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CP+DA K+alt Case+DA DA that turns the case Topicality K+case CP+internal net benefit Case with no DA? Solve the link and neutralize the impacts- give a plausible scenario about how the alternative sovles the advantages. Alt is a pre-requisite for solvency (can never solve the aff until the alt happens), sequencing arguments (must do the alternative before the case). First priority is to neutralize the case Specific case: JARC case- argued the way the state was using money was bad
such a big part in Barack Obamas campaign will find a home in todays inaugural address is an open question. But one thing is increasingly clear: America wont be able to count much on Mexico, still its third-biggest supplier, to help it wean off Persian
Gulf oil. The Mexican oil industry is in steep decline. The huge production falls seen through the first nine months of the year continued in the fourth quarter, Bloomberg says,
as Mexicos state oil company is set to report its steepest annual production declines since World War II. Mexican production will fall from more than 3 million barrels a day in 2007 to about 2.8 million barrels in 2008, Bloomberg estimates. President-elect Obama
repeatedly promised to reduce Americas dependence on Middle Eastern oil. But with Mexico struggling to keep its head above water, and Canadas tar sands an environmental no-go zone, making that promise a reality may be one of the next administrations biggest challenges. Mexicos decline was already clear through the
first nine months, as Petroleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX watched a precipitous decline at its biggest oil field, Cantarell, where production fell about 9.6% every quarter. In the third-quarter, Cantarell produced less than 1 million barrels for the first time; as recently as 2005, the Gulf of Mexico field was still producing more than 2 million barrels per day. The implications for the U.S. are big. Mexico provided on average 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, making it the third-biggest supplier after Canada and Saudi Arabia. Reversing Mexicos production decline is made trickier because of both politics and economics. Despite recent changes to the countrys oil-industry laws, Mexicos oil
industry still carries the torch of the 1938 oil nationalization. Foreign companies, which have a technological edge over the state-run PEMEX, cant do production-sharing agreements there like they can in other oil regions.
U.S. dependence on oil from outside North America risks multiple flash points for conflict. Rosen 10
Mark E. Rosen, Deputy General Counsel, CNA Corporation. LL.M., 1991, University of Virginia School of Law; J.D., 1978, University of Georgia School of Law; A.B., 1974, University of Georgia. Mr. Rosen has over thirty years of experience in the legal and national security fields, including positions with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a twenty-one year career as an international and maritime lawyer with United States Navy. Mr. Rosen holds adjunct teaching appointments at George Washington University School of Law and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Energy Independence and Climate Change: The Economic and National Security Consequences of Failing to Act. March 2010. 44 U. Rich. L. Rev. 977. Lexis.
President Roosevelt's tacit agreement in 1945 with Saudi Arabia promising U.S. protection in return for special U.S. access to Saudi oil has more or less put the United States in the
middle of four regional conflicts: Israel vs. Arab nations, Iraq vs. Iran, Iraq vs. Kuwait, and the United States vs. Iraq. n65 The links between access to oil and national security became explicit during the Carter administration, in which the United States signaled its
willingness to use military force to protect the world's access to oil in order to protect the
global market. n66 During that period, some international lawyers apparently
reasoned that access to oil - essential for the generation of energy and food - is a fundamental human right, which might reasonably justify the use of armed force to protect commercial access. n67 Indeed, shortly after the [*988] Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, President Bush imposed a de facto military blockade of Iraq in advance of an authorization by the UN Security Council for states to take military action to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. n68 This action was the first time since the Vietnam War that the United States had used military force to protect an economic interest. n69 The action prompted criticisms from many - including the UN Secretary General - that the United States must work through the Security Council. n70 Given that blockades are generally considered equivalent to the aggressive use of armed force under a traditional law-of-war analysis, n71 the 1990 blockade vignette clearly demonstrates that the United States - and presumably other states as well - regard access to oil as a fundamental right, which may legally justify the use of military force. There is a growing consensus in U.S. national security circles that American dependence on imported oil constitutes a threat to the United States because a substantial portion of those oil reserves are controlled by governments that have historically pursued policies inimical to U.S. interests. For example, anti-U.S. influence in parts of Latin and South America ..." n72 that retards the growth of friendly political and economic ties among the United States, Venezuela, and a few other states in Latin and South America. This scenario plays out in many different regions. Russia, for example, has used its oil leverage to exert extreme political pressure upon Ukraine and Belarus. n73 Longstanding Western commercial relations with
repressive regimes in the Middle East - i.e., Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia - raise similar issues because of the mixed strategic messages that are being sent. Of course, large
wealth
Venezuela, which represents eleven percent of U.S. oil imports, "regularly espouses antiAmerican and anti-Western rhetoric both at home and abroad ... [and] ... promotes ... [an]
[*989] transfers have allowed the Taliban in Saudi Arabia to bankroll terrorism . n74 A. Chokepoints and Flashpoints For the foreseeable future, the U.S. military will most likely be involved in protecting access to oil supplies - including the political independence of oil producers - and the global movements of using oil to help sustain the smooth functioning of the world economy. The security challenges associated with preserving access to oil are complicated by geographical "chokepoints," through which oil flows or is transported, but which are vulnerable to piracy or closure. n75 "Flashpoints" also exist as a result of political - and sometimes military - competition to secure commercial or sovereign access to oil in the face of disputed maritime and land claims that are associated with oil and gas deposits. Together, these challenges have necessitated that the United States and its allies maintain costly navies and air forces to protect sea lanes, ocean access, and maintain a presence to deter military competition in disputed regions. A selection of today's chokepoints and flashpoints follow. The Strait of Hormuz. This strait is the narrow waterway that allows access from the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf. Two-thirds of the world's oil is transported by ocean, and a very large percentage of that trade moves through Hormuz. The northern tip of Oman forms the southern shoreline of the strait. n76 Hormuz is protected by the constant transits of the U.S. Navy and its allies. Even though the strait has not been closed, the Persian Gulf has
been the scene of extensive military conflict. n77 On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, initiating an eight-year war between the two countries that featured the "War of the Tankers," in which 543 ships, including the USS Stark, were attacked, while the U.S. Navy provided escort services to protect tankers [*990] that were transiting the Persian Gulf. n78 There have been past threats by Iran to militarily close the strait. n79 Additionally, there are ongoing territorial disputes between the United Arab Emirates and Iran over ownership of three islands that are located in approaches to the strait. n80 Closure of the strait would cause severe disruption in the movements of the world's oil supplies and, at a minimum, cause significant price increases and perhaps supply shortages in many regions for the duration of the closure. n81 During the War of the Tankers, oil prices increased from $ 13 per barrel to $ 31 a barrel due to supply disruptions and other "fear" factors. n82 Bab el-Mandeb. The strait separates Africa (Djibouti and Eritrea) and Asia (Yemen), and it connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. The strait is an oil transit chokepoint since most of Europe's crude oil from the Middle East passes north through Bab el-Mandeb into the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. n83 Closure of the strait due to terrorist activities or for political/military reasons, could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal and Sumed Pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). n84 This would add greatly to transit time and cost, and would effectively tie-up spare tanker capacity. Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb would effectively block non-oil shipping from using the Suez Canal. n85 In October 2002 the French-flagged tanker Limburg was attacked off the coast of Yemen by terrorists. n86 During the [*991] Yom Kippur War in 1973, Egypt closed the strait as a means of blockading the southern Israeli port of Eilat. n87 The Turkish Straits and Caspian Oil. The term "Turkish Straits" refers to the two narrow straits in northwestern Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which connect the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea on one side and the Aegean arm of the Mediterranean Sea on the other. Turkey and Russia have been locked in a longstanding dispute over passage issues involving the Turkish Straits. n88 The 1936 Montreux Convention puts Turkey in charge of regulating traffic through the straits; n89 yet Turkey has been hard pressed to stop an onslaught of Russian, Ukrainian, and Cypriot tankers, which transport Caspian Sea oil to markets in Western Europe. n90 Because of the very heavy shipping traffic and very challenging geography, there have been many collisions and groundings in the past, creating terrible pollution incidents and death. n91 Thus far, none of these incidents have been attributed to state-on-state-conflict or terrorism; n92 however, the confined waterway is an especially attractive target because of the grave economic and environmental damage that would result from a well-timed and well-placed attack on a loaded tanker. The issues surrounding the straits are also a subset of larger problems associated with the exploitation of Caspian oil, including severe pollution of the Caspian Sea as a result of imprudent extraction techniques, as well as the ever-present potential for conflict among the various claimants to the Caspian's hydrocarbon resources due to an inability of the various Caspian littoral states to agree on their maritime boundaries - and their [*992] legal areas in which to drill. n93 Any one of these problems could become a major flashpoint in the future. China vs. Japan. The Daiyu/Senkaku islands located in the
