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Nuclear War is Bad

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War would collapse the ocean and tropic ecosystems, which hold 2/3ds of species Carl Sagan 1983/1984
Two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and microorganisms on the Earth live within 25 degrees of the equator. Because temperatures tend to vary with the seasons only minimally at tropical latitudes, species there are especially vulnerable to rapid temperature declines. In past major extinction events in the paleontological record, there has been a marked tendency for tropical organisms to show greater vulnerability than organisms living at more temperate latitudes. The darkness alone may cause a collapse in the aquatic food chain in which sunlight is
harvested by phytoplankton, phytoplankton by zooplankton, zooplankton by small fish, small fish by large fish, and, occasionally, large fish by humans. In many

war scenarios, this food chain is likely to collapse at its base for at least a year and is significantly more imperiled in The increase in ultraviolet light available at the surface of the earth approximately a year after the war provides an additional major environmental stress that by itself has been described as having profound consequences for aquatic, terrestrial and other ecosystems. n17
nuclear tropical waters.

Species loss is a roulette wheel of ecosurvival for all

Paul Warner, American University, Dept of International Politics and Foreign Policy, August, Politics and Life Sciences, 1994, p 177 Massive extinction of species is dangerous, then, because one cannot predict which species are expendable to the system as a whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, "Plants and animals cannot tell us what they mean to each other." One can never be sure which species holds up fundamental biological relationships in the planetary ecosystem. And, because removing species is an irreversible act, it may be too late to save the system after the extinction of key plants or animals. According to the U.S. National Research Council, "The ramifications of an ecological change of this magnitude [vast extinction of species] are so far reaching that no one on earth will escape them." Trifling with the "lives" of species is like playing Russian roulette, with our collective future as the stakes.

War exacerbates disease, turning harmless diseases into global epidemics Peterson, R. K. D. 1995. Insects,disease, and military history: the Napoleonic campaigns and historical
perception. American Entomologist. 41:147-160. War and disease truly are deadly comrades. Their relationship is a fascinating one. How does war affect epidemics? And how does an epidemic influence war? Regardless of the century, war often leads to a concentration of peoples, the intermixing of populations, and the diversion of resources. These conditions may lead to a decrease in hygiene and medical care and an increase in malnutrition and famine. These in turn may lead to social disintegration (Fig. 3). All of these factors (termed enabling factors by epidemiologists) may produce many stressed individuals who then are more suceptible to disease. And, of course, conditions during wartime can aggravate an established disease, causing it to become quite severe. Before World War I, malaria and typhus occurred in Europe, albeit at low levels. However, the wretched conditions of war caused these two diseases to erupt into epidemics. Diseases cause human extinction Frank Ryan, M.D., 1997, virus X, p. 366 A rapidly lethal and quickly spreading virus simply would not have time to switch from aggression to coevolution. And there lies the danger. Joshua Lederbergs prediction can now be seen to be an altogether logical one. Pandemics are inevitable. Our incredibly rapid human evolution, our overwhelming global needs, the advances of our complex industrial society, all have moved the natural goalposts. The advance of society, the very science of change, has greatly augmented the potential for

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the emergence of a pandemic strain. It is hardly surprising that Avrion Mitchison, scientific director of Deutsches Rheuma Forschungszentrum in Berlin, asks the question: "Will we survive! We have invaded every biome on earth and we continue to destroy other species so very rapidly that one eminent scientist foresees the day when no life exists on earth apart from the human monoculture and the small volume of species useful to it. An increasing multitude of disturbed viral-host symbiotic cycles are provoked into self-protective counterattacks. This is a dangerous situation. And we have seen in the previous chapter how ill-prepared the world is to cope with it. It begs the most frightening question of all: could such a pandemic virus cause the extinction of the human species?

Nuclear war results in nuclear winter, causing extinction Michael Hogan, The Nuclear Freeze Campaign, 1994, p. 52
Simply stated, the theory of nuclear winter held that even a small exchange of nuclear weaponson the order, perhaps, of 500 of the worlds 18,000 nuclear weaponswould throw so much dirt, soot, and smoke into the atmosphere that the earth would be plunged into darkness and subfreezing temperatures, a winter lasting long enough to create a real possibility of the extinction of the human species Unlike doomsday scenarios that preceded it, the theory of nuclear winter was based upon extensive scientific studies, and it had been endorsed by a large number of scientists.

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Even global natural disasters arent as bad as nuclear winter Barry Buzan, et. al research professor of international studies at the University of Westminster, Security, 1998, p. 85 Threats and vulnerabilities in the environmental sector are issue specific and seldom universal. Moreover, causes and effects may be located at different levels and in different regions. Global events seldom have the total character of a potential nuclear winter.

Chemical and Biological warfare would inevitably follow nuclear war and cause extinction The Preperation 2002 http://thepreparation.net/Chap6.html
Nuclear weapons will be used together with chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, and this combination of weaponry would have the potential of eradicating all human life, if the conflict were world wide.

Nuclear war stops space colonization Sylvia Engdahl, professor at New Yorks New School for Social Research, former computer systems specialist for the SAGE Air Defense System and author. Space and Human Survival, 2000
http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/survival.htm Expansion into space demands high technology and full utilization of our worlds material resources (although not destructive utilization). It also demands financial resources that we will not have if we deplete the material resources of Earth. And it demands human resources, which we will lose if we are reduced to global war or widespread starvation.

Space is key to preventing extinction James Oberg, space writer and a former space flight engineer based in Houston, 1999, Space Power
Theory, http://www.jamesoberg.com/books/spt/new-CHAPTERSw_figs.pdf While acknowledging the very high costs that are involved in manned spaceflight, Sagan states that our very survival as a species depends on colonizing outer space. Astronomers have already identified dozens of asteroids that might someday smash into Earth. Undoubtedly, many more remain undetected. In Sagans opinion, the only way to avert inevitable catastrophe is for mankind to establish a permanent human presence in space.

Even if nuclear use doesnt immediately escalate, it will be seen as a viable war fighting option and be used frequently firebombing empirically proves. Richard Betts, Professor and the Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia,
Universal Deterrence or Conceptual Collapse? Liberal Pessimism and Utopian Realism, The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order, ed. Utgoff, 2000, p. 82 Or the shock might prompt panic and a rush to stock up on WMD, as the possibility of use underlines the need for deterrent capability, or the effectiveness of such weapons as instruments of policy One seldom-noticed danger is that breakage of the taboo could demystify the weapons and make them look more conventional than our post-Hiroshima images of them. It helps to recall that in the 1930s, popular images of conventional strategic bombing were that it would be apocalyptic, bringing belligerent
countries to their knees quickly. The apocalyptic image was fed by the German bombing of Guernica, a comparatively small city in Spain. When World War II came in Europe, both British and Germans initially refrained from bombing

attacks on cities. Once city bombing began and gathered

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steam, however, it proved to be far less decisive than many had expected. British and German populations managed to adjust and absorb it. Over time, however, the ferocity of Allied bombing of Germany and Japan did approach the apocalyptic levels originally envisioned.

