cndi - impact files - regents

Cal National Debate Institute 2009 World Go BoomA.Velto Regents

World Go Boom

Accidental Launch............................................................................................................................................................................................... 2Acid Rain............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3Aids...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4AirPower – Hegemony........................................................................................................................................................................................5Asia Stability.......................................................................................................................................................................................................6Biodiversity.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

*Cap Good*.........................................................................................................................................................................................................8Extinction............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9CO2.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10Equality.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11

*China*.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12US-Taiwan......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13US –China..........................................................................................................................................................................................................14

Dehumanization.................................................................................................................................................................................................15Democracy.........................................................................................................................................................................................................16Disease............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17Environment...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 18

*Economy*........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 19Mead.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 20Bearden.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 21

Extinction Outweighs........................................................................................................................................................................................22High Food Prices............................................................................................................................................................................................... 23

*Hegemony*...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24Short Zad........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25Long Zad............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 26Peace.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 27Ferguson............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 28

Human Rights....................................................................................................................................................................................................29Iran Prolif........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30North Korea.......................................................................................................................................................................................................31

Nuclear Testing.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 32Nuclear War....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 33Nuclear War Outweighs....................................................................................................................................................................................34

Poverty............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 35Prolif.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 36Racism............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 37Rape................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 38Space.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 39Terrorism........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 40Toxic Waste....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 41Trade Good........................................................................................................................................................................................................42Trade Bad...........................................................................................................................................................................................................43

Warming Bad.....................................................................................................................................................................................................44Warming Bad – Chalko.....................................................................................................................................................................................45Warming Good – Health....................................................................................................................................................................................46

1


Accidental Launch

An accidental launch would lead to retaliatory strikes and extinction within half an hourThe American Prospect, 2/26/01

The bitter disputes over national missile defense (NMD) have obscured a related but dramatically more urgent issue of national security: the 4,800 nuclear warheads -- weapons with a combined destructive power nearly

100,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima -- currently on "hair-trigger" alert. Hair-trigger alert

means this: The missiles carrying those warheads are armed and fueled at all times. Two thousand or so of these warheads are on the intercontinental ballistic

missiles (ICBMs) targeted by Russia at the United States; 1,800 are on the ICBMs targeted by the United States at Russia; and approximately 1,000 are on the submarine-based missiles targeted by the two nations at each other. These missiles would launch on receipt of three computer-delivered messages. Launch crews -- on duty every second of every day -- are under

orders to send the messages on receipt of a single computer-delivered command. In no more than two minutes, if all went according to plan, Russia or the United States could launch missiles at predetermined targets: Washington or New York; Moscow or St. Petersburg. The early-warning systems on which the launch crews rely would detect the other side's missiles within tens of seconds, causing the intended -- or accidental -- enemy to mount retaliatory strikes. "Within a half-hour, there could be a nuclear war that would extinguish all of us, " explains Bruce Blair. "It would be, basically, a nuclear war by checklist, by rote."

2


Acid Rain

Acid rain destroys the quality of life, disintegrating lakes, forests, and buildingsSimon 90, (Cheryl, writes for National Academy of Sciences, “One Earth, One Future: Our Changing Global Environment)

Even though the British scientist Angus Smith coined the term “acid rain” over a century ago, only in the last few decades have scientists recognized that widespread acidity in precipitation

causes damage far from its source. Over large stretches of the world, acid deposition has damaged life in lakes and streams and corroded building materials and accelerated the aging of structures. In addition, it has become a key suspect in the declining health of some species of forest trees in North America and Europe. Acid deposition results when pollutants, particularly oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, are emitted from smokestacks, smelters, and automobile exhausts into the atmosphere. These oxides are converted through a series of chemical reactions with other substances in the atmosphere, to acids that fall back to the earth’s surface dissolved in rain, snow, or fog, or as gases dry up particles.

3


Aids

Unchecked Hiv/Aids Risks ExtinctionMuchiri 00 (Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Kenyan Ministry of Education, “Will Annan Finally Put Out Africa’s Fires,” JAKARTA POST, March 6, 2000, LN.)

There is no doubt that AIDS is the most serious threat to humankind , more serious than hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, capital crashes or floods. It has no cure yet. We are watching a whole continent degenerate into ghostly skeletons that finally succumb to a most excruciating, dehumanizing death. Gore said that his new initiative, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would bring U.S. contributions to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge.

Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race

4


AirPower – Hegemony

Air power is the single most important aspect of military power, nothing else even comes close.WARDEN 1997 (Col. John A Warden 111, USAF (ret.), president of Venturist, Inc., AirpowerConfronts an Unstable World, Ed. Hallion, pp 239-240)

As the 20th Century draws to a close, air power dominates warfare. Those who have air power overwhelm those who don't; those who don't have it spend their energies trying to get it, thwart it or escape it. It is control of the high ground writ large-but unlike the old days when high ground was largely an accident of the situation, in the new world, air power allows the user to move the high ground to wherever it is needed. Air power, when measured in terms of output per dollar or life invested, is the cheapest, most effective method of fighting in human historyand the advent of precision makes it even cheaper.

5


Asia Stability

Asian Instability Risks A Big Nuclear WarPaul KENNEDY, Professor, History, Yale University, “21st Century—Dialogues on the Future/Globalization’s Sway in Evolution fo States Put in Focus,” THE DAILY YOMIURI, January 10, 2000, p. 1.

Kennedy: I do not think that we should discuss only positive aspects of globalization. Today, there is an arms race going among many Asian countries. There is also a nationalist passion at work in the region. All this comes with incredible pressure in the form of environmental problems, population growth and ethnic violence. This might well mean that some nuclear weapons could be let off in Asia, while a very big war could occur in the area by 2010 or 2015.

6


Biodiversity

Biodiversity loss guarantees multiple scenarios for extincton, including nuclear warTakacs, Environmental Humanities Prof @ CSU Monteray Bay, 1996 (David, “The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise” pg. 200-201)

So biodiversity keeps the world running. It has value and of itself, as well as for us. Raven, Erwin, and Wilson oblige us to think about the value of

biodiversity for our own lives. The Ehrlichs’ rivet-popper trope makes this same point; by eliminating rivets, we play Russian roulette with global ecology and human futures: “It is likely that destruction of the rich complex of species in the Amazon basin could trigger rapid changes in global

climate patterns. Agriculture remains heavily dependent on stable climate, and human beings remain heavily dependent on food. By the end of the century the extinction of perhaps a million species in the Amazon basin could have entrained famines in which a billion human beings perished. And if our species is very unlucky, the famines could lead to a thermonuclear war, which could extinguish civilization.” 13 Elsewhere Ehrlich uses different particulars with no less drama: What then will happen if the current decimation of organic diversity continues? Crop yields will be more difficult to maintain in the face of climatic

change, soil erosion, loss of dependable water supplies, decline of pollinators, and ever more serious assaults by pests. Conversion of productive land to wasteland will accelerate; deserts will continue their seemingly inexorable expansion. Air pollution will increase, and local climates will become harsher. Humanity will have to forgo many of the direct economic benefits it might have withdrawn from Earth's wellstocked genetic library. It might, for example, miss out on a cure for cancer; but that will make little

difference. As ecosystem services falter, mortality from respiratory and epidemic disease, natural disasters, and especially famine will lower life expectancies to the point where cancer (largely a disease of the elderly) will be unimportant. Humanity will bring upon itself consequences depressingly similar to those expected from a nuclear winter. Barring a nuclear conflict, it appears that civili zation will disappear some time before the

end of the next century - not with a bang but a whimper.14

7


*Cap Good*

8


Extinction

Collapse of capitalism causes extinction Revel, 1993[Jean-Francois, sociopolitical analyst, Democracy Against Itself: The Future of the Democratic Impulse, trans. Roger Kaplan, New York: The Free Press, 258-9//uwyo-ajl]