East China Sea have become an increasingly contentious dispute because both claimants have ,
in the past, used modern military platforms to patrol the areas of their claims in which there are suspected oil and gas deposits in the seabed. n94 In September 2005, for example, China dispatched five warships to disputed waters surrounding its oil and gas platforms, which were spotted by a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft. n95 There have been other similar military-to-military encounters. n96 Given the fact that both countries have modern armed forces and are comparatively energy starved, it is not difficult to envision serious conflict erupting over these disputed areas. The Arctic Super Highway. Traditionalists would probably not include the Arctic as a security chokepoint. The oil connection is reasonably well known: "22 percent of the world's undiscovered energy reserves are projected to be in the region (including 13 percent of the world's petroleum and 30 percent of natural gas)." n97 However, given the very small margins that transporters earn transporting oil from point A to B, n98 shipping companies are always in search of shorter routes to transport oil to market. As the thawing of the Arctic Ocean continues as a result of climate change, n99 this may create new shipping routes that transporters of [*993] oil and other goods will use to maximize their profits and minimize their transit times. As supplies of readily exploitable crude oil are reduced, the probability increases that some of this trade will result from exploitation activities in the land and littoral areas adjacent to the Arctic Sea. This development is concerning for a number of reasons: (1) the area is very remote and could provide a safe haven to pirates seeking to hijack cargoes; (2) the environmental sensitivity of the area, and the concomitant difficulty of mounting a cleanup effort, means that an oil spill in that marine environment will be much more persistent than an oil spill in temperate waters; n100 (3) the Arctic presents unique navigational difficulties due to the lack of good charts, navigational aids, and communications towers, as well as the impacts of extreme cold on the operational effectiveness of systems; n101 (4) the unsettled nature of claims by various countries, including the United States, to the seabed continental shelf resources in the littoral areas off their coastlines creates the potential for military competition and conflict over these claims. n102 The International Maritime Organization ("IMO") is now circulating draft guidelines for ships operating in Arctic areas to promote - but not require - ship hardening against an iceberg strike, better crew training, and environmental protection measures. n103 These guidelines are merely advisory and can only be implemented via the flag states. n104 Also, neither IMO nor any of the UN Law of the Sea Institutions have mandatory jurisdiction over any of the flashpoint issues relating [*994] to competing continental shelf claims in the Arctic, n105 meaning that any disputes will remain unresolved for a long time. The
above is only a selected list of potential flashpoints in which oil is the main culprit . Disputes
between China and six other nations of the Spratly Islands, and other territories in the South China Sea, remain unresolved. n106 The Spratly Islands could become a flashpoint in the future, involving the United States or its allies, because of the proximity of those areas
to the major sea routes to Japan and Korea. n107 The strategic straits of Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda in Southeast Asia are absolutely essential to the movement of raw materials to Japan, Korea, and China. n108 Because of Lombok's depth and strategic location, it is a major transit route for very large crude carriers that move
between the Middle East and Asia. n109 Lombok is an undefended waterway that is only eighteen kilometers in width at its southern opening, making it an attractive chokepoint for hijacking or eco-terrorism in which the waters of the environmentally sensitive Indonesian archipelago would be held hostage.
state usually comes as a surprise, has a rapid onset, and poses acute problems. The collapse of Yugoslavia into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities in 1990 suggests how suddenly and catastrophically state collapse can happen - in this case, a state which had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, and which then quickly became the epicenter of the ensuing civil war. In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico. Some forms of collapse in Pakistan would carry with it the likelihood of a sustained violent and bloody civil and sectarian war, an even bigger haven for violent extremists, and the question of what would happen to its nuclear weapons. That perfect storm of uncertainty alone might require the engagement of U.S. and coalition forces into a situation of immense complexity and danger with no guarantee they could gain control of the weapons and with the real possibility that a nuclear weapon might be used. The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its
politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by the Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone. Yes, the rapid collapse of Mexico would change everything with respect to the global security environment. Such a collapse would have enormous humanitarian, constitutional, economic, cultural, and security implications for the U.S. It would seem the U.S. federal government, indeed American society at large, would have little ability to focus serious attention on much else in the world. The hypothetical collapse of Pakistan is a
scenario that has already been well discussed. In the worst case, the U.S. would be able to isolate itself from most effects emanating from south Asia. However, there would be no running from a Mexican collapse.
significant effect upon US security interests. The United States is not able to ignore so large a region, which is situated in such close geographic proximity, and particularly one whose
total population is expected to reach more than 600 million by the end of the century. On the other hand, any US retrenchment or retreat from economic involvement in Latin America would generate enormous political and economic instability , intensifying the risk of violence and civil wars. In turn, such developments could easily result in pressures for US political and military intervention and could (and would) increase the cost of US defense requirements. The political influence of the United States is inseparable from its economic relations in Latin America, and any loss of one would undoubtedly result in loss of the other . At present, the United States appears to be concerned with events in Mexico. Violence, drugs, and migration from that country could easily engender a public attitude of uneasiness, fear, anger, or a combination of these. Major changes in US-Latin America
relations might well generate domestic reactions in the United States that could either revive isolationist attitudes on the one hand, or lead to demands for a forceful reassertion of the earlier "big stick" policy (US predominance) in the region, on the other. In either case, such public attitudes would not only have a major impact on domestic politics, but would give rise to important repercussions in US foreign policy as well. US interests in Latin America have been
conditioned by the interrelated benefits which the United States has derived from its relations with the region, by its position of influence there, and by its ability, in the past, to exclude other great powers from challenging that position. With the exception of Cuba (and formerly Nicaragua and Grenada), the United States has benefited greatly from the fact that Latin America, unlike other less-developed regions of the world, has not been subjected to the same competition for influence and control on the part of the great power s. In turn, this circumstance has largely localized disputes and conflicts in the area. The United States doubtless owes much of its security over the past century and a half to this happy circumstance. The United States has a clear interest in preserving political stability in Latin America and, to that end, in directing its political institutions toward stable democratic systems. Quite aside from the general American belief in the efficacy of democratic systems as essential to socio-economic progress and peace, the United States clearly has an
interest in preventing the rise of those political conditions in Latin America that could (a) generate hostility toward the US and its economic and political interests; (b) divide the region into antagonistic groups; (c) give rise to violence, either in the form of civil war or of interstate armed conflict; (d) invite inimical influence or intervention by powers from outside the Hemisphere; and (e) work to the detriment of the US or the Hemisphere as a whole . The fact that adverse changes may take place in an area where the United States has predominated for a long time would not only cast doubt on the ability of the US to maintain its position in its own "backyard" but, in consequence, would also damage the image of US power in the world. Doubts about the viability of US power could cause some states to reexamine their relationship with the United States and encourage others to challenge US policies.
to Interpol, the international police body. Stingrays and piranhas from South America; star tortoises from India; pygmy slow lorises, a primate, from South Asia; rare albino carpet pythons from Australia; Hawaiian chameleons; endangered sea turtles; West African songbirdsthe list of smuggled species is endless.The animals are stolen from their natural habitat by poachers and spirited out, mostly to developed countries where collectors or those who simply want an unusual gift for their kids birthday can afford the exorbitant prices charged. Some of these rare parrots or deer falcons can fetch up to $100,000, says Michael OSullivan, chairman and CEO of The Humane Society of Canada (HSC). And although many creatures do not survive the trip because they are smuggled in cruel conditions, the trade still proves profitable to organized crime.