The environmental impacts of a nuclear launch will spur the development of nanotechnology ACLU, Emerging Environmental Issues and Events that May Affect Military Requirements over the period 2010 to 2025 , 2003
Environmental destruction resulting from a nuclear launch will lead commanders to consider what environmental impact their actions might have and force the development of weapons systems that create less pollution to begin with. Developments in the field of nanotechnology are likely to produce this class of weapons of mass destruction
in the future. Some argue that this could lead to reduced protection of soldiers to accommodate an ill-advised treaty. Others believe that this does not imply a reduction in force protection just in what happens after the bullets stop flying. New

military technologies, new doctrine, and new rules of engagement could result in less need for post-conflict remediation, without compromising protection of forces during the conflict.

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Nano means extinction Adam Keiper, managing editor of The New Atlantis, The Nanotechnology Revolution The New Atlantis July 1 2003
The health and environmental threats posed by mainstream nanotech are far less frightening than the hypothetical dangers of the Drexlerian flavor of nanotech. In an infamous article in Wired magazine in 2000, technologist Bill Joy made the case for halting nano-research because of the possibility that we might wipe out all life on Earth. Joys article stirred up a hornets nest of controversy, even though the idea had been around for a long time: the apocalypse he described was based on a theory that had first been suggested more than a decade earlier in Engines of Creation. For molecular manufacturing to work, Drexlers assemblers would have to replicate themselves, just as tiny organisms make duplicates of themselves. But what if something went wrongwhat if the replication spiraled out of control? Speed-breeding assemblers could devour all life on Earth in short order. According to Engines of Creation, among the cognoscenti of nanotechnologypresumably meaning the author and his friendsthis threat has become known as the gray goo problem: Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term gray goo emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: we cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth, far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident We must not let a single replicating assembler of the wrong kind be loosed on an unprepared world.

The fires from nuclear blasts would cause a massive increase in dioxins and other carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals Dr. Alan Phillips, NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED October 2000 http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htm
Pyrotoxins--http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htm: "While the temperature at the surface would be low, the temperature of the upper part of the troposphere (5-11 km) would rise because of sunlight absorbed by the smoke, so there would be an absolutely massive temperature inversion. That would keep many other products of combustion down at the levels people breathe, making a smog such as has never been seen before. PYROTOXINS is a word coined for all the noxious vapours that would be formed by combustion of the plastics, rubber, petroleum, and other products of civilization. It is certain that these poisons would be formed, but we do not have quantitative estimates. The amount of combustible material is enormous, and it would produce dioxins, furans, PCB's, cyanides, sulphuric and sulphurous acids, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in amounts that would make current concerns about atmospheric pollution seem utterly trivial . There would also be toxic chemicals like ammonia and chlorine from damaged storage tanks."

Nuclear use will cause a solar system destroying solar Nova Daniel Shaddox, KoReY Interstellar Colonization Program, 11-29-1999,
http://business.gorge.net/zdkf/mcl-ntt.html Unfortunately, at this time, the exact date of the Sun's erruption into a Nova cannot be predicted, scientifically! Moreover, the timing situation is in grave danger of rapid acceleration, do to the sideeffects of advanced nuclear testings (ie D'Stridium events). So, while we do not know its exact timing,

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we know that it is SOON, and that every day brings us closer to it! So, what are we saying here? Is it going to be 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 years? Hopefully, around 100! But, with testing, we may find that the Nova is set off in next year's Sun cycle, with its standard erruptions continuing to expand into Which brings up another issue. Some Stars go straight into Super-Novas and explode! (If our sun were to do this, it would wipe out the whole solar system in a matter of minutes.) Others swell and slowly expand into super-giants, sometimes taking many years to do so. Now, what will it be, here? Well, at this point, we do not know. We can hope for a sweller, but we had better be prepared for a boomer!

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Dioxin is a hormone-altering chemical that can devastate human fertility, risking extinction Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future. March 1996. p.
116-121 The EPAs reassessment of the risks of dioxin was already under way when Richard Petersons Wisconsin study hit with the shock of an unanticipated asteroid. Here was evidence that dioxin could have dramatic effects at very low dosesat levels close to those routinely found in humans. In a matter of months, the tide turned and the dioxin debate shifted from dioxins cancer-causing potential to its developmental and reproductive toxicity. In short order, EPA scientists repeated the studies giving dioxin to pregnant rats and found similar effects in female offspring. This turnaround in scientific thinking was stunning. The studies suggested that the worst fears about dioxin might, in fact, be justified. Dioxin might after all be more dangerous than anyone had suspected, but contrary to what many had thought, its greatest threat was not cancer. The newly emerging hazard was its power to disrupt natural hormones. Dioxins bad reputation helped insure a steady How of funding to a host of researchers who were probing what this chemical did to the body and how it did it, but the University of Wisconsin lab headed by Peterson was one of the few places exploring its effects on the endocrine system. Robert Moore, one of Petersons colleagues at the School of Pharmacy and the Environmental Toxicology Center, had set off on this line of research because he believed it held the greatest potential for explaining the toxic effects of the notorious 2,3,7,8-TCDD. Dioxin posed a fascinating challenge for toxicologists like Moore and Peterson because it is not your ordinary poison. Animals given lethal doses of dioxin dont keel over quickly; they lose their appetite and undergo a mysterious wasting before they actually die weeks later. Dioxin also produces a variety of other nonlethal responses that occasionally seem contradictory. It somehow disrupts estrogen responses, acting sometimes as if it were an estrogen impostor and sometimes as if it were blocking estrogen, yet studies have shown that dioxin is not a simple estrogen mimic like DES. It produces apparently estrogenic or antiestrogenic effects without consorting with the estrogen receptor. For all the years of research, exactly how dioxin does its harm has remained elusive. Peterson and Moore thought the endocrine system might hold the key to this mystery. As they had suspected, their experiments with adult male rats confirmed that dioxin could interfere withhormone levels. When adult rats were given dioxin, it caused their testosterone levels to drop and their testicles and accessory sex organs to lose weight. But it took a lot of dioxin to produce such responsesalmost enough to start killing some of the rats used in the experiments. Although Moore and Peterson felt it was easier to explore the mechanism of toxicity if one used high doses, this approach began to fall into disfavor by the mid-1980s. Critics were attacking high-dose experiments, saying that they did not have direct relevance to the real world where humans and animals are exposed to much smaller amounts of dioxin. In the end, Moore and Peterson had little choice. The National Institutes of Health, which was funding their work, pushed them toward working with lower doses that the federal agency regarded as more immediately relevant to human health risks. We got the message that we had to get out of high-dose research if we wanted to stay funded, Moore said. Well before their high-dose TCDD experiments had ended, Moore read a 1983 paper by Dorothea Sager, a researcher at the University of Wisconsins Green Bay campus, which found a variety of changes, including reduced fertility, in male rats exposed to PCBs through their mothers milk. Sagers work demonstrated the critical importance of timing, not just in the severity of the impact but also in its very nature. Her findings inspired Moore and Peterson to look for similar patterns as a result of TCDD exposure. They brought in a graduate student, Tom , to conduct the actual experiments. This team looked beyond the simple question of whether or not rats exposed to dioxin could later produce offspring. This all-or-nothing approach was grossly inadequate. They wanted instead to look at more
Mably

