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Carbon sequestration is key to solve warming Mack and Endemann 10 - *partner in the Houston office and global Chair of the Environmental Transactional Support Practice, provides over 25 years of experience advising on the transactional, environmental and regulatory issues associated with all sectors of the oil and gas industry, power (including both fossil and renewable energy), mining and chemical industries in the United States and abroad, in addition to the development, financing and entitlements for telecommunications and other industrial and public infrastructure facilities in the United States and offshore, **JD, Faculty @ USD Law, provides comprehensive environmental counseling on energy and infrastructure projects, and represents clients in related litigation Joel and Buck, ―Making carbon dioxide sequestration feasible: Toward federal regulation of CO2 sequestration pipelines,‖ Energy Policy, http://lw.com/upload/pubContent/_pdf/pub3385_1.pdf At present, approximately 50% of the United States‘ base load electrical energy requirements are met by coal-fired resources (ASME, 2005). While substantial expansion of renewable energy resources will eventually diminish reliance on coal resources, 1 coal-fired power plants provide base load energy resources twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week, all year long. Base load power plants provide energy even when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. While all power plants have the ability to generate a fixed amount of full output, or ‗‗capacity,‘‘ expressed in megawatts, technologies vary as to the amount of their capacity which can be delivered over time, such as over a calendar year; this is also known as their ‗‗capacity factor.‘‘ Base load plants, such as coal-fired, nuclear and many natural gasfired power plants, achieve very high capacity factors (nearly all of their capacity can be delivered over time subject to normal maintenance, scheduled outages or equipment failures). Some plants, such as certain natural gas-fired power plants, can be ‗‗cycled‘‘ (i.e., turned on or off, or their output can be increased or decreased on short notice to match peaking loads), will have lower capacity factors but can be matched more precisely to the demands of energy consumers. Wind and solar plants, on the other hand, typically have much lower capacity factors (even if they have the same overall total ‗‗capacity‘‘), because their output cannot be load-matched and their energy output is dependent on environmental factors. As a result, a utility serving a load must blend base load, peaking and renewable resources to meet load requirements, and cannot meet its load requirements solely on the basis of current wind or solar technologies. 2 In many regional markets, both energy (a plant‘s actual, delivered product) and capacity are tradeable commodities with an economic value, with the renewable energy facilities providing less value in the capacity markets. Indeed, electric utilities are generally required to maintain substantial capacity reserves to serve expected load, and renewable resources do not generally qualify to meet these capacity requirements As a result, and without regard to the relative merits of coal fired power versus other sources of base load power (e.g., nuclear or natural gas-fired power plants), considering (1) the United States‘ large native coal

resources, (2) the lower cost of coal fuel against other base load technologies, and (3) the substantial existing investment in coal-fired power plants, it is likely that coalfired power plants will for many decades continue to comprise a substantial part of the United States‘ energy generation portfolio. Indeed, the United States will have to make policy choices regarding which base load resources to pursue, as oil, coal, nuclear and natural gas fuels each have their own economic and environmental benefits and drawbacks. 3 Against this backdrop, both the private and public sectors have begun to look closely at various technologies to address the high carbon footprint of traditional coal combustion technologies. In the United States, the average emission rate of CO2 from coal-fired power generation is 2.095 pounds per kilowatt hour, nearly double the 1.321 pounds per kilowatt hour for natural gas (DOE, 2000). 4 Among the technologies receiving the most such attention to reduce CO2‘s impacts is CO2 sequestration. CO2 sequestration involves removing the CO2 from the fuel, either before, during, or after combustion, and then doing something with it to avoid its release to the atmosphere. While other greenhouse gases (e.g., methane) are more potent in terms of global warming effects per unit of mass, the CO2 emissions of industrialized economies are so great as to dwarf the contributions from other gases in terms of overall impact on global warming. Hence the focus on CO2 sequestration technologies. The size and impact of this challenge is daunting— while coal resources provide approximately half of the energy generated annually in the United States, coal-fired power plants emit almost 80% (1.8 billion metric tons per year) of the total CO2 emissions from power plants in the United States (DOE, 2000). The magnitude of this challenge cannot be underestimated. Using the above production figures, coal-fired power plants in the United States emit approximately 900 billion cubic meters of CO2 annually. 5 The current CO2 pipeline system, though, handles only 45 million metric tons of CO2 per year over 3500 miles of pipe (Nordhaus and Pitlick, 2009). 6 Thus, to the extent that the United States has a policy goal of sequestering and transporting any appreciable fraction of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, the required infrastructure investment will require at least a 40-fold increase. 7 While such an undertaking presents obvious practical and economic challenges, it demonstrates that a new vision is required if the United States is going to develop a sequestration infrastructure to meet this challenge on any time frame that is reasonably coincident with reducing near- to medium-term impacts from global climate change. 8 CCS effectively cuts emissions EPA 12 (Environmental Protection Agency, ―Carbon Dioxide Capture and Sequestration‖, last updated on Thursday, June 14th, 2012, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ccs/index.html)//AMV What is carbon dioxide capture and sequestration? EPA's Proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants On March 27, 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants. This common-sense step under the Clean Air Act would, for the first time, limit the amount of carbon pollution that new power plants can emit and ensure that new facilities take advantage of clean technologies. Carbon capture and sequestration is one of the technologies new power plants can employ to meet the standard. Learn more about the

proposed standards. Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration (CCS), also known as carbon capture and storage, is a set of technologies that can greatly reduce CO2 emissions from new and existing coal- and gas-fired power plants, industrial processes, and other stationary sources of CO2. CCS is a three-step process that includes: Capture of CO2 from power plants or industrial sources Transport of the captured and compressed CO2 (usually in pipelines) Underground injection and geologic sequestration, or permanent storage, of the CO2 in rock formations that contain tiny openings - or pores - that trap and hold the CO2 Another important part of CCS is monitoring to verify that the CO2 remains permanently underground. Why is it important? Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration (CCS) offers a way for the United States and other countries to capture and store emissions of CO2 from large stationary sources such as power plants and to reduce the risks associated with severe climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates suggest that as much as 3,600 billion tons of CO2 could be stored underground in the United States and Canada combined. For reference, large stationary sources worldwide emit approximately 13 billion tons of CO2 per year. Considering the large storage capacity in the United States, CCS has the potential to be a key technology for achieving domestic greenhouse gas emission reductions. For more information, see the National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System (NATCARB), Link to EPA's External Link Disclaimer a geographic information system-based tool developed to provide a view of CCS potential. Is it safe? Current scientific and technical knowledge, coupled with ongoing project experience, indicates that well-selected, welldesigned, and well-managed geologic sequestration sites can be a safe way to permanently store carbon dioxide (CO2). While CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) can be conducted safely, EPA recognizes the need to protect against potential risks associated with geologic sequestration, such as leakage of CO2 and changes in subsurface pressures that could impact drinking water, human health, and ecosystems. CCS is the key bridge to a sustainable energy future WRI 8 World Resources Institute, ―CCS Overview: What Is CCS?,‖ http://www.wri.org/project/carbon-dioxide-capture-storage/ccs-basics CCS is a broad term that encompasses a number of technologies that can be used to capture carbon dioxide from point sources, such as power plants and other industrial facilities; compress it; transport it mainly by pipeline to suitable locations; and inject it into deep subsurface geological formations for indefinite isolation from the atmosphere.This technology is a critical option in the portfolio of solutions available to combat climate change, because it allows for significant reductions in CO2 emissions from fossil-based systems, enabling it to be used it as a bridge to a sustainable energy future. CCS: Frequently Asked Questions Why is Carbon Capture and Storage critical to Addressing Climate Change? The world‘s leading scientists agree that we need to reduce current greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% in a relatively short amount of time to avoid the more serious impacts of global climate change. To meet the climate challenge, Congress will need to use every option on the table. A market-based cap and trade system, the expansion of renewable energy capacity, and aggressive energy efficiency and conservation measures are all essential parts of the climate change

solution, but in the near term these can only partially supplant our dependence on coal. Coal currently provides 50% of U.S. electricity, is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In order to transition to a low-carbon economy, we must also invest in carbon capture and storage as a bridging technology to reduce today‘s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. CCS involves the capture of CO2 from power plants and other large industrial sources, its transportation to suitable locations, and injection into deep underground geological formations for long-term storage. CCS offers a way to greatly reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation as we simultaneously expand renewable energy capacity and increase energy efficiency. How can CCS help meet U.S. climate and energy goals? The U.S.‘s reliance on coal to meet half of our electricity needs presents a major challenge to dramatically reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. While it is clear that ―business as usual‖ will lock the U.S. into an unsustainable and increasingly risky and costly climate future, coal is cheap and abundant and is expected to constitute a substantial portion of the U.S. electricity mix in the near-term. Indeed, existing coal-fired power plants will operate for decades to come and new coal plants are currently being constructed or planned. Without CCS, these plants will emit billions of tons of CO2 over their lifetimes. CCS provides a bridge between our coal-based energy present and a low-carbon energy future. The widespread adoption of CCS technologies will reduce CO2 emissions significantly and help the U.S. meet near-term energy demand until alternatives can provide sufficient and reliable electricity. Even if regulations aren’t likely now, the plan is key to convincing the world that emissions can be cut without economic cost MIT 07 – Interdisciplinary Study, The Future of Coal, http://web.mit.edu/coal/ Washington, DC – Leading academics from an interdisciplinary Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) panel issued a report today that examines how the world can continue to use coal, an abundant and inexpensive fuel, in a way that mitigates, instead of worsens, the global warming crisis. The study, "The Future of Coal – Options for a Carbon Constrained World," advocates the U.S. assume global leadership on this issue through adoption of significant policy actions. Led by co-chairs Professor John Deutch, Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry, and Ernest J. Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, the report states that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling technology to help reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing coal to meet the world's pressing energy needs. According to Dr. Deutch, "As the world's leading energy user and greenhouse gas emitter, the U.S. must take the lead in showing the world CCS can work. Demonstration of technical, economic, and institutional features of CCS at commercial scale coal combustion and conversion plants will give policymakers and the public confidence that a practical carbon mitigation control option exists, will reduce cost of CCS should carbon emission controls be adopted, and will maintain the low-cost coal option in an environmentally acceptable manner." Dr. Moniz added, "There are many opportunities for enhancing the performance of coal plants in a carbon-constrained world – higher efficiency generation, perhaps through new materials; novel approaches to gasification, CO2 capture, and oxygen separation; and advanced system concepts, perhaps guided by a new generation of simulation tools. An