Extinction Greger 6
Michael, MD, Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching The latest National Academy of Sciences report investigating the rising tide of new diseases spoke of myriad factors creating the microbial equivalent of a perfect storm. However, unlike a major climactic event where various meteorologic forces converge to produce a tempest, it reads, this microbial perfect storm will not subside. There will be no calm after the epidemic; rather the forces combining to create the perfect storm will continue to collide and the storm itself will be a recurring event.1244 And there is no storm like influenza. The dozens of emerging zoonotic disease threats that have characterized this third era of human disease must be put into context. SARS infected thousands of human beings and killed hundreds. Nipah only infected hundreds and killed scores. Strep. suis infected scores and only killed dozens. Influenza infects billions and can kill millions. Influenza, the last great plague of man,1245 is the only known pathogen capable of truly global catastrophe.1246 Unlike other devastating infections like malaria, which is confined equatorially, or HIV, which is only fluid-borne, influenza is considered by the CDCs Keiji Fukuda to be the only pathogen carrying the potential to infect a huge percentage of the worlds population inside the space of a year.1247 Make no mistake about it, Osterholm says. Of all the infectious diseases influenza is the lion king.1248 Because of its extreme mutation rate, influenza is a perpetually emerging disease. Anthony Fauci, the NIHs pandemic planning czar, calls it the mother of all emerging infections.1249 In its 4,500 years infecting humans since the first domestication of wild birds, influenza has always been one of the most contagious pathogens.1250 Only since 1997 has it also emerged as one of the deadliest. If influenza is the king of all emerging infections, H5N1 is the king of kings. H5N1 seems a full order of magnitude more lethal than every known human influenza virus on record, completely off the charts. To reduce the risk of future escalating pandemics, we must trace its origin in greater detail to understand how a monster like H5N1 could be hatched.
The horrible truth is that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real, in light of the potential
existence of a black market in fissile material. Nuclear terrorists might issue demands, but then again, they might not. Their target could be anything: a U.S. military base in a foreign land, a crowded U.S. city, or an empty stretch of desert highway. In one fell swoop, nuclear terrorists
could decapitate the U.S. government or destroy its financial system. The human suffering resulting from a detonation would be beyond calculation, and in the aftermath, the remains of the nation would demand both revenge and protection. Constitutional liberties and values might never recover. Then terrorists strike against societies already
separated by fundamental social fault lines, such as in Northern Ireland or Israel, conventional weapons can exploit those fault lines to achieve significant gains. n1 In societies that lack such pre-existing fundamental divisions, however, conventional weapon attacks do not pose a top priority threat to national security, even though the pain and suffering inflicted can be substantial. The bedrock institutions of the United States will survive despite the destruction of federal offices; the vast majority of people will continue to support the Constitution despite the mass murder of innocent persons. The consequences of terrorists employing weapons of
mass destruction, however, would be several orders of magnitude worse than a conventional weapons attack. Although this threat includes chemical and biological weapons, a nuclear weapon's devastating [*32] potential is in a class by itself. n2 Nuclear terrorism thus poses a unique danger to the United States: through its sheer power to slay, destroy, and terrorize, a nuclear weapon would give terrorists the otherwise-unavailable ability to bring the United States to its knees. Therefore, preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons should be considered an unparalleled national security priority dominating other policy considerations.
INDEPENDENTLY, COUNTERFEITING LEADS PEOPLE WITH HIV TO UNWITTINGLY TERMINATE COURSES OF TREATMENT, BREEDING NEW MUTANT STRAINS Morris and Stevens in 5
Phillip and Julie, Counterfeit Medicine in Less Developed Countries: Problems and Solutions, International Policy Network of London http://www.fightingdiseases.org/pdf/ipn_counterfeit.pdf Perhaps one of the most worrying implications of the global boom in counterfeit medicines is the acceleration of new, drug resistant strains of viruses, parasites and bacteria. If drugs contain too little of the active ingredient, not all the disease agents are killed and resistant strains are able to multiply and spread. Malaria This is already being observed in the
treatment of malaria. Counterfeiters around the world have cashed in on the massive demand for the latest and most effective antimalarial drug, artemisinin. A field survey conducted in 2004 showed that 53 per cent of artemisinin-based antimalarials in a range of South East Asian countries contained incorrect levels of active ingredient (Dondorp et al, 2004), which implies that swathes of patients are receiving the incorrect dose. The direct consequences are death and serious injury resulting from improper treatment: HIV/AIDS treatment is also under threat from counterfeit medicines. The recent discovery of counterfeit antiretrovirals (stavudinelamivudinenevirapine and lamivudine-zidovudine) in the Congo Ahmad, 2004) raises the prospect that the most advanced drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS could soon be rendered useless. With few new research leads the pipeline, this could have grave implications for the people of sub-Saharan Africa.
RAPID MUTATION INCREASES THE RISK OF AIRBORNE HIV that threatens humanity. Lederberg in 91
Joshua Lederberg, Molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner in 1958, 1991 In Time of Plague: The History and Social Consequences of Lethal Epidemic Disease, p 35-6] Will Aids mutate further ? Already known, a vexing feature of AIDS is its antigenic variability, further complicating the task of developing a vaccine. So we know that HIV is still evolving. Its global spread has meant there is far more HIV on earth today than ever before in history. What are the odds of its learning the tricks of airborne transmission? The short is, No one can be sure. But we could make the same attribution about any virus; alternatively the next influenza or chicken pox may mutate to an unprecedented lethality. As time passes, and HIV seems settled in a certain groove, that is momentary reassurance in itself. However, given its other ugly attributes, it is hard to imagine a worse threat to humanity than an airborne variant of AIDS. No rule of nature contradicts such a possibility; the proliferation of AIDS cases with secondary pneumonia multiplies the odds of such a mutant, as an analogue to the emergence of pneumonic plague.
Although human pathogens are often lumped with nuclear explosives and lethal chemicals as potential weapons of mass destruction, there is an obvious, fundamentally important difference: Pathogens are alive, weapons are not. Nuclear and chemical weapons do not reproduce themselves and do not independently engage in adaptive behavior; pathogens do both of these things. That deceptively simple observation has immense implications. The use of a manufactured weapon is a singular event. Most of the damage occurs immediately. The aftereffects, whatever they may be, decay rapidly over time and distance in a reasonably predictable manner. Even before a nuclear warhead is detonated, for instance, it is possible to estimate the extent of the subsequent damage and the likely level of radioactive fallout. Such predictability is an essential component for tactical military planning. The use of a pathogen, by contrast, is an extended process whose scope and timing cannot be precisely controlled. For most potential biological agents, the predominant drawback is that they would not act swiftly or decisively enough to be an effective weapon. But for a few pathogens - ones most likely to have a decisive effect and therefore the ones most likely to be contemplated for deliberately hostile use - the risk runs in the other direction. A lethal pathogen that could efficiently spread from one victim to another would be capable of initiating an intensifying cascade of disease that might ultimately threaten the entire world population. The 1918 influenza epidemic demonstrated the potential for a global contagion of this sort but not necessarily its outer limit.
Bilateral strategies need reorientation to solve organized crime- resetting bilateral credibility is crucial ONeil 13
Shannon K. ONeil, Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies Council on Foreign Relations, Refocusing U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, June 18, 2013
These announced changes will lead to some shifts in how U.S. law enforcement and other agencies work with Mexico on security issues. Within the United States there are worries that these changes will stifle cooperation, and in particular the flow of informationespecially sensitive intelligencethat has been important in many of the successful operations and takedowns of recent years. But the most recent articulation by the Mexican government should not be seen as the last or permanent word on the future of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation. Instead, it should be considered as part of the ongoing discussion and evolution in the relationship that has happened, that is happening, and that will continue to happen in the coming months and years. The challenge for the United States is to work with the new Mexican administration and legislative branch in ways that are both congruent with their objectives, and that also enable both countries to push past the current limits on security cooperation and implementation. As the consequences of the changes in the operational relationship become clear, there will likely be both the desire and the opportunity to adapt bilateral and operational strategies, and the United States should be prepared to take advantage of these openings to focus and refocus bilateral efforts.
Mexican state failure triggers escalating warsdraws in the US Debusmann 9 senior World Affairs columnist
Bernd, Among top U.S. fears: A failed Mexican state New York Times, January 9 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/world/americas/09iht-letter.1.19217792.html What do Pakistan and Mexico have in common? They figure in the nightmares of U.S. military planners trying to peer into the future and identify the next big threats. The two countries are mentioned in the same breath in a just-published study by the United States Joint Forces Command, whose jobs include providing an annual look into the future to prevent the U.S. military from being caught off guard by unexpected developments. "In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico," says the study - called Joint Operating Environment 2008 - in a chapter on "weak and failing states." Such states, it says, usually pose chronic, long-term problems that can be managed over time. But the little-studied phenomenon of "rapid collapse," according to the study, "usually comes as a surprise, has a rapid onset, and poses acute problems." Think Yugoslavia and its disintegration in 1990 into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities and bloodshed on a horrific scale. Nuclear-armed Pakistan, where Al Qaeda has established safe havens in the rugged regions bordering Afghanistan, is a regular feature in dire warnings. Thomas Fingar, who retired as the chief U.S. intelligence analyst in December, termed Pakistan "one of the single most challenging places on the planet." This is fairly routine language for Pakistan, but not for Mexico, which shares a 2,000-mile, or 3,200-kilometer, border with the United States. Mexico's mention beside Pakistan in a study by an organization as weighty as the Joint Forces Command, which controls almost all conventional forces based in the continental United States, speaks volumes about growing concern over what is happening south of the U.S. border. It added: "Any descent by Mexico into chaos
would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."