There have been natural cataclysms in history, epidemics, droughts, earthquakes, and cyclones, and they have killed millions, destroyed cities and crops, annihilated artistic

and intellectual treasures, devastated the infrastructures of nations. Yet these plagues are nothing compared to those that have been caused by human action. The most destructive catastrophes are man-made, and above all statesman-made. They come from his

appetite for conquest and domination, from the dead-end political systems he thinks up, his uncountable religious or ideological fanaticisms, and, especially, his obsessive need to reform societies instead of letting them change at their own pace. Democracy blocks, or at least slows down, this disastrous-and wicked-human propensity. Twentieth-century history is clear on two points: only capitalism engenders economic development; only democracy can correct the worst political abuses and errors. This is why humanity faces a stark choice: democratic capitalism or extinction . I would revise Michael Novak's term to read: democratic and liberal capitalism. For capitalism can be illiberal-protectionist and closely associated to the state. In this case, it is not as much of an obstacle to development and

individual liberty as is socialism, but it hinders them and creates incentives for the corruption of political leaders. Liberal democratic capitalism is not the best system: it is the only one [that works] . The parrots who keep telling us about its imperfections are right, it is imperfect. But the only

prohibitive vice for a system, is not for it to be without vices, but to be without qualities. And what we know about all the tested alternatives to liberal democratic capitalism is that they are without qualities. It deserves plenty of criticism, but these should not lead to the temptation of returning to collectivism or even milder forms of state control. Of course democratic capitalism has its share of sins; but as Robert Nozick put it, socialism does seem to be an excessively heavy punishment for them. And anyway it has been tried already.

9


CO2

Collapse of capitalism would halt global CO2 emissions Polizeros.com, 6-14-2K7(Politics in the Zeroes, “Why capitalism can’t solve global warming”, http://polizeros.com/2007/06/14/why-capitalism-cant-solve-global-warming/, Damien REQ)

There are three major barriers against capitalism achieving the goal of reducing co2 emissions .

Changing from fossil fuels to other energy sources will require massive spending. Such spending will not increase profits and thus will be anathema to most businesses. They will only do it when forced to by conditions or governments. The CO2 reductions must be global. If the reductions aren’t global, mandated, and enforceable, then little progress will be made , as companies will just move to whatever country has the most lax rules. Shutting down a few coal-

burning plants in the US will have little effect if China build 500 new ones. The change must be all-encompassing. This is the kicker. Huge restructuring will be needed. Entire industries will vanish, to be replaced by new ones. You think the coal industry will go away quietly? Not a chance. The problem is rooted in the very nature of capitalist society, which is made up of thousands of corporations, all competing for investment and for profits. There is no “social

interest” in capitalism — only thousands of separate interests that compete with each other. That’s the real problem. Under the predatory nature of capitalism, cooperation doesn’t exist, and cooperation on a global scale is precisely what is needed to stop global warming.

10


Equality

Capitalism Creates An Incentive For Equal Opportunity Because Of The Competitiveness That It EntailsLewis ’92 [Martin W., Assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Regional Science, George Washington University, Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, 173-4]

Business leaders have opposed apartheid not because of their magnanimity, but rather because discrimination is in many respects highly disfunctional for the economy. Many South African companies have long suffered from shortages of skilled labor, yet they have been politically prevented from tapping a huge segment of

the populace for such positions. As a result, wages for white workers have been far greater than the market would dictate, a situation hardly advantageous for capital. Even more importantly, the fact that so many people have been reduced to dire poverty by political edict greatly reduces the internal South African market, which in turn undercuts the potential profitability of consumergoods firms. The underdevelopment of the consumer economy, in turn, severely hampers the country's overall economic performance.The same underlying patterns may be seen, albeit in weaker form, in the United States. It was, of course, the capitalistic Republican Party that dismantled slavery until relatively recent times

the Democratic Party of workers and farmers formed the bulwark of discrimination. As a system, capitalism thrives on equality of opportunity. Efficient corporations welcome talented individuals from all social ranks into their middle and upper echelons-so long as they are adept at making profits. Thus the editor of Fortune magazine tells us that "One of America's great competitive weapons is that we are far

ahead of the Japanese and. most other foreign competitors in at last beginning to admit women to positions of real power" (July 30, 1990, p. 4). Of course, individual capitalists can be as bigoted as anyone else , and many are blind to the general requirements of the system as a whole. And so too, equality of opportunity must never be confused with social equity, as those individuals lacking the demanded skills and motivation will always be poorly rewarded by the rational corporation.

Although capitalism, in the end, precludes economic equality, it does suffer if wage differentials grow too great, as we have already noted in the case of South Africa. As many marxist scholars now recognize, low wages across the board translate into minimal purchasing power, which is hardly advantageous for a capitalist

machine often desperate to find markets for its abundant goods. Thus, in the virtuous capitalistic spiral of "Fordism" (Scott and Storper 1986),

productivity gains have been partially shared with workers in the form of higher wages, the aggregate result being a prosperous working class and a healthy economy.

11


*China*

12


US-Taiwan

Nuclear WarChicago Tribune ’96 [“China Prepares New Show of Strength,” Uli Schmetzer, Feb. 6//uwyo-crowe]

While a peaceful solution remains a priority, both the politburo and the Peoples Liberation Army have pledged to use force if necessary to regain the island on which the Nationalists settled after losing the civil war to Mao Tse-tung in 1949.

A PLA analysis--leaked to Western media--suggests that in the event of war with Taiwan, the U.S. would not intervene because U.S. commercial interests in China would be damaged and any intervention could lead to a new Sino-Russian alliance.

The document, circulated among officers, concludes that even if the U.S. intervened, Washington could only retard--but not reverse--

the defeat of Taiwan, and a Sino-U.S. conflict might lead to a global nuclear holocaust.

13


US –China

Conflict between the U.S. and China escalates and causes nuclear warJohnson, Journalist, 5-14-2K1 (Chalmers, “Time to Bring the Troops Home,” The Nation, Volume 272, Number 19)

China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war, remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a

war that no one wanted, a misstep in Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic challenge to China's sovereignty of any Taiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed US forces on China's borders have virtually no deterrent effect.

14


Dehumanization

Loss of ones value to life is the greatest impactZIMMERMAN IN 1994 [Michael; Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University; Contestinq Earth's Future; Berkeley: University of California Press; 1994; p. 119-120]

Heidegger asserted that human self-assertion, combined with the eclipse of being, threatens the relation between being and human Dasein. Loss of this relation would be even more dangerous than a nuclear war that might "bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction of the earth . 1114 This controversial claim is comparable to the

Christian teaching that it is better to forfeit the world than to lose one's soul by losing one's relation to God. Heidegger apparently thought along these lines: it is possible that after a nuclear war, life might once again emerge, but it is far less likely that there will ever again occur an ontological clearing through which such life

could manifest itself. Further, since modernity's one dimensional disclosure of entities virtually denies them any "being" at all, the loss of humanity's openness for being is already occurring.,, Modernity's background mood is horror in the face of nihilism, which is consistent with the aim of providing material "happiness" for everyone by reducing nature to pure energy.s6 The unleashing of vast quantities of energy in nuclear war would be equivalent to modernity's slow - motion destruction of nature: unbounded destruction would equal limitless consumption. If humanity avoided nuclear war only to survive as contented clever animals , Heidegger believed we would exist in a state of ontological damnation: hell on earth, masquerading as material paradise . Deep ecologists might agree that a world of material human comfort purchased at the price of everything wild would not be a world worth living in, for in killing wild nature, people would be as good as dead. But most of them could not agree that the loss of humanity's relation to being would be worse than nuclear omnicide, for it is wrong to suppose that the lives of millions of extinct and unknown species are somehow lessened because they were never "disclosed" by humanity

15


Democracy

Democracy Solves The Evil Of Democide—Mass Death OtherwiseRummel 96, (Rudolph J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii, “Chapter 8: An Enlightened Foreign Policy,” THE MIRACLE THAT IS FREEDOM: THE SOLUTION TO WAR, VIOLENCE, GENOCIDE, AND POVERTY, Martin Monograph Series No. 1., Martin Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, University of Idaho, 1996. Available from the World Wide Web at: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MTF.CHAP8.HTM, accessed 4/28/05.)

