Impact Around the World

Ramakrishnan/DDW/ENDI

Impact Around the World

To prepare for this game, you can discuss some potential ways to do impact calculus. If you would like, you could show this video to your class ddi08.wikispaces.com/Impact+Analysis++Beyond+Magnitude%2C+Probability%2C+Timeframe+elective

Divide your class into small groups. Each group should have a print out of this file so they have a full selection of impact cards. Have the students sit in a circle with one student standing up. Two students will compete against each other in an “around the world” style.

When two students face off they pick an impact card at random, each side must pretend that the other had totally conceded the other’s disadvantage/advantage so that there is 100% probability. The two students who are facing off will get 20 seconds to read each other’s cards, 40 seconds to prepare their own speech, and then get a 40 second speech. Afterwards, the rest of the group puts their heads down and votes. The winner than moves on to take on the next person in the circle.

In the second competition, and all subsequent ones, the new opponent picks a new impact card but the returning champion must continue with their previous impact card. All other rules remain the same.

Credit for this game goes to Varsha Ramakrishnan from University School of Nashville.


Warming

Runaway warming causes extinction

Henderson 06. (Bill, “Runaway Global Warming – Denial”, CounterCurrents, August 19, countercurrents.org/cc-henderson190806.htm)

The scientific debate about human induced global warming is over but policy makers - let alone the happily shopping general public - still seem to not understand the scope of the impending tragedy. Global warming isn't just warmer temperatures, heat waves, melting ice and threatened polar bears. Scientific understanding increasingly points to runaway global warming leading to human extinction. If impossibly Draconian security measures are not immediately put in place to keep further emissions of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere we are looking at the death of billions, the end of civilization as we know it and in all probability the end of man's several million year old existence, along with the extinction of most flora and fauna beloved to man in the world we share.Runaway global warming: there are 'carbon bombs': carbon in soils, carbon in warming temperate and boreal forests and in a drought struck Amazon, methane in Arctic peat bogs and in methane hydrates melting in warming ocean waters. For several decades it has been hypothesized that rising temperatures from increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels could be releasing some of and eventually all of these stored carbon stocks to add substantually more potent greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.. Given time lags of 30-50 years, we might have already put enough extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to have crossed a threshold to these bombs exploding, their released greenhouse gases leading to ever accelerating global warming with future global temperatures maybe tens of degrees higher than our norms of human habitation and therefor extinction or very near extinction of humanity.


US-Russia

A US-Russian war is the only scenario for extinction. Such existential risks outweigh diseases, world wars, and smaller nuclear wars.Bostrum 02. (Dr. Nick, Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at YALE, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards," 3-8-02, http://www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html) Risks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it is useful to distinguish them from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms, either biologically or culturally, for managing such risks. Our intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous animals, hostile individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life. They haven't significantly affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined the long-term fate of our species. With the exception of a species-destroying comet or asteroid impact (an extremely rare occurrence), there were probably no significant existential risks in human history until the mid-twentieth century, and certainly none that it was within our power to do something about.The first manmade existential risk was the inaugural detonation of an atomic bomb. At the time, there was some concern that the explosion might start a runaway chain-reaction by "igniting" the atmosphere. Although we now know that such an outcome was physically impossible, it qualifies as an existential risk that was present at the time. For there to be a risk, given the knowledge and understanding available, it suffices that there is some subjective probability of an adverse outcome, even if it later turns out that objectively there was no chance of something bad happening. If we don't know whether something is objectively risky or not, then it is risky in the subjective sense. The subjective sense is of course what we must base our decisions on. [2] At any given time we must use our best current subjective estimate of what the objective risk factors are.[3] A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately . There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind's potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.The special nature of the challenges posed by existential risks is illustrated by the following points:· Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach – see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions.· We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a different kind of beast. We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat.· Reductions in existential risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to take countermeasures against a major existential risk.· If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we discount future benefits [15,16].

http://www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html


Liberty

Value to life outweighs everything – we must reject every violation of freedom with undying spirit

Petro 74. (Sylvester, Prof of Law @ Wake Forest U, University of Toledo Law Review, pg. 4801)

However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway - "I believe in only one thing: liberty." And it is always well to bear in mind David Hume's observation: " It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." Thus, it is unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no import because there have been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism, and the end of all human aspiration . Ask Solzhenitsyn. Ask Milovan Djilas. In sum, if one believes in freedom as a supreme value and the Proper ordering; principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying spirit.


Oceans

Oceans key to survivalCraig '03. (Robin Kundis Craig -- Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University Schoolof Law – McGeorge Law Rev – Winter – elipses in original)

The world's oceans contain many resources and provide many services that humans consider valuable. "Occupy[ing] more than [seventy percent] of the earth's surface and [ninety-five percent] of the biosphere," 17 oceans provide food; marketable goods such as shells, aquarium fish, and pharmaceuticals; life support processes, including carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and weather mechanics; and quality of life, both aesthetic and economic, for millions of people worldwide. 18 Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the importance of the ocean to humanity's well-being: "The ocean is the cradle of life on our planet, and it remains the axis of existence , the locus of planetary biodiversity, and the engine of the chemical and hydrological cycles that create and maintain our atmosphere andclimate." 19 Ocean and coastal ecosystem services have been calculated to be worth over twenty billion dollars per year, worldwide. 20 In addition, many people assign heritage and existence value to the ocean and its creatures, viewing the world's seas as a common legacy to be passed on relatively intact to future generations. 21


US-China

US/China war goes nuclear

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, 5-14-2001, The Nation, Pg. 20

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 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.


Asian Conflict

Conflict in Asia causes global nuclear annihilation

Ogura and Oh ‘97(Toshimaru and Ingyu, Teachers – Economics, Monthly Review, April)

North Korea, South Korea, and Japan have achieved quasi- or virtual nuclear armament. Although these countries do not produce or possess actual bombs, they possess sufficient technological know-how to possess one or several nuclear arsenals. Thus, virtual armament creates a new nightmare in this region - nuclear annihilation . Given the concentration of economic affluence and military power in this region and its growing importance to the world system, any hot conflict among these countries would threaten to escalate into a global conflagration .


Water Wars

Water wars go nuclear

Weiner 90. (Jonathan, Prof at Princeton U, The Next 100 Years. p.270)

If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-bomb and the H-bomb, then we may destroy ourselves with the C-bomb, the Change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the Middle East, tram North Africa to the Persian Gulf and from the Nile to the Euphrates, tensions over dwindling water supplies and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint A climate shift in that single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some at the 60.000 nuclear warheads the world has stockpiled since Trinity.


Terrorism

Terrorism risks extinction

Alexander 03. (Yonah, Prof and Director of Inter-University for Terrorism Studies, Washington Times, August 28, lexis)

Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical , radiological, nuclear and cyber ] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and global security concerns. Two myths in particular must be debunked immediately if an effective counterterrorism "best practices" strategy can be developed [e.g., strengthening international cooperation]. The first illusion is that terrorism can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated completely, provided the root causes of conflicts - political, social and economic - are addressed. The conventional illusion is that terrorism must be justified by oppressed people seeking to achieve their goals and consequently the argument advanced by "freedom fighters" anywhere, "give me liberty and I will give you death," should be tolerated if not glorified. This traditional rationalization of "sacred" violence often conceals that the real purpose of terrorist groups is to gain political power through the barrel of the gun, in violation of fundamental human rights of the noncombatant segment of societies. For instance, Palestinians religious movements [e.g., Hamas, Islamic Jihad] and secular entities [such as Fatah's Tanzim and Aqsa Martyr Brigades]] wish not only to resolve national grievances [such as Jewish settlements, right of return, Jerusalem] but primarily to destroy the Jewish state. Similarly, Osama bin Laden's international network not only opposes the presence of American military in the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, but its stated objective is to "unite all Muslims and establish a government that follows the rule of the Caliphs." The second myth is that strong action against terrorist infrastructure [leaders, recruitment, funding, propaganda, training, weapons, operational command and control] will only increase terrorism. The argument here is that law-enforcement efforts and military retaliation inevitably will fuel more brutal acts of violent revenge. Clearly, if this perception continues to prevail, particularly in democratic societies, there is the danger it will paralyze governments and thereby encourage further terrorist attacks. In sum, past experience provides useful lessons for a realistic future strategy. The prudent application of force has been demonstrated to be an effective tool for short- and long-term deterrence of terrorism. For example, Israel's targeted killing of Mohammed Sider, the Hebron commander of the Islamic Jihad, defused a "ticking bomb." The assassination of Ismail Abu Shanab - a top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip who was directly responsible for several suicide bombings including the latest bus attack in Jerusalem - disrupted potential terrorist operations. Similarly, the U.S. military operation in Iraq eliminated Saddam Hussein's regime as a state sponsor of terror. Thus, it behooves those countries victimized by terrorism to understand a cardinal message communicated by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940: "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be: For without victory, there is no survival ."


Democracy

Democracy checks extinction

Diamond 95. (Larry, Snr. research fellow @ Hoover Institute, Promoting Democracy in the 1990's, p 6-7)

This hardly exhausts the list 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.


Small Arms

Small Arms outweigh Nuclear Weapons -- certainty of use & systemicimpacts make them a higher priority.

Wood ‘94. (DAVID WOOD; NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE -- Plain Dealer – March20th – lexis)

From Somalia to Sarajevo and in dozens of lesser-known conflicts, a relentless proliferation of small arms is fueling a global wave of mayhem , and is beyond the ability of authorities to control or even monitor. A flood of excess Cold War weapons, together

with a recent boom in exports from new arms factories around the world, has combined to lethal effect with a virulent new form of conflict ideally suited to small arms: ethnic and religious terrorism and violence, spurred by economic

and environmental deterioration and overpopulation.

"A fully loaded fighter plane is obviously more deadly than a rifle, but there are a lot more rifles in the world and they are used with much less discretion," said Aaron Karp, a political scientist at Old Dominion University in Virginia and one of

a handful of arms analysts who are beginning to study the problem. In the Persian Gulf war of 1991, 5,000 to 10,000 Iraqis are believed to have been killed, mostly by American

bombers, guided missiles and long-range artillery. By contrast, Karp said, a dozen "minor" conflicts around the world at the same time - in Angola and Cambodia, for instance –

each produced more than 10,000 deaths, most of them the result of rifles, hand grenades and mines. While the world's arsenals of missiles, long-range bombers

and nuclear weapons bear watching, Karp said, "the greater danger certainly comes from the weapons used in ethnic conflict ."


Economy

Collapse of the economy leads to death of billions

Lewis 98. (Chris, Instructor @ Sewall American Studies Program @ U of Colorado at Boulder, The Coming Age of Scarcitv: Preventing Mass Death and Genocide in the Twentv-first Century, p. 56)

Most critics would argue, probably correctly, that instead of allowing underdeveloped countries to withdraw from the global economy and undermine the economies of the developing world, the United States. Europe. and Japan and others will fight neocolonial wars to force these countries to remain within this collapsing global economy. These neocolonial wars will result in mass death, suffering, and even regional nuclear wars. If First World countries choose military confrontation and political repression to maintain the global economy, then we may see mass death and genocide on a global scale that will make the deaths of World War I1 pale in comparison. However, these neocolonial wars, fought to maintain the developed nations' economic and political hegemony, will cause the final collapse of our global industrial civilization. These wars will so damage the complex economic and trading networks and squander material, biological, and energy resources that they will undermine the global economy and its ability to support the earth's 6 to 8 billion people. This would be the worst-case scenario for the collapse of global civilization.


Ethnic Conflicts

Ethnic conflicts escalate to nuclear war

Shehadi ’93. (Kama, Research Associate – International Institute for Strategic Studies, Ethnic Self-Determination and the Break Up of States, p. 81)

This paper has argued that self-determination conflicts have direct adverse consequences on international security. As they begin to tear nuclear states apart, the likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of individuals or groups willing to use them, or to trade them to others, will reach frightening levels. This likelihood increases if a conflict over self-determination escalates into a war between two nuclear states. The Russian Federation and Ukraine may fight over the Crimea and the Donbass area; and India and Pakistan may fight over Kashmir. Ethnic conflicts may also spread both within a state and from one state to the next. This can happen in countries where more than one ethnic self-determination conflict is brewing: Russia, India and Ethiopia, for example. The conflict may also spread by contagion from one country to another if the state is weak politically and militarily and cannot contain the conflict on its doorstep. Lastly, there is a real danger that regional conflicts will erupt over national minorities and borders.


Famine

Food shortages lead to World War III

Calvin 98. (William, theoretical neurophysiologist @ U Washington, “The Great Climate Flip-Flop”, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 281, No. 1, January, p. 47-64)

The population-crash scenario is surely the most appalling. Plummeting crop yields would cause some powerful countries to try to take over their neighbors or distant lands -- if only because their armies, unpaid and lacking food, would go marauding, both at home and across the borders. The better-organized countries would attempt to use their armies, before they fell apart entirely, to take over countries with significant remaining resources, driving out or starving their inhabitants if not using modern weapons to accomplish the same end: eliminating competitors for the remaining food. This would be a worldwide problem -- and could lead to a Third World War -- but Europe's vulnerability is particularly easy to analyze. The last abrupt cooling, the Younger Dryas, drastically altered Europe's climate as far east as Ukraine. Present-day Europe has more than 650 million people. It has excellent soils, and largely grows its own food. It could no longer do so if it lost the extra warming from the North Atlantic.


Genocide

Genocide spreads rapidly and systemically kills millions – Sudan proves

Smith 05 (James- Chief executive of Aegis, an independent, international organisation, dedicated to eliminating genocide. Darfur: the status quo is not an option. Oct 12 http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=88)