The THA establishes a precedent that cements future energy cooperation, including between the US and Cuba Wood 12
Duncan Wood Professor, Instituto Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mxico Senior Adviser, Mexico Institute, Renewable Energy Initiative March 2012 US-Mexico Cross Border Energy Cooperation: a new era in the Gulf of Mexico WPR: What is the likely political and economic impact of increased U.S.-Mexico energy cooperation? Wood: The transboundary agreement is an exciting new departure for Pemex and for U.S.Mexico cooperation. First, it gives Pemex access to much-needed oil reserves in the border region that were previously restricted. These reserves are estimated to be upward of 9 billion barrels. Second, it allows Pemex to work directly in partnership with the private sector, foreign firms and particularly IOCs to extract the oil -- arrangements prohibited to date. Third, the agreement sets a precedent for further transboundary talks with Cuba in the eastern section of the gulf, where Mexico again shares potential reserves. For U.S.-Mexico cooperation, the deal is highly significant, less for the oil involved than for the precedent it sets . Rather than rivals, in this area the United States and Mexico are partners in oil exploration and production. The lack of political opposition to the deal within Mexico demonstrates that the traditionally inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric of political forces on the Mexican left has diminished in recent years, as a consensus emerges over the pressing need to reform the oil sector.
Energy sector gains increase US-Mexico relations Taylor 13 (Guy Taylor, The Washington Times, Energy links seen boosting U.S. ties to
Mexico, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/28/energy-links-seen-boosting-usties-mexico/, February 28, 2013)
A senior Obama administration official voiced optimism about the growing economic relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, stressing that energy sector ties between the two nations have enormous potential for progress. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta S. Jacobson told a congressional hearing Thursday that Washingtons overall approach to Latin American ties is as much about seizing opportunities as it is about countering threats. Her remarks during a hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs dovetailed with comments this week from a top Mexican official, who expressed optimism that the nations state-run oil monopoly, long managed as a closely held national asset, is on the verge of opening up to billions of dollars in foreign investment. Emilio Lozoya, the newly tapped chief of the monopoly known as Pemex told the Financial Times that he expects Mexican lawmakers to sign off as early as this summer on landmark changes to the sector proposed by recently elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Pemex is already ranked seventh on the list of the worlds most productive oil producers, with sales of more than $100 billion a year. The proposed reforms could pave the way for U.S. oil companies to begin tapping that market and helping it grow. According to Mr. Lozoya, the changes would allow the monopoly to begin working for the first time in more than 50 years with the worlds largest oil companies. Several such companies are based in Texas, just north of the border. The potential for foreign firms to become more deeply involved in Mexicos economic future could signal a significant shift in the narrative of crime and illegal immigration that has dominated relations between the U.S. and its southern neighbor particularly since nearly 60,000 people were killed in drug-related violence in Mexico during recent years.
Natural gas prices low and stable nowkey to investment, and ensures sustainability CCES 12
NATURAL GAS IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is a nonpartisan, and independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers, and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change, May, http://www.c2es.org/publications/natural-gas-industrial-sector Increased availability and low prices of natural gas have significant implications for domestic manufacturing, which has historically been concerned about supply availability and price volatility. Recently, abundant supply and low prices have led to an increase in domestic manufacturing, creating new jobs and economic value. Numerous companies have cited natural gas supply and price in announcing plans to open new facilities in the chemicals, plastics, steel, and other industries in the United States.18 In the past few years, the number of firms disclosing the positive impact of new gas resources for facility power generation and feedstock use to the Securities and Exchange Commission has increased substantially.19 In 2010, exports of basic chemicals and plastics increased 28 percent from the previous year, yielding a trade surplus of $16.4 billion.20 If the expectation that low prices will continue is correct, these economic benefits would be significant over the long term . A study by the American Chemistry Council, for instance, estimates that a 25 percent increase in ethane supplies would yield a $32.8 billion increase in U.S. chemical production.21 Industry, however, needs more than just abundance and low prices to maintain use of natural gas. Price stability is necessary to encourage long- term investments in industry, and increased natural gas supplies also have the potential to stabilize prices.22
Access to an abundance of shale gas is key to the American chemical industrys competitiveness Govoni 12
Steve, Senior Financial Writer; The Shale Revolution, Lord Abbett, 3/22, http://www.lordabbett.com/investor/education/insights/investmentperspectives/414117/ No matter how one thinks about the environmental consequences, shale gas has been a boon to American businesses that had seen their competitive advantage steadily erode over the last several decades. "From a domestic macroeconomic point of view, lower gas prices are a wonderful thing," said Heffernan. "Many, many industries use natural gas or can use natural gas as a means for operating a plant. The premier example is the chemicals industry, which breaks down natural gas into a number of molecules used in many kinds of plastics, which factor in the manufacturing of innumerable consumer and industrial products. Elsewhere in the world, the primary chemical input is naphtha, a petroleum distillate, which is much more expensive." As a result, America's chemicals industry is booming, said Lord Abbett Research Analyst Jonathan Chung. "Abundant supplies of cheap natural gas give the industry such a big cost advantage because whatever it makes can be produced more cheaply and sold around the world," he added. "Chemicals are probably the easiest industry to understand because the demand curve doesn't change that much; it's always upward sloping," Chung explained. "Almost every product has chemicals in it, and if you slash the cost of manufacturing those chemicals [by using much cheaper natural gas], the U.S. chemicals industry benefits disproportionately." How long can that last, though? Much depends on the price of Brent crude oil, the name that is typically attached to petroleum from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. That's because outside the United States, the price of petroleum feedstocks for the chemicals industry is pegged to the price of Brent crude oil,3 which lately has been pushing $115 a barrel. "If oil prices don't
collapse, you are in the early innings of the resurgent chemicals story," said Chung. "Brent prices would have to drop to $60 a barrel to wipe out the benefit of shale gas." In the meantime, oil refineries and chemical fertilizer companies that use large amounts of natural gas in their manufacturing process should continue to benefit, adds Lord Abbett Research Analyst Phil Kaukonen.