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sensitive aspects of reproductive health, such as sperm counts and mating behaviors that are not often measured in toxicity research. As Moore puts it, we were looking for answers in different ways. We were turning over different rocks. In fact, Moore reflects, if they had done no more than the usual fertility tests, the work would have sunk into obscurity without a ripple. Mablys results far exceeded their expectations. While it took an almost lethal dose to impair the reproductive system in adult rats, they found that even small doses did long-term damage to the reproductive system of males exposed in the womb and through their mothers milk. In this study, the mother rats had swallowed only a single dose of dioxin on the fifteenth day of their pregnancy, a critical period in the process of sexual differentiation that causes males to become male and not female. As they matured, the male pups born to mothers given dioxin showed sperm reductions of as much as fifty-six percent when compared to those whose mothers had ingested none. Moreover, even at the lowest dose the male pups showed a sperm count drop of as much as forty percent. Its a dramatic illustration of how sensitive the male reproductive system can be at a critical stage of development, Moore said. If we gave the same dose to a sexually mature male there is nothing we could detect in terms of reproductive effects. The male reproductive system, they found, is about one hundred times more sensitive to dioxin during early development than in adulthood. Dioxin also appeared to affect the sexual behavior of male pups exposed early in life, suggesting that it had interfered with the sexual differentiation of the brain. At maturity, these males showed diminished male sexual behavior in mating encounters and increased propensity to exhibit feminized sexual behavior, such as arching of the back in a typically female lordosis response, when treated with hormones and then mounted by another male. Earl Gray repeated this dioxin experiment at the Environmental Protection Agencys reproductive toxicology lab in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, using a different strain of rat and hamsters, the species considered to be the least sensitive to dioxin. In toxicity tests, toxicologists have found that the lethal dose for adult hamsters is one hundred times greater than that which kills most other animals. Like Peterson, the EPA lab found sharp reductions in male sperm count in rats and hamsters, and in similar studies on female rats, it found malformations of the reproductive tract. The hamster results were particularly interesting to Gray, since some have argued that dioxin does not pose a hazard because no humans have ever died from dioxin exposure. While it might be hard to kill an adult hamster with dioxin, the species proved as sensitive as the others to prenatal exposure. Like Petersons lab, Gray also found changes in the sexual behavior of male rats, but he is not fully convinced that the diminished mating prowess is due to altered brain development. There is also the possibility that dioxin disrupts the development of the males genitals so his equipment does not work properly, making him less effective at mating. For the moment, the question of whether dioxin interferes with the development of the brain and thereby disrupts sexual behavior remains unresolved. Scientists understand less about dioxin than they do about the more straightforward hormone mimics or blockers, such as methoxychlor and vinclozolin, which cause disruption by binding with estrogen or androgen receptors. For this reason, Gray explains, he would be less confident predicting what might happen to humans based on animal experiments. Recent discoveries are, however, giving scientists increasing confidence that the responses in humans and animals are likely to be roughly similar. Researchers have found that dioxin acts almost exclusively through a receptorone of the Continued orphan receptors whose normal chemical messenger remains unknown. Although this receptor was first identified in animals, studies have shown that humans also have a fully functional aryl hydrocarbon, or Ah, receptor that binds to dioxin. Once dioxin occupies the receptor in a human cell, researchers have found it binds to DNA in the cell nucleus, prompting many of the same changes in gene expression seen in animal experiments. Humans seem no less sensitive to this effect. But what happens afterward to produce all of dioxins disparate biological effects, including developmental disruption, remains a mystery. However it happens, dioxin acts like a powerful and persistent hormone that is capable of producing lasting effects at very low dosesdoses similar to levels found in the human population. The outstanding irony is that the rats in Moores experiments passed the standard fertility tests with flying colorstests typically used by the chemical

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industry to screen chemicals for safety. Almost all were able to impregnate females and produce the normal number of pups. The reason, Moore explains, is that rats are incredibly robust breeders, producing ten times more sperm than they really need to reproduce. Tests have found that a toxic chemical can knock out ninety-nine percent of a rats sperm and still have no effect on his ability to reproduce. Humans, by comparison, are inefficient breeders, who tend to produce barely the number of sperm required for successful fertilization. Moore describes the human male sperm count as borderline pathological for many individuals even without the assault of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. If Moore is correct and if long-term declines in human sperm count continue, our species faces a troubling prospect. Such a drop could have a devastating impact on human fertility.

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Nuclear War Extinction Escalation

Early Warning Systems mean extinction in half an hour The American Prospect, 2/26/01
The bitter disputes over national missile defense (NMD) have obscured a related but dramatically more urgent issue of national security: the 4,800 nuclear warheads -- weapons with a combined destructive power nearly 100,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima -- currently on "hairtrigger" alert. Hair-trigger alert means this: The missiles carrying those warheads are armed and fueled at all times. Two thousand or so of these warheads are on the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) targeted by Russia at the United States; 1,800 are on the ICBMs targeted by the United States at Russia; and approximately 1,000 are on the submarine-based missiles targeted by the two nations at each other. These missiles would launch on receipt of three computer-delivered messages. Launch crews -on duty every second of every day -- are under orders to send the messages on receipt of a single computer-delivered command. In no more than two minutes, if all went according to plan, Russia or the United States could launch missiles at predetermined targets: Washington or New York; Moscow or St. Petersburg. The early-warning systems on which the launch crews rely would detect the other side's missiles within tens of seconds, causing the intended -- or accidental -- enemy to mount retaliatory strikes. "Within a half-hour, there could be a nuclear war that would extinguish all of us," explains Bruce Blair. "It would be, basically, a nuclear war by checklist, by rote."