aggressive R&D effort in the near term will yield significant dividends down the road, and should be undertaken immediately to help meet this urgent scientific challenge." Key findings in this study: Coal is a low-cost, per BTU, mainstay of both the developed and developing world, and its use is projected to increase. Because of coal's high carbon content, increasing use will exacerbate the problem of climate change unless coal plants are deployed with very high efficiency and large scale CCS is implemented. CCS is the critical enabling technology because it allows significant reduction in CO2 emissions while allowing coal to meet future energy needs. A significant charge on carbon emissions is needed in the relatively near term to increase the economic attractiveness of new technologies that avoid carbon emissions and specifically to lead to large-scale CCS in the coming decades. We need large-scale demonstration projects of the technical, economic and environmental performance of an integrated CCS system. We should proceed with carbon sequestration projects as soon as possible. Several integrated large-scale demonstrations with appropriate measurement, monitoring and verification are needed in the United States over the next decade with government support. This is important for establishing public confidence for the very large-scale sequestration program anticipated in the future. The regulatory regime for large-scale commercial sequestration should be developed with a greater sense of urgency, with the Executive Office of the President leading an interagency process. The U.S. government should provide assistance only to coal projects with CO2 capture in order to demonstrate technical, economic and environmental performance. Today, IGCC appears to be the economic choice for new coal plants with CCS. However, this could change with further RD&D, so it is not appropriate to pick a single technology winner at this time, especially in light of the variability in coal type, access to sequestration sites, and other factors. The government should provide assistance to several "first of a kind" coal utilization demonstration plants, but only with carbon capture. Congress should remove any expectation that construction of new coal plants without CO2 capture will be "grandfathered" and granted emission allowances in the event of future regulation. This is a perverse incentive to build coal plants without CO2 capture today. Emissions will be stabilized only through global adherence to CO2 emission constraints. China and India are unlikely to adopt carbon constraints unless the U.S. does so and leads the way in the development of CCS technology. Key changes must be made to the current Department of Energy RD&D program to successfully promote CCS technologies. The program must provide for demonstration of CCS at scale; a wider range of technologies should be explored; and modeling and simulation of the comparative performance of integrated technology systems should be greatly enhanced. Only the plan is modeled – BRIC countries won’t cut emissions unless they can avoid economic cost Apt et al 7 – PhD in Physics @ MIT, Professor of Technology, Tepper School of Business and Engineering and Public Policy
Jay, ―Incentives for Near-Term Carbon Dioxide Geological Sequestration,‖ Carnegie Mellon, http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/pdfs_other/Incentives_for_Near-Term_Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Sequestration.pdf

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report projects that if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue, the average global temperatures in 20902099 will be 3.6 – 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average temperatures in 19801999. 20 When past emissions are factored in, the United States is responsible for just over a quarter

of all anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuels currently in the atmosphere. Europe, China, and India are responsible for 19%, 9%, and 3% respectively. The EU has agreed to reduce emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States has made no such commitments, although several states and groups of states have begun to
make commitments. EU emissions are the same as in 1990; U.S. emissions have increased by 20%. And because a large fraction of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere for over a century, the largest single share of atmospheric CO2 will continue to belong to the United States for many decades, despite China‘s growth. If

no action is taken to reduce its emissions, the Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook estimates that the US will emit approximately 8,000 million metric tonnes (8,800 million short tons) of CO2 by 2030, an increase over 2005 emission levels of more than 33 percent. 21 27 Since the United States has put the largest single share of CO2 into the air, it is under intense pressure to begin to take the lead in reducing it. In a few decades, China, India, Brazil, and other developing countries also will have to undertake serious controls. But they will not do so until the U.S. takes the lead and shows how it can be done in an efficient and affordable way. By seizing the opportunity provided by industrial coal gasification, the nation can get the experience required to reduce the technical and commercial unknowns of carbon dioxide capture and sequestration at commercial scale within the next
decade. Coal combustion is responsible for 30% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; coal and petcoke together account for 32% of the total U.S. GHG emissions. The sources and

Warming is anthropogenic and reversible if action is taken now.

Pew Center 11
(The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is as a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers, and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change, ―Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change,‖)

The scientific Evidence is unequivocal. Natural climate variability alone cannot explain this trend. Human activities, especially the burning of coal and oil, have warmed the earth by dramatically increasing the concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The more of these gases humans put into the atmosphere, the more the earth will warm in the decades and centuries ahead. The impacts of warming can already be observed throughout the United States, from rising sea levels to melting snow and ice to more drought and Extreme rainfall. Climate change is already affecting ecosystems, freshwater supplies, and human health around the world. Although some amount of climate change is now unavoidable, much worse impacts can be avoided by substantially reducing the amount of heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere. A study released by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2010 said, ―Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for —and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems.‖1 The climate will continue to change for decades as a result of past human activities, but scientists say that the worst impacts can still be avoided if action is taken soon. GLOBAL TEMPERATURES: THE EARTH IS
WARMING Global average temperature data based on reliable thermometer measurements are available back to 1880. Over the last century, the global average temperatures rose by almost 1.5°F (see Figure 1), and the Arctic warmed about twice as much.2

the 27 warmest years since 1880 all occurred in the 30 years from 1980 to 2009; the warmest year was 2005 followed closely by 1998.3 Over the past 50 years, the
Based on data from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, data on EXTreme temperatures have shown similar trends of rising temperatures: cold days, cold nights, and frosts occurred less frequently over time, while hot days, hot nights, and heat waves occurred more frequently.4 Warming has not been limited to the

the oceans have absorbed most of the heat that has been added to the climate system, resulting in a persistent rise in ocean temperatures (see Figure 1).5 Over time, the heat already absorbed by the ocean will be released back to the atmosphere, causing an additional 1°F of surface warming; in other words, some additional atmospheric warming is
earth‘s surface; already ―in the pipeline.‖6 GREENHOUSE GASES: MAKING THE CONNECTION Although global temperatures have varied

scientists studying the climate system say that natural variability alone cannot account for the rapid rise in global temperatures during recent decades.7 Human
naturally over thousands of years, activities cause climate change by adding carbon dioxide (CO2) and certain other heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. When

sunlight reaches the earth‘s surface, it can be reflected (especially by bright surfaces like snow) or absorbed (especially by dark surfaces like open water or tree tops). Absorbed sunlight warms the surface and is released back into the atmosphere as heat. Certain gases trap this heat in the atmosphere, warming the Earth‘s surface. This warming is known as the greenhouse effect and the heat-trapping gases are known as greenhouse gases (GHGs) (see Figure 2). CO2, methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) are GHGs that both occur naturally and also are released by human activities. Before human activities began to emit these gases in recent centuries, their natural occurrence resulted in a natural greenhouse effect. Without the natural greenhouse effect, the earth‘s

humans are currently adding to the naturally occurring GHGs in the atmosphere, causing more warming than occurs naturally. Scientists often call this human-magnified greenhouse effect the ―enhanced greenhouse effect.‖ Evidence from many scientific studies confirms that the enhanced greenhouse effect is occurring.8 For example, scientists working at NASA‘s Goddard Institute for Space Studies found more energy from the sun is being absorbed than is being emitted back to space. This energy imbalance is direct evidence for the enhanced greenhouse effect.9 Greenhouse Gas Levels Rising. In 2009, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) released the most up to date and comprehensive report currently available about the impacts of climate change in the United States.10 The report says that average global concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases—CO2, CH4, and N2O—are rising because of human activities. Since pre-industrial times, CO2 has increased by 40 percent, CH4 by 148 percent, and N2O by 18 percent. CO2 is the principle gas contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Many human activities produce CO2; the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas account for about 80 percent of human-caused CO2 emissions. Most of the remaining 20 percent
surface would be nearly 60°F colder on average, well below freezing. However, comes from changes in the land surface, primarily deforestation. Trees, like all living organisms, are made mostly of carbon; when

the current trajectory of rising GHG concentrations is pushing the climate into uncharted territory. CO2 levels are much higher today than at any other time in at least 800,000 years. Through all those millennia, there has been a clear correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperatures (see Figure 3), adding geological support for the strong connection between changes in the strength of the greenhouse effect and the earth‘s surface temperature. Scientists are certain that the burning of fossil fuels is the main source of the recent spike in CO2 in the atmosphere. Multiple, independent lines of evidence clearly link human actions to increased GHG concentrations.11 Moreover, there is strong evidence that this human-induced rise in atmospheric GHGs is the main reason that the Earth has been warming in recent decades. The USGCRP report says, ―The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human fingerprints also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.‖ The U.S. National Academy of Sciences draws the same conclusion: ―Many lines of evidence support the conclusion that most of the observed warming since the start of the 20th century, and especially the last several decades, can be attributed to human activities.‖12 Looking Ahead. The more GHGs humans release into the atmosphere, the stronger the enhanced greenhouse effect will become. For many years, skeptics of climate change pointed to differences between temperature increases recorded at the earth‘s surface and those recorded in the lower atmosphere as a way to challenge scientific claims about climate change. However, a 2006 report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program reconciled data from surface measurements, satellites, and weather balloons, concluding that ―(t)he previously reported discrepancy between surface and the atmospheric temperature trends is no longer apparent on a global scale.‖13 Scenarios in which GHGs continue to be added to the atmosphere by human activities could cause additional warming of 2 to 11.5°F over the nEXT century, depending on how much more GHGs are emitted and how strongly the climate system responds to them. Although the range of uncertainty for future temperatures is large, even the lower end of the range is likely to have many undesirable effects on natural and human systems.14 Land areas warm more rapidly than oceans, and higher latitudes warm more quickly than lower latitudes.
forests are burned to clear land, the carbon in the trees is released as CO2. The USGCRP report says that