not attempt to predict the future. Taken as a whole, they do not pretend to be a comprehensive examination of the efforts of our science and our industry to tackle the challenges I've outlined above. Rather, they paint, in broad brush strokes, a portrait of scientists, engineers, and business managers struggling to make a vital contribution to humanity's future. The first essay, by Senior Editor Marc S. Reisch, is a case study of the chemical industry's ongoing transformation to sustainable production. Although it is not well known to the general public, the chemical industry is at the forefront of corporate efforts to reduce waste from production streams to zero. Industry giants DuPont and Dow Chemical are taking major strides worldwide to manufacture chemicals while minimizing the environmental "footprint" of their facilities. This is an ethic that starts at the top of corporate structure. Indeed, Reisch quotes Dow President and Chief Executive Officer William S. Stavropolous: "We must integrate elements that historically have been seen as at odds with one another: the triple bottom line of sustainabilityeconomic and social and environmental needs." DuPont Chairman and CEO Charles (Chad) O. Holliday envisions a future in which "biological processes use renewable resources as feedstocks, use solar energy to drive growth, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, use lowtemperature and low-pressure processes, and produce waste that is less toxic." But sustainability is more than just a philosophy at these two chemical companies. Reisch describes ongoing Dow and DuPont initiatives that are making sustainability a reality at Dow facilities in Michigan and Germany and at DuPont's massive plant site near Richmond, Va. Another manifestation of the chemical industry's evolution is its embrace of life sciences. Genetic engineering is a revolutionary technology. In the 1970s, research advances fundamentally shifted our perception of DNA. While it had always been clear that deoxyribonucleic acid was a chemical, it was not a chemical that could be manipulated like other chemicalsclipped precisely, altered, stitched back together again into a functioning molecule. Recombinant DNA techniques began the transformation of DNA
into just such a chemical, and the reverberations of that change are likely to be felt well into the next century. Genetic engineering has entered the fabric of modern science and
technology. It is one of the basic tools chemists and biologists use to understand life at the molecular level. It provides new avenues to pharmaceuticals and new approaches to treat disease. It expands enormously agronomists' ability to introduce traits into crops, a capability seized on by numerous chemical companies. There is no doubt that this powerful new tool will play a major role in feeding the world's population in the coming century, but its adoption has hit some bumps in the road. In the second essay, Editor-atLarge Michael Heylin examines how the promise of agricultural biotechnology has gotten tangled up in real public fear of genetic manipulation and corporate control over food. The third essay, by Senior Editor Mairin B. Brennan, looks at chemists embarking on what is perhaps the greatest intellectual quest in the history of sciencehumans' attempt to understand the detailed chemistry of the human brain, and with it, human consciousness. While this quest is, at one level, basic research at its most pure, it also has enormous practical significance. Brennan focuses on one such practical aspect: the effort to understand neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease that predominantly plague older humans and are likely to become increasingly difficult public health problems among an aging population. Science and technology are always two-edged swords. They bestow the power to create and the power to destroy. In addition to its enormous potential for health and agriculture, genetic engineering conceivably could be used to create horrific biological warfare agents. In the fourth essay of this Millennium Special Report, Senior Correspondent Lois R. Ember examines the
challenge of developing methods to counter the threat of such biological weapons. "Science and technology will eventually produce sensors able to detect the presence or release of biological agents, or devices that aid in forecasting, remediating, and ameliorating bioattacks," Ember writes. Finally, Contributing Editor Wil Lepkowski discusses the most mundane, the most marvelous, and the most essential molecule on Earth, H2O. Providing clean water to Earth's population is already difficultand tragically, not always accomplished. Lepkowski looks in depth at the situation in Bangladeshwhere a well-meaning UN program to deliver clean water from wells has poisoned millions with arsenic. Chemists are working to develop better ways to detect arsenic in drinking water at meaningful concentrations and ways to remove it that will work in a poor , developing country. And he explores the evolving water management philosophy, and the science that underpins it, that will be needed to provide adequate water for all its vital uses. In the past two centuries, our science has transformed the world. Chemistry is a wondrous tool
that has allowed us to understand the structure of matter and gives us the ability to manipulate that structure to suit our own purposes. It allows us to dissect the molecules of life to see what makes them, and us, tick. It is providing a glimpse into workings of what may be the most
complex structure in the universe, the human brain, and with it hints about what constitutes consciousness. In the coming decades, we will use chemistry to delve ever deeper into these mysteries and provide for humanity's basic and not-so-basic needs.
Reviving US domestic manufacturing industry key to stop Chinas effort to monopolize manufacturing for its aggressive hegemonic rise and South China Sea conflict Mosher 6
Steven, expert on China, president of the Popular Research Institute, CHINESE INFLUENCE ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY THROUGH U.S. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, MULTILATERAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CORPORATE AMERICA, HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 2/14, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa26076.000/hfa26076_0f.htm The ruthless mercantilism practiced by the CCP is thus a form of economic warfare. China's rulers seek to move as much of the world's manufacturing base to their country as possible, thus increasing the PRC's ''comprehensive national strength'' at the same time that it undermines U.S. national security by hollowing out America's industrial base in general and key defense-related sectors of the economy in particular. China will not lightly abandon this policy, which strengthens China as it weakens the U.S., and is an integral part of China's drive for Hegemony. Many of China's military modernization effortssupersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, stealthy submarines, theater based missiles with terminal guidance systemsare aimed specifically at U.S. forces and bases. By is acquiring weapons designed to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities, the PRC is clearly preparing for a contest with the United States. Beijing is interested in deterring, delaying, or complicating U.S. assistance to Taiwan in the event of an invasion, so as to force a quick capitulation by the democratically elected Taiwan government. But while the near-term focus is Taiwan, many of China's new lethal capabilities are applicable to a wide range of potential operations beyond the Taiwan Strait. As the 2005 Report to Congress of the USCC report notes, ''China is in the midst of an extensive force modernization program aimed at increasing its force projection capabilities and confronting U.S. and allied forces in the region.''(see footnote 20) The rapid growth in China's military power not only threatens Taiwanand by
implication the U.S.but U.S. allies throughout the Asian Pacific region. China possesses regional, even global ambitions, and is building a first-rate military to realize those ambitions. It is naive to view the PRC's military build-up as ''merely'' part of the preparations for an invasion of Taiwan in which American military assets in the AsianPacific will have to be neutralized. China's construction of naval bases in the Indian Ocean, and its aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the East and South China Seas point to its wider ambitions. Finally, even a cursory reading of China's 2004 Defense White Paper suggests that it views U.S. power and military presence throughout the world with a jaundiced eye, and that it seeks to become, over the mid-term, the dominant power in Asia. This goal necessarily brings it into potential conflict with the U.S. and its allies, chiefly Japan. Additional evidence that China's territorial ambitions go well beyond Taiwan comes from its aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the East China and South China seas.(see footnote 21) Since the early 1970s, Beijing has claimed the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands (or Tiaoyutai in Chinese) and the continental shelf that extends into Japanese territorial waters. China's increasingly aggressive intrusions into Japanese airspace and Japanese territorial waters has raise d eyebrows in Tokyo and Washington. In November 2004, for example, the Japanese navy chased a Han-class nuclear submarine away from the waters off Okinawa. China also orchestrated the removal of U.S. logistics forces from the Central Asian republics, demonstrating that its commitment to fighting terrorism was less important that its desire to reduce U.S. influence and presence in the region.
two years, China aims to produce 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas from fields in the sea, a significant increase from the 20 billion cubic meters produced so far, the agency said. Earlier this year, Chinas third-largest energy company, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with a rig in deep water in nondisputed waters off the southern coast of China. The escalation in the South China Sea comes less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as Chinas leader. Mr. Xi appears to have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of Chinas most recent actions in the South China Sea were associated with Mr. Xi was not clear. But Mr. Xi does lead a small group of policy makers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, which serves to coordinate agencies within China, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, and other Chinese experts. The unit is part of the office of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, Mr. Zhu said. The leading small group, now headed by Mr. Xi, is widely believed to be Chinas central policy-making group. Chinas Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that China opposed oil and gas development by other countries in disputed waters of the sea. China maintains that it has undisputed sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that only China is allowed to develop the energy resources. We hope that concerned countries respect Chinas position and rights, said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei. Vietnam, which has long been wary of China but enjoys a relationship through its governing Communist Party, summoned the Chinese ambassador on Monday to protest the cutting of the seismic cable, the Vietnamese news media reported. A Web site run by Petro Vietnam, the oil company, reported that the companys exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing vessel on Friday. In May 2011, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of antiChina protests in Hanoi. In its decree on the new patrols, Vietnam said that civilian ships, supported by the marine police and a border force, would be deployed starting next month to stop foreign vessels that violate fishing laws in waters claimed by Vietnam. A senior official of Petro Vietnam, Pham Viet Dung, was quoted in the Vietnamese news media as saying that large numbers of Chinese fishing boats, many of them substantial vessels, had recently entered waters claimed by Vietnam. The fishing vessels interfered with the operations of the oil company, he said. India, whose state-run oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has a 45 percent interest in exploration with Petro Vietnam, also reacted strongly. The head of the Indian Navy, Adm. D. K. Joshi, said that India was prepared to send navy vessels to protect its interests in the sea. Now, are we preparing for it? Are we having exercises of that nature? The short answer is yes, Admiral Joshi told reporters in India.