Then there is mass democide, the most destructive of human lives than any other form of violence. Except in the case of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, few people know how murderous the dictators of this world have been and could be. Virtually unknown is the fact that the number of non-Jewish Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Yugoslavs, Frenchmen, Germans, and on, murdered by Hitler surpasses by two or three times the Jews he killed. Then there are the shocking tens of millions murdered by Stalin and Mao, and the other millions wiped out by Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung, and their kind. Just omitting foreigners, who are most

often murdered during a war, such thugs have murdered about 123,000,000 of their own people from 1900 to 1987. Adding foreigners they have killed raises the toll to an incredible near 170,000,000. Adding to this unbelievable toll since 1987 is the million people the Hutu rulers of Rwanda may have slaughtered in four months (Chapter 6. Even now, these mass murders still go on in Burma, Sudan, Afghanistan, North Korea, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Congo, just to mention the most glaring examples. Serb democide It should be clear, then, why I refer to the rulers of these murderous regimes as thugs. I am not a diplomat nor government official and do not have to worry about the delicate sensitivities of these rulers. I can speak truth to power, and call thugs the thugs they are. As should be clear from this book and web site, they often murder people by carefully thought out plans, they set up a bureaucracy to do so, they train people for this purpose, and then they order the killing. Sometimes they murder people because of their race, ethnicity, or religion; their parents or other relative's political activities, or beliefs, or speech; or their lack of proper enthusiasm for their glorious rulers. Sometimes they established a murder quota to fill, or kill people randomly to set an example. While we can approximate how many these thugs have killed, we cannot even guess at the heartbreak and misery these deaths have caused their loved ones, and how many of these grieving survivors have died of a broken heart or committed suicide. Moreover, the term murder hardly carries the full weight of the pain and misery of the victims. Some lucky ones died quickly with a shot to the back of the head, or had their head decapitated. Most died quite wretchedly, in pain from torture or beatings; by drowning, being buried or burned alive; or in agony from wounds. Many died from intentionally administered starvation, thirst, exposure, or disease. Some died horribly as the result of repeated human medical experiments. We have no pain/misery index to measure all this except for the incredible pile of corpses these thugs have created in nearly one century. We must assume that a penumbra of pain and misery, of love and hope squashed, and a future stolen surrounds each of these millions of corpses. Castration

What is true about freedom and internal violence is also so for this mass democide. As clear from Table 8.1,

the more freedom a people have, the less likely their rulers are to murder them . The more power the thugs have,

the more likely they will murder their people. Could there be a greater moral good than to end or minimize such mass murder? This is what freedom does and for this it is, emphatically, a moral good.

Democratic Consolidation Prevents War And ExtinctionDiamond 95, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990’s,” October 1995. Available from the World Wide Web at: http://www.carnegie.org/sub/pubs/deadly/dia95_01.html, accessed 2/20/04.

OTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian

regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to

proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for

legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons . Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another . They do not

aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another . They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring

trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.

16

http://www.carnegie.org/sub/pubs/deadly/dia95_01.html

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MTF.CHAP8.HTM


Disease

Disease Spread Risks ExtinctionSteinbruner 98 (John D., Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, “Biological Weapons: A Plague Upon All Houses,” FOREIGN POLICY n. 109, Winter 1997/1998, pp. 85-96, ASP.)

It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat have not depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20 variations of the HIV virus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of AIDS each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera - once thought to be under control - are now making a

comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century, changing conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the

capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole.

17


Environment

Environmental Decay Risks Collapse Of CivilizationDernbach 98 (John C. Associate Professor, Law, Widener University, “Sustainable Development as a Framework for National Governance,” CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW v. 49, Fall 1998, p. 16.)

The global scale and severity of environmental degradation and poverty are unprecedented in human history. Major adverse consequences are not inevitable, but they are likely if these problems are not addressed. Many civilizations collapsed or were severely weakened because they exhausted or degraded the natural resource base on which they depended . n76 In addition, substantial economic and social inequalities have caused or contributed to many wars and revolutions. n77 These problems are intensified by the speed at which they have occurred and are worsening, making it difficult for natural systems to adapt. The complexity of natural and human systems also means that the effects of these problems are difficult to anticipate. The potential impact of global warming on the transmission of tropical diseases in a time of substantial international travel and commerce is but one example.

18


*Economy*

19


Mead

The Impact Is Nuclear WarMead ’92 [Walter Russel, Member of THE Board of Advisors, “Depending on the Kindness of Strangers,” New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer v. 9, n. 3]

There is something breathtakingly casual in the way in which the American elite responds to its failures. The savings and loan debacle, the disintegration of our inner cities, the budget deficit: Our public and private elites don’t care about them. Perhaps because they grew up in the years when the U.S. faced no real economic challenges and knew no real limits, they don’t understand that failure has a price. If so, this new failrue – the failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide depression – will open their eyes to their folly. Hundreds of millions – billions – of people around the world have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles- and drawn

closer to the West – because they believe that our system can work for them. But what if it can’t? What if the global economy stagnates- or even shrinks?

In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor, Russia, China, India – these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to the world order than Germany and Japan did in the ‘30s

20


Bearden

Economic Collapse Would Escalate To Full-Scale Conflict And Rapid ExtinctionBearden 2K (Lt. Col in US Army) [Thomas, “The Unnecessary Energy Crisis”, Free Republic, June 24, p. online //wyo-tjc]

History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals o f

weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China-whose long-range nuclear missiles

(some) can reach the United States-attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses , the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch

immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.

21


Extinction Outweighs

Extinction Is An Incomparable Evil—Nothing Can Outweigh ItRolston 98, Professor, Philosophy, Colorado State University, Environmental Philosophy, 1998, p. 136.

“Every extinction is an incremental decay in this stopping of life, no small thing. Every extinction is a kind of superkilling. It kills forms (species) beyond individuals. It kills “essences ” the “soul” as well as the

“body”. It kills collectively, not just distributively. It kills birth as well as death. Afterward nothing of that kind either lives or dies . A shutdown of the life stream is the most destructive event possible. Never before has this level of question – superkilling by a superkiller -- been deliberately faced. What is ethically callous is the maelstrom of killing insensitivity to forms of life and the sources of producing them. What is required is principled responsibility to the biospheric earth. Several billions years worth of creative toil, several million species of teeming life, have been handed over to the care of this late-coming species in which mind has flowered and morals have emerged. Life on earth is a many slendored thing: extinction dims its luster. If, in this world of uncertain moral convictions, it makes any sense to claim that one ought not kill individuals, without justification, it makes more sense to claim that one ought not to superkill the species, without superjustification. That moves from what is to what ought to be, and the fallacy is not committed by naturalists who so argue but by humanists who cannot draw these conclusions.”