Therefore, regional temperature increases may be greater or less than global averages, depending on location. For example, the

the Arctic is expected to experience the most warming.15 The future climate depends largely on the actions taken in the nEXT few decades to reduce and eventually eliminate human-induced CO2 emissions. In 2005, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences joined with 10 other science academies from around the world in a statement calling on world leaders to take ―prompt action‖ on climate change. The statement was explicit about our ability to limit climate change: ―Action taken now to reduce significantly the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will lessen the magnitude and rate of climate change.‖
United States is projected to experience more warming than average, and

No alt cause – only CO2 from human emissions can be a viable causality Rahmstorf 08 – Professor of Physics of the Oceans; Richard, of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University, Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto, Edited by Ernesto Zedillo, ―Anthropogenic Climate Change?,‖ pg. 42-4 ”The first and crucial piece of evidence is, of course, that the magnitude of the warming is what is expected from the anthropogenic perturbation of the radiation balance, so anthropogenic forcing is able to explain all of the temperature rise. As discussed here, the rise in greenhouse gases alone corresponds to 2.6 W/tn2 of forcing. This by itself, after subtraction of the observed 0'.6 W/m2 of ocean heat uptake, would Cause 1.6°C of warming since preindustrial times for medium climate sensitivity (3"C). With a current "best guess'; aerosol forcing of 1 W/m2, the expected warming is O.8°c. The point here is not that it is possible to obtain the 'exact observed number-this is fortuitous because the amount of aerosol' forcing is still very' uncertain-but that the expected magnitude is roughly right. There can be little doubt that the anthropogenic forcing is large enough to explain most of the warming. Depending on aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity, it could explain a large fraction of the warming, or all of it, or even more warming than has been observed (leaving room for natural processes to counteract some of the warming). The second important piece of evidence is clear: there is no viable alternative explanation. In the scientific literature, no serious alternative hypothesis has been proposed to explain the observed global warming. Other possible causes, such as solar activity, volcanic activity, cosmic rays, or orbital cycles, are well observed, but they do not show trends capable of explaining the observed warming. Since 1978, solar irradiance has been measured directly from satellites and shows the well-known elevenyear solar cycle, but no trend. There are various estimates of solar variability before this time, based on sunspot numbers, solar cycle length, the geomagnetic AA index, neutron monitor data, and, carbon-14 data. These indicate that solar activity probably increased somewhat up to 1940. While there is disagreement about the variation in previous centuries, different authors agree that solar activity did not significantly increase during the last sixty-five years. Therefore, this cannot explain the warming, and neither can any of the other factors mentioned. Models driven by natural factors only, leaving the anthropogenic forcing aside, show a cooling in the second half of the twentieth century (for an example, See figure 2-2, panel a, in chapter 2 of this volume). The trend in the sum of natural forcings is downward.The only way out would be either some as yet undiscovered unknown forcing or a warming trend that arises by chance from an unforced internal variability in the climate system. The latter cannot be completely ruled out, but has to be considered highly unlikely. No evidence in the observed record, proxy

data, or current models suggest that such internal variability could cause a sustained trend of global warming of Warming will cause extinction Sify 2010 – Sydney newspaper citing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at University of Queensland and Director of the Global Change Institute, and John Bruno, associate professor of Marine Science at UNC (Sify News, ―Could unbridled climate changes lead to human extinction?‖, http://www.sify.com/news/could-unbridled-climate-changes-leadto-human-extinction-news-international-kgtrOhdaahc.html The findings of the comprehensive report: 'The impact of climate change on the world's marine ecosystems' emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists. One of the authors of the report is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at The University of Queensland and the director of its Global Change Institute (GCI). 'We may see sudden, unexpected changes that have serious ramifications for the overall well-being of humans, including the capacity of the planet to support people. This is further evidence that we are well on the way to the next great extinction event,' says Hoegh-Guldberg. 'The findings have enormous implications for mankind, particularly if the trend continues. The earth's ocean, which produces half of the oxygen we breathe and absorbs 30 per cent of human-generated carbon dioxide, is equivalent to its heart and lungs. This study shows worrying signs of ill-health. It's as if the earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day!,' he added. 'We are entering a period in which the ocean services upon which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail', he added. The 'fundamental and comprehensive' changes to marine life identified in the report include rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, changes in water circulation and expansion of dead zones within the ocean depths. These are driving major changes in marine ecosystems: less abundant coral reefs, sea grasses and mangroves (important fish nurseries); fewer, smaller fish; a breakdown in food chains; changes in the distribution of marine life; and more frequent diseases and pests among marine organisms. Study co-author John F Bruno, associate professor in marine science at The University of North Carolina, says greenhouse gas emissions are modifying many physical and geochemical aspects of the planet's oceans, in ways 'unprecedented in nearly a million years'. 'This is causing fundamental and comprehensive changes to the way marine ecosystems function,' Bruno warned, according to a GCI release. These findings were published in Science Warming is the only existential risk and turns every impact
Deibel 07—Prof IR @ National War College (Terry, ―Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft,‖ Conclusion:
American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)

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, and…worldwide, 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

―Earth‘s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year‖ as disease spreads; ―widespread
year on record, with 1998 a close second‖; bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed 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 change…but 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 Carolina‘s 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

Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that ―humankind‘s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earth‘s climate and humanity‘s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, ―we‘re just going to burn everything up; we‘re 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.‖
amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. 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 possibly end life on this planet.

Global warming is the post-Cold War era‘s 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. Warming turns every impact New York Times, August 17, 09, The Climate and National Security, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/opinion/18tue1.html Proponents of climate change legislation have now settled on a new strategy: warning that global warming poses a serious threat to national security. Climate- induced crises like drought, starvation, disease and mass migration, they argue, could unleash regional conflicts and draw in America‘s armed forces, either to help keep the peace or to defend allies or supply routes. This is increasingly the accepted wisdom among the national security establishment. A 2007 report published by the CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-

funded think tank, spoke ominously of climate change as a ―threat multiplier‖ that could lead to wide conflict over resources. This line of argument could also be pretty good politics — especially on Capitol Hill, where many politicians will do anything for the Pentagon. Both Senator John Kerry, an advocate of strong climate change legislation, and former Senator John Warner, a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, say they have begun to stress the national security argument to senators who are still undecided about how they will vote on climate change legislation. One can only hope that these arguments turn the tide in the Senate. Mr. Kerry, Mr. Warner and like- minded military leaders must keep pressing their case, with help from the Pentagon and the White House. National security is hardly the only reason to address global warming, but at this point anything that advances the cause is welcome.

Even 1% risk outweighs Strom 07 (Robert, Prof. Emeritus Planetary Sciences @ U. Arizona and Former Dir. Space Imagery Center of NASA, ―Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition‖, Online: SpringerLink, p. 246) Keep in mind that the current consequences of global warming discussed in previous chapters are the result of a global average temperature increase of only 0.5 'C above the 1951-1980 average, and these consequences are beginning to accelerate. Think about what is in store for us when the average global temperature is 1 °C higher than today. That is already in the pipeline, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. We can only plan strategies for dealing with the expected consequences, and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by about 60% as soon as possible to ensure that we don't experience even higher temperatures. There is also the danger of eventually triggering an abrupt climate change that would accelerate global warming to a catastrophic level in a short period of time. If that were to happen we would not stand a chance. Even if that possibility had only a 1% chance of occurring, the consequences are so dire that it would be insane not to act. Clearly we cannot afford to delay taking action by waiting for additional research to more clearly define what awaits us. The time for action is now.