Extinction Wittner 11
Professor of History @ State University of New York-Albany. *Lawrence S. Wittner, Is a Nuclear War with China Possible?, Huntington News, Monday, November 28, 2011 - 18:37 pg. http://www.huntingtonnews.net/14446] While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for centuries national conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon. The gathering tension
between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by Chinas growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged Chinas claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States was asserting our own position as a Pacific power. But need this lead to nuclear war? Not necessarily. And yet, there are signs that it could. After all, both the United States and China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government threatened to attack China with nuclear weapons during the Korean War and, later, during the conflict over the future of Chinas offshore islands, Quemoy and Matsu. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else. Of course, China didnt have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear saber-rattling persists. Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nuclear-armed nations; and, admittedly, there havent been very manyat least not yet. But the Kargil War of 1999, between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars can occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war. Pakistans foreign secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use any weapon in its arsenal. During the conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though, dont nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didnt feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATOs strategy was to respond to a Soviet conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing Star Wars and its modern variant, national missile defense. Why are these vastly expensiveand probably unworkablemilitary defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over five thousand nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total inventory of roughly three hundred. Moreover, only about forty of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would win any nuclear war with China. But what would that victory entail? A nuclear attack by China would immediately slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher. Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands. Also, radioactive debris sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a nuclear winter around the globedestroying agriculture, [and] creating worldwide famine, and generating chaos and destruction. Moreover, in another decade the extent of this catastrophe would be far worse. The Chinese government is currently expanding its nuclear arsenal, and by the year 2020 it is expected to more than double its number of nuclear weapons that can hit the United States. The U.S. government, in turn, has plans to spend hundreds
of billions of dollars modernizing its nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities over the next decade. To avert the enormous disaster of a U.S.-China nuclear war, there are two obvious actions that can be taken. The first is to get rid of nuclear weapons, as the nuclear powers have agreed to do but thus far have resisted doing. The second, conducted while the nuclear disarmament process is occurring, is to improve U.S.-China relations. If the American and Chinese people are interested in ensuring their survival and that of the world, they should be working to encourage these policies.
Low prices key to manufacturing and chemical industryprojections based on future production levels PWC 11
PWC's Industrial Products (IP) practice provides financial, operational, and strategic services to global organizations, "Shale Gas - A Renaissance in US Manufacturing?", 12/11, www.pwc.com/en_US/us/industrial-products/assets/pwc-shale-gas-us-manufacturingrenaissance.pdf The economic environment remains difficult for many US manufacturers, with soft demand and margin pressures making it harder to grow their domestic workforces. In this analysis, we present our point of view on how shale gas resources can help the sector address these challenges and create more jobs in the United States. During the last couple of years, increased commercialization of alternative energy has ushered in mounting debate on the impact or lack of impact that the deployment of new energy sources has on US job creation. Shale gas is one such alternative energy source that has drawn momentous investment and discussion as the country pursues a cleaner and more sustainable energy mix. Indeed, the shale gas industry has captured national attention, with even the names of reserves Marcellus, Utica, Bakken, Barnett, and Eagle Ford recognizable as national assets by even the casual observer And for good reason. The amount of shale gas in these reserves and others potentially makes the United States one of the top producers of shale gas in the world. While there has been a sharp focus cast upon shale gas both on its potential promise and possible drawbacks as a tenable
energy source, there has been less focus on how shale gas impacts other industries. This led PsC to ask a simple but important question: What could a growing shale gas industry mean for manufacturing job creation in the United States going forward? Potential opportunities A PwC analysis finds that full-scale and robust shale gas development through 2025 would likely have a number of knock-on effects for other industries, particularly the manufacturing and chemical sectors. Given a scenario calling for high recovery of shale gas and low prices of natural gas, the US manufacturing sector and the broader US economy could stand to benefit in the following ways: Energy affordability Lower feedstock and energy costs could help US manufacturers reduce natural gas expenses by as much as $11.6 billion annually through 2025. Demand growth In 2011, 17 chemical, metal, and industrial manufacturers commented in SBC filings that shale gas developments drove demand for their products, compared to none in 2008. More jobs US manufacturing companies could employ approximately one million more workers by 2025 due to benefits from affordable energy and demand for products used to extract the gas. This report demonstrates how shale gas can lead to each of these opportunities, based upon our analysis of trends in, and forecasts of, the domestic economy, manufacturing, and employment. An increase in domestic investment With shale gas resources more abundant than previously thought, US manufacturers can look forward to multiple new opportunities and a significant uptick in employment in the sector. Chemicals and metals companies are expected to gain the greatest benefit over the next several years. Chemicals companies can acquire affordable feedstock, meriting greater capital expenditures in the United States. For metals companies and some industrial manufacturers, opportunities abound to sell the equipment required for more robust drilling activity. Many companies have already announced new investment plans geared to the development of shale gas. Our research on recent capex plans shows an increase in domestic investment going to support incremental gas production, along with more explicit communication to investors about shale-related growth opportunities. An underappreciated part of the shale gas story is the substantial cost benefit to manufacturers, based on estimates of future natural gas prices as more shale gas is recovered. , Historically, there has been an indirect relationship between the level of energy prices, such as those for natural gas, and the level of domestic manufacturing employment, as manufacturers consume approximately one-third of all the energy produced in the United States. Consequentially, this relatively abundant domestic energy source has the potential to drive an uptick in US manufacturing over the long term and create new jobs in the sector.
LA Influence Add-On
Sustained United States engagement is key to Latin American nations- economic engagement spills over InterAmerican Dialogue 12 (The Inter-American Dialogue is the leading U.S. center for
policy analysis, exchange, and communication on issues in Western Hemisphere affairs, Remaking The Relationship The United States And Latin America, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf, April 2012) economics/ energy Expanded trade, investment, and energy cooperation offer the greatest promise for robust US-Latin American relations . Independent of government policies, these areas have seen tremendous growth and development, driven chiefly by the private sector . The US government needs to better appreciate the rising importance of Latin America with its expanding markets for US exports, burgeoning opportunities for US investments,
enormous reserves of energy and minerals, and continuing supply of needed laborfor the longer term performance of the US economy . With Brazil and many other Latin American economies thriving and showing promise for sustained rapid growth and rising incomes, the search for economic opportunities has become the main force shaping relationships in the hemisphere . Intensive economic engagement by the United States may be the best foundation for wider partnerships across many issues as well as the best way to energize currently listless US relations with the region . What Latin Americas largely middle and upper middle income countries and their increasingly middle class populationsmost want and need from the United States is access to its $16-trillion-a-year economy, which is more than three times the regions economies combined . Most Latin American nations experienced quicker recovery from the financial crisis than did the United States, and they are growing at a faster pace . Nonetheless, they depend on US capital for investment, US markets for their exports, and US technology and managerial innovation to lift productivity . They also rely on the steady remittances from their citizens in the United States . The United States currently buys about 40 percent of Latin Americas exports and an even higher percentage of its manufactured products . It remains the first or second commercial partner for nearly every country in the region . And it provides nearly 40 percent of foreign investment and upwards of 90 percent of the $60 billion or so in remittance income that goes to Latin America .
and to invest in greater energy independence to reduce dependence on the tumultuous Middle East. But no overall approach should dictate how to pursue these goals in each and every situation. Specific applications depend on, among other things, the culture and politics of the target countries. An overarching vision helps leaders consider how to use their power to achieve their goals. This is what gives policy direction, purpose, and thrust--and this is what is often missing from U.S. policy. The organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy should be to use power to solve common problems. The good old days of being able to command others by making military or economic threats are largely gone. Even the weakest nations can resist the strongest ones or drive up the costs for submission. Now, U.S. power derives mainly from others' knowing that they cannot solve their problems without the United States and that they will have to heed U.S. interests to achieve common goals. Power by services rendered has largely replaced power by command. No matter the decline in U.S. power, most nations do not doubt that the United States is the indispensable leader in solving major international problems. This problem-solving capacity creates opportunities for U.S. leadership in everything from trade talks to militaryconflict resolution to international agreements on global warming. Only Washington can help the nations bordering the South China Sea forge a formula for sharing the region's resources. Only Washington has a chance of pushing the Israelis and the Palestinians toward peace. Only Washington can bargain to increase the low value of a Chinese currency exchange . rate that disadvantages almost every nation's trade with China. But it is clear to Americans and nonAmericans alike that Washington lacks the power to solve or manage difficult problems alone; the indispensable leader must work with indispensable partners. To attract the necessary partners, Washington must do the very thing that habitually afflicts U.S. leaders with political hives: compromise. This does not mean multilateralism for its own sake, nor does it mean abandoning vital national interests. The Obama administration has been criticized for softening UN economic sanctions against Iran in order to please China and Russia. Had the United States not compromised, however, it would have faced vetoes and enacted no new sanctions at all. U.S. presidents are often in a strong position to bargain while preserving essential U.S. interests, but they have to do a better job of selling such unavoidable compromises to the U.S. public. U.S. policymakers must also be patient. The weakest of nations today can resist and delay. Pressing prematurely for decisions--an unfortunate hallmark of U.S. style--results in failure, the prime enemy of power. Success breeds power, and failure breeds weakness. Even when various domestic constituencies shout for quick action, Washington's leaders must learn to buy time in order to allow for U.S. power--and the power of U.S.-led coalitions--to take effect abroad. Patience is especially valuable in the economic arena, where there are far more players than in the military and diplomatic realms. To corral all these players takes time. Military power can work quickly, like a storm; economic power grabs slowly, like the tide. It needs time to erode the shoreline, but it surely does nibble away. To be sure, U.S. presidents need to preserve the United States' core role as the world's military and diplomatic balancer--for its own sake; and because it strengthens U.S. interests in economic transactions. But economics has to be the main driver for current policy, as nations calculate power more in terms of GDP than military might. U.S. GDP will be the lure and the whip in the international affairs of the twenty-first century. U.S. interests abroad cannot be adequately protected or advanced without an economic reawakening at home.