Civilian evacuation will be perceived as preparing for retaliation guarantees escalation Arthur M. Katz and Sima R. Osdoby THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR April 21,1982 http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa0o9.html
Finally, civil defense, particularly crisis relocation (evacuation), has been presented as a complementary element in nuclear strategy. It is ineffective at best. Its purpose is to minimize human destruction and thus purports to strengthen the basis for the possibility of successfully enduring a limited or even urban-oriented nuclear attack. This argument is tenuous. Its hard to believe that in a period of extreme tension, a full-scale urban evacuation by the U.S. or Soviet Union would be perceived as anything but a signal of intent to pursue a nuclear strike. Since an effective evacuation takes at a minimum four to five days to complete, certain actions are likely to be taken by the other side. Among the possibilities: a threat to attack if the evacuation is not stopped: an attack during the evacuation phase when the population is most exposed; and of course, the adoption of a strategy of launch on warning, creating a hair trigger in a clearly dangerous situation. Ironically, a launch on warning would defeat the whole purpose of a first-strike strategy.

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Nuclear War Extinction Nuclear Winter

Even if immediate effects on climate arent so bad, long term effects create nuclear winter Stephen H. Schneider & Starley L. Thompson, Nature 333, 221 - 227 (19 May 1988);
doi:10.1038/333221a0, Simulating the climatic effects of nuclear war, National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder, Colorado 80307, USA The climatic effects of a hypothetical large nuclear war have been simulated by an increasingly comprehensive series of global numerical models. Short-term climatic effects are now found to be less severe than predicted by early studies but the chronic long-term atmospheric effects remain potentially serious. The sum of all indirect effects could exceed those of blast and radioactivity .

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Nuclear War Extinction Limited Nuclear War

It only takes five nuclear weapons to destroy the planet The Guardian, July 14, 1993
We now know or ought to know and that we includes Arabs, Iranians. South Asians, Chinese, and Koreans as well as Westerners that one nuclear weapon discharging might be enough to push an entire region, say a vulnerable region like the Middle East, into an irreversible ecological, economic, and political decline Two or three could thrust the world into a long term crisis, compounded by the degradation of other dangerous facilities including nuclear power stations. Five or 10 could wreck the planet

Even limited nuclear war kills everyone Alan Robock, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September, 1989, p. 35
The implications of nuclear winter are clear: the use of nuclear weapons would be suicide for all the peoples of the planet. A first strike would kill the aggressors, even if their victims could not retaliate. And the threat of nuclear retaliation, even for a conventional attack, is meaningless if it will also kill the retaliators. Even a limited nuclear war would produce these effects.

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Nuclear War Extinction Physicians Agree

140,000 physicians agree nuclear war would cause extinction on Earth and possibly the universe Yevgeny Chazov, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1985 http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1985/physicians-lecture.html
Today is a meaningful and festive day for over 140,000

physicians from 41 nations, those who united in the movement of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. And not only for them but for all honest men and women dedicated to maintaining life on Earth as members of the most humane profession medicine. The Nobel Prize awarded to our movement is not only a recognition of physicians' services in denouncing the nuclear illusions and promoting a true perception of nuclear weapons and effects of their use, but also a symbol of international trust and belief in the infinite value and uniqueness of the human mind. As Ibsen6 wrote in Peer Gynt "Only he who has nothing to lose in life can risk it". Nuclear war, unless it is prevented, would lead to the extinction of life on Earth and possibly in the Universe. Can we take
such a risk?

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Nuclear War Extinction Culture Loss

War would destroy our cultural achievements and rebuilding would be impossible Justice C. G. Weeramantry judge with the International Court of Justice (1991-2000). International Law Summer, 2000
Likewise, the cultural treasures of the world would be destroyed. All that we have built up for thousands of years as a memento of human achievement in the past, all that will go overboard in one moment. What happens after the war, of course, we reduced whoever is unfortunate enough to survive would live in a stone age, and as Henry Kissinger once said, those who are sifting among the debris of the space age would not be thinking of how to rebuild the economy and how to rebuild the auto industry, but they would be trying to think how they may find nonradioactive berries on the trees around them or edible timber bark which they can eat. That will be the level to which the survivors will be reduced.

Cultural survival is key to human survival Maivan Clech Lam, Visiting Associate Professor at American University Washington College of Law, 2000, At The Edge of the State: Indigenous Peoples and Self-Determination, p. 205-206
Stavenhagen writes: Cultures are complex patterns of social relationships, material objects, and spiritual values that give meaning and identity to community life and are a resource for solving the problems of everyday life. That some very ugly campaigns in modem history, usually unleashed by the destructive economic and military policies of the worlds powerful states, have tapped, frighteningly successfully, into ethnic energy is undeniable. But it is just as undeniable that knowledgeof the universe, of a specific part of it, of workable social relationships, of human naturethat is crucial to the project of human survival remains separately encoded in the distinctive cultures of ethnic groups. No human community or ethnic group can construct an informed and meaningful future if it is cut off from its cultural past. And alienation from meaning, as much as exploited meaning, can lead to violence.

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Nuclear War Worse Than Disease

Nuclear war is worse than disease Ronald McCoy, President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, NATO Defense
College Conference on Future Challenges for Non-Proliferation Instruments, Rome, Italy, March 16-17, 2004 International Cooperation in Addressing the Risks Related to Biological Agents http://www.ippnw.org/BiosecMcCoyNATO031604.html To physicians, the deliberate use of disease as a weapon of war is particularly repugnant, but even more repugnant is the use of nuclear weapons. In a nuclear war, there can be no meaningful medical response. Long term radiation effects could blight unborn generations; civilisation itself could come to an end.

Physicians agree nuclear war would be the final epidemic, causing global extinction The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) general policies prologue 1987
http://www.mapw.org.au/mapw-policy/87mapw-policy-general.html The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) acts in the belief that the arms race and the risk of nuclear war are currently the greatest threats to human health and welfare. Nuclear weapons threaten all the world's people, rendering meaningless any distinction between combatant and noncombatant peoples and countries. The ecosphere that supports all life on earth is similarly threatened. As physicians we are aware of the horrendous consequences of nuclear explosions and of nuclear war. We know that no meaningful medical response to nuclear war is possible. Nuclear war would be the final epidemic. The only viable course of action is to prevent these events from happening.