22


High Food Prices

That Saves BillionsTAMPA TRIBUNE 96, staff, January 20, 1996, LN.

On a global scale, food supplies - measured by stockpiles of grain - are not abundant. In 1995, world production failed to meet demand for the third consecutive year, said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. As a result, grain stockpiles fell from an average of 17 percent of annual consumption in 1994-1995 to 13 percent at the end of the 1995-1996 season, he said. That's troubling, Pinstrup-Andersen noted, since 13 percent is well below the 17 percent the United

Nations considers essential to provide a margin of safety in world food security. During the food crisis of the early 1970s, world grain stocks were at 15 percent. " Even if they are merely blips, higher international prices can hurt poor countries that import a significant portion of their food," he said. "Rising prices can also quickly put food out of reach of the 1.1 billion people in the developing world who live on a dollar a day or less." He also said many people in low-income countries already spend more than half of their income on food.

23


*Hegemony*

24


Short Zad

Nuclear WarKhalilzad 95, (Zalmay Khalilzad, RAND analyst, “Losing the Moment,” WASHINGTON QUARTERLY, Spring 1995, LN.)

Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is

the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of

law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers,

including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

25


Long Zad

Withdrawl sparks global power wars in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, economic collapse, proliferation, and nuclear warKhalilzad, Policy Analyst at the Rand Corporation, 95 (Zalmay, “Losing the Moment?: The United States and the World after the Cold War,” The Washington Quarterly, Spring)

What might happen to the world if the United States turned inward? Without the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), rather than

cooperating with each other, the West European nations might compete with each other for domination of East-Central Europe and the Middle East. In Western and Central Europe, Germany -- especially since unification -- would be the natural leading power. Either in cooperation or competition with Russia, Germany might seek influence over the territories located between them. German efforts are likely to be aimed at filling the vacuum, stabilizing the region, and precluding its domination by rival powers. Britain and France fear such a development. Given the strength of democracy in Germany and its preoccupation with absorbing the former East Germany, European concerns about Germany appear exaggerated. But it would be a mistake to assume that U.S. withdrawal could not, in the long run, result in the renationalization of Germany's security policy. The same

is also true of Japan. Given a U.S. withdrawal from the world, Japan would have to look after its own security and build up its military capabilities. China, Korea, and the nations of Southeast Asia already fear Japanese hegemony. Without U.S. protection, Japan is likely to increase its military capability dramatically -- to balance the

growing Chinese forces and still-significant Russian forces. This could result in arms races, including the possible acquisition by Japan

of nuclear weapons. Given Japanese technological prowess, to say nothing of the plutonium stockpile Japan has acquired in the development of its nuclear power

industry, it could obviously become a nuclear weapon state relatively quickly, if it should so decide. It could also build long-range missiles and

carrier task forces. With the shifting balance of power among Japan, China, Russia, and potential new regional powers such as India, Indonesia, and a united

Korea could come significant risks of preventive or proeruptive war. Similarly, European competition for regional dominance could lead to major wars in Europe or East Asia. If the United States stayed out of such a war -- an unlikely prospect -- Europe or East Asia could become dominated by a hostile power. Such a development would threaten U.S. interests. A power that achieved such dominance would seek to exclude the United States

from the area and threaten its interests-economic and political -- in the region. Besides, with the domination of Europe or East Asia, such a power might seek global hegemony and the United States would face another global Cold War and the risk of a world war even more catastrophic

than the last. In the Persian Gulf, U.S. withdrawal is likely to lead to an intensified struggle for regional domination. Iran and Iraq have, in the past, both sought regional hegemony. Without U.S. protection, the weak oil-rich states of the Gulf Cooperation Council

(GCC) would be unlikely to retain their independence. To preclude this development, the Saudis might seek to acquire, perhaps by purchase, their own nuclear weapons. If either Iraq or Iran controlled the region that dominates the world supply of oil, it could gain a significant capability to damage the U.S. and world economies. Any country that gained hegemony would have vast economic resources at its disposal that could be used to build military capability as well as gain leverage over the United States and other oilimporting nations. Hegemony over the Persian Gulf by either Iran or Iraq would bring the rest of the Arab Middle East under its influence and domination because of the

shift in the balance of power. Israeli security problems would multiply and the peace process would be fundamentally undermined, increasing the risk of war between the Arabs and the Israelis. The extension of instability, conflict, and hostile hegemony in East Asia, Europe, and the Persian Gulf would harm the economy of the United States even in the unlikely event that it was able to avoid involvement in major wars and conflicts. Higher oil prices would reduce the U.S. standard of living. Turmoil in Asia and Europe would force major economic readjustment in the United States, perhaps reducing U.S. exports and imports and jeopardizing U.S. investments in these regions. Given that total imports and exports are equal to a quarter of U.S. gross domestic

product, the cost of necessary adjustments might be high. The higher level of turmoil in the world would also increase the likelihood of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and means for their delivery. Already several rogue states such as North Korea and Iran are seeking nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. That

danger would only increase if the United States withdrew from the world. The result would be a much more dangerous world in which many states possessed WMD capabilities; the likelihood of their actual use would increase accordingly. If this happened, the security of every nation in the world, including the United States, would be harmed.

26


Peace

Hegemony is critical to world peace and stabilityWiarda, Professor at the National War College, 96 (Howard, US Foreign and Strategic Policy in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 227)

The preceding chapters have highlighted not only the diverse geopolitical regions of the world but also the varied, often vital. US interests and reasons for remaining involved in all of them.

What may perhaps be most striking to the reader is not just the amount and variety of US interests but how in each of these areas governments and peoples look to the United States to lead, to serve as an honest broker, as not only the world’s strongest power but also its most trustworthy.

One cannot conceive of a unified European defense policy without the United States: the Russian aid program

would surely collapse without the United States: and in Asia the United States is seen as the balancing force keeping China, Japan, and the two Koreas away, potentially, from each others’ throats. The peace process in the Middle East has no chances of success without the United States: and humanitarian assistance in Africa would surely dry up if the United States were not involved and so on. It is clear that both US interests and the world’s interests demand that we remain a major player in that world. But we are in a new era, which demands that all those interests be redefined, sorted out, and reformulated. Both we and the rest of the world need to recognize that fact. US foreign policy and its global interests obviously cannot be abandoned but they do need to be reconstructed.

27


Ferguson

Collapse causes nuclear war, economic collapse, and epidemics.Ferguson, History and Finance Professor at New York University, 2K4 (Niall, “A World Without Power,” Foreign Policy, July / August)

Could an apolar world today produce an era reminiscent of the age of Alfred? It could, though with some important and troubling differences. Certainly, one can imagine the world's established powers--the United States, Europe, and China--retreating into their own regional spheres of influence. But what of the growing pretensions to autonomy of the supranational bodies created under U.S. leadership after the Second World War? The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (formerly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) each considers itself in some way representative of the "international community." Surely their aspirations to global governance are fundamentally different from the spirit of the Dark Ages? Yet universal claims were also an integral part of the rhetoric of that era. All the empires claimed to rule the world; some, unaware of the existence of other civilizations, maybe even believed that they did. The reality, however, was not a global Christendom, nor an all-embracing Empire of Heaven. The reality was political fragmentation. And that is also true today. The defining characteristic of our age is not a shift of power upward to supranational institutions, but downward. With the end of states' monopoly on the means of violence and the collapse of their control over channels of communication, humanity has entered an era characterized as much by disintegration as integration. If free flows of information and of means of production empower multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations (as well as evangelistic religious cults of all denominations), the free flow of destructive technology empowers both criminal organizations and terrorist cells. These groups can operate, it seems, wherever they choose, from Hamburg to Gaza. By contrast, the writ of the internationl community is not global at all. It is, in fact, increasingly confined to a few strategic cities such as Kabul and Pristina. In short, it is the nonstate actors who truly wield global power--including both the monks and the Vikings of our time. So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals.

Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous-roughly 20 times more--so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. Technology has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization-the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards throughout the

world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. The reversal of globalization--which a new Dark Age

would produce--would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11

devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking

point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of

the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--

would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin

America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of aids and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs

of Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global hegemony--its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier-

its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity-a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.

28


Human Rights

Key To SurvivalCopelon 99, (Rhonda, Professor, Law, CUNY, “The Indivisible Framework of International Human Rights,” NEW YORK CITY LAW REVIEW, 1998/1999, p. 71-72.)

The indivisible human rights framework survived the Cold War despite U.S. machinations to truncate it in the international arena. The framework is there to shatter the myth of the superiority [*72] of the U.S. version of rights, to rebuild popular expectations, and to help develop a culture and jurisprudence of indivisible human rights. Indeed, in the face of systemic inequality and crushing poverty, violence by official and private actors, globalization of the market economy, and military and environmental depredation, the human rights framework is gaining new force and new dimensions. It is being broadened today by the movements of people in different parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere

and significantly of women, who understand the protection of human rights as a matter of individual and collective human survival and betterment. Also emerging is a notion of third-generation rights, encompassing collective rights that cannot be solved on a state-by-state basis and that call for new mechanisms of accountability, particularly affecting Northern countries. The emerging rights include human-centered sustainable development, environmental

protection, peace, and security. 38 Given the poverty and inequality in the United States as well as our role in the world, it is imperative that we bring the human rights framework to bear on both domestic and foreign policy.

29


Iran Prolif

The Impact Is Nuclear WarCirinione 05, (Joseph, Senior Associate and Director for Non-Proliferation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Proliferation Threats and Solutions,” NOTRE DAME JOURNAL OF LAW, ETHICS & PUBLIC POLICY v. 19, 2005, p. 341.)

The primary danger to the United States and the world from the emergence of new nuclear states is the regional instability that will likely result . If Iran becomes a nuclear state, other states in the region will , for their own geo-political reasons, feel like they have to match the nuclear weapon capability in kind. For example, Egypt might restart the nuclear program that it had in the 1960s. Saudi Arabia, who heavily financed Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, might use their influence in Pakistan and invite Pakistan to station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory. Turkey would consider their nuclear options. A

new government in Iraq, if there is a stable government in Iraq at that point, might consider restarting Iraq's nuclear effort. In sum, there would be a chain reaction throughout the region surrounding a new nuclear state. Suddenly, a Middle East with one nuclear power - Israel - would become a region of two, three, or four nuclear powers. This scenario, in combination with existing unresolved tensions, political disputes, and territorial and religious disputes, would be a recipe for nuclear war.

30


North Korea

Conflict With Korea Risks A Nuclear ConflagrationChol (Center for Korean-American Peace) 10/22/99[Kim Myong, US-DPRK Will End Up in Shotgun Marriage, Nautilus Institute Policy Forum Online, http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/9907G_Kim.html, accessed, 11/20/03 //mac-dch]

No shotgun marriage would mean that North Korea would emerge as a major nuclear power with an intercontinental missile strike capability, or the North Koreans fighting a nuclear duel with the Americans, with their ICBMs crossing paths above the Pacific. A thermonuclear conflagration would envelop metropolitan America as well as South Korea and Japan. North Korea will never perish alone.

31

http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/9907G_Kim.html


Nuclear Testing

Earth Goes Death StarChalko ’03 [Dr. Tom, Msc, PhD, Head of Geophysics Division & Sci Reearch @ Mt Best, “Can a Neutron Bomb accelerate Global Volcanic Activity?” NU Journal of Discovery, March, nujournal.net/neutron_bomb.pdf, 9-12-06//uwyo-ajl]

Consequences of using modern nuclear weapons can be far more serious than previously imagined. These consequences relate to the fact that most of the heat generated in the planetary

interior is a result of nuclear decay. Over the last few decades, all superpowers have been developing so-called "neutron bombs" [1]. These bombs are designed to emit intensive neutron radiation while creating relatively little local mechanical damage. Military seem very keen to use neutron bombs in combat, because lethal neutron radiation can penetrate even the largest and deepest bunkers. However, the military seem to ignore the fact that a neutron radiation is capable to reach significant depths in the

planetary interior. In the process of passing through the planet and losing its intensity, a neutron beam stimulates nuclei of radioactive isotopes inside the planet to disintegrate. Stimulated disintegration, in turn, produces more neutrons. This process causes not only an increase in radiation levels but also increased nuclear heat generation in the planetary interior, far greater than the energy of the bomb itself. It typically takes many days or even weeks for this extra heat to conduct/convect to the surface of the planet and cause increased seismic/volcanic activity. Due to this variable and seemingly inconsistent delay, nuclear tests are not currently associated with seismic/volcanic activity, simply because it is believed that there is no theoretical basis for such an association. Perhaps you heard that after every major series of nuclear test there is always a period of increased seismic activity in some part of the world. This actually cannotbe explained by direct energy from the explosion. The mechanism of neutron radiation accelerating decay of radioactive isotopes in the planetary interior – a process that generates more neutrons and heat, however, is a very realistic explanation of Observable Reality. The process of accelerating volcanic activity is nuclear in essence. Accelerated decay of radioactive isotopes already present in the planetary interior provides the necessary energy. The TRUE danger of

modern nuclear weaponry is that their neutron radiation is capable to induce global overheating of the planetary interior, global volcanic activity and, in extreme circumstances, may even cause the entire planet to be demolished. So far, nuclear tests on Earth were limited to a few per year. Can we really predict what will happen if the US army uses dozens of their Neutron Bombs to destroy all “suspected” and “potential” weapon sites in Iraq?

32


Nuclear War

The impact is extinctionGordon 02, (Harvey, Visiting Lecturer, Forensic Psychiatry, Tel Aviv University, “The ‘Suicide’ Bomber: Is It a Psychiatric Phenomenon?” PSYCHIATRIC BULLETIN v. 26, 2002, pp. 285-287. Available from the Wrold Wide Web at: http://pb.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/26/8/285)

Although terrorism throughout human history has been tragic, until relatively recently it has been more of an irritant than any major hazard. However, the existence of weapons of mass destruction now renders terrorism a potential threat to the very existence of human life (Hoge & Rose, 2001). Such potential global destruction, or globicide as one might call it, supersedes even that of genocide in its lethality. Although religious factors are not the only determinant of ‘suicide’ bombers, the revival of religious fundamentalism towards the end of the 20th century renders the phenomenon a major global threat. Even though religion can be a force for good, it can equally be abused as a force for evil. Ultimately, the parallel traits in human nature of good and evil may perhaps be the most durable of all the characteristics of the human species. There is no need to apply a psychiatric analysis to the ‘suicide’ bomber because the phenomenon can be explained in political terms. Most participants in terrorism are not usually mentally disordered and their behaviour can be construed more in terms of group dynamics (Colvard, 2002). On the other hand, perhaps psychiatric terminology is as yet deficient in not having the depth to encompass the emotions and behaviour of groups of people whose levels of hate, low self-esteem, humiliation and alienation are such that it is felt that they can be remedied by the mass destruction of life, including their own.