Unmitigated carbon emissions independently cause ocean acidification and extinction Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, ―Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanity‘s Ability to Feed Itself,‖ 3/2/2012, http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-tofeed-itself/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogre

The world‘s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than
they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period. ―What we‘re doing today really stands out,‖ said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University‘s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. ―We

if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about —
know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new species evolved to replace those that died off. But coral reefs, oysters, salmon.‖ That‘s the news release from a major 21-author Science paper, ―The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification‖ (subs. req‘d). We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience study that the oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million and found that ―

the unprecedented rapidity

of CO2 release currently taking place‖ has put marine life at risk in a frighteningly unique way: … the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, it‘s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown ―by end of century‖ as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones ―devoid of fish and seafood‖ are poised to expand and ―remain for thousands of years.― And remember, we just learned from a 2012 new Nature Climate Change study that carbon dioxide is ―driving fish crazy‖ and threatening their survival. Here‘s more on the new study: The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building. Global warming is real, caused by human CO2 emissions, and will cause flooding and feedback loops that causes turns everything Kaku 11 – Michio Kaku, co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory. He received a B.S. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics class. He went on to the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972. In 1973, he held a lectureship at Princeton University. Michio continues Einstein‘s search for a ―Theory of Everything,‖ seeking to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe—the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism. He is the author of several scholarly, Ph.D. level textbooks and has had more than 70 articles published in physics journals, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics. Professor of Physics — He holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York, where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ―Physics of the Future‖ http://213.55.83.52/ebooks/physics/Physics%20of%20the%20Future.pdf Accessed 6/26/12 BJM By midcentury, the full impact of a fossil fuel economy should be in full swing: global warming. It is now indisputable that the earth is heating up. Within the last century, the earth‘s temperature rose 1.3° F, and the pace is accelerating. The signs are unmistakable everywhere we look: The thickness of Arctic ice has decreased by an astonishing 50 percent in just the past fifty years. Much of this Arctic ice is just below the freezing point, floating on water. Hence, it is acutely sensitive to small temperature variations of the oceans, acting
as a canary in a mineshaft, an early warning system. Today, parts of the northern polar ice caps disappear during the summer

The polar ice cap may vanish permanently by the end of the century, disrupting the world‘s weather by altering the flow of ocean and air currents around the planet. Greenland‘s ice shelves shrank by twenty-four square
months, and may disappear entirely during summer as early as 2015. miles in 2007. This figure jumped to seventy-one square miles in 2008. (If all the Greenland ice were somehow to melt, sea levels

chunks of Antarctica‘s ice, which have been stable for tens of thousands of years, are gradually breaking off. In 2000, a piece the size of Connecticut
would rise about twenty feet around the world.) Large broke off, containing 4,200 square miles of ice. In 2002, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island broke off the Thwaites Glacier. (If all

For every vertical foot that the ocean rises, the horizontal spread of the ocean is about 100 feet. Already, sea levels have risen 8 inches in the past century, mainly caused by the expansion of seawater as it
Antarctica‘s ice were to melt, sea levels would rise about 180 feet around the world.)

heats up. According to the United Nations, sea levels could rise by 7 to 23 inches by 2100. Some scientists have said that the
UN report was too cautious in interpreting the data. According to scientists at the University of Colorado‘s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, by 2100 sea levels could rise by 3 to 6 feet . So gradually the map of the earth‘s coastlines will change. Temperatures started to be reliably recorded in the late 1700s; 1995, 2005, and 2010 ranked among the hottest years ever recorded; 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade. Likewise,

levels of carbon dioxide are rising dramatically. They are at the highest levels in 100,000 years. As the earth heats up, tropical diseases are gradually migrating northward. The recent spread of the West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes may be a harbinger of things to come. UN officials are especially concerned about the spread of malaria northward. Usually, the eggs of many harmful insects die every winter when the soil freezes. But with the shortening of the winter season, it means the inexorable spread of dangerous insects northward. CARBONDIOXIDE—GREENHOUSEGAS According to the UN‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists have concluded with 90 percent confidence that global warming is driven by human activity, especially the production of carbon dioxide via the burning of oil and coal. Sunlight easily passes through carbon dioxide. But as sunlight heats up the
earth, it creates infrared radiation, which does not pass back through carbon dioxide so easily. The energy from sunlight cannot escape back into space and is trapped. We also see a somewhat similar effect in greenhouses or cars. The sunlight warms the air,

the amount of carbon dioxide generated has grown explosively, especially in the last century. Before the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide content
which is prevented from escaping by the glass. Ominously, of the air was 270 parts per million (ppm). Today, it has soared to 387 ppm. (In 1900, the world consumed 150 million barrels of oil. In 2000, it jumped to 28 billion barrels, a 185-fold jump. In 2008, 9.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide were sent into the air from fossil fuel burning and also deforestation, but only 5 billion tons were recycled into the oceans, soil, and vegetation. The remainder will stay in the air for decades to come, heating up the earth.) VISIT TO ICELAND The

rise in temperature is not a fluke, as we can see by analyzing ice cores. By drilling deep into the ancient ice of the Arctic, scientists have been able to extract air bubbles that are thousands of years old. By chemically analyzing the air in these bubbles, scientists can reconstruct the temperature and carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere going back more than 600,000 years. Soon, they will be able to determine the weather conditions going back a million
years. I had a chance to see this firsthand. I once gave a lecture in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and had the privilege of visiting the University of Iceland, where ice cores are being analyzed. When your airplane lands in Reykjavik, at first all you see is snow and jagged rock, resembling the bleak landscape of the moon. Although barren and forbidding, the terrain makes the Arctic an ideal place to analyze the climate of the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. When I visited their laboratory, which is kept at freezing temperatures, I had to pass through thick refrigerator doors. Once inside, I could see racks and racks containing long metal tubes, each about an inch and a half in diameter and about ten feet long. Each hollow tube had been drilled deep into the ice of a glacier. As the tube penetrated the ice, it captured samples from snows that had fallen thousands of years ago. When the tubes were removed, I could carefully examine the icy contents of each. At first, all I could see was a long column of white ice. But upon closer examination, I could see that the ice had stripes made of tiny bands of different colors. Scientists have to use a variety of techniques to date them. Some of the ice layers contain markers indicating important events, such as the soot emitted from a volcanic eruption. Since the dates of these eruptions are known to great accuracy, one can use them to determine how old that layer is. These ice cores were then cut in various slices so they could be examined. When I peered into one slice under a microscope, I saw tiny, microscopic bubbles. I shuddered to realize that I was seeing air bubbles that were deposited tens of thousands of years ago, even before the rise of human civilization. The carbon dioxide content within each air bubble is easily measured. But calculating the temperature of the air when the ice was first deposited is more difficult. (To do this, scientists analyze the water in the bubble. Water molecules can contain different isotopes. As the temperature falls, heavier water isotopes condense faster than ordinary water molecules. Hence, by measuring the amount of the heavier isotopes, one can calculate the temperature at which the water molecule condensed.) Finally, after painfully analyzing the contents of thousands of ice cores, these scientists have come to some important conclusions. They found that temperature

and carbon dioxide levels have oscillated in parallel, like two roller coasters moving together, in synchronization over many thousands of years. When one curve rises or falls, so does the other. Most important, they found a sudden spike in temperature and carbon dioxide content happening just within the last century. This is highly unusual, since most fluctuations occur slowly over millennia. This unusual spike is not part of this natural heating process, scientists claim, but is a direct indicator of human activity. There are other ways to show that this sudden spike is caused by human activity, and not natural cycles. Computer simulations are now so advanced that we can simulate the temperature of the earth with and without the presence of human activity. Without civilization producing carbon dioxide, we find a relatively flat temperature curve. But with the addition of human activity, we can show that there should be a sudden spike in both temperature and carbon dioxide. The predicted spike fits the actual spike perfectly. Lastly, one can measure the amount of sunlight that lands

on every square foot of the earth‘s surface. Scientists can also calculate the amount of heat that is reflected into outer space from the earth. Normally, we expect these two amounts to be equal, with input equaling output. But in reality, we find the net amount of energy that is currently heating the earth. Then if we calculate the amount of energy being produced by human activity, we find a perfect match. Hence, human activity is causing the current heating of the earth. Unfortunately, even if we were to suddenly stop producing any carbon dioxide, the gas that has already been released into the atmosphere is enough to continue global warming for decades to come. As a result, by

midcentury, the situation could be dire. Scientists have created pictures of Coastal cities may disappear. Large parts of Manhattan may have to be evacuated, with Wall Street underwater. Governments will have to decide which of their great cities and capitals are worth saving and which are beyond hope. Some cities may be saved via a combination of sophisticated dikes and water gates. Other cities may be deemed hopeless and allowed to vanish under the ocean, creating mass migrations of people. Since most of the commercial and population centers of the world are next to the ocean, this could have a disastrous effect on the world economy. Even if some cities can be salvaged, there is still the danger that large storms can send surges of water into a city, paralyzing its infrastructure. For example, in 1992 a huge storm surge flooded Manhattan, paralyzing the subway system and trains to New Jersey. With transportation flooded, the economy grinds to a halt. FLOODING BANGLADESH AND VIETNAM A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
what our coastal cities will look like at midcentury and beyond if sea levels continue to rise. isolated three hot spots for potential disaster: Bangladesh, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, and the Nile Delta in Egypt. The worst situation is that of Bangladesh, a country regularly flooded by storms even without global warming. Most of the country is flat and at sea level. Although it has made significant gains in the last few decades, it is still one of the poorest nations on earth, with one of the highest population densities. (It has a population of 161 million, comparable to that of Russia, but with 1/120 of the land area.) About 50 percent of the land area will be permanently flooded if sea levels rise by three feet. Natural calamities occur there almost every year, but in September 1998, the world witnessed in horror a preview of what may become commonplace. Massive flooding submerged two-thirds of the nation, leaving 30 million people homeless almost overnight; 1,000 were killed, and 6,000 miles of roads were destroyed. This was one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. Another country that would be devastated by a rise in sea level is Vietnam, where the Mekong Delta is particularly vulnerable. By midcentury, this country of 87 million people could face a collapse of its main food-growing area. Half the rice in Vietnam is grown in the Mekong Delta, home to 17 million people, and much of it will be flooded permanently by rising sea levels. According to the World Bank, 11 percent of the entire population would be displaced if sea levels rise by three feet by midcentury. The Mekong Delta will also be flooded with salt water, permanently destroying the fertile soil of the area. If millions are flooded out of their homes in Vietnam, many will flock to Ho Chi Minh City seeking refuge. But one-fourth of the city will also be underwater. In 2003 the Pentagon commissioned a study, done by the Global Business Network, that showed that, in a worst-case scenario,