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Nuclear War Kills Economy

Nuclear war would destroy the global economic system, returning us to the dark ages Online version of: Nissani, M. (1992). Lives in the Balance: the Cold War and American Politics, 19451991. Chapter 2: CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR, http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/PAGEPUB/CH2.html III. Economic Consequences. To see the complexity of modern industrial economies, ask yourself how self-sufficient you are, in comparison, say, to a native North American of some 500 years ago. Most likely you depend on a highly complex web for sheer physical survival, let alone travel, leisure, education, and similar luxuries. Your food, water, heating fuel, and other necessities often come from outside sources, and their continuous arrival depends on an intricate, finely tuned network. In the event of total war, this network would be blown to smithereens in minutes. The pool of workers and skilled professionals will be reduced by death and illness to a fraction of its pre-war levels. Oil refineries, power plants, factories, food production facilities, and other industrial and commercial facilities will be destroyed. Fallout will render immediate reconstruction impossible, for the survivors in the combatant countries will have to spend the first weeks or months indoors, underground, or in shelters. Without enough fuel to run tractors, fertilizers and pesticides to grow crops, and people to work the fields; without adequate means of shipping raw materials to farms and factories and of shipping food and industrial products to consumers; and without money or some other accepted standard of exchange; national economies may be in shambles. Some areas may be highly contaminated. Many regions may be frozen solid during the first growing season after the war. The survivors may be physically ill or sick at heart. They may not possess the necessary strength and courage, like Job, to start all over again. Why, they may wonder, should they work like slaves to rebuild a modern society that might end again in death? The present complex system of international trade will almost certainly vanish. International aid, including grain and food exports, might cease. Millions of people in countries which depend on food imports or specialized exports will suffer a great deal. It is impossible to predict the long-term consequences of all this. Perhaps a modern economic system similar to our own could be re-created in 20 to 50 years, bringing much of the anguish and chaos to an end. Perhaps recovery would never take place, the world sinking instead to something like the decentralized economies of the Dark Ages.

Nuclear war would rock the economy the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - - - Some Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt
"Finally, at least brief mention should be made of the global effects resulting from disruption of economic activities and communications. Since 1970, an increasing fraction of the human race has been losing the battle for self-sufficiency in food, and must rely on heavy imports. A major disruption of agriculture and transportation in the grain-exporting and manufacturing countries could thus prove disastrous to countries importing food, farm machinery, and fertilizers--especially those which are already struggling with the threat of widespread starvation. Moreover, virtually every economic area, from food and medicines to fuel and growth engendering industries, the less-developed countries would find they could not rely on the "undamaged" remainder of the developed world for trade essentials: in the wake of a nuclear war the industrial powers directly involved would themselves have to compete for resources with those countries that today are described as "less-developed." Similarly, the disruption of international communications--satellites, cables, and even high frequency radio links--could be a major obstacle to international recovery efforts. "

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Uncertainty = vote neg/AT: Natural Disasters

Uncertainty means you err negative the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - - - Some Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt
"In attempting to project the after-effects of a major nuclear war, we have considered separately the various kinds of damage that could occur. It is also quite possible, however, that interactions might take place among these effects, so that one type of damage would couple with another to produce new and unexpected hazards. For example, we can assess individually the consequences of heavy worldwide radiation fallout and increased solar ultraviolet, but we do not know whether the two acting together might significantly increase human, animal, or plant susceptibility to disease. We can conclude that massive dust injection into the stratosphere, even greater in scale than Krakatoa, is unlikely by itself to produce significant climatic and environmental change, but we cannot rule out interactions with other phenomena, such as ozone depletion, which might produce utterly unexpected results. We have come to realize that nuclear weapons can be as unpredictable as they are deadly in their effects. Despite some 30 years of development and study, there is still much that we do not know. This is particularly true when we consider the global effects of a large-scale nuclear war. "

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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters are too diffuse and cool to create nuclear winter the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - - - Some Perspectives, October, 1996 [Etext #684] http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/nukwr10.txt
"A nuclear war would involve such prodigious and concentrated short term release of high temperature energy that it is necessary to consider a variety of potential environmental effects. It is true that the energy of nuclear weapons is dwarfed by many natural phenomena. A large hurricane may have the power of a million hydrogen bombs. But the energy release of even the most severe weather is diffuse; it occurs over wide areas, and the difference in temperature between the storm system and the surrounding atmosphere is relatively small. Nuclear detonations are just the opposite--highly concentrated with reaction temperatures up to tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. Because they are so different from natural processes, it is necessary to examine their potential for altering the environment in several contexts. "

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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Study Indicts

Your indicts are based on government propaganda Nuclear Winter will happen Dr. Alan Phillips, NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED October 2000 http://www.peace.ca/nuclearwinterrevisited.htm
The prediction of nuclear winter was published by a group headed by Carl Sagan in 1983. The initials of their names were T-T-A-P-S, so the paper and their book has become known as "t-taps". It caused some alarm in government circles in U.S.A. and NATO countries, not so much because this further disaster would follow a nuclear war, but because of the boost it gave to the Peace Movement. A number of studies were published in the next few years, including major reports by The Swedish Academy of Sciences (Ambio), the International Council of Scientific Unions (SCOPE), and the U.S. National Research Council. There was a drive by government and the military establishment to minimize the matter, and after a few years the media were talking about "nuclear autumn". (The most astonishing lies were propagated, e.g. that Carl Sagan admitted that his publication was "a propaganda scam".) It was true that islands and coastal areas would have less severe temperature drops than the original predictions, because of the modifying effect of the ocean. They would have violent storms instead, because of the big temperature difference between land and water. In 1990 another paper was published by the T-TAPS group reviewing in detail the later studies, and showing that some modifications to their 1983 paper were necessary. Some of these were in the direction of more severe changes, others towards milder changes. The general picture was little changed. The book: "A Path Where No Man Thought" by Sagan and Turco (one of the T's), also published in 1990, gives an account of current conclusions for the serious non-specialist reader. It gives detailed descriptions of nuclear winters of different severity according to how many weapons were used, and against what targets. If oil refineries and storage were the main targets, 100 bombs would be enough to cause a nuclear winter, and the smallest sizes of nuclear bombs would be effective in starting the fires."

Nuclear war would devastate the US economy Arthur Katz and Sima R. Osdoby, Policy Analysis no. 9, The Social and Economic Effects Of Nuclear War, April 21, 1982
Casualties, evacuation, and land denial would create severe national and local economic dislocations. Approximately one-third of the U.S.'s manufacturing capacity lies within the geographic areas most affected by fallout.[5] A major evacuation would leave the regional economy in a shambles. Because of economic interdependence, the problem of "bottlenecking" -- serious disruption of the national economy -- would be likely. Bottlenecking is the disruptive effect that losses in a key industry (e.g., steel) have on other dependent economic activities (automobiles and machine tool production). Even modest reductions in capacity of basic, pivotal industries can have severe, widespread effects on the economy. Despite the possibility of product substitution (e.g., plastics for steel) or high inventories of selected products, the short- and mid-term ramifications of a disruption of even 25 to 50% of the affected region's manufacturing activities (equivalent to 8 to 15% of national economic activities) would be a serious blow to the national economy. This disruption could easily last several months, and in a post-attack stalemate with the possibility of future attack requiring prolonged urban evacuation, it would become worse. There are other likely consequences that are less obvious. The banking system would face a particularly severe burden, for example -- potential bankruptcies; defaults on basic time payments, such as mortgages and major appliances; and major shifts of monies by individuals during evacuation. In contaminated areas individuals or businesses would be unable to gain access to money, especially in local banks, for long periods. In general, it would be virtually impossible for banks, either regionally or nationally, to pursue "normal" lending and borrowing policies. Payments such as rents and salaries to businesses or individuals would also have to be deferred. Business insurance would certainly