33


Nuclear War Outweighs

PREVENTING NUCLEAR EXTINCTION IS THE ONLY WAY TO PRESERVE VALUESSchell 82, (Jonathan ,journalist, FATE OF THE EARTH, 1982, p. 184.)

For of all the “modest hopes of human beings,” the hope that [hu]mankind will survive is the most modest,

since it only brings us to the threshold of all other hopes. In entertaining it, we do not yet ask for justice, or freedom, or for happiness, or for any of the other things that we may want in life . We do not even necessarily ask for our personal survival; we ask only that we be survived. We ask for assurance that when we die as individuals, as we know we must, [hu]mankind will live on. Yet once the peril of extinction is present , as it is for

us now, the hope for human survival becomes the most tremendous hope , just because it is the foundation for all the other hopes, and in its absence every other hope will gradually wither and die. Life without hope for human survival is a life of despair.

IN A NUCLEAR WORLD WE HAVE TO WEIGH CONSEQUENCESBok 88, (Sissela , Professor, Philosophy, Brandies University, APPLIED ETHICS AND ETHICAL THEORY, ed. D. Rosenthal & F. Shehadi, 1988.)

The same argument can be made for Kant’s other formulations of the Categorical Imperative: “So act as to use humanity, both in your person and in the person of every other, always at the

same time as an end, never simply as a means”: and “So act as if you were always through actions in a law-making member in a universal Kingdom of Ends.” No one with a

concern for humanity could consistently will to risk eliminating humanity in the person of himself and every other or to risk the death of

all members in a universal Kingdom of Ends for the sake of justice. To risk their collective death for the sake of following one’s conscience would be, as Rawls said, “irrational, crazy,” And to say that one did not intend such a catastrophe, but that one merely failed to stop other persons from bringing it about would be beside the point when the end of the world was at stake . For although it is true that we cannot be held responsible for most of the

wrongs that others commit, the Latin maxim presents a case where we would have to take such a responsibility seriously- perhaps to the point of

deceiving, bribing, even killing an innocent person, in order that the world would not perish .

34


Poverty

Poverty Makes Global Nuclear War Inevitable Caldwell 03 (Joseph George Caldwell, PhD, The End of the World, and the New World Order, updae of an article published 10/26/00, March 6, 2003, www.foundation.bw/TheEndOfTheWorld.htm.

It would appear that global nuclear war will happen very soon, for two main reasons , alluded to above.

First, human poverty and misery are increasing at an incredible rate. There are now three billion more desperately poor people on the planet than there were just forty years ago. Despite decades

of industrial development, the number of wretchedly poor people continues to soar. The pressure for war mounts as the population explodes. Second, war is motivated by resource scarcity -- the desire of one group to acquire the land, water, energy, or other resources possessed by another. With each passing year, crowding and misery increase, raising the motivation for war to higher levels.

Poverty is the deadliest form of structural violence – it is equivalent to an ongoing nuclear war.Gilligan, 96’ [James, Former Director of Mental Health for the Massachusetts Prison System, Violence, p.]

In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear that caused 232 million deaths ; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews

over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unenending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide,

perpetuated on the weak and poor ever year of every decade, throughout the world.

35

http://www.foundation.bw/TheEndOfTheWorld.htm


Prolif

Proliferation Risks ExtinctionStuart Taylor Jr., journalist, LEGAL TIMES, September 16, 2002, LN.

The truth is, no matter what we do about Iraq, if we don't stop proliferation another five or ten potentially unstable nations may go nuclear before long, making it ever more likely that one or more bombs will be set off on our soil by terrorists or terrorist governments. Even an airtight missile defense will be useless against a nuke hidden in a truck, a shipping container, or a boat.

Unless we get serious about stopping proliferation, we are headed for "a world filled with nuclear-weapons states where every crisis threatens to go nuclear," where "the survival of civilization truly is in question from day to day ," and where "it would be impossible to keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists, religious cults, and criminal organizations," So writes Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., a moderate Republican who served as a career arms-controller under six presidents and led the successful Clinton administration effort to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

36


Racism

Must RejectBarndt ‘91 [Joseph, Co-director of Ministry Working to Dismantle Racism, "Dismantling Racism" p. 155//wdc]

But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the

possibility of freedom. Brick by brick , stone by stone , the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to joing the efforst of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism.The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and

predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power and privelage from the sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.

Failure To Combat Racism Risks ExtinctionJoseph Barndt, Co-Director, Crossroads, DISMANTLING RACISM, 1991, p. 155-156

The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust: the effects of uncontrolled power privilege, and greed, which are the

marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction, may be reaching a point of no return. A small and predominately white minority of the global population derives its power and privilege from the suffering of

the vast majority of peoples of color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.

37


Rape

Rape is a fate worse than death and causes traumatic long-term psychological problemsGlazer 97, Assistant District Attorney of Bronx County, ‘97 [Yale, "Child Rapists Beware! The Death Penalty and Louisiana's Amended Aggravated Rape Statute", American Journal of Criminal Law, Fall, 25 Am. J. Crim. L. 79]

Rape is one of the fastest growing violent crimes reported in the United States ; it is estimated that a rape is reported every two to six minutes and that one of every six women will be raped at some point in their lives. Studies of rape show it to be a violent and brutal crime, often involving sexual

humiliation and physical abuse. "Rape is unique among acts of violence: it shatters not only a victim's physical well-being but also her emotional world. Psychologists say that the surviving victim's sense of self-esteem, security and basic trust may be irreparably damaged." Rape has been called a "fate worse than death." As a result of being

raped, victims often suffer extreme trauma, both physically and emotionally. The symptoms experienced by rape victims have been compared in severity to post-traumatic stress disorder observed in war veterans. Rape often

induces a cycle of behavioral problems that extend well beyond the time when the physical damage from the assault has healed. Women often experience "intense attacks on [their] psychic equilibrium," often requiring intensive psychotherapy treatments. Other long-term consequences of rape include self-destructive behavior, impaired self-esteem, interpersonal problems, and a greater likelihood of becoming a drug or alcohol addict.

38


Space

One hundred trillion humans are lost every second of delayed colonizationBostrom, Professor of Philosophy at Yale & Oxford, 2K4 (Nick, “Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development,” http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html)

"As I write these words, suns are illuminating and heating empty rooms, unused energy is being flushed down black holes, and our great common endowment of negentropy is being irreversibly degraded into entropy on a cosmic scale. These are resources that an advanced civilization could have used to create value-structures, such as sentient beings living worthwhile lives. The rate of this loss boggles the mind. One recent paper speculates, using loose theoretical considerations based on the rate of increase of entropy, that the loss of potential human lives in our own galactic supercluster is at least ~10^46 per century of delayed colonization.[1] This estimate assumes that all the lost entropy could have been used for productive purposes, although no currently known technological mechanisms are even remotely capable of doing that. Since the estimate is meant to be a lower bound, this radically unconservative assumption is undesirable. We can, however, get a lower bound more straightforwardly by simply counting the number or stars in our galactic supercluster and multiplying this number with the amount of computing power that the resources of each star could be used to generate using technologies for whose feasibility a strong case has already been made. We can then divide this total with the estimated amount of computing power needed to simulate one human life. As a rough approximation, let us say the Virgo Supercluster contains 10^13 stars. One estimate of the computing power extractable from a star and with an associated planet-sized computational structure, using advanced molecular nanotechnology[2], is 10^42 operations per second.[3] A typical estimate of the human brain's processing power is roughly 10^17 operations per second or less.[4] Not much more seems to be needed to simulate the relevant parts of the environment in sufficient detail to enable the simulated minds to have experiences indistinguishable from typical current human experiences.[5] Given these estimates, it follows that the potential for approximately 10^38 human lives is lost every century that colonization of our local supercluster is delayed; or equivalently, about 10^31 potential human lives per second. While this estimate is conservative in that it assumes only computational mechanisms whose implementation has been at least outlined in the literature, it is useful to have an even more conservative estimate that does not assume a non-biological

instantiation of the potential persons. Suppose that about 10^10 biological humans could be sustained around an average star. Then the Virgo Supercluster could contain 10^23 biological humans. This corresponds to a loss of potential equal to about 10^14 potential human lives per second of

delayed colonization. What matters for present purposes is not the exact numbers but the fact that they are huge. Even with the most conservative estimate, assuming a biological implementation of all persons, the potential for one hundred trillion potential human beings is lost for every second of postponement of colonization of our supercluster.[6]"