chaos could spread around the world due to global warming. As millions of refugees cross national borders, governments could lose all authority and collapse, so countries could descend into the nightmare of looting, rioting, and chaos. In this desperate situation, nations, when faced with the prospect of the influx of millions of desperate people, may resort to nuclear weapons. ―Envision Pakistan, India, and China—all armed with nuclear weapons—skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land,‖ the report said. Peter Schwartz, founder of the Global
Business Network and a principal author of the Pentagon study, confided to me the details of this scenario. He told me that the

biggest hot spot would be the border between India and Bangladesh . In a major crisis in Bangladesh, up to 160 million people could be driven out of their homes, sparking one of the greatest migrations in human history. Tensions could rapidly rise as borders collapse, local governments are paralyzed, and mass rioting breaks out. Schwartz sees that nations may use nuclear weapons as a last resort. In a worst-case scenario, we could have a greenhouse effect that feeds on itself. For example, the melting of the tundra in the Arctic regions may release millions of tons of methane gas from rotting vegetation. Tundra covers nearly 9 million square miles of land in the Northern Hemisphere, containing vegetation frozen since the last Ice Age tens of thousands of years ago. This tundra contains more carbon dioxide and methane than the atmosphere, and this poses an enormous threat to the world‘s weather. Methane gas, moreover, is a much deadlier greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It does not stay in the atmosphere as long, but it causes much more damage than carbon dioxide. The release of so much methane gas from the melting tundra could cause temperatures to rapidly rise, which will cause even more methane gas to be released, causing a runaway cycle of global warming.

Studies prove that CO2 hurts plants- prefer recency, qualifications and science Strom 7 [Robert is the Planetary Science Emeritus Professor at the University of Arizona. He studied climate change for 15 years, the former Director of the Space Imagery Center, a NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility, ―Hot House‖, SpringerLink, p.<96-99 > ] H. Kenner There is overwhelming evidence that the rapid increase in greenhouse gases is the primary cause of global warming.Recent atmospheric measurements and bubbles of the past atmosphere
trapped in ice cores show that the greenhouse gas content increased dramatically during the past 200 years They are increasing 30 times faster dun during the last great Hot House wanning 55 million years ago (see Chapter 5). In

more recent times we have been adding man—made chemicals to the atmosphere, some of which are truly horrendous greenhouse gases (22,000 rimes more powerful than CO2). There are a variety ofgreenhouse gases but only four are produced by both nature and humans: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (C H4), nitrous oxide (N20), and ozone (03). There are a number of other man—made chemicals called halocarbons that are also being emitted into the atmosphere. However, CO2 is by far the most abundant and is the primary cause of the present global warming. Often in the literature the emissions will be referred to as just carbon, because
this is the atom primarily responsible for the greenhouse effect, and it is also a constituent of methane. The equivalent amount of CO2 for a given amount of carbon is 3.667 times the amount of carbon. Most of the values used here are for CO2 or CO2 equivalent. Table 7.1 lists some of the most common greenhouse gases, their lifetimes in the atmosphere, and their greenhouse warming ability relative to CO2. For example, methane has a lifetime in the atmosphere of 12 years, and over a period of 1 O() years it would take 23 kg of carbon dioxide to have the same warming effect as I kg of methane. The quantity of greenhouse gases is so small compared to the other constituents of the atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen and argon) that they are measured in parts per million (ppm), or parts per billion (ppb) or, in some cases, parts per trillion (ppt). For instance, the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 383 ppm, or 383 parts of CO2 for each million parts of air. As it is measured by volume of air, it is often written as ppmv, where ―y‖ stands for volume. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced naturally by vegetation, decaying organisms, forest fires, exhaled by animals, and volcanic eruptions. It is also produced by humans burning fossil fuels, making cement, and land use. Most carbon dioxide is taken up by forests, grasslands, and oceans. Lind plants take up the equivalent of about 220 billion metric tons of CO2 each year (33.3%), while oceans take up about 330 billion metric cons each year (66.7%). Currently the terrestrial biosphere sequesters about 20 to 3ŒN of global human CO2 emissions (Gurney et al., 2002; Sarniiento and Gruber, 2002). Hansen and Sato (2004) have estimated that about 42% of CO2 emitted by human activity is absorbed by the oceans and land. Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 is by

far the greatest contributor to global warming (Hansen and Sato, 2004). Its use is increasing very
rapidly, and to date little is being done to reduce human-caused emissions. Table 7.2 lists for the periods 1980—1989 and 1990—1999 the CO2 budgets based on measurements of atmospheric CO2 and oxygen (O), and the estimated ocean emission of 02. The uptake of CO2 by the ocean and land is decreasing (Joos et al., 2003) while the amount emitted from land use is increasing. There has been a 29% decrease in ocean uptake and a 43% decrease in land uptake between the 1980—1989 and 1990—1999 periods. Although the fraction of CO2 uptake by the oceans has decreased, the absolute amount bas increased since the 1980s because the yearly emissions have been increasing. The uptake of human-produced CO2 is strongest in regions of ―old‖ upwelling cold water that has spent many years in the ocean‘s interior since its last contact with the surface. Computer models suggest

that in the future there will be even more decreases in Carbon sinks(Winguth et al., 2005).
Future increases in oceanic equatorial upwdling will enhance the ourgasing of CO2 from oceans causing the uptake of CO2 to decrease by about 16 to 22%, and increases in soil temperatures will reduce the hunun—caused CO2 uptake from CO2 fertilization up to 43%. Therefore, both the land and marine carbon cycle will eventually have a positive feedback on the Earth‘s climate. it has been suggested that the increase in CO2 will be at least partly offset by what is termed ―CO2 fertilization.‖ The concept is that elevated levels of CO, would stimulate plant growth so that plants would take up excess CC)2 to produce carbohydntes, which are their stored energy source. However, contrary to predictions, increased CO2 only accelerates planet growth to about

one-third ofwhat was expected. In fact, increased CO2 may have a positive feedback in that CO2 is absorbed less with increasing CO2 levels (Young et al., 2006). The stomata of leaves are the paris of a plant that ―breathe‖ in CO2 and ―exhale‖ oxygen. A new study shows that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere controls the opening and closing of leaf stomata (Young et al., 2006); the higher the concentration of CO2, the smaller the

stomata opening and the less CO2 intake. The lower the CO2 abundance, the larger the opening and the more CO2 intake. A doubling of the CO2 abundance caused leaf stomata to close by about 20—40% in a variety of plant species, thus reducing the CO2 intake. Therefore, the increasing atmospheric abundance of CO2 will result in less CO2 uptake by plants, not more.

Plan Text
Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its liquid carbon backbone pipeline infrastructure investment in the United States.

Solvency – 1AC
The tech for CCS works – facilitating regulated transportation infrastructure is key to jump-starting the commercial industry Zarraby 12 - chemical engineer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, JD expected from GWU in 2012 Cyrus, ―Note: Regulating Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Federal Regulatory Regime to Promote the Construction of a National Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Network,‖ 80 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 950, Lexis
Despite its contribution to climate change, the United States' reliance on coal-fired power is increasing: the Energy Information Administration estimates that coal power will account for over forty percent of United States electricity generation in 2035. 9 Carbon Capture and Sequestration ("CCS") is one of the

most promising tech nologies to curb greenhouse gas

emissions from coal-fired electric generation. 10 [*953] CCS is a process whereby carbon dioxide ("CO<2>") prevents the release of CO<2> into the atmosphere and effectively eliminates greenhouse gas emissions from the power plant operations. 12 Although the technology for capturing and storing CO<2> has been proven in operation , 13 the U nited S tates does not have adequate infrastructure to implement CCS on a national scale. Specifically, tens of thousands of miles of CO<2> pipelines must be constructed to transport the CO<2> from the power plants to underground reservoirs . 14 Currently, there is no comprehensive federal regulation of CO<2> pipelines and existing state regulations are limited. 15 The uncertainty of this regulatory framework will prevent the development of much-needed CO<2> pipelines.
is separated from the power plant emissions and transported and stored in underground reservoirs. 11 CCS

The federal government is key Horne 10 – JD @ U of Utah Jennifer, ―Getting from Here to There: Devising an Optimal Regulatory Model for CO<2> Transport in a New Carbon Capture and Sequestration Industry,‖ 30 J. Land Resources & Envtl. L. 357, Lexis Unless CCS develops on a localized scale, some pipelines will necessarily cross state lines. Federal eminent domain authority thus will be key for CCS pipelines. This is because siting under the auspices
of multiple layers of government will almost inevitably hinder rapid development of a pipeline network needed for commercial-scale CCS. Such a system would be more time-and resource-intensive, and would mean more uncertainty for pipeline developers.

Federal eminent domain authority for interstate pipelines would give pipelines, with appropriate federal approvals, authority to cut through the red tape of multiple state and local land use requirements while still compensating landowners and protecting local ecosystems. A complex siting process that requires approval under multiple state and local regimes may slow the progress of the entire CCS industry. 108 The Congressional Research Service recently described the problem: As CO<2> pipelines get longer, the stateby-state siting approval process may become complex and protracted, and may face public opposition. Because CO<2> pipeline requirements in a CCS scheme are driven by the relative locations of CO<2> sources and sequestration sites, identification and validation of such sites must explicitly account for CO<2> pipeline costs if the economics of those sites are to be fully understood.