A picture of deep concern regarding the situation in Darfur has been presented by Juan Mendez, Kofi Annan’s Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention. Current policies of developed nations toward the crisis in Western Sudan appear to rely on there being a status quo in Darfur while a settlement between the Government of Sudan and the African Darfur rebels is reached through political mediation. This dynamic must radically change, or Darfur will spiral into an even greater tragedy whilst we tinker on the sidelines. First of all, nations must accept that the status quo, if there is one, is unacceptable. The genocidal actions to get rid of African tribes from the Land of the Fur is almost complete. Let us be reminded that around a quarter of a million people were killed in the violence of the past two years there. A further two million people have been displaced from their villages and are corralled in camps . They are vulnerable to attack by Arab militia at night , are ridden with disease and rape is rife. Aegis stated in clear terms during the past year that the protection strategy in Darfur must be more robust. Recalling the lessons from Bosnia and from Rwanda that half-baked protection mandates and half-strength protection forces lead to failed protection missions, the Protect Darfur campaign was launched. This was not a criticism of the African Union. They have taken an appropriate and rightful lead as a regional organisation to respond rapidly to the crisis. There is no doubt they have saved lives by their presence. But they have not been given all the support they need by major donors. Last month they ran out of cash for fuel and salaries. To the shame of wealthy western governments who spoke piously about assistance to Africa this summer in Edinburgh, independent grassroots organisations are trying to raise money to help the African Union mission in Sudan. A quarter of a million dollars has been raised by the student movement Genocide Intervention Fund in the US, to pay for Rwandan policewomen to go to Darfur. If the Security Council of the UN constrains the African Union protection force with its current mandate and current strength, it will be tantamount to maintaining a situation that the Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic defined as ethnic cleansing. In Kosovo we reversed it, but in Darfur we maintain it. In our briefings in June this year, Aegis warned that the apparent improvement in security was due to the near-completion of the operation of the Janjaweed and Government of Sudan and that the situation would not remain stable. It was predictable that factions of the rebel groups would seek to aggravate the conflict, as they will not tolerate such a status quo: "Reduction of direct violence during May 2005 is misleading the international community into believing there is improvement in security. […] The harder the international community make it for refugees to return and the more marginalized we allow the African population to become, the greater the risk that rebel groups will convert this largely one-sided genocidal crisis into another protracted African civil war . Without increased protection then, the less likely it will be to find a political solution to the crisis." Aegis Briefing 15 June 2005 “The frustration of keeping the status quo in Darfur is likely to lead to greater attacks from the rebel groups, who have a rich source of young recruits from the IDP camps. There is a high probability that the genocidal conflict organized by the Arab militia and the GOS in the past three years may convert into a prolonged civil war that the small AU force would not be able to contain.” Aegis Briefing, 30 June 2005 Indeed, the rebels are now their own worst enemies, attacking not only Janjaweed Arab militia and Government of Sudan positions, but detaining African Union mission workers. Three African Union personnel have been killed in the past week. Darfur is spiralling into further tragedy that may engulf the entire country. Millions have already perished in Sudan’s multiple genocidal wars over the past two decades and there are warnings that this vast country could soon fragment further. In addition to deterioration of the Darfur crisis in the West, other regions of Sudan have growing tensions. In the East of Sudan, marginalised African tribes are also reaching tipping point with the Government of Sudan. Sheikh Ali, a senior member of one political party in the East, the Beja Congress, referring to the lessons of Darfur last week said “the Government only listens to people who carry guns.” I heard exactly the same comments from Darfur rebel commanders when I was in Chad and Darfur 16 months ago, referring to the lessons from the South of Sudan. Then, prospect for peace in the South looked hopeful, but the recent death of John Garang, the Southern leader, is another wound to the peace efforts in Sudan. The scene is being set for millions more to face death, destruction and unimaginable suffering.

http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=88

http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=88


Poverty

Poverty outweighs an ongoing thermonuclear war

James Gilligan, Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, 2000 edition, Violence: Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic, p. 195-196

The 14 to 18 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those caused by genocide--or about eight million per year, 1935-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-1966 (perhaps 575,000 deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), and even a hypothetical nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other word, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war 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, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world.


Constitution

Undermining the Constitution causes extinction

Henkin 88. (Columbia, 1988, (Atlantic Comm Qtly, Spring)

Lawyers, even constitutional lawyers, argue "technically," with references to text and principles of construction, drawing lines, and insisting on sharp distinctions. Such discussion sometimes seems ludicrous when it addresses issues of life and death and Armaggedon. But behind the words of the Constitution and the technicalities of constitutional construction lie the basic values of the United States–limited government even at the cost of inefficiency; safeguards against autarchy and oligarchy; democratic values represented differently in the presidency and in Congress, as well as in the intelligent participation and consent of the governed. In the nuclear age the technicalities of constitutionalism and of constitutional jurisprudence safeguard also the values and concerns of civilized people committed to human survival.


Environment

Each new species extinction risks planetary extinction-evidence is gender-modifiedMAJOR DAVID N. DINER, Judge Advocate General's Corps, United States Army, Military

Law Review Winter 1994 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, [hu] mankind may be edging closer to the abyss. ([ ] = correction


India-Pakistan

Indo-Pak war global nuclear winterFai ‘01 (Ghulam Nabi, Executive Director, Kashmiri American Council, Washington Times, 7-8)

The foreign policy of the United States in South Asia should move from the lackadaisical and distant (with India crowned with a unilateral veto power) to aggressive involvement at the vortex. The most dangerous place on the planet is Kashmir, a disputed territory convulsed and illegally occupied for more than 53 years and sandwiched between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan. It has ignited two wars between the estranged South Asian rivals in 1948 and 1965, and a third could trigger nuclear volleys and a nuclear winter threatening the entire globe .


D) Impact is nuke war.

Spicer, 1996 economist; member of the British Parliament, [Michael, The Challenge from the East and the Rebirth of the West, p. 121]

The choice facing the West today is much the same as that which faced the Soviet bloc after World War II: between meeting head-on the challenge of world trade with the adjustments and the benefits that it will bring, or of attempting to shut out markets that are growing and where a dynamic new pace is being set for innovative production. The problem about the second approach is not simply that it won't hold: satellite technology alone will ensure that the consumers will begin to demand those goods that the East is able to provide most cheaply. More fundamentally, it will guarantee the emergence of a fragmented world in which natural fears will be fanned and inflamed. A world divided into rigid trade blocs will be a deeply troubled and unstable place in which suspicion and ultimately envy will possibly erupt into a major war. I do not say that the converse will necessarily be true, that in a free trading world there will be an absence of all strife. Such a proposition would manifestly be absurd. But to trade is to become interdependent, and that is a good step in the direction of world stability. With nuclear weapons at two a penny, stability will be at a premium in the years ahead.


Protectionism causes extinctionMILLER & ELWOOD 98 Founder and President and Vice President of the International Society for Individual Liberty

[Vincent H., & James R., “Free Trade or Protectionism? The Case against trade restrictions,” http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/free-trade-protectionism.html]

TRADE WARS: BOTH SIDES LOSE 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 THE SOLUTION: FREE TRADE A century and a half ago French economist and statesman Frederic Bastiat presented the practical case for free trade: "It is always beneficial," he said, "for a nation to specialize in what it can produce best and then trade with others to acquire goods at costs lower than it would take to produce them at home." In the 20th century, journalist Frank Chodorov made a similar observation: "Society thrives on trade simply because trade makes specialization possible, and specialization increases output, and increased output reduces the cost in toil for the satisfactions men live by. That

being so, the market place is a most humane institution." WHAT CAN YOU DO? Silence gives consent, and there should be no consent to the current waves of restrictive trade or capital control legislation being passed . If you agree

that free trade is an essential ingredient in maintaining world peace, and that it is important to your future, we suggest that you inform the political leaders in your country of your concern regarding their interference with free trade. Send them a copy of this pamphlet. We also suggest that you write letters to editors in the media and send this pamphlet to them. Discuss this issue with your friends and warn them of the danger of current "protectionist" trends. Check on how the issue is being taught in the schools. Widespread public understanding of this issue, followed by citizen action, is the only solution. Free trade is too important an issue to leave in the hands of politicians. "For thousands of years, the tireless effort of productive men and women has been spent trying to reduce the distance between communities

of the world by reducing the costs of commerce and trade. "Over the same span of history, the slothful and incompetent protectionist has endlessly sought to erect barriers in order to prohibit competition - thus, effectively moving communities farther apart. When trade is cut off entirely, the real producers may as well be on different planets. "The protectionist represents the worst in humanity: fear of change, fear of challenge, and the jealous envy of genius . The protectionist is not against the use of every kind of force, even warfare, to crush [his or her] rival. If [hu]mankind is to survive, then these primeval fears must be defeated."

[THIS EVIDENCE HAS BEEN GENDER MODIFIED]


Loss of Being obliterates the value of life and is a fate worse than nuclear annihilationZimmerman 94, Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University [Michael E., Contesting earth’s future, 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.” 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. 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.