39


Terrorism

ExtinctionAlexander 00 (Yonah, Professor and Director, Inter-University Center for Terrorism, “Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century: Threats and Responses,” DEPAUL BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL v. 12, Fall 1999/Spring 2000, p. 66-67.)

More specifically, present-day terrorists have introduced into contemporary life a new scale of terror violence in terms of both threats and responses that has made clear that we have entered

into an Age of Terrorism with all of its serious implications to national, regional, and global security concerns. n25 Perhaps the most significant dangers that evolve from modern day terrorism are those relating to the safety, welfare, and rights of ordinary people; the stability of the state system; the health of economic [*67] development; the expansion of democracy; and possibly the survival of civilization itself.

Terrorism Risks ExtinctionGordon 02 (Harvey, Visiting Lecturer, Forensic Psychiatry, Tel Aviv University, “The ‘Suicide’ Bomber: Is It a Psychiatric Phenomenon?” PSYCHIATRIC BULLETIN v. 26, 2002, pp. 285-287. Available from the Wrold Wide Web at: http://pb.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/26/8/285)

Although terrorism throughout human history has been tragic, until relatively recently it has been more of an irritant than any major hazard. However, the existence of weapons of mass destruction now renders terrorism a potential threat to the very existence of human life (Hoge & Rose, 2001). Such potential global destruction, or globicide as one might call it, supersedes even that of genocide in its lethality . Although religious factors are not the only determinant of ‘suicide’ bombers, the revival of religious fundamentalism towards the end of the 20th century renders the phenomenon a major global threat. Even though religion can be a force for good, it can equally be abused as a force for evil. Ultimately, the parallel traits in human nature of good and evil may perhaps be the most durable of all the characteristics of the human species. There is no need to apply a psychiatric analysis to the ‘suicide’ bomber because the phenomenon can be explained in political terms. Most participants in terrorism are not usually mentally disordered and their behaviour can be construed more in terms of group dynamics (Colvard, 2002). On the other hand, perhaps psychiatric terminology is as yet deficient in not having the depth to encompass the emotions and behaviour of groups of people whose levels of hate, low self-esteem, humiliation and alienation are such that it is felt that they can be remedied by the mass destruction of life, including their own.

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Toxic Waste

Toxic Waste Threatens The Survival Of The PlanetDeborah Katz, activist, Toxic Waste Threatens Communities, 1998, www.resistinc.org/newsletter/issues/1998/01/art1.html, accessed 1/5/05.

Toxic contamination of the planet threatens human survival. In our time, we will detennine whether there is clean air to breath, water to drink and places to live for our children and theirs. Industrial technology-with its shadow of pollution-overwhelms us and threatens the democratic structures on which we depend. The scientific community and the nuclear industry undermine citizens' confidence in their ability to understand nuclear power and its effects. Many people have withdrawn from the process, potentially allowing vital decisions to be dictated outside of democratic safeguards. This "meltdown of democracy" is exemplified in the atomic power industry.

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http://www.resistinc.org/newsletter/issues/1998/01/art1.html


Trade Good

Shift From Free Trade Risks Nuclear WarsVincent H. Miller and James R. Elwood, President and Vice President, International Society for Individual Liberty, “Free Trade or Protectionism? The Case Against Trade Restrictions,” 1988, http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/free-trade-protectionism.html, accessed 6/5/05.

When the government of Country "A" puts up trade barriers against the goods of Country "B", the government of Country "B" will naturally retaliate by erecting trade barriers against the

goods of Country "A". The result? A trade war in which both sides lose . But all too often a depressed economy is not the only negative outcome of a trade war . . . WHEN GOODS DON'T CROSS BORDERS, ARMIES OFTEN DO

History is not lacking in examples of cold trade wars escalating into hot shooting wars : Europe suffered from almost non-stop wars during the 17th and 18th centuries, when restrictive trade policy (mercantilism) was the rule; rival governments fought each other to expand their empires and to exploit captive markets. British tariffs provoked the American colonists to revolution, and later the Northern-dominated US government imposed restrictions on Southern cotton exports - a major factor leading to the American Civil War. In the late 19th Century, after a half century of general free trade (which brought a half-century of peace), short-sighted politicians throughout Europe again began erecting trade barriers. Hostilities built up until they eventually exploded into World War I. In 1930, facing only a mild recession, US President Hoover ignored warning pleas in a petition by 1028 prominent economists and signed the notorious Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised some tariffs to 100% levels. Within a year, over 25 other governments had retaliated by passing similar laws. The result? World trade came to a grinding halt, and the entire world was plunged into the "Great Depression" for the rest of the decade. The depression in turn led to World War II. THE #1 DANGER TO WORLD PEACE The world enjoyed its greatest economic growth during the relatively free trade period of 1945-1970, a period that also saw no major wars. Yet we again see trade barriers being raised around the world by short-sighted politicians. Will the world again end up in a

shooting war as a result of these economically-deranged policies ? Can we afford to allow this to happen in the nuclear age? "What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism : embargoes, trade and foreign exchange controls, monetary

devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war." Ludwig von Mises Classical Liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill astutely observed in the last century that "Trade barriers are chiefly injurious to the countries imposing them." It is true today as it was then, for the following reasons:

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http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/free-trade-protectionism.html


Trade Bad

Trade Ensures Massive Poverty, Social Disorder, And Multilple Scenarios For Eco-DoomJerry Mander, Program Director, Foundation for Deep Ecology, “Facing the Rising Tide,” THE CASE AGAINST THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, ed. J. Mander & E. Goldwmith, 1996, p. 3-4.

The occasional descriptions or predictions about the global economy that are found in the media usually come from the leading advocates and beneficiaries of this new order: corporate leaders, their allies in government, and a newly powerful centralized global trade bureaucracy. The visions they offer us are unfailingly

positive, even utopian: Globalization will be a panacea for our ills. Shockingly enough, the euphoria they express is based on their freedom to employ, at a global level—through the new global free trade rules , and through

deregulation and economic restructuring regimes—large-scale versions of the economic theories, strategies, and policies that have proven spectacularly unsuccessful over the past several decades wherever they’ve been applied. In fact, these are the very ideas that have brough us to the grim situation of the moment: the spreading disintegration of the social order, and the increase in poverty, landlessness, homelessness, violence, alientation, and deep within the hearts of many people, extreme anxiety about the future. Equally important, these are practices that have led us to the near breakdown of the natural world, as evidenced by such symptoms as global climate change, ozone depletion, massive species loss, and near maximum levels of air, soil, and water pollution. We are now being asked to believe that the development processes that have further impoverished people and devastated the planet will lead to diametrically different and highly beneficial outcomes, if only they can be accelerated and applied everywhere, freely, without restriction; that is, when they are globalized. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it is not too late to stop this from happening.

