures of impactBreeding success

ProductivityBiodiversityOverall functionMarine ecosystems are able to cope with severe natural perturbations: tropical storms,tsunamis, el Nio eventsWidespread mortalities occur, but systems are able recover
http://kjpt.msa.gov.cn/ckfinder/userfiles/files/%E6%BA%A2%E6%B2%B9%E7%9A%84%E5%BD%B1%E5%93%8D.pdfhttp://kjpt.msa.gov.cn/ckfinder/userfiles/files/%E6%BA%A2%E6%B2%B9%E7%9A%84%E5%BD%B1%E5%93%8D.pdfhttp://kjpt.msa.gov.cn/ckfinder/userfiles/files/%E6%BA%A2%E6%B2%B9%E7%9A%84%E5%BD%B1%E5%93%8D.pdf


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at: hotspot

Their evidence is wrong no way to prove accurate loss of species inhotspots

Brummitt and Lughadha 2003 (Neil Brummitt. Researcher in Botanical Diversity Eimear Nic Lughadha is Headof Science (Operations) at the Royal Botanic Gardens Biodiversity: Where's Hot and Where's NotVolume 17, Issue 5, pages 14421448, October 2003 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02344.x/full)Despite the intuitive appeal of the concept, the selection of hotspots has been criticizedin general on several grounds. ( 1 ) Reliable quantitative data are generally only availablefor the most conspicuous and popular groups of organisms ( vascular plants,vertebrates ), which are by no means the most speciose ( Margules et al. 1994 ), and it isgenerally assumed rather than proven that areas of diversity for one group will beconcordant with areas of diversity of unsampled groups( Prendergast et al. 1993 ).( 2 )Without a measure of complementarity between hotspots there is no way of knowinghow many species are conserved twice in adjacent hotspots ( Margules & Pressey 2000).( 3 ) Simply conserving maximum species numbers is not the same as conservingmaximum species diversity, because distantly related taxa are worth more in terms of

phylogenetic diversity than are numerous closely related species( Vane-Wright et al.1991; Williams & Humphries 1994). ( 4 ) The huge size of some hotspots makes effectiveconservation action impractical, because it must involve the coordination of many nationalgovernments; designation of such areas as the Mediterranean Basin ( 2,362,000 km2) or Indo-Burma ( 2,060,000 km2) as biodiversity hotspots can hardly be said to represent tight targetingof conservation efforts. Although no one is taking issue with the assertion that small areas ofthe world are exceptionally rich biologically, all of the above criticisms may be leveled at thework of Mittermeier et al. ( 1999 ) and Myers et al. ( 2000 ). ( Mace et al. 2000; Humphries2001).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cbi.2003.17.issue-5/issuetochttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cbi.2003.17.issue-5/issuetoc


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Caribbean


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Alt Causesclimate, development

Alt causes to Caribbean ecosystemclimate change, developmentDay 2009Owen, PhD, Marine Biology, head of communications and biodiversity at Caribsave, Theimpacts of climate change on biodiversity in Caribbean islands: what we know, what we need toknow, and building capacity for effective adaptation, CANARI Technical Report No.386: 28pphttp://www.canari.org/CANARI%20Tech%20Report%20386.pdf

According to the IPCC, the Caribbean region is considered to be particularly vulnerable tothe numerous and varied impacts of human induced climate change. These include sea levelrise, increasing mean temperatures, changes in seasonal rainfall patterns andincreasingfrequency of extreme weather events(see Section 3.1). The escalating intensity of hurricanes,in particular the increased number of category 3 and higher hurricanes since 1995, is aparticularly serious concern for many Caribbean islands. The impact of the four consecutivetropical storms/ hurricanesthat affected Haiti and Cuba in 2008 demonstrated the regionsexisting vulnerability to weather-related hazardsand also highlighted the importance ofplanning and adaptation. The striking difference in the scale of the human loss and damage to

infrastructure in these two countries reflects Cubas more extensive adaptation planning andforest conservation measures. Mass coral bleaching events have also become morefrequent and more severe in recent years, in particular the widespread and catastrophicbleaching event of 2005in the Caribbean. This is presenting a new challenge to islandsdependent on reefs for fisheries, dive tourism and coastal protection. Climate change andvariability are also affecting the regions food security, with failing crops and shifting populationsof commercially important species of fish exacerbating the trend of reduced agriculturalproduction. The threats from climate change must not be viewed in isolation, but rather withinthe context of the existing environmental pressures that affect most Caribbean islands, such ashabitat loss, deforestation, soil erosion, pollution and over-fishing. In the last three decades, therapid pace of tourism development, urbanisation and population growth throughout theCaribbean, has presented major challengesto policy-makers, planners and environmental

managers. The new and emerging threats from climate change make the challenge evenmore daunting.


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No Impactadaptation

Double bindeither the Caribbean can adapt OR alt causes make itinevitable

Rogers 2013Caroline S., Marine Ecologist with the Southeast Ecological Science Center based at the USGSCaribbean, Coral Reef Resilience through Biodiversity, ISRN Oceanography, Volume 2013,http://www.hindawi.com/isrn/oceanography/2013/739034/

At a conference in 1993, participants concluded that the most serious threats to reefs wereassociated with human activities: shoreline development, overfishing, degraded waterquality from sediments and sewage[219]. Then, with severe bleaching episodes beginning in1998, the focus shifted more to global stressors and climate change [74]. In some ways we areback to where we started with an emphasis on managing human activities at a local level whilestill hoping that international efforts to control greenhouse emissions will become more effective[4, 23, 38, 142, 220, 221]. Managing local stressors is far more feasible than trying to controlglobal stressors, but even this has not proven to be easy. In spite of all of the uncertainties, it

only makes sense to move forward with controlling those stressors that we can control [23, 71].Where it is feasible to design networks of marine reserves, every effort should be made toprotect areas that are likely to survive future climate-driven changes, although this is verychallenging [23].Coral reefs are at a crossroads, and the situation is urgent [23, 71]. Humans are clearlyreducing the resilience of reefs [21]. Over 15 years ago, Walker [186] noted the loss of speciesand ecosystems is proceeding faster than research aimed at identifying priorities. Soon after,Vitousek et al. [10] stated we can accelerate our efforts to understand Earths ecosystems andhow they interact with the numerous components of human-caused global change.The biodiversity of these complex ecosystems, one of their defining characteristics, offerssome hope that they will have a future. Conserving biodiversity increases the chance thatmarine ecosystems, including reefs, can adapt or recover after disturbances [7]. A loss of

biodiversity could redu