US Trade leadership is critical to multilateral trade which solves all global problems Panitchpakdi 4 (Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade
and Development, 2/26/2004, American Leadership and the World Trade Organization, p. http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/spsp_e/spsp22_e.htm The second point is that strengthening the world trading system is essential to America's wider global objectives. Fighting terrorism, reducing poverty, improving health, integrating China and other countries in the global economy all of these issues are linked, in one way or another, to world trade. This is not to say that trade is the answer to all America's economic concerns; only that meaningful solutions are inconceivable without it. The world trading system is the linchpin of today's global order underpinning its security as well as its prosperity. A successful WTO is an example of how multilateralism can work. Conversely, if it weakens or fails, much else could fail with it. This is something which the US at the epicentre of a more interdependent world cannot afford to ignore. These priorities must continue to guide US policy as they have done since the Second World War. America has been the main driving force behind eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations, including the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the creation of the WTO. The US together with the EU was instrumental in launching the latest Doha Round two years ago. Likewise, the recent initiative, spearheaded by Ambassador Zoellick, to re-energize the negotiations and move them towards a successful conclusion is yet another example of how essential the US is to the multilateral process signalling that the US remains committed to further liberalization, that the Round is moving, and that other countries have a tangible reason to get on board. The reality is this: when the US leads the system can move forward; when it withdraws, the system drifts. The fact that US leadership is essential, does not mean it is easy. As WTO rules have expanded, so too has as the complexity of the issues the WTO deals with everything from agriculture and accounting, to tariffs and telecommunication. The WTO is also exerting huge gravitational pull on countries to join and participate actively in the system. The WTO now has 146 Members up from just 23 in 1947 and this could easily rise to 170 or more within a decade. Emerging powers like China, Brazil, and India rightly demand a greater say in an institution in which they have a growing stake. So too do a rising number of voices outside the system as well. More and more people recognize that the WTO matters. More non-state actors businesses, unions, environmentalists, development NGOs want the multilateral system to reflect their causes and concerns. A decade ago, few people had even heard of the GATT. Today the WTO is front page news. A more visible WTO has inevitably become a more politicized WTO. The sound and fury surrounding the WTO's recent Ministerial Meeting in Cancun let alone Seattle underline how challenging managing the WTO can be. But these challenges can be exaggerated. They exist precisely because so many countries have embraced a common vision. Countries the world over have turned to open trade and a rules-based system as the key to their growth and development. They agreed to the Doha Round because they believed their interests lay in freer trade, stronger rules, a more effective WTO. Even in Cancun the great debate was whether the multilateral trading system was moving fast and far enough not whether it should be rolled back. Indeed, it is critically important that we draw the right conclusions from Cancun which are only now becoming clearer. The disappointment was that ministers were unable to reach agreement. The achievement was that they exposed the risks of failure, highlighted the need for North-South collaboration, and after a period of introspection acknowledged the inescapable logic of negotiation. Cancun showed that, if the challenges have increased, it is because the stakes are higher. The bigger challenge to American
leadership comes from inside not outside the United States. In America's current debate about trade, jobs and globalization we have heard a lot about the costs of liberalization. We need to hear more about the opportunities. We need to be reminded of the advantages of America's openness and its trade with the world about the economic growth tied to exports; the inflation-fighting role of imports, the innovative stimulus of global competition. We need to explain that freer trade works precisely because it involves positive change better products, better job opportunities, better ways of doing things, better standards of living. While it is true that change can be threatening for people and societies, it is equally true that the vulnerable are not helped by resisting change by putting up barriers and shutting out competition. They are helped by training, education, new and better opportunities that with the right support policies can flow from a globalized economy. The fact is that for every job in the US threatened by imports there is a growing number of high-paid, high skill jobs created by exports. Exports supported 7 million workers a decade ago; that number is approaching around 12 million today. And these new jobs in aerospace, finance, information technology pay 10 per cent more than the average American wage. We especially need to inject some clarity and facts into the current debate over the outsourcing of services jobs. Over the next decade, the US is projected to create an average of more than 2 million new services jobs a year compared to roughly 200,000 services jobs that will be outsourced. I am well aware that this issue is the source of much anxiety in America today. Many Americans worry about the potential job losses that might arise from foreign competition in services sectors. But its worth remembering that concerns about the impact of foreign competition are not new. Many of the reservations people are expressing today are echoes of what we heard in the 1970s and 1980s. But people at that time didnt fully appreciate the power of American ingenuity. Remarkable advances in technology and productivity laid the foundation for unprecedented job creation in the 1990s and there is no reason to doubt that this country, which has shown time and again such remarkable potential for competing in the global economy, will not soon embark again on such a burst of job-creation. America's openness to service-sector trade combined with the high skills of its workforce will lead to more growth, stronger industries, and a shift towards higher value-added, higher-paying employment. Conversely, closing the door to service trade is a strategy for killing jobs, not saving them. Americans have never run from a challenge and have never been defeatist in the face of strong competition. Part of this challenge is to create the conditions for global growth and job creation here and around the world. I believe Americans realize what is at stake. The process of opening to global trade can be disruptive, but they recognize that the US economy cannot grow and prosper any other way. They recognize the importance of finding global solutions to shared global problems. Besides, what is the alternative to the WTO? Some argue that the world's only superpower need not be tied down by the constraints of the multilateral system. They claim that US sovereignty is compromised by international rules, and that multilateral institutions limit rather than expand US influence. Americans should be deeply sceptical about these claims. Almost none of the trade issues facing the US today are any easier to solve unilaterally, bilaterally or regionally. The reality is probably just the opposite. What sense does it make for example to negotiate e-commerce rules bilaterally? Who would be interested in disciplining agricultural subsidies in a regional agreement but not globally? How can bilateral deals even dozens of them come close to matching the economic impact of agreeing to global free trade among 146 countries? Bilateral and regional deals can sometimes be a complement to the multilateral system, but they can never be a substitute . There is a bigger danger. By treating some countries preferentially, bilateral and regional deals exclude others fragmenting global trade and distorting the world economy. Instead of liberalizing trade and widening
growth they carve it up. Worse, they have a domino effect : bilateral deals inevitably beget more bilateral deals, as countries left outside are forced to seek their own preferential arrangements, or risk further marginalization. This is precisely what we see happening today. There are already over two hundred bilateral and regional agreements in existence, and each month we hear of a new or expanded deal. There is a basic contradiction in the assumption that bilateral approaches serve to strengthen the multilateral, rules-based system. Even when intended to spur free trade, they can ultimately risk undermining it. This is in no one's interest, least of all the United States. America led in the creation of the multilateral system after 1945 precisely to avoid a return to hostile blocs blocs that had done so much to fuel interwar instability and conflict. America's vision, in the words of Cordell Hull, was that enduring peace and the welfare of nations was indissolubly connected with the friendliness, fairness and freedom of world trade. Trade would bind nations together, making another war unthinkable. Non-discriminatory rules would prevent a return to preferential deals and closed alliances. A network of multilateral initiatives and organizations the Marshal Plan, the IMF, the World Bank, and the GATT, now the WTO would provide the institutional bedrock for the international rule of law, not power. Underpinning all this was the idea that freedom free trade, free democracies, the free exchange of ideas was essential to peace and prosperity, a more just world. It is a vision that has emerged pre-eminent a half century later. Trade has expanded twenty-fold since 1950. Millions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are being lifted out of poverty, and millions more have new hope for the future. All the great powers the US, Europe, Japan, India, China and soon Russia are part of a rules-based multilateral trading system, greatly increasing the chances for world prosperity and peace . There is a growing realization that in our interdependent world sovereignty is constrained, not by multilateral rules, but by the absence of rules.