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Warming Bad

Warming Destroys All Life On Earth—Runaway Greenhouse Followed By Martian Deep FreezeBrandenburg & Paxson (Phds) ’99 [John & Monica, Dead Mars, Dying Earth, p. 232 //wndi03]

One can imagine a scenario for global catastrophe that runs similarly. If the human race adopted a mentality like the crew aboard the ship Californian- as some urge, saying that both ozone hole and global warming will disappear if statistics

are properly examined, and we need do nothing about either- the following scenario could occur.The ozone hole expands, driven by a monstrous synergy with global warming that puts more catalytic ice crystals into the stratosphere, but this affects the far north and south and not the major

nations’ heartlands. The sea rise, the tropic roast but the media networks no longer cover it. The Amazon rainforest becomes the Amazon desert. Oxygen levels fall, but profits rise for those who can provide it in bottles.An equatorial high pressure zone forms, forcing drought in central Africa and Brazil, the Nile dries up and the monsoons fail, Then inevitably, at some unlucky point in time, a major unexpected event occurs—a major volcanic eruption, a sudden and dramatic shift in ocean circulation or a large asteroid impact ( those who think freakish accidents

do not occur have paid little attention to life or mars), or a nuclear war that starts between Pakistan and India and escalates to involve China and Russia… Suddenly the gradual climb in global temperatures goes on a mad excursion as the oceans warm and release large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide from their lower depths into the atmosphere. Oxygen levels go down precipitously as oxygen replaces lost oceanic carbon dioxide. Asthma cases

double and then double again. Now a third of the world fears breathing.. As the oceans dump carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect increases, which further warms, the oceans, causing them to dump even more carbon. Because of the heat, plants die and burn in enormous fires which release more carbon dioxide, and the oceans evaporate, adding more water vapor to the greenhouse. Soon, we are in what is termed a runaway greenhouse effect, as happened to Venus eons ago. The last two surviving scientist inevitably argue, one telling the other, “See! I told you the missing sink was in the ocean!”

Earth, as we know it dies. After this Venusian excursion in temperatures, the oxygen disappears into the soil, the oceans evaporate and are lost and the dead earth loses it ozone layer completely.Earth is too far from the sun for it to be the second Venus for long. Its atmosphere is slowly lost- as is its water- because of ultraviolet bombardment breaking up all the molecules apart from carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere becomes thin, the earth becomes colder. For a short while temperatures are nearly normal, but the ultraviolet sears and life that tries to make a comeback.

The carbon dioxide thins out to form a think veneer with a few wispy clouds and dust devils. Earth becomes the second Mars- red, desolate, with perhaps a few hardy microbes surviving.

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Warming Bad – Chalko

Warming Causes The Earth To Go Death StarDr. Tom J. Chalko, MS, Engineering & PhD, Laser Holography, “Global Warming: Can Earth Explode?” 2002, http://www.bioresonant.com/news.htm.

The real danger for our entire civilization comes not from slow climate changes, but from overheating the planetary interior. Galileo discovered that Earth moves. Copernicus discovered that Earth moves around the Sun. In 2000 Tom Chalko, inspired by Desmarquet's report,

discovered that the solid nucleus of our planet is in principle a nuclear reactor and that our collective ignorance may cause it to overheat and explode. The discovery has been published in June 2001 by the new scientific journal NUJournal.net. Polar ice caps melt not because the air there is warmer than 0 deg Celsius, but because they are overheated from underneath. Volcanoes become active and erupt violently not because the Earth's interior "crystallizes", but because the planetary nucleus is a nuclear fission reactor that needs COOLING. It seems that the currently adopted doctrine of a "crystalline inner core of

Earth" is more dangerous for humanity than all weapons of mass destruction taken together, because it prevents us from imagining, predicting and preventing truly global disasters. In any nuclear reactor, the danger of overheating has to be recognized early. When external symptoms intensify it is usually too late to prevent disaster. Do we have enough imagination, intelligence and integrity to comprehend the danger before the situation becomes irreversible? Did you see the figure

above? It seems that if we do not do anything today about Greenhouse Emissions that cause the entire atmosphere to trap more Solar Heat, we may not survive the next decade. In a systematically under-cooled spherical core reactor the cumulative cause-effect relationship is hyperbolic and leads to explosion. It seems that there will be no second chance... If you doubt whether a planet can explode - you need to see a witness report of a planetary explosion in our Solar system. Plato (428-348 BC) reported that the explosion of the planet Phaeton had been perceived by our ancestors on Earth to be as bright as lightning... * the first few months of 2002 were the WARMEST ever recorded on Earth. The trend continues. * Huge parts of Antarctic and Arctic ice have already melted. Key Antarctic glaciers (Hektoria, Green and Evans for example) increased their melting rate 8 times in 3 years (between 2000 and 2003, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L18401). When glaciers begin to slide to the ocean, the sea level rise will cause a global planetary flood. * Volcanoes become active under Arctic Ocean and in Antarctica * The Largest Volcanoes on Earth are losing their snow-caps * Oceans are warmer than ever. Their increased evaporation produces large amount of clouds, rain and widespread flooding * In heated oceans all currents are severely disrupted * Mountain glaciers melt around the globe * The weather around the globe becomes more violent every month What causes 8-fold increase in Antarctic glacier melting in just 3 years? Sun does not deliver 8 times the energy under the Antarctic ice does it? Some scientists predict that effects of "global warming" will take many decades. Can they explain the increase of the melting rate of Antarctic glaciers 8 times in 3 years? Overheating of the fission heated planetary interior can... The matter seems URGENT. Please forward this page (or the link to it) to ANY scientist or person of integrity whom you know. Our ONLY chance seems to be to UNDERSTAND and PROVE to everyone what will happen if we do not change our attitude to atmospheric pollution. Avoid the mass media - it seems that they are controlled by those who run the "economy" and are interested in keeping humanity misinformed to the greatest extent possible. To withhold, distort or otherwise interfere with the truth about the Planetary Core is a Crime Against Humanity - one of the greatest crimes that man can commit.Money cannot save the Planet. Only Understanding can. Focus on Understanding. It cannot be undone.

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http://www.bioresonant.com/news.htm


Warming Good – Health

History Proves That Warming Increases HealthMoore (Sr. Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ.) ’98 [Thomas Gale, Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry About Global Warming //wndi03]

Kremer’s hypothesis signifies that for most of history the rate of population growth should be proportional to the size of the population. To link his model and data with climate change, I started with his estimate of the world’s people in 10,000 B.C. and calculated the rate of growth of the population over the next 5,000 years. For each subsequent period, I also computed the

rate of increase in numbers of people. Comparing the expected rates with actual growth revealed eras in which the number of humans has expanded faster than predicted and periods during which the world’s population has grown more slowly. The figure then shows the centuries in which the growth rate of the globe’s

populace has exceeded or fallen short of the rate expected under this simple model. As can be seen, warm periods have done considerably better than cold periods in human expansion. The warmest period since the end of the last Ice Age produced the highest rate of population growth compared with what would have been expected—in that era agriculture was spreading. Moreover, the Mini Ice Age, which saw the coldest temperatures in the last 10,000 years,

underwent the slowest relative population expansion. The figure demonstrates that mankind has prospered in warm periods and the hotter, the better!

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