Absent preemptive federal siting regulation, the pipeline developer would have to struggle through three separate sets of regulatory requirements , apply for approval to build along the chosen corridor in each state, and
109 Consider the siting of a hypothetical interstate pipeline that traverses three separate states. potentially face legal challenges in three separate jurisdictions. One reason that pipeline siting under a state-based model would be resource-intensive is the
regulatory redundancy - and risk of conflicting decisions - that can occur when a pipeline corridor runs through multiple jurisdictions. This has proven to be a hindrance in other industries. For example, a state-based siting process continues to pose daunting challenges to interstate electric transmission siting. 110 It has contributed to the "very slow

pace of transmission enhancements," 111 in the [*374] face of increasing energy demands and an electric grid in need of expansion. 112 In general, pipeline projects adhere to rigid timelines. 113 Delays in securing necessary easements drive up costs and holdup projects. 114 The problem is only compounded when delays occur in multiple jurisdictions at once, or when one state erects a unilateral roadblock to a project even though other states have signed on. Even disapproval by a single locality can be a significant hindrance to project development. 115 Second, an approval process that involves multiple, potentially conflicting requirements is not just more resource-intensive, but also creates uncertainty. To begin with, the "lack of timing coordination" 116 among various entities may force pipelines to site one part of a pipeline corridor before the pipeline has siting approval for the rest of the corridor. 117 In addition, the generalized nature of the benefit brought by climate change mitigation makes localized siting decisions particularly vulnerable to not in my backyard (NIMBY) opposition. 118 CCS will serve generalized interests, but impose localized costs. It will provide a worldwide benefit - the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions - but do so at the immediate expense (in terms of landscape disruption and related environmental effects) to the local landowners where CCS pipelines are sited. Take, for example, the immediate risks from a sudden CO<2> pipeline leakage in a highly populated area. 119 Damage from such a release to human health and the environment would be borne by the immediate locality. 120 In addition to safety risks, the environmental and aesthetic impacts of pipeline construction are also felt most acutely on a localized level. The problem of public opposition to new pipelines is likely to be greater in CCS than it has been in EOR. EOR pipelines are located primarily in remote areas, and in states "accustomed to the presence of large energy infrastructure." 121 In CCS, many of the sources of CO<2> - power plants - are located in more populated [*375] areas, "many with a history of public resistance to the siting of energy infrastructure." 122 Of course, this will not bear out everywhere. Some states are bound to be pro-CCS, even when the in-state proportion of the climate change benefit would seem too slight to justify action. 123 For example, important coal interests in Wyoming prompted the state to move early to establish a CCS regulatory model. 124 For such states heavily dependent on coal for revenue, a "push for new clean coal technologies" is understandable. 125 Given this, a climate like Wyoming's may be particularly friendly territory for siting of CCS pipelines. However, these particular states may not match where potential storage repositories are located. Other states and localities lack the sort of incentive that exists in states like Wyoming. Political pressure to pave the way for CCS pipeline siting will vary dramatically from one state to the next, as evidenced by the inconsistency in state action on CCS generally so far. 126 This lack of political uniformity points to a single conclusion: some states and localities will have stronger incentives to promote CCS than others. Professor Victor Flatt has aptly summarized the potential hindrance that may arise from this kind of multijurisdictional control of CCS pipeline siting: "Each entity that has jurisdiction over CCS may have a way to veto a CCS project for reasons unrelated to the original purpose of the legal regime being used." 127 Comprehensive federal regulation, however, could minimize such uncertainty by providing one set of requirements in lieu of multiple, varying, and even potentially conflicting sets of mandates. B. The Case for a Comprehensive Federal Approach The challenge of transitioning to a commercial-scale CCS industry calls for a well-coordinated, comprehensive approach to regulation.

A national

market will require a high degree of uniformity and certainty . The surest and most expedient [*376] path to a
market with those features is comprehensive federal regulation - for CCS generally, and transport specifically. Like natural gas and oil pipelines - both complex, enormous systems with national reach 128 - CCS will benefit from the sort of consistent regulation from one state to the next that a federal approach can provide, and that a piecemeal state-based approach cannot. 129

This is

especially true if CCS is to become a national industry that helps to solve the climate change dilemma. As Delissa Hayano has argued: The costs and logistics of compressing, transporting, and sequestering CO<2> on the scale necessary to address [climate change] concerns requires a national interest parallel to that
motivating the construction of equivalent-scale national infrastructure projects such as the interstate road system. 130 While statebased regulation can be effective for certain types of markets, it would be a less-than-ideal fit for CCS transport.

State-based

regulation would create too much inconsistency and complexity . 131 In another context, Professor
Lincoln Davies has described a state-based approach to promoting renewable energy development as risking "crazy-quilt" regulation. 132 Specifically, the sheer variety of state-based Renewal Portfolio Standard (RPS) models that have sprung up in recent years have yielded widely varying standards from one state to the next. 133 The result is a fragmenting of renewable energy into multiple markets, not the creation of a single uniform national one. While the differentiation possible from state regulation long has been lauded as promoting innovations through laboratories of democracy, 134 to promote an industry that necessarily will be interstate in nature, such as CCS transport, federal models often are invoked. 135 The rationales typically offered for federal regulation include: (1) that uniform regulation is needed to ensure a well-functioning [*377] market; 136 (2) that federal regulation is necessary to avoid state "races to the bottom;" 137 and (3) that such regulation is essential to avoid fragmentation across borders in creating a network system national or regional in scope. 138 As the Supreme Court has observed in the dormant Commerce Clause context, "This principle that our economic unit is the Nation ... has as its corollary that the states are not separable economic units." 139 For each of the different CCS transport regulatory design elements, these rationales apply, albeit to somewhat varying extents.

Pipeline safety is regulated at the federal level , rather than state-by-state, for good reason. It’s reverse causal – federal inaction creates uncertainty that deters private investment in CCS Zarraby 12 - chemical engineer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, JD expected from GWU in 2012 Cyrus, ―Note: Regulating Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Federal Regulatory Regime to Promote the Construction of a National Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Network,‖ 80 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 950, Lexis Although the U nited S tates has made some progress in deploying CCS technology through direct government investment, these projects are relatively small compared to the total amount of coal-fired generation in the United States.
For example, the three projects partially funded by the DOE 73 have a power generation capacity of 795 megawatts. 74 This represents only 0.25% of the total coal-fired generation in operation. 75 The full deployment of CCS technology will

require significant private investment in not only the power plants themselves, but also in the related CO<2>
transportation infrastructure. [*961] D. Deploying Carbon Capture and Sequestration Nationwide - the Need for a CO<2> Pipeline Regulation As stated above, the
technologies for CCS have been developed and are proven to be effective at reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from power plants. Should the United State pass significant greenhouse gas emissions regulations, it would become necessary to develop policies that allow for the immediate deployment of CCS infrastructure. A major aspect of this deployment involves transportation pipelines for CO<2>. 76 Because the location of power plants and storage formation can be hundreds, if not thousands of miles apart, a network of CO<2> pipelines must be built to support the development of CCS. 77 For example, NETL estimates that Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, and Texas have the four largest capacities for CO<2> storage. 78 However, in December 2010, the states with the four highest coal-fired electricity consumption were Texas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. 79 Transporting CO<2> from a power plant in Akron, Ohio, to a storage reservoir in Shreveport, Louisiana, requires the construction of a 1000-mile pipeline. Storing eighty percent of current CO<2> emissions from electric power production requires the transportation of approximately 1800 [*962] million tons ("Mt") of CO<2> per year. 80 By

comparison, the 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines currently in existence transport the equivalent of only 450 Mt of CO<2> per year. 81 Although the exact size is difficult to determine, 82 even low-end estimates predict the need to construct approximately 20,000 miles of CO<2> pipelines. 83 Materials, labor, and property costs associated with constructing the pipeline system would require a capital investment of approximately seventy-billion dollars. 84 To ensure private capital investments in CO<2>

pipelines, Congress

must develop a regulatory framework that promotes the building of CO<2> pipelines. Indeed, CCSReg, a collaborative effort led by Carnegie Mellon University that examines regulations for CCS, 85
stated, "Large-scale, commercial implementation of CCS will ... require ... further delineation of a CO<2> pipeline transportation regulatory regime... to provide increased regulatory certainty for CO<2> pipeline infrastructure developers that will be necessary for

certainty in the regulatory regime would help facilitate project financing because project developers will be able to evaluate the regulatory risks . 87 As discussed below, the absence of federal regulation of CO<2> pipelines creates the very uncertainty that would limit private investment. 88
widespread deployment of CCS." 86 Specifically, CCSReg notes that

There is a tangible impact to any delay Zarraby 12 - chemical engineer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, JD expected from GWU in 2012 Cyrus, ―Note: Regulating Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Federal Regulatory Regime to Promote the Construction of a National Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Network,‖ 80 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 950, Lexis In order to mitigate the most drastic effects of climate change while continuing to utilize coal resources in the United States, CCS projects must be implemented immediately . However, regardless of how many power plants are capable of capturing greenhouse gas emissions, the benefits of CCS will not be realized without the construction of a vast network of CO<2> pipelines. No leaks Mills 11 - *MSc in Geological Sciences @ Cambridge
Robin, ―Capturing Carbon: The New Weapon in the War Against Climate Change,‖ Google Book