Patriarchy fuels war and environmental destruction – transcending this system is key to preserve life on earthWarren and Cady 96 – Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Macalester University; and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hamline University[Karen and Duane, Bringing peace home: feminism, violence, and nature, p. 12-13]

Operationalied, the evidence of patriarchy as a dysfunctional system is found in the behaviors to which it gives rise, (c) the unmanageability, (d) which results. For example, in the United States, current estimates are that one out of every three or four women will be raped by someone she knows; globally, rape, sexual harassment, spouse-beating, and sado-massochistic pornography are examples of behaviors practices, sanctioned, or tolerated within patriarchy. In the realm of environmentally destructive behaviors, strip-mining, factory farming, and pollution of the air, water, and soil are instances of behaviors maintained and sanctioned within patriarchy. They, too, rest on the faulty beliefs that it is okay to “rape the earth,” that it is “man’s God-given right” to have dominion (that is, domination) over the earth, that nature has only instrumental value, that environmental destruction is the acceptable price we pay for “progress.” And the presumption of warism, that war is a natural, righteous, and ordinary way to impose dominion on a people or nation, goes hand in hand with patriarchy and leads to dysfunctional behaviors of nations and ultimately to international unmanageability. Much of the current “unmanageability” of contemporary life in patriarchal societies, (d), is then viewed as a consequence of a patriarchal preoccupation with activities, events, and experiences that reflect historically male-gender-identified beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions. Included among these real-life consequences are precisely those concerns with nuclear proliferation, war, environmental destruction, and violence towards women, which many feminists see as the logical outgrowth of patriarchal thinking. In fact, it is often only through observing these dysfunctional behaviors—the symptoms of dysfunctionality—that one can truly see that and how patriarchy serves to maintain and perpetuate them. When patriarchy is understood as a dysfunctional system, this “unmanageability” can be seen for what it is—as a predictable and thus logical consequence of patriarchy. The theme that global environmental crises, war, and violence generally are predictable and logical consequences of sexism and patriarchal culture is pervasive in ecofeminist literature. Ecofeminist Charlene Spretnak, for instance, argues that “a militarism and warfare are continual features of a patriarchal society because they reflect and instill patriarchal values and fulfill needs of such a system. Acknowledging the context of patriarchal conceptualizations that feed militarism is a first step toward reducing their impact and preserving life on Earth.” Stated in terms of the foregoing model of patriarchy as a dysfunctional social system, the claims by Spretnak and other feminists take on a clearer meaning: Patriarchal conceptual frameworks legitimate impaired thinking (about women, national and regional conflict, the environment) which is manifested in behaviors which, if continued, will make life on earth difficult, if not impossible. It is a stark message, but it is plausible. Its plausibility lies in understanding the conceptual roots of various woman-nature-peace connections in regional, national, and global contexts.


RAPE IMPACTSRAPE IS A FATE WORSE THAN DEATHGLAZER, Yale – Assistant District Attorney, Bronx County, New York – Fall 1997 – "Child Rapists Beware! The Death Penalty and Louisiana's Amended Aggravated Rape Statute", 25 Am. J. Crim. L. 79 – MNDI/HW 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. 29 Studies of rape show it to be a violent and brutal crime, [*86] often involving sexual humiliation and physical abuse. 30 "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." 31 Rape has been called a "fate worse than death." 32 As a result of being raped, victims often suffer extreme trauma, both physically and emotionally. 33 The symptoms experienced by rape victims have been compared in severity to post-traumatic stress disorder observed in war veterans . 34 Rape often induces a cycle of behavioral problems that extend well beyond the time when the physical damage from the assault has healed. 35 Women often experience "intense attacks on [their] psychic equilibrium," 36 often requiring intensive psychotherapy treatments. 37 Other long-term consequences of rape include self-destructive behavior, 38 impaired self-esteem, 39 interpersonal problems, 40 and a greater likelihood [*87] of becoming a drug or alcohol addict. 41


We Must tear down the walls of Racism. Failure risks extinction.Barndt 1991 (Joseph; Pastor and Co-director of Crossroads – a ministry working to dismantle racism and build a multicultural church and society) Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America 155-6 To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons. The prison of racism confines us all, people of color and white people alike. It shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white people separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the human potential that God intends for us. 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 as well. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dis mantled . We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are of fered the vision and the possibility of freedom . Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cul tural 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 ever more near . The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggres sion, 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 privilege from the sufferings of the vast majority of peoples of color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue .


Dehumanization outweighs all – it’s the Fifth Horseman of the ApocalypseMontagu and Matson 83 – Esteemed Scientist and Writer; and Professor of American Studies at University of Hawaii[Ashley and Floyd, The dehumanization of man, http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:hnDfqSFkJJwJ:www.cross-x.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-939595.html+montagu+matson+dehumanization&hl=en]

The contagion is unknown to science and unrecognized by medicine (psychiatry aside); yet its wasting symptoms are

plain for all to see and its lethal effects are everywhere on display. It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet

the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natual calamity on record -- and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized

society is beyond calculation. For that reason, this sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Hourseman of the Apocalypse. Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:hnDfqSFkJJwJ:www.cross-x.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-939595.html+montagu+matson+dehumanization&hl=en

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:hnDfqSFkJJwJ:www.cross-x.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-939595.html+montagu+matson+dehumanization&hl=en


Poverty outweighs nuclear war

Abu-Jamal 98 Activist[“A Quiet and Deadly Violence” (http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html)]

We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural' violence, of a kind that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer,

Dr. James Gilligan observes; By "structural violence" I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting "structural" with "behavioral violence" by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment,

and so on. --(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence,

not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it--really? Gilligan notes: [E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war 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, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. [Gilligan, p. 196]

http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html


Global Successions will result in nuke wars, terrorism, AIDS, and environmental destructionGottlieb 1993 Director of the Middle East Peace Project and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War and Peace and Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at the University of Chicago (Gidon;) Nation Against State: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts and the Decline of Sovereignty p. 26-27

Self-determination unleashed and unchecked by balancing principles constitutes a menace to the society of states. There is simply no way in which all the hundreds of peoples who aspire to sovereign independence can be granted a state of their own without loosening fearful anarchy and disorder on a planetary scale. The proliferation of territorial entities poses exponentially greater problems for the control of weapons of mass destruction and multiplies situations in which external intervention could threaten peace. It increases problems for the management of all global issues, including terrorism, AIDS, the environment, and population growth. It creates conditions in which domestic strife in remote territories can drag powerful neighbors into local hostilities, creating ever widening circles of conflict. Events in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union drove this point home. Like Russian dolls, ever smaller ethnic groups dwelling in larger units emerged to secede and to demand independence. Georgia, for example, has to contend with the claims of South Ossetians and Abkhazians for independence, just as the Russian Federation is confronted with the separatism of Tartaristan. An international system made up of several hundred independent territorial states cannot be the basis for global security and prosperity.


Continued judicial deference to military risks nuclear winter Kellman 89 – Professor of Law at DePaul University [Barry, “Judicial abdication of military tort accountability: but who is to guard the guards themselves?” Duke Law Journal, 1989 Duke L.J. 1597, LN]