Resource conflict causes prolif and nuclear conflict. Wooldridge 9. (Frosty, free lance writer, once lectured at Cornell University, Humanity
galloping toward its greatest crisis in the 21st century http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10042:humanitygalloping-toward-its-greatest-crisis-in-the-21st-century&catid=125:frostywooldridge&Itemid=244 It is clear that most politicians and most citizens do not recognize that returning to more of the same is a recipe for promoting the first collapse of a global civilization. The required changes in energy technology, which would benefit not only the environment but also national security, public health, and the economy, would demand a World War II type mobilization -- and even that might not prevent a global climate disaster. Without transitioning away from use of fossil fuels, humanity will move further into an era of resource wars (remember, Africom has
been added to the Pentagons structure -- and China has noticed), clearly with intent to protect US interests in petroleum reserves. The consequences of more resource wars, many likely triggered over water supplies stressed by climate disruption, are likely to include increased unrest in poor nations, a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, widening inequity within and between nations, and in the worst (and not unlikely) case, a nuclear war ending civilization.
2AC Updates
Framework Argument
Our framework is that the alternative should be judged on the efficacy of its response to existing institutional practices This means that the neg should have to answer the following questions what is the alternative institution/social order that should be put into place? Is that feasible? What would have to be done to create that change and what would be the consequences of those actions? Absent these questions shifts in knowledge production are useless governments obey institutional logics that exist independently of individuals and constrain decisionmaking Wight Professor of IR @ University of Sydney 6
(Colin, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology, pgs. 48-50 One important aspect of this relational ontology is that these relations constitute our identity as social actors. According to this relational model of societies, one is what one is, by virtue of the relations within which one is embedded. A worker is only a worker by virtue of his/her relationship to his/her employer and vice versa. Our social being is constituted by relations and our social acts presuppose them. At any particular moment in time an individual may be implicated in all manner of relations, each exerting its own peculiar causal effects. This lattice-work of relations constitutes the structure of particular societies and endures despite changes in the individuals occupying them . Thus, the relations, the structures, are ontologically distinct from the individuals who enter into them. At a minimum, the social sciences are concerned with two distinct, although mutually interdependent, strata. There is an ontological difference between people and structures: people are not relations, societies are not conscious agents. Any attempt to explain one in terms of the other should be rejected. If there is an ontological difference between society and people, however, we need to elaborate on the relationship between them. Bhaskar argues that we need a system of mediating concepts, encompassing both aspects of the duality of praxis into which active subjects must fit in order to reproduce it: that is, a system of concepts designating the point of contact between human agency and social structures. This is known as a positioned practice system. In many respects, the idea of positioned practice is very similar to Pierre Bourdieus notion of habitus. Bourdieu is primarily concerned with what individuals do in their daily lives. He is keen to refute the idea that social activity can be understood solely in terms of individual decisionmaking , or as determined by surpa-individual objective structures. Bourdieus notion of the habitus can be viewed as a bridge-building exercise across the explanatory gap between two extremes. Importantly, the notion of a habitus can only be understood in relation to the concept of a social field. According to Bourdieu, a social field is a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions objectively defined. A social field, then, refers to a structured system of social positions occupied by individuals and/or institutions the nature of which defines the situation for their occupants. This is a social field whose form is constituted in terms of the relations which define it as a field of a certain type. A habitus (positioned practices) is a mediating link between individuals subjective worlds and the socio-cultural world into which they are born and which they share with others. The power of the habitus derives from the thoughtlessness of habit and habituation, rather than consciously learned rules. The habitus is imprinted and encoded in a socializing process that
commences during early childhood. It is inculcated more by experience than by explicit teaching. Socially competent performances are produced as a matter of routine, without explicit reference to a body of codified knowledge, and without the actors necessarily knowing what they are doing (in the sense of being able adequately to explain what they are doing). As such, the habitus can be seen as the site of internalization of reality and the externalization of internality. Thus social practices are produced in, and by, the encounter between: (1) the habitus and its dispositions; (2) the constraints and demands of the socio-cultural field to which the habitus is appropriate or within; and (3) the dispositions of the individual agents located within both the socio-cultural field and the habitus. When placed within Bhaskars stratified complex social ontology the model we have is as depicted in Figure 1. The explanation of practices will require all three levels. Society, as field of relations, exists prior to, and is independent of, individual and collective understandings at any particular moment in time; that is, social action requires the conditions for action. Likewise, given that behavior is seemingly recurrent, patterned, ordered, institutionalised, and displays a degree of stability over time, there must be sets of relations and rules that govern it. Contrary to individualist theory, these relations, rules and roles are not dependent upon either knowledge of them by particular individuals, or the existence of actions by particular individuals; that is, their explanation cannot be reduced to consciousness or to the attributes of individuals . These emergent social forms must possess emergent powers. This leads on to arguments for the reality of society based on a causal criterion. Society, as opposed to the individuals that constitute it, is, as Foucault has put it, a complex and independent reality that has its own laws and mechanisms of reaction, its regulations as well as its possibility of disturbance. This new reality is societyIt becomes necessary to reflect upon it, upon its specific characteristics, its constants and its variables.
and that neoliberal technical mechanisms are in fact deployed in relation to diverse political projects and social norms (2005:2). As I suggested in referencing the role of statistics and techniques for pooling risk in the creation of social democratic welfare states, social technologies need not have any essential or eternal loyalty to the political formations within which they were first developed. Insurance rationality at the end of the nineteenth century had no essential vocation to provide security and solidarity to the working class; it was turned to that purpose (in some substantial measure) because it was available, in the right place at the right time, to be appropriated for that use. Specific ways of solving or posing governmental problems, specific institutional and intellectual mechanisms, can be combined in an almost infinite variety of ways, to accomplish different social ends. With social, as with any other sort of technology, it is not the machines or the mechanisms that decide what they will be used to do. Foucault (2008:94) concluded his discussion of socialist government- ality by insisting that the answers to the Lefts governmental problems require not yet another search through our sacred texts, but a process of conceptual and institutional innovation. *I+f there is a really socialist governmentality, then it is not hidden within socialism and its texts. It cannot be deduced from them. It must be invented. But invention in the domain of governmental technique is rarely something worked up out of whole cloth. More often, it involves a kind of bricolage (Le vi- Strauss 1966), a piecing together of something new out of scavenged parts originally intended for some other purpose. As we pursue such a process of improvisatory invention, we might begin by making an inventory of the parts available for such tinkering, keeping all the while an open mind about how different mechanisms might be put to work, and what kinds of purposes they might serve. If we can go beyond seeing in neoliberalism an evil essence or an automatic unity, and instead learn to see a field of specific governmental techniques, we may be surprised to find that some of them can be repurposed, and put to work in the service of political projects very different from those usually associated with that word. If so, we may find that the cabinet of governmental arts available to us is a bit less bare than first appeared, and that some rather useful little mechanisms may be nearer to hand than we thought.
that, even as the ethos of anti-politics becomes more compelling and even fashionable in the United States, it is the vagaries of political power that will continue to decide the fate of human societies. This last point demands further elaboration. The shrinkage of politics hardly means that corporate colonization will be less of a reality, that social hierarchies will somehow disappear, or that gigantic state and military structures will lose their hold over people's lives. Far from it: the space abdicated by a broad citizenry, well-informed and ready to participate at many levels, can in fact be filled by authoritarian and reactionary elites -- an already familiar dynamic in many lesser- developed countries. The fragmentation and chaos of a Hobbesian world, not very far removed from the rampant individualism, social Darwinism, and civic violence that have been so much a part of the American landscape, could be the prelude to a powerful Leviathan designed to impose order in the face of disunity and atomized retreat. In this way the eclipse of politics might set the stage for a reassertion of politics in more virulent guise -- or it might help further rationalize the existing power structure. In either case, the state would likely become what Hobbes anticipated: the embodiment of those universal, collective interests that had vanished from civil society.75
Newman DA
Our use of institutions like the state realizes our complicity with power and produces agonism- the alternative is a string of antis that never produce positive change Newman 00,
(Saul, Postdoctoral Fellow @ Macquarie University, Anarchism and the Politics of Ressentiment, muse) What is the point of this distinction between power and domination? Does this not bring us back to original anarchist position that society and our everyday actions, although oppressed