It is often claimed that carbon capture and storage is 'not proven'. For example, the US's oldest
environmental organisation, the Sierra Club, has said, "We don't have any idea whether or when this [carbon storage] will be possible...it's pie in the sky.'11*' Andrew McKillop dismisses the idea as 'exotic technological fantasies',117 while Greenpeace com¬mented that the Swedish utility Vattenfall was attempting to deceive ecologists with its CCS plans.118 Yet, as we will see,

the individual elements of CCS are all technolo-gically proven. Four industrial-size carbon storage projects are operating, in various parts of the world, and numerous pilots are investigating all the aspects of carbon capture, transportation and storage. Long-distance carbon dioxide transport and storage for enhanced oil recovery is commercially proven, and operating on a large scale. Experience from these projects suggests that they are safe and that leakage will be minimal . Sufficient storage Mills 11 - *MSc in Geological Sciences @ Cambridge
Robin, ―Capturing Carbon: The New Weapon in the War Against Climate Change,‖ Google Book These estimates indicate that total storage capacity is in the range of the required amount . Considering some realistic estimates for the likely scope of CCS, the IEA's estimate of 80 Gt to be stored up to 2050 is only 6% of the lowest quoted figure for capacity; most of the estimates are sufficient to hold the IPCC's maximum requirement of 2,200 Gt over the century. Only in the case of low storage capacity, high baseline emissions and a large role for CCS in mitigation might we run short of space. By no means all business-as-usual emissions will be captured, since many other low-carbon options will be used, and we

technically-available capacity should be ample. A useful illustration of the size of the storage capacity required is given by the Netherlands. This small country, with
have not considered some of the more exotic storage options, so worldwide a high density of energy use, storing all its emissions for the rest of this century would require a sub-surface space of about 160 x

storage in oil- and gas fields and coal beds , although an important and potentially low-cost starting point, is a small part of the total capacity. A major storage effort will have to rely mostly on saline aquifers. This is also implied by geography,
160 km, a little over a quarter the country's area.91 It also seems clear that

since most industrial sites are within a few hundred kilometres of aquifers, but suitable petroleum reservoirs are much rarer. On a regional basis, the story is more complicated. One set of estimates is shown in Figure 3.9.92 Here, the storage capacity in each region (in gigatonnes, Gt) is compared to the likely volumes available for capture up to the year 2100. Other capacity estimates, such as those quoted by the IEA, may vary significantly, either higher or lower. If major emissions locales have insufficient nearby

North America appears to have plenty of storage space, enough for more than 500 years of emissions at today's rate.
storage, the requirement for shipping or long-distance pipelines will drive up cost and complexity.

Qualified evidence concludes no earthquakes Reisinger 9 – JD, Attorney @ Ohio Environmental Council Will, ―RECONCILING KING COAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE: A REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE,‖ Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, http://vjel.org/journal/pdf/VJEL10107.pdf Injecting large quantities of foreign substances deep underground, especially in earthquake-prone regions, could potentially trigger seismic activity. 101 Some fear that massive quantities of CO2 could expand within porous rock, increase pressure, and possibly lead to earthquakes. 102 Most geologists, however, have concluded that this type of harm is an improbable result of CCS injections. The risk of “induced seismicity‖ will not likely deter serious operators or investors, but is more likely to be used as a rallying cry by environmental groups and citizen activists who are opposed to CCS. Doesn’t lead to spikes CCP 08 (CO2 Capture Project, 2008, ―CO2 Capture Project - FAQs - About CCS: Storage, Monitoring and Verification,‖ http://www.co2captureproject.org/faq_storage.html)//DR. H Storage formations, by their natural characteristics, both chosen and then engineered to be highly secure and every feasible measure to ensure the well is properly sealed. One aspect of CO2 to keep in mind, though, is that at supercritical stage, any potential leaks are gradual and can be quickly detected to prevent the escape of any further CO2. In essence, CO2, dispersed as it is in the pore spaces of the storage rock, is not a bubble of gas that can burst up to the surface. Therefore, once a leak is detected by the monitoring regime in place at any stage of the long-term storage process, there are many ways engineers can prevent further CO2 leakage.

Impact Framing

No War
Great power war is obsolete – cooperation is more likely than competition. Deudney and Ikenberry 9 —*Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins AND **Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University [Jan/Feb, 2009, Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry, ―The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail,‖ Foreign Affairs] 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. No War—empirics and longitudinal trends—the world is entering a new era of great power peace Fettweis 10—Christopher J. Fettweis, Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs in the National Security Decision Making Department at the U.S. Naval War College, holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Comparative Politics from the University of Maryland-College Park, October 27, 2010 (Dangerous Times?: The International

Politics of Great Power Peace, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-1-58901-710-8, Chapter 4: Evaluating the Crystal Balls, p. 83-85) The obsolescence-of-major-war vision of the future differs most drastically from all the others, including the neorealist, in its expectations of the future of conflict in the international system. If the post– Cold War world conformed to neorealist and other pessimistic predictions, warfare ought to continue to be present at all levels of the system, appearing with increasing regularity once the stabilizing influence of bipolarity was removed. If the liberal-constructivist vision is correct, then the world ought to have seen not only no major wars, but also a decrease in the volume and intensity of all kinds of conflict in every region as well. ¶ The evidence supports the latter. Major wars tend to be rather memorable, so there is little need to demonstrate that there has been no such conflict since the end of the Cold War. But the data seem to support the ―trickledown‖ theory of stability as well. Empirical analyses of warfare have consistently shown that the number of all types of wars— interstate, civil, ethnic, revolutionary, and so forth— declined throughout the 1990s and into the new century, after a brief surge of postcolonial conflicts in the first few years of that decade. 2 Overall levels of conflict tell only part of the story, however. Many other aspects of international behavior, including some that might be considered secondary effects of warfare, are on the decline as well. Some of the more important, if perhaps under reported, aggregate global trends include the following: ¶ Ethnic conflict. Ethnonational wars for independence have declined to their lowest level since 1960, the first year for which we have data. 3 ¶ Repression and political discrimination against ethnic minorities. The Minorities at Risk project at the University of Maryland has tracked a decline in the number of minority groups around the world that experience discrimination at the hands of states, from seventyfive in 1991 to forty-one in 2003. 4 ¶ War termination versus outbreak. War termination settlements have proven to be more stable over time, and the number of new conflicts is lower than ever before. 5 ¶ Magnitude of conflict/battle deaths. The average number of battle deaths per conflict per year has been steadily declining. 6 The risk for the average person of dying in battle has been plummeting since World War II— and rather drastically so since the end of the Cold War. 7 ¶ Genocide. Since war is usually a necessary condition for genocide, 8 perhaps it should be unsurprising that the incidence of genocide and other mass slaughters declined by 90 percent between 1989 and 2005, memorable tragedies notwithstanding. 9 ¶ Coups. Armed overthrow of government is becoming increasingly rare, even as the number of national governments is expanding along with the number of states. 10 Would be coup plotters no longer garner the kind of automatic outside support that they could have expected during the Cold War, or at virtually any time of great power tension. ¶ Third party intervention. Those conflicts that do persist have less support from outside actors, just as the constructivists expected. When the great powers have intervened in local conflicts, it has usually been in the attempt to bring a conflict to an end or, in the case of Iraq‘s invasion of Kuwait, to punish aggression. 11 ¶ Human rights abuses. Though not completely gone, the number of largescale abuses of human rights is also declining. Overall, there has been a clear, if uneven, decrease in what the Human Security Centre calls ―onesided violence against civilians‖ since 1989. 12 ¶ Global military spending. World military spending declined by one third in the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 13 Today that spending is less than 2.5 percent of global GDP, which is about two-thirds of what it was during the Cold War.¶ Terrorist attacks. In perhaps the most counterintuitive trend, the number of

worldwide terrorist incidents is far smaller than it was during the Cold War. If Iraq and South Asia were to be removed from the data, a clear, steady downward trend would become apparent. There were 300 terrorist incidents worldwide in 1991, for instance, and 58 in 2005. 14 ¶ International conflict and crises have steadily declined in number and intensity since the end of the Cold War. By virtually all measures, the world is a far more peaceful place than it has been at any time in recorded history. Taken together, these trends seem to suggest that the rules by which international politics are run may indeed be changing. ¶ No risk of nuclear war or great power conflict—nuclear deterrence. Tepperman 9 — Jonathan Tepperman, Deputy Editor of Newsweek, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, now Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs, holds a B.A. in English Literature from Yale University, an M.A. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University, and an LL.M. in International Law from New York University, 2009 (―Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb,‖ The Daily Beast, August 28th, Available Online at http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-tolove-the-bomb.print.html, Accessed 01-27-2012) A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the effort. There are more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable.¶ The argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First, nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not been any war among nuclear states."¶ To understand why—and why the next 64 years are likely to play out the same way—you need to start by recognizing that all states are rational on some basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do things only when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start a fight only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other side—and millions of innocents pay the price.¶ Nuclear weapons change all that by making the

costs of war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn the other to ashes with the push of a button—and everybody knows it—the basic math shifts. Even the craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?" ¶ Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction is so compelling, it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never matched the furious destruction of full-on, 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 reassuring—because 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 pessimists—and 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 goes—and 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 terrorism—but 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. Nuclear war doesn’t cause extinction A. Doesn’t cause ice age or climate change ROBOCK 2010 (Alan, Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, ―Nuclear Winter,‖ WIREs Climate
Change, May/June, Wiley Online Library via University of Michigan Libraries)

While it is important to point out the consequences of nuclear winter, it is also important to point out what will not be the consequences. Although extinction of our species was not ruled out in initial studies by biologists, it now seems that this would not take place. Especially in Australia and New Zealand, humans would have a better chance to survive. Also, Earth will not be plunged into an ice age. Ice sheets, which covered North America and Europe only 18,000 years ago and were more than 3-km thick, take many thousands of years to build up from annual snow layers, and the climatic disruptions would not last long enough to produce them . The oxygen consumption by the fires would be inconsequential, as would the effect on the atmospheric greenhouse by carbon dioxide production. The consequences of nuclear winter are
extreme enough without these additional effects, however.