In this era of thermonuclear weapons, America must uphold its historical commitment to be a nation of law. Our strength grows from the resolve to subject military force to constitutional authority. Especially in these times when weapons proliferation can lead to nuclear winter, when weapons production can cause cancer, when soldiers die unnecessarily in the name of readiness: those who control military force must be held accountable under law. As the Supreme Court recognized a generation ago, [“]the Founders envisioned the army as a necessary institution, but one dangerous to liberty if not confined within its essential bounds. Their fears were rooted in history. They knew that ancient republics had been overthrown by their military leaders. . . . . . . . We cannot close our eyes to the fact that today the peoples of many nations are ruled by the military. We should not break faith with this Nation's tradition of keeping military power subservient to civilian authority, a tradition which we believe is firmly embodied in the Constitution.[”] Our fears may be rooted in more recent history. During the decade of history's largest peacetime military expansion (1979-1989), more than 17,000 service personnel were killed in training accidents. 2 In the same period, virtually every facility in the nuclear bomb complex has been revealed [*1598] to be contaminated with radioactive and poisonous materials; the clean-up costs are projected to exceed $ 100 billion. 3 Headlines of fatal B-1B bomber crashes, 4 the downing of an Iranian passenger plane, 5 the Navy's frequent accidents 6 including the fatal crash of a fighter plane into a Georgia apartment complex, 7 remind Americans that a tragic price is paid to support the military establishment. Other commentaries may distinguish between the specific losses that might have been preventable and those which were the random consequence of what is undeniably a dangerous military program. This Article can only repeat the questions of the parents of those who have died: "Is the military accountable to anyone? Why is it allowed to keep making the same mistakes? How many more lives must be lost to senseless accidents?" 8 This Article describes a judicial concession of the law's domain, ironically

impelled by concerns for "national security." In three recent controversies involving weapons testing, the judiciary has disallowed tort accountability

for serious and unwarranted injuries. In United States v. Stanley, 9 the Supreme Court ruled that an Army sergeant, unknowingly drugged with LSD by the Central Intelligence Agency, could not pursue a claim for deprivation of his constitutional rights. In Allen v. United States, 10 civilian victims of atmospheric atomic testing were denied a right of tort recovery against the government officials who managed and performed the tests. Finally, in Boyle v. United Technologies, 11 the Supreme Court ruled that private weapons manufacturers enjoy immunity from product liability actions alleging design defects. A critical analysis of these decisions reveals that the judiciary, notably the Rehnquist Court, has abdicated its responsibility to review civil

matters involving the military security establishment. 12 [*1599] Standing at the vanguard of "national security" law, 13 these three decisions elevate the task of preparing for war to a level beyond legal accountability. They suggest that determinations of both the ends and the means of national security are inherently above the law and

hence unreviewable regardless of the legal rights transgressed by these determinations. This conclusion signals a dangerous abdication of judicial responsibility. The very underpinnings of constitutional governance are threatened by those who contend that the rule of law weakens the execution of military policy. Their argument -- that because our adversaries are not restricted by our Constitution, we should become more like our adversaries to secure ourselves -- cannot be sustained if our tradition of adherence to the rule of law is to be maintained. To the contrary, the judiciary must be willing to demand adherence to legal principles by assessing responsibility for weapons decisions. This Article posits that judicial abdication in this field is not compelled and certainly is

not desirable. The legal system can provide a useful check against dangerous military action , more so than

these three opinions would suggest. The judiciary must rigorously scrutinize military decisions if our 18th century dream

of a nation founded in musket smoke is to remain recognizable in a millennium ushered in under the mushroom cloud of thermonuclear holocaust.


International law is essential to avert planetary extinctionMalaysian Medical Association 02[“11TH SEPTEMBER - DAY OF REMEMBRANCE,” Sep 6, http://www.mma.org.my/current_topic/sept.htm]

Our world is increasingly interdependent and the repercussions of the actions of states , non-state actors

and individuals transcend national boundaries. Weapons of mass destruction, landmines, small arms and environmental damage have global consequences, whether they be deadly armed conflict, nuclear testing or climate change from global warming. The risk of nuclear war continues to threaten human survival. The casualties resulting from even a single explosion would overwhelm the medical facilities in any city in the world. The use of nuclear weapons is morally indefensible, and the International Court of Justice has declared their use and threatened use illegal. Yet, nuclear weapons remain part of the military strategy of many nations. Nuclear war must be prevented. Nuclear weapons must be eliminated. Ongoing violations of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian and human rights law and increasing poverty and preventable disease continue to fuel violence. World military expenditure, estimated at US$839 billion in 2001, prevents governments from meeting the social needs of their citizens and the global proliferation of

armaments has caused unspeakable carnage. We call on all governments to place their foreign and domestic policies and their behaviour under the scrutiny of international law and international institutions. Each government must take primary responsibility for ending its own contribution to the cycle of violence. As citizens, we are expected to abide by the law. We expect no less from governments. This is a necessary part of honouring the lives of so many men, women and children whose deaths are commemorate. At a time when

global problems should be solved by cooperating and complying with multilateral legally-binding treaties, and by embracing the rule of law as valuable instruments for building common security and safe-guarding the long-term, collective interests of humanity , there are unmistable signs that powerful states are taking unilateral

action, setting aside international treaties, and undermining international law. The principle of the rule of law implies that even the most powerful must comply with the law, even if it is difficult or costly or when superior economic, military and diplomatic power may seem to make compliance unnecessary. The destruction of the symbols of American economic power and military might on 11th September is a salutary reminder that military power, including the possession of nuclear weapons, does not deter terrorists or confer security or invulnerability. It has prompted the Bush administration to declare "war on terror" and convinced it that a military response is the best way to fight terrorism on a global scale, without considering alternative, more effective ways of combating terrorism, such as addressing the root causes of terrorism. The greatest betrayal of those who died on 11th September 2001 would be to not recognise that there are non-violent ways of resolving conflict. This is a difficult, uncertain path to take, whereas violence and war are easy, predictable options. The lesson of 11th

September is that our collective survival depends upon forging cooperative, just and equitable relationships with each other; in rejecting violence and war; and in pursuing non-violent resolutions to conflict. The alternative is a world perpetually divided, continually at war, and possibly destroying itself through environmental degradation or the use of weapons of mass destruction.


Federalism is essential to prevent warfareCalabresi 95 – Associate Professor at Northwestern University School of Law[Steven G., “‘A GOVERNMENT OF LIMITED AND ENUMERATED POWERS’: IN DEFENSE OF UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ,” Michigan Law Review, Dec, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 752, LN]

Small state federalism is a big part of what keeps the peace in countries like the United States and Switzerland. It is a big part of the reason why we do not have a Bosnia or a Northern Ireland or a Basque country or a Chechnya or a

Corsica or a Quebec problem. 51 American federalism in the end is not a trivial matter or a quaint historical anachronism. American-style

federalism is a thriving and vital institutional arrangement - partly planned by the Framers, partly the accident of history - and it prevents violence and war. It prevents religious warfare, it prevents secessionist warfare, and it prevents racial warfare. It is part of the reason why democratic majoritarianism in the United States has not produced violence or secession for 130 years, unlike the situation for

example, in England, France, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, or Spain. There is nothing in the U.S.

Constitution that is more important or that has done more to promote peace, prosperity, and freedom than the federal structure of that great document. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that should absorb more completely the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. So far, I have focused on the advantages of American-style small-state federalism in defusing centrifugal devolutionary tendencies, alleviating majority tyranny, and accentuating crosscutting social cleavages. But what about the advantages of international federalism; what are the ad- [*771] vantages of consolidating states into larger federal entities, as happened in North America in 1787 or in Europe in 1957? A first and obvious advantage is that consolidation reduces the threat of war. Because war usually occurs when two or more states compete for land or other resources, a reduction in the number of states also will reduce the likelihood of war. This result is especially true if the reduction in the number of states eliminates land boundaries between states that are hard to police, generate friction and border disputes, and that may require large standing armies to defend. In a brilliant article, Professor Akhil Amar has noted the importance of this point to both to the Framers of our Constitution and to President Abraham Lincoln. 52 Professor Amar shows that they believed a Union of States was essential in North America because otherwise the existence of land boundaries would lead here - as it had in Europe - to the creation of standing armies and ultimately to war. 53 The Framers accepted the old British notion that it was Britain's island situation that had kept her free of war and, importantly, free of a standing army that could be used to oppress the liberties of the people in a way that the British navy never could. These old geostrategic arguments for federalist consolidation obviously hold true today and played a role in the forming of the European Union, the United Nations, and almost every other multinational federation or alliance that has been created since 1945. Sometimes the geostrategic argument is expanded to become an argument for a multinational defensive alliance, like NATO, against a destabilizing power, like the former Soviet Union. In this variation, international federalism is partly a means of providing for the common defense and partly a means of reducing the likelihood of intra-alliance warfare in order to produce a united front against the prime military threat. Providing for the common defense, though, is itself a second and independent reason for forming international federations. It was a motivation for the formation of the U.S. federation in 1787 and, more recently, the European Union. A third related advantage is that international federations can undertake a host of governmental activities in which there are significant economies of scale. This is one reason why federations can provide better for the common defense than can their constituent parts. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered aircraft [*772] carriers and submarines, and B-2 stealth bombers tend to be expensive. Economies of scale make it cheaper for fifty states to produce one set of these items than it would be for fifty states to try to produce fifty sets. This is true even without factoring in the North American regional tensions that would be created if this continent had to endure the presence of fifty nuclear minipowers, assuming that each small state could afford to own at least one Hiroshima-sized nuclear bomb. Important governmental economies of scale obtain in other areas, as well, however, going well beyond national defense. For example, there are important economies of scale to the governmental provision of space programs, scientific and biomedical research programs, the creation of transportation infrastructure, and even the running of some kinds of income and wealth redistribution programs. A fourth and vital advantage to international federations is that they can promote the free movement of goods and labor both among the components of the federation by reducing internal transaction costs and internationally by providing a unified front that reduces the costs of collective action when bargaining with other federations and nations. This reduces the barriers to an enormous range of utility-maximizing transactions thereby producing an enormous increase in social wealth. Many federations have been formed in part for this reason, including the United States, the European Union, and the British Commonwealth, as well as all the trade-specific "federations" like the GATT and NAFTA. A fifth advantage to international federations is that they can help regulate externalities that may be generated by the policies and laws of one member state upon other member states. As I explain in more detail below, these externalities can be both negative and positive, 54 and, in both situations, some type of federal or international action may sometimes be appropriate. A well-known example of a problematic negative externality that could call for federal or international intervention occurs when one state pollutes the air or water of another and refuses to stop because all the costs of its otherwise beneficial action accrue to its neighbor. 55 [*773] Sixth and finally, 56 an advantage to international federation is that it may facilitate the protection of individual human rights. For reasons Madison explained in the Federalist Ten, 57 large governmental structures may be more sensitive than smaller governmental structures to the problems of abuse of individual and minority rights. 58 Remote federal legislatures or courts, like the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, sometimes can protect important individual rights when national or local entities might be unable to do so. 59 As I have explained elsewhere, this argument remains a persuasive part of the case for augmented federal powers. 60 Some of the best arguments for centripetal international federalism,

then, resemble some of the best arguments for centrifugal devolutionary federalism: in both cases - and for differing reasons - federalism helps prevent bloodshed and war. It is no wonder, then, that we live in an age of federalism at both the international and subnational level.

Under the right circumstances, federalism can help to promote peace, prosperity, and happiness. It can alleviate the threat of majority tyranny - which is the central flaw of democracy. In some situations, it can reduce the visibility of dangerous social fault lines, thereby preventing bloodshed and violence. This necessarily brief comparative, historical, and empirical survey of the world's experience with federalism amply demonstrates the benefits at least of American-style small-

state federalism. 61 In light of this evidence, the United States would be foolish indeed to abandon its federal system. [*774]


PRESIDENTIAL POWER is key to US leadership of multilateral institutions – this checks back many of the world’s problems including AIDS, global wars, and economic collapseDEANS ’00 Cox Washington Bureau staff [Bob, The American Presidency AJC] jh

While no one can doubt the growing impact of the Internet, Silicon Valley and Wall Street on the daily lives of all Americans, only the president can rally truly global resources around American ideals to further the quest for equality and to combat the timeless ills of poverty and war. It is that unique ability to build and harness a worldwide consensus that is widening the circle of presidential power.''The presidency will remain as important as it is or will become more important,'' predicted presidential scholar Michael Nelson, professor of political science at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn.The voice of all AmericansThe taproot of presidential power is the Constitution, which designates the chief executive, the only official elected in a national vote, as the sole representative of all the American people.That conferred authority reflects the state of the nation, and it would be hard to argue that any country in history has possessed the military, economic and political pre-eminence that this country now holds.And yet, the nation's greatest strength as a global power lies in its ability to build an international consensus around values and interests important to most Americans.On Clinton's watch, that ability has been almost constantly on display as he has patched together multinational responses to war in the Balkans, despotism in Haiti, economic crises in Mexico, Russia, Indonesia and South Korea, and natural disasters in Turkey and Venezuela.The institutions for putting together coalition-type action --- the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization among them --- are hardly tools of American policy. But the United States commands a dominant, in some cases decisive, position in each of those institutions. And it is the president, far more than Congress, who determines how the United States wants those institutions to be structured and to perform.''Congress is a clunky institution of 535 people that can't negotiate as a unit with global corporations or entities,'' said Alan Ehrenhalt, editor of Governing magazine. ''It's the president who is capable of making deals with global institutions.'' It is the president, indeed, who appoints envoys to those institutions , negotiates the treaties that bind them and delivers the public and private counsel that helps guide them, leaving the indelible imprint of American priorities on every major initiative they undertake.''That means, for example, that we can advance our interests in resolving ethnic conflicts, in helping address the problems of AIDS in Africa, of contributing to the world's economic development, of promoting human rights, '' said Emory University's Robert Pastor, editor of a new book, ''A Century's Journey,'' that elaborates on the theme.


Wildfire prolif will trigger preemptive nuclear wars around the planetUtgoff 02, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis[Victor A., “Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions,” Survival, Summer, p. 87-90] bg

Further, the large number of states that became capable of building nuclear weapons over the years, but chose not to, can be reasonably well explained by the fact that most were formally allied with either theUnited Statesor theSoviet Union. Both these superpowers had strong nuclear forces and put great pressure on their allies not to build nuclear weapons. Since the Cold War, theUShas retained all its allies. In addition, NATO has extended its protection to some of the previous allies of theSoviet Unionand plans on taking in more. Nuclear proliferation by India and Pakistan, and proliferation programmes by North Korea, Iran and Iraq, all involve states in the opposite situation: all judged that they faced serious military opposition and had little prospect of establishing a reliable supporting alliance with a suitably strong, nuclear armed state. What would

await the world if strong protectors, especially theUnited States, were [was] no longer seen as willing to protect states from nuclear-backed aggression? At least a few additional states would begin to build their own nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to distant targets,and these initiatives would spur increasing numbers of the world’s capable states to follow suit. Restraint would seem ever less necessary and ever more dan-gerous. Meanwhile, more states are becoming capable of building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Many, perhaps most, of the world’s states are becoming sufficiently wealthy, and the technology for building nuclear forces continues to improve and spread. Finally, it seems highly likely that at some point, halting proliferation will come to be seen as a lost cause and the restraints on it will disappear. Once that

happens, the transition to a highly proliferated world would probably be very rapid. While some regions

might be able to hold the line for a time, the threats posed by wildfire proliferation in most other areas could create pressures that would finally overcome all restraint. Many readers are probably willing to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not

going to be acceptable. And, for many reasons, it is not. First,the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent’s nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approaches complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons failing into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities. Worse still, in a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons. And more frequent opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used, unless the probability of use at any opportunity is actually zero. To be sure, some theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in any confrontation between two states known to have reliable nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero.’ These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states ‘known to possess nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict.ChinaandRussiafought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover, logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had them. Again, history provides counter-examplesEgyptattackedIsraelin 1973 even though it sawIsraelas a nuclear power at the time.Argentinainvaded theFalkland Islandsand foughtBritain’s efforts to take them back, even thoughBritainhad nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a ‘victory or destruction’’ policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat. AndJapan’s war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing, suggested ‘Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?” If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and thorough assessments of all options from all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in intense and fast-moving crises between nuclear-armed states. Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not 33ecognize clearly where their personal or party interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully. They can refuse to believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. ‘These people are not willing to die for this interest’. ‘No sane person would actually use such weapons’. ‘Perhaps the opponent will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons’. ‘If I don’t hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from office, if not killed’. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a nuclear crisis or war, such words from others, or silently from within, might resonate too readily with a harried leader. Thus, both history and human nature suggest that nuclear deterrence can be expected to fail from time to time, and we are fortunate it has not happened yet. But the threat of nuclear war is not just a matter of a few weapons being used. It could get much worse. Once a conflict reaches the point where nuclear weapons are employed, the stresses felt by the leaderships would rise enormously. These stresses can be expected to further degrade their decision-making. The pressures to force the enemy to stop fighting or to surrender could argue for more forceful and decisive military action, which might be the right thing to do in the circumstances, but maybe not. And the horrors of the carnage already suffered may be seen as justification for visiting the most devastating punishment possible on the enemy.’ Again, history demonstrates how intense conflict can lead the combatants to escalate violence to the maximum possible levels. In the Second World War, early promises not to bomb cities soon gave way to essentially indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The war betweenIranandIraqduring the 1980s led to the use of chemical weapons on both sides and exchanges of missiles against each other’s cities. And more recently, violence in the Middle East escalated in a few months

from rocks and small arms to heavy weapons on one side, and from police actions to air strikes and armoured attacks on the other. Escalation of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants before hand. Intense and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And

such anger can lead us to impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible. In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear ‘six-shooters’ on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. This kind of world is in no nation’s interest. The means for preventing it must be

pursuedvigorously. And, as argued above,a most powerful way to prevent it or slow its emergence is to encourage the more capable states to provide reliable protection to others against aggression, even when that aggression could be backed with nuclear weapons. In other words,the world needs at least one state, preferably several,willingand ableto play the role of sheriff, or to be members of a sheriff’s posse, even in the face of nuclear threats.


Rise in food prices will kill billions

POWER ’96 Staff Writer – Tampa Tribune[Paul Jr., “Grain shortage growing problem,” The Tampa Tribune, 1/20/96]

There are more people in this world than ever, but less grain to feed them. That's kindled fears of a world food crisis, a problem Florida may help prevent. Poor weather, drought, political unrest and economic shifts have decreased planting, pushing world grain reserves to record lows. Meanwhile, the world's population grew by 100 million, to 5.75 billion in 1995 - a record increase. Now, miners in West Central Florida are digging out phosphate more quickly, so it can be

used to make fertilizer. Analysts are warning about the increasing possibility of flood or drought in the world's food-producing regions. That can push food prices much higher, both here and abroad, and even cause famine in the poorest countries. U.S. food prices may rise more than 4 percent this year, ahead of the rate of inflation.

"Conditions today indicate that there is at least some vulnerability in the food supply," said Sara Schwartz, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn and soybean production plunged last year in the United States, she said. Wet weather slowed grain planting in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere, drought and civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa cut production to 20 percent below normal. The European Union has less than one quarter of the grain reserves it held in 1993. The amount of corn expected to be available in the United States

by summer - when corn is harvested - was trimmed by crop forecasters this week to 507 million bushels, the lowest in 20 years. 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."


Tuberculosis

TB is already the second biggest killer in the world. Left unchecked it would go global.

Middle East Online News 3/24/02 l/n

Washington - March 24 has been designated by the World Health Organization as World Tuberculosis Day. This very date, 120 years ago, Dr. Robert Koch - a German medical researcher - announced to the European medical community that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. His discovery was considered a medical breakthrough that promised to put an end to the disease. But today, over a century later, tuberculosis continues to kill millions of people every year. In the late 19th century, tuberculosis a bacterial disease spread through the air - killed one out of every seven people in the United States and in Europe. Today, this infectious disease remains the second leading killer in the world after AIDS, with more than two million TB-related deaths each year. Tuberculosis strikes somewhere in the world every second. According to Michael Iademarco of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the disease primarily plagues developing countries. "Countries such as India, and China, Vietnam, the Philippines. There is a list of 23 high burdened countries in the world. It's from this set of 23 countries that 80 percent of the world's TB burden comes from," he says. Dr. Iadenmarco says that poverty and poor health conditions contribute significantly to the spread of tuberculosis in those countries. "Many of these 23 high burdened countries, for example, are lower or low income countries. So, they don't have adequate health infrastructure and so, therefore, it is very difficult to coordinate, organize and provide the drugs for adequate TB control. A more social reason is that TB historically is a very stigmatizing disease. People don't want other people to know that they have tuberculosis. This prevents people from going and seeking appropriate treatments," he says. Today, tuberculosis appears to be a disease of the developing world. But, if it is not checked, it could spread anywhere, including the United States.


African AIDS will spread globally and cause extinction

Muchiri 00, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi[Michael Kibaara, “Will Annan finally put out Africa’s fires?” Jakarta Post, March 6, LN] bg

The executive director of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, estimated that Africa would annually need between $ 1 billion to $ 3 billion to combat the disease, but currently receives only $ 160 million a year in official assistance.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn lamented that Africa was losing teachers faster than they could be replaced, and that AIDS was now more effective than war in destabilizing African countries. Statistics show that AIDS is the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing people killed in warfare. In 1998, 200,000 people died from armed conflicts compared to 2.2 million from AIDS. Some 33.6 million people have HIV around the world, 70 percent of them in Africa, thereby robbing countries of their most productive members and decimating entire villages.

About 13 million of the 16 million people who have died of AIDS are in Africa , according to the UN.

What barometer is used to proclaim a holocaust if this number is not a sure measure? 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 [humanity] 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. Gender Paraphrased


Unchecked rise of CO2 is essential to avert destruction of the biosphereIdso and Idso 01 – President; and Vice President of Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change[Sherwood and Keith, “The Importance of Knowledge to Environmental Policy,” CO2 Science Magazine, May 2,

http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n18edit.htm]

Clearly, the hearts of these gentlemen are in the right place; but without a knowledge of all the pertinent facts, their prescription for the planet could well be way off base and, in fact, prove our downfall … and that of the rest of the biosphere as well. It thus behooves us to seriously consider the findings of Tilman et al. (2001), reported just four days later in the pages of Science, which Leo and Gergen had obviously not the advantage of seeing when they composed their essays. In an analysis of the global environmental impacts of agricultural expansion that will likely occur over the next 50 years, which was based upon projected increases in population and concomitant advances in technological expertise, the group of ten respected researchers con-cluded that the task of meeting the doubled global food demand they calculated to exist in the year 2050 will likely exact an envi-ronmental toll that "may rival climate change in environmental and societal impacts." What are the specific problems? For starters, Tilman and his colleagues note that "humans currently appropriate more than a third of the production of terrestrial ecosystems and about half of usable freshwaters, have doubled terrestrial nitrogen supply and phosphorus liberation, have manufactured and released globally significant quantities of pesticides, and have initiated a major extinction event." Now, think of doubling those figures. In fact, do even more; for the scientists calculate global nitrogen fertilization and pesticide production will likely rise by a factor of 2.7 by the year 2050. In terms of land de -voted to agriculture, they calculate a less ominous 18% increase over the present. However, because developed countries are expected to withdraw large areas of land from farming over the next 50 years, the net loss of natural ecosystems to cropland and pasture in developing countries will amount to about half of all potentially suitable remaining land, which would , in the words of Tilman et al., "represent the worldwide loss of natural ecosystems larger than the United States." Looking at it another way, the scientists say this phenomenon "could lead to the loss of about a third of remaining tropical and temperate forests, savan-nas, and grasslands." And in a worrisome reflection upon the consequences of these changes in land use for global biodiversity, they note that "species extinction is an irreversible impact of habitat destruction." These findings should come as no surprise to readers of CO2 Science Magazine, for we have dealt with them editorially many times (1 Oct 1999, 1 Feb 2000, 15 Nov 2000, 21 Feb 2001). Hence, we are in full agreement with Tilman et al. when they say "an environmentally sustainable revolution, a greener revolution, is needed." In fact, something far above humanity’s normal ability to devise and execute will be required to avert the impending catastrophe ; for as Tilman and his associates rightly conclude, "even the best available technologies, fully deployed, cannot prevent many of the forecasted problems." Here, then, is the real and truly inescapable prob-lem facing the world and every living thing therein: where will we find the food and water needed to sustain our growing populations? We are going to need much more of both of these precious commodities if we are ever going to make it through even the first half of the current century without self-de -structing and taking most of the rest of the biosphere with us. So we ask Mr. Leo and Mr. Gergen the very same questions they posed in their essays. Do you "care about saving the planet" and doing those things that will not "darken the prospects for mankind"? If you were sincere in your writing, and we believe you were, you will carefully consider a fact that is hardly ever mentioned in the international debate over anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and that is, that if there is any one thing that is known about carbon dioxide and global change with any certainty, it is that more CO2 in the air substantially enhances the growth of plants and the efficiency with which they utilize water. Doubling the atmos -phere’s CO2 concentration, for example, typically increases crop productivity by 30 to 40%, while it increases plant water use ef-ficiency even more, making it possible to produce considerably greater quantities of food with little to no increase in the amount of water used. And in natural ecosystems, where water and other resources are often limiting, the positive effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment can be even larger. The enormity of the environmental problems we will surely face in trying to feed the world of tomorrow – in-cluding our children and grandchildren and all the rest of the biosphere – demands that we ask ourselves if we are ready to "risk the environment," as Mr. Gergen puts it, by using up nearly every bit of land and water on the face of the globe to meet caloric and nutritional needs, while polluting the rest of the planet and leaving next to nothing of value for nature, or if we will stubbornly take an "unnatural stand," as Mr. Leo describes it, and not allow the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 concentration to continue to bring about the only "environmentally sustainable revolu -tion," to borrow an appropriate phrase from Tilman and company, that can go above and beyond what man’s technological genius has the capacity to do and provide the extra productivity and efficiency edge the biosphere will surely need to meet the food security challenges of the coming half-century. Industrialized society’s "exhalations" of carbon dioxide are truly a godsend; for if we will let them, they can be the basis of Tilman et al.’s "greener revolution." It’s as natural as breathing; and for vegetation, that’s exactly what it is. Through the pores in their leaves, earth’s plants breathe in the CO2 humanity releases to the atmosphere and it becomes the basic building block of every-thing they produce. Ask your children about the process. They learn it in grade school. Plant’s love CO2. It’s good for them. And what’s good for plants is good for everything else, humankind included. In the end, however much we may try to ignore these facts, we cannot deny that we possess this knowl -edge. And we now possess the additional knowledge that we desperately need what more CO2 can do for us, that it’s absolutely essential, in fact, to avert a catastrophic breakdown of the biosphere over the next half-century , as we reported for the first time last year in Technology (Idso and Idso, 2000) – see our Journal Review Will There Be Enough Food? – and as Tilman et al. have now confirmed in Science. And having this knowledge, we are morally obligated to act upon it. Mr. Gergen says "strong leaders must summon us to the mountaintop." He is right. But we must know what mountain to climb, and that’s where a knowledge of the pertinent facts becomes so important; for if we cannot see the truth, as the proverb rightly says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." And if we turn our backs on carbon dioxide, which could truly be a savior for the planet, and crucify CO2 upon the cross of a counterfeit and misguided environmentalism, the people of the earth will do just that, they will perish, and not many years hence.


Loss of genetic diversity will cause global extinctionFowler and Mooney 90 – Senior Officer at UN Food and Agriculture Organization; and Staff Member at Rural Advancement Fund International [Cary and Pat, Shattering: food, politics, and the loss of genetic diversity, p. ix]

While many may ponder the consequences of global warming, perhaps the biggest single environmental catastrophe in human history is unfolding in the garden. While all are rightly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war, an equally devastating time bomb is ticking away in the fields of farmers all over the world. Loss of genetic diversity in agriculture—silent, rapid, inexorable—is leading to a rendezvous with extinction—to the doorstep of hunger on a scale we refuse to imagine. To simplify the environment as we have done in agriculture is to destroy the complex interrelationships that hold the natural world together. In reducing the diversity of life, we narrow our options for the future and render our own survival more precarious.


Soil erosion risks extinction Robbins 97 [John, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Diet for a New America, “The Ground Beneath Our Feet,” accessed on 12/24/04. pg. http://www.animalsvoice.com/PAGES/invest/robbins1.html]edlee

It is becoming increasingly apparent that our world is in deep peril . Hardly a day goes by that we don’t learn of some new misfortune to the ecosystem: The accelerating greenhouse effect, the erosion of topsoil, the decimation of forests and habitats, the

widening hole in the ozone layer, the pollution of air, water, and soil, the tidal wave of extinction sweeping over the globe. It is becoming increasingly inescapable that the very biological fabric on which all human and other forms of life depend is coming unravelled. And the reason? Livestock today consume 80% of the corn, 95% of the oats, and almost all of the soybeans grown in the United States. They consume enough grain and soybeans to feed more than five times the entire human population of the country. If people ate the grains directly, instead of cycling them through livestock, the benefits to the ecosystem would be staggering. So much more efficient is a more vegetarian diet that less than one half the current agricultural acreage would be needed. The rest could revert to the wild, producing enormous savings in water and energy. We would not have to cut down forests and destroy habitats to create land on which to grow feed for livestock. We wouldn’t have to force our acreage to produce and squeeze every last possible yield from it. We could dispense with synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides, and still have vast surpluses of food. Our world would be a far greener one, with far less pollution, cleaner air and cleaner water, and a more stable climate. In fact, it is hard to conceive how much we have environmentally to gain by switching to a more vegetarian diet. There is not a

single aspect of the ecological crisis that would not be immediately and profoundly improved by such a transformation. From dust we came and to dust

we return. Archaeologists tell us that soil erosion has played a determining role in the decline and demise of many great civilizations, including those of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and the Mayans. Wherever soil erosion has destroyed the fertility base on which civilizations have been built, these civilizations have perished. Two hundred years ago, most of America’s croplands had at least 21 inches of topsoil. Today, most of it is down to around six inches,

and the rate of topsoil loss is accelerating. We have already lost 75 percent of what may well be our most precious natural resource.The U.S. Soil Conservation Service reports that more than four million acres of cropland are being lost to erosion in this country every year. That’s an area the size of Connecticut. Of this staggering loss, 85 percent is directly

associated with livestock raising. Without a diet-style change, we are well on our way to losing what many scientists feel has always been the basis of our strength as a nation.


OVERPOP risks extinction and nuke wars

The Ehrlich’s 90 [Paul and Anne, Professors of Population Studies and Biology at Stanford, The Population Explosion]

The population explosion contributes to international tensions and therefore makes a nuclear holocaust more likely. Most people in our society can visualize the horrors of a large-scale nuclear war followed by a nuclear winter. We call that possible end to our civilization “the Bang.” Hundreds of millions of people would be killed outright, and billions more would follow from the disruption of agricultural systems and other indirect effects largely caused the disruption of ecosystem services. It would be the ultimate “death-rate solution” to the population problem-a stunning contrast to the humane solution of lowering the global birthrate to slightly below the death rate for a few centuries. [174-5]

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Impact Around the World