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not cover this type of catastrophe. On a scale unknown in U.S. experience, there would probably be a massive outcry for the federal government to provide regional disaster loans to prevent bankruptcy and help resettle workers and their families from severely contaminated areas. The injured and evacuated population would create enormous social service demands (medical care, welfare, emergency housing, etc.) requiring huge sums of money to be spent rapidly. Unprecedented government intervention would probably be demanded to save industries from bankruptcies, allocate goods, and determine industrial priorities. Since individual, industrial, and even regional economic stability would depend on which industries and plants were decontaminated and/or received needed financial support first, implementing these governmental policies would be politically explosive. Depending on the size of the attack, casualties would range from 20 to 45% of the U.S. population (40 to 90 million people) including 20 to 30 million injured. From 25 to 65% of the economy would be destroyed.[11] The gross economic figures seriously understate the problem since even using the smallest attack A-4 (100 one megaton, 200-300 one hundred kiloton weapons), specifically targeted key industries are likely to be well over 50% destroyed -- some as high as 80 to 90%. To put these numbers in perspective, a Stanford Research Institute (SRI) study for the Office of Civil Defense (the Federal Emergency Management Agency's predecessor) estimated that to recover from nuclear attacks in the range discussed here would take well over a decade. We believe these estimates are based upon unrealistically optimistic assumptions -or as the authors themselves state, the "upper limits on potential recovery. Projected recovery rates should prove over optimistic when compared with rates actually realized in a real case."[12] If recovery is possible, and that is an open question, a more reasonable estimate would be several decades -perhaps 40 or 50 years. Of course the attacks described above are not full-scale exchanges; under those circumstances the number of warheads and megatons directed at urban/industrial targets could easily reach 2000, 3000, or more, as well as substantial fallout from ground bursts not included as part of attacks A-1 to A-4. In the case of a large-scale attack the damage would be even more severe and widespread than in the discussion to follow; combining the effects of Parts I and II might provide the minimum damage expected with a full-scale attack. Despite the effects of so-called urban sprawl and industrial migration, industry and population remain concentrated in a relatively small number of urban areas which present particularly vulnerable targets to nuclear weapons. Nearly 60% of the U.S. population lives on only 1% of the total land area of the United States. This is a result of the fact that approximately 85% of the population of large metropolitan areas lives on only 10% of the total urban land area. The population within these metropolitan regions is concentrated in very high-density areas, rendering the U.S. even more vulnerable to an "economic" attack. For example, the implications of urban concentration are illustrated by the smallest attack, A-4. It would cause the destruction of about 20 to 30% of total manufacturing capacity and 44 to 55% of the manufacturing capacity in the 71 largest metropolitan areas. In cities as diverse as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Akron, Ohio, A-4 would destroy approximately 50% or more of their manufacturing capacity. When the number of one megaton weapons in the attack on these cities is increased five-fold (500%), as in A-1, casualties and industrial damage increase only by approximately 200%. Therefore, devastating economic destruction, disruption, and social disorganization would be caused even by the smaller attacks, since in terms of the destructive effects of nuclear weapons, population and industry are not really dispersed. In the Soviet Union, industry and population are concentrated even more densely than in the United States.

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Yes Nuclear Winter AT: Particle Size

Mistakes in particle size in early models underestimated the effects of nuclear winter Jenny Nelson, Abstract, Nature 339, 611 - 613 (22 June 1989); doi:10.1038/339611a0, Fractality of
sooty smoke: implications for the severity of nuclear winter, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, UK IT is now recognized that the sooty fraction of the smoke produced by fires in the wake of a nuclear exchange is a critical factor in determining climatic effects13. Sooty smoke particles occur as chained aggregates of small spherules which are fractal with a dimension of 1.71.9. According to a recently developed mean-field theory4 for the optics of such fractal clusters, their short-wavelength absorption and scattering characteristics should differ fundamentally from those of spheres. Here I present the results of simulations of scattering from computer-generated fractal clusters which confirm that the theory is appropriate to fractal soot. The theory indicates that soot absorptivity is insensitive to particle size and hence that coagulation in a soot aerosol affects only slightly its optical depth. Studies of the climate effects of nuclear war that model sooty smoke as coalescing spheres are therefore likely to underestimate the severity of 'nuclear winter'.

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Yes Nuclear Winter Dirty Snow

Dirty snow created by a nuclear war guarantees nuclear winter Stephen G. Warren* & Warren J. Wiscombe, Abstract, *Nature 313, 467 - 470 (07 February 1985);
doi:10.1038/313467a0, Dirty snow after nuclear war, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, AK-40, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA The notion that smoke from fires started by nuclear explosions could alter the Earth's climate1 is supported by quantitative models of climate25,27 showing that severe cooling may be expected at continental surfaces in the first few months following a full-scale nuclear war, because of the reduced transmission of sunlight through the atmospheric smoke. Whether or not these model results are correct, we show here that the smoke could continue to cause significant climatic disruption even after it has fallen from the atmosphere, by lowering the reflectivity of snow and sea-ice surfaces, with possible effects on climate in northern latitudes caused by enhanced absorption of sunlight. Indeed, on Arctic sea ice and on the ablation area of the Greenland ice sheet, the reduced reflectivity could persist for several years.

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AT: Regional Stays Regional

Radiation from a regional nuclear war spreads all over the glove F. SHERWOOD ROWLAND, Interviewed by John M. Whiteley, EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THE ATMOSPHERE, Quest for Peace Video Series, No Date, but at least 1995
Rowland: Well, basically the atmosphere mixes extremely rapidly. Something which is released in Los Angeles will reach New York in a few days, it will reach Western Europe in a week or two, and completely around the world in a matter of a few weeks. The mixing to the southern hemisphere is a little bit slower, but still takes place within a year or so, so that anything that you put into the atmosphere that has a lifetime of a year or more, and many gasses that are released to the atmosphere do have lifetimes of that length, will be mixed everywhere, so that one problem isn't restricted just to an individual country. If you release it in the United States it's a problem for the world; if you release it in Africa, it's a problem for the world. That makes it a general problem for everyone.

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Dioxin Fate worse than extinction

Humanity is at the brink of a precipice. An increase in hormone-altering chemicals like Dioxin could reduce humanity to a fate worse than extinction Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future. March 1996. p.
234-238 So we find ourselves at an unsettling junctureuncertain whether the dire trend in human male sperm count will soon bottom out or whether it will continue downward. It is encouraging that some of the most notorious persistent chemicals have been restricted in developing countries and that human body burdens in at
least some of these countries have declined as a result. At the same time, surprising discoveries of hormonally active chemicals in unexpected places such as plastics raise new concerns about chronic widespread exposure. There is always a temptation to extrapolate worrisome trends into apocalyptic, worst-case scenarios, but it is hard to imagine that sperm counts will fall inexorably downward and reach a point that poses an imminent threat to human survival. Even so, humans do appear to be gambling with their ability to reproduce over the long term, which

. What we fear most immediately is not extinction, but the insidious erosion of the human species. We worry about an invisible loss of human potential. We worry about the power of hormonedisrupting chemicals to undermine and alter the characteristics that make us uniquely humanour behavior, intelligence, and capacity for social organization. The scientific evidence about the impact of hormone disruptors on brain development and behavior may shed new light on some of the troubling trends we are witnessing. Why did the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of high school seniors seeking college admission begin to fall sharply from their high point in 1963 and continue downward for almost two decades? Is it solely the result of demographic and social factors, such as changes in the pool of college aspirants or reduced motivation on the part of students, as studies have suggested? What about the problems in our schools? Why cant many children read? Is it because they watch too much TV or spend all their time playing video games, because of a lack of family support for schools, or because they were exposed to PCBs or other thyroid-disrupting chemicals before birth? While any connection is still speculative, the human and animal studies reporting learning difficulties and hyperactivity in those exposed prenatally to PCBs suggest to us that synthetic chemicals may indeed be increasing the burden on our schools. This seems particularly probable in light of data discussed earlier showing that five percent of the babies in the United States are exposed to sufficient quantities of PCBs in breast milk to affect their neurological development. Moreover, this figure does not take into account the large number of other synthetic chemicals that can also disrupt the thyroid hormones that are vital to brain development. It is difficult to tease this contamination factor out from all the other stresses confronting children in our societydisintegrating families, neglect, abuse, and increasing violence on the streets and even within schools. But save for lead and mercury, educators, physicians, and others have been slow to recognize that the chemical environment may undermine educational efforts as well as the social environment. The hitherto unrecognized hazards of endocrine disruptors need serious investigation, because such disruption could be a major factor in learning and behavioral problems and one that could be reduced in the future through preventive measures. If such invisible losses are already taking place, they will have greater impact on the society as a whole than on any individuals. Some human studies have suggested that contaminants at levels currently found in the human population could impair mental development enough to cause a five-point loss in measurable IQ. If this happened to a typical child, the consequences would be unfortunate but not catastrophic. Although the child would not fulfill his true potential, he would still fall within the normal range of intelligence and, with discipline, might do well enough in school and gain entrance to a college. But the five-point IQ difference might mean that he lacks the competitive edge to get into a top university. Consider, however, what it might mean for our society if synthetic chemicals are subtly undermining human intelligence across the entire population in the same manner that they have apparently undermined human male sperm count. With the current average IQ score of 100, a population of 100 million will have 2.3 million intellectually gifted people who score above 130. Though it might not sound like much, if the average were to drop just five points to 95, it would have staggering implications,
should be of grave concern

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according to Bernard Weiss, a behavioral toxicologist at the University of Rochester who has considered the societal impact of seemingly small losses. Instead of 2.3 million, only 990,000 would score over 130, 50 this society would have lost more than half of its high-powered minds with the capacity to become the most gifted doctors, scientists, college professors, inventors, or writers. At the same time, this downward shift would result in a greater number of slow learners, with IQ scores around 70, who would require special remedial education, an already costly educational burden, and who may not be able to fill many of the more highly skilled jobs in a technological society. Given the daunting array of problems we face as nations and as a world community, the last thing we can afford is the loss of human intelligence and problem-solving powers. The animal studies raise even more disturbing questions about the possible impact of synthetic chemicals on behavior, which appears particularly sensitive to disruption by hormonally active contaminants. Researchers find evidence of altered behavior long before they find signs of reduced intelligence or impaired fertility. Recalling Helen Dalys rat studies, the pups born to mothers who ate contaminated fish seemed just as intelligent, healthy, and reproductively fit as the control rats, but they showed great changes in behavior, particularly in their extreme reactions to negative events. Could prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants have similar effects on humans? Could they be reducing our ability to cope with stress as well? The first results from the human studies done by Dalys colleagues show a similar intolerance to stress among the children of women who had eaten contaminated Lake Ontario fish. Other studies suggest that exposure to synthetic chemicals can make animals more prone to aggression. In studies exposing pregnant mice to relatively low levels of the pesticides DDT and methoxychlor, Frederick vom Saal and his team report a much higher rate of territorial urine marking in their male offspring than in males born to unexposed mothers, a behavior that indicates an increased likelihood of aggression between males. In vom Saals view, the studies show that hormonally active chemicals may have important effects on social-sexual behaviors. If animals within a population all show changes in social-sexual behavior, marked disturbance of social structure can occur. Other researchers have fed laboratory rats and mice water containing the same levels of chemical contaminants found in rural Wisconsin wells and discovered that the animals drinking contaminated water showed unpredictable outbursts of aggression. While intriguing, any connection between such studies and the rising violence in American society is, at this point, purely speculative. But without question, these findings point to an urgent need to pursue possible links between chemical contaminants, behavior, and aggression in both animals and humans. What about the breakdown of the family and frequent reports of child abuse and neglect? If scientists have found evidence of careless parenting in contaminated bird colonies, do these chemicals have any role in similar phenomena among human parents? Reacting to reports of growing neglect and violence against children by their parents, some commentators have ventured that there must be something wrong with these people; some basic instincts seem to be missing. Hormones do not determine our behavior, but it is likely that they influence mating and parenting behavior in humans just as they do in other mammals. Recent animal studies have been identifying the biological mechanisms involved in the bonding between mammal mothers and their offspring, and between males and their matesmechanisms that are dependent on hormones. The effects of contaminants on behavior will vary considerably among species, making it impossible to predict any specific effects on humans. But we are confident that ongoing research will confirm that the hormonal experience of the developing embryo at crucial stages of its development has an impact on adult behavior in humans, affecting the choice of mates, parenting, social behavior, and other significant dimensions of our humanity. Nevertheless, at the moment it is impossible to know whether hormone-disrupting chemicals are contributing to any of the disturbing social and behavioral problems besetting our society and, if so, how much. Each of these problems is immensely complex and the result of a variety of forces acting together. At the same time, studies with animals are clearly showing that disrupting chemical messages during development can have a lifelong impact on learning ability and behavior. Hormone disruption can increase the tendency toward a certain kind of behavior, such as territoriality, or attenuate normal social behaviors, such as parental vigilance and protective-

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ness. Given this provocative evidence, we should consider chemical contamination as a factor contributing to the increasing prevalence of dysfunctional behavior in human society as well. Some might find irony in the prospect that humans in their restless quest for dominance over nature may be inadvertently undermining their own ability to reproduce or to learn and think. They may see poetic justice in the possibility that we have become unwitting guinea pigs in our own vast experiment with synthetic chemicals. But in the end, it is hard to regard such a chemical assault on our children and their potential for a full life as anything but profoundly sad. Chemicals that disrupt hormone messages have the power to rob us of rich possibilities that have been the legacy of our species and, indeed, the essence of our humanity. There may be fates worse than extinction.

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AT: Disease War

Our timeframe makes this irrelevant a war will exacerbate diseases that already exist and cause global epidemics long before enough people get sick from endangered tortoises that they start attacking each other thats the Peterson 95 evidence from the impact debate Your argument is backwards war causes disease, not the other way around. If anything, disease makes war harder because everyone is too sick to fight Peterson, R. K. D. 1995. Insects,disease, and military history: the Napoleonic campaigns and historical
perception. American Entomologist. 41:147-160. Bubonic plague in Jaffa, yellow fever in Haiti, and typhus in Russia are rather prominent examples of how insects and disease have influenced war. Although not as dramatic or influential, these diseases and others were present in other campaigns in Napoleon's long military career. From Piedmont to Waterloo, countless French soldiers and other belligerents suffered from dysentery, typhoid, syphilis, scarlet fever, smallpox, measles, pneumonia, plague, typhus, malaria, and yellow fever. Millions of service days were lost because of the debilitating effects of these diseases. Napoleon estimated that one out of eight in his command was sick at any given time. In Spain during the 1808 campaign, one soldier in four was sick (Etling 1988). Because of advances in medicine, and the understanding of disease transmission, infectious disease does not have the effect on war today that it once did. However, ancient diseases follow the soldier to this day. Infectious diseases, such as cholera, that were once thought to be under control are showing amazing resilience and resistance to our medicines. In Somalia, dengue and malaria threatened U.S. troops. Sand fly fever affected soldiers in Operation Desert Storm. In Bosnia, U.S. and U.N. personnel monitor the embattled region for outbreaks of typhus and malaria. Although diseases do not have the drama of charging cavalry, firing cannon, and smoking muskets, their influence on military history must not be overlooked. In an era where generalship was once thought to be all-important, we have seen that disease can render a general's plans worthless. A better understanding of the effect of insect-borne disease on the general and the foot soldier undoubtedly will enhance our understanding of history. AT: Invisible threshold/precautionary principle We can still weigh consequences nuclear war would be a lot more risky considering the invisible threshold than the impacts of plan Invisible thresholds freeze action and mean any risk of the turn creates the same risk Mark Plummer, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Charles Mann, Noahs Choice, 1995, p. 132-3 The fallacy is highlighted by considering the possibility that a species may be one that we dont want to save, according to Mark Sagoff, a philosopher at the University of Maryland, in College Park. The AIDS virus, he pointed out, "apparently originated in a species of monkey in Africa. Who could deny that the world would have been spared great agony had that species a century ago gone extinct?" The monkey would thus be an example of biodiversity having a bad consequence. Often we focus on bad consequences and seek to minimize their occurrencelook at the campaigns to force chemical companies to certify that products are benign before they are allowed on the market. Because we do not know the uses of many species, treating biodiversity in the way environmental activists would like

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to treat chemicals would suggest automatically banning species we don't know about. The idea is ludicrous, but that is the point. Arguing that ignorance forces a decision is always ludicrous. Claims of absolute intrinsic value are relativistic nonsense Their argument justifies letting their diseases live because they might be key to planetary survival Murray Bookchin, Philosophy of Social Ecology, 1990, p. 183-4 The results of this desystematization of thinking are often ludicrous when they are not simply cruel, or even vicious. If all organisms in the biosphere are equally worthy of a right to life and organic fulfillment, as many biocentrists believe, then human beings have no right, given the full logic of this proposition, to stamp out malaria and yellow-fever mosquitoes. Nor does the logic of this proposition give humanity the right to eliminate the AIDS virus and other organic sources of deadly illness. It hardly helps us to learn that the notion of "biocentric equality," to re-word the language of Bill Devall and George Sessions, the authors of Deep Ecology, is hedged by a qualifier like we have no right to destroy other living being without sufficient reason. A qualification like sufficient reason is ambiguous enough to divest the entire notion of its logical integrity. Logic, in fact, gives way to a purely relativistic ethics. What may be a sufficient reason for Devall and Sessionsall their well-meant and desirable intentions asidemay be very insufficient to a large array of people whose well-being, indeed whose very survival under the present system, conflicts sharply with the authors views. We have to make hard choices. The aff is moral escapism Julian Simon, Scarcity or Abundance?, 1994, p. 42 Still, the question exists: How should decisions be made, and sound policies formulated, with respect to the danger of species extinction? I do not offer a comprehensive answer. It is clear that we cannot simply save all species at any cost, any more than we can save all human lives at any cost. Certainly we must make some informed estimates about the present and future social value of species that might be lost, just as we must estimate the value of human life in order to choose rational policies about public health services such as hospitals and surgery. Biodiversity Prevents Disease Biodiversity is key to prevent and solve rashes of new disease outbreaks Francesca Grifo, Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, 1999, Epidemic The World of Infectious Disease, p. 25 Many of the pathogens that cause human disease are present in the environment most of the time. The reasons why we are not constantly symptomatic are varied and complex. In many instances they have a direct link to the benefits provided by biodiversity. Biodiversity, the incredible variety of living things, assures sufficient food and water supplies, keeps populations of disease-causing organisms in check, provides source materials for medical therapies, models for medical discoveries, and warnings of toxins and other environmental hazards. The disruption of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity threaten supplies of the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the medicines we need. Biodiversity plays a significant role in controlling pests, pathogens, vectors, and human parasites. Disease-causing organisms, the pathogens, often have very complex life cycles in which they may utilize numerous species as hosts (places to live and or reproduce), vectors (ways to get from one place to another), or reservoirs (places to "hang out" until external conditions improve). When ecosystems are disrupted, the normal disease behavior is frequently disrupted and humans very often end up being at greater risk of becoming ill or even dying. As we know, forest ecosystems are highly biodiverse. One of the clearest examples of how ecosystem disruption affects disease behavior can be seen in the interactions between deforestation and the infectious, and particularly the vector-borne, diseases that are common throughout the tropics and the sub-tropics.

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