B. Doesn’t cause fallout or ozone loss MARTIN 1982 (Dr Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests include stratospheric modelling. He is a research
associate in the Dept. of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, Journal of Peace Research, No 4, http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82jpr.html) (a) Global fallout. The

main effect of long-term fallout would be to increase the rate of cancer and genetic defects by a small percentage. Tens of millions might be affected worldwide over a period of many decades, but this would provide no threat to the survival of the human species .[6] (b) Ozone. Nuclear war would cause an increase in ultraviolet light from the sun which reaches the earth's surface, due to
reductions in stratospheric ozone caused by its catalytic destruction by nitrogen oxides produced in nuclear explosions. This

would increase the incidence of skin cancer (which is mostly non-lethal) and possibly alter agricultural productivity, but would be most unlikely to cause widespread death.[7]

(c) Fires. Extensive fires caused directly or indirectly by nuclear explosions would fill the lower atmosphere in the northern hemisphere with so much particulate matter that the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface could be greatly reduced for a few months. If this occurred during the northern spring or summer, one consequence would be greatly

reduced agricultural

production and possible widescale starvation.[8] C. Southern Hemisphere survives MARTIN 1982 (Dr Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests include stratospheric modelling. He is a research
associate in the Dept. of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, Journal of Peace Research, No 4, http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82jpr.html) To summarise the above points, a

major global nuclear war in which population centres in the US, Soviet with no effective civil defence measures taken, could kill directly perhaps 400 to 450 million people. Induced effects, in particular starvation or epidemics following agricultural failure or economic breakdown, might add up to several hundred million deaths to the total,
Union, Europe and China ware targeted, though this is most uncertain.

it is far from extinction. Even in the most extreme case there would remain alive some 4000 million people, about nine-tenths of the world's population, most of them unaffected physically by the nuclear war. The following areas would be relatively unscathed, unless nuclear attacks were made in these regions: South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Australasia, Oceania and large parts of China. Even in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere where most of the nuclear weapons would be exploded, areas upwind of nuclear attacks would remain free of heavy radioactive contamination, such as Portugal, Ireland and British Columbia. Many people, perhaps especially in the peace movement, believe that global nuclear war will lead to the death of most or all of the world's population.[12] Yet the available scientific evidence provides no basis for this belief. Furthermore, there seem to be no convincing scientific arguments that nuclear war could cause human extinction.[13] In particular, the idea of 'overkill', if
Such an eventuality would be a catastrophe of enormous proportions, but taken to imply the capacity to kill everyone on earth, is highly misleading.[14]

D. Adaptation MARTIN 1984 (Dr Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests include stratospheric modelling. He is a research
associate in the Dept. of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, and a member of SANA, SANA UPDATE, MARCH)

Opponents of war, including scientists, have often exaggerated the effects of nuclear war and emphasized worst cases. Schell continually bends evidence to give the worst impression.
For example, he implies that a nuclear attack is inevitably followed by a firestorm or conflagration. He invariably gives the maximum time for people having to remain in shelters from fallout. And he

takes a pessimistic view of the potential for ecological resilience to radiation exposure and for human resourcefulness in a crisis. Similarly, in several of the scientific studies of nuclear winter, I have noticed a strong tendency to focus on worst cases and to avoid examination of ways to overcome the effects. For example, no one seems to have looked at possibilities for migration to coastal areas away from the freezing continental temperatures or looked at people changing their diets away from grain-fed beef to direct consumption of the grain, thereby greatly extending reserves of food. E. US first strike prevents war LIEBER AND PRESS 2006 (Keir A. Lieber, the author of War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics Over
Technology, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.Daryl G. Press, the author of Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats, is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, ―The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy,‖ Foreign Affairs, March/April, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dpress/docs/Press_Rise_US_Nuclear_Primacy_FA.pdf)

For almost half a century, the world‘s most powerful nuclear states have been locked in a military stalemate known as
mutual assured destruction (mad). By the early 1960s, the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union had grown so large and sophisticated that neither country could entirely destroy the other‘s retaliatory force by launching first, even with a surprise attack. Starting a nuclear war was therefore tantamount to committing suicide. During the Cold War, many scholars and policy analysts believed that mad made the world relatively stable and peaceful because it induced great caution in international politics, discouraged the use of nuclear threats to resolve disputes, and generally restrained the superpowers‘ behavior. (Revealingly, the last intense nuclear standoª, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, occurred at the dawn of the era of mad.) Because of the nuclear stalemate, the optimists argued, the era of intentional great-power wars had ended. Critics of mad, however, argued that it prevented not great-power war but the rolling back of the power and influence of a dangerously expansionist and totalitarian Soviet Union. From that perspective, mad prolonged the life of an evil empire. This debate may now seem like ancient history, but it is actually more relevant than ever—because the

age of mad is nearing an end.Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the longrange nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States‘ nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia‘s arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China‘s nuclear forces. Unless Washington‘s policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of
their forces, Russia and China—and the rest of the world—will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come.

Prefer our empirical and qualified evidence NYQUIST 1999 (J.R., Defense Analyst, Worldnetdaily.com, May 20, 1999) I patiently reply to these correspondents that nuclear war would not be the end of the world . I then point to studies showing that "nuclear winter" has no scientific basis, that fallout from a nuclear war would not kill all life on earth. Surprisingly, few of my correspondents are convinced. They prefer apocalyptic myths created by
pop scientists, movie producers and journalists. If Dr. Carl Sagan once said "nuclear winter" would follow a nuclear war, then it must be true. If radiation wipes out mankind in a movie, then that's what we can expect in real life. But Carl Sagan

was wrong

about nuclear winter. And the movie "On the Beach" misled American filmgoers about the effects of fallout. It is time, once
and for all, to lay these myths to rest. Nuclear war would not bring about the end of the world, though it would be horribly destructive. The truth is, many

prominent physicists have condemned the nuclear winter hypothesis. Nobel laureate Freeman Dyson once said of nuclear winter research, "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science, but I quite despair of setting the public record straight." Professor Michael McElroy, a Harvard physics professor, also criticized the nuclear winter hypothesis. McElroy said that nuclear winter researchers "stacked the deck" in their study, which was titled "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of
Multiple Nuclear Explosions" (Science, December 1983). Nuclear winter is the theory that the mass use of nuclear weapons would create enough smoke and dust to blot out the sun, causing a catastrophic drop in global temperatures. According to Carl Sagan, in this situation the earth would freeze. No crops could be grown. Humanity would die of cold and starvation. In truth, natural

disasters have frequently produced smoke and dust far greater than those expected from a nuclear war. In 1883 Krakatoa exploded with a blast equivalent to 10,000 one-megaton bombs, a detonation greater than the combined nuclear arsenals of planet earth. The Krakatoa explosion had negligible weather effects. Even more disastrous, going back many thousands of years, a meteor struck Quebec with the force of 17.5 million one-megaton bombs, creating a crater 63 kilometers in diameter. But the world did not freeze. Life on earth was not extinguished. Consider the views of Professor George Rathjens of MIT, a known antinuclear activist, who said, "Nuclear winter is the worst example of misrepresentation of science to the public in my memory." Also consider Professor Russell Seitz, at
Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, who says that the nuclear winter hypothesis has been discredited. Two researchers, Starley Thompson and Stephen Schneider, debunked the nuclear winter hypothesis in the summer 1986 issue of

nuclear winter hypothesis can now be relegated to a vanishingly low level of probability." OK, so nuclear winter isn't going to happen. What about nuclear fallout? Wouldn't the radiation from a nuclear war contaminate the whole earth, killing everyone? The short answer is: absolutely not. Nuclear fallout is a problem, but we should not exaggerate its effects.
Foreign Affairs. Thompson and Schneider stated: "the global apocalyptic conclusions of the initial As it happens, there are two types of fallout produced by nuclear detonations. These are: 1) delayed fallout; and 2) short-term

fallout. According to researcher Peter V. Pry, "Delayed

fallout will not, contrary to popular belief, gradually kill billions

of people everywhere in the world." Of course, delayed fallout would increase the number of people dying of lymphatic cancer, leukemia, and cancer of the thyroid. "However," says Pry, "these deaths would probably be far fewer than deaths now resulting from ... smoking, or from automobile accidents." The real hazard in a nuclear war is the
short-term fallout. This is a type of fallout created when a nuclear weapon is detonated at ground level. This type of fallout could kill

short-term fallout rapidly subsides to safe levels in 13 to 18 days. It is not permanent. People who live outside of the affected areas will be fine. Those in affected areas can survive if they have access to underground shelters. In some areas, staying indoors may even suffice. Contrary to popular misconception, there were no documented deaths from short-term or delayed fallout at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. These blasts were low airbursts, which produced minimal fallout effects. Today's thermonuclear weapons are even "cleaner." If used in airburst mode, these weapons would produce few (if any) fallout casualties.
millions of people, depending on the targeting strategy of the attacking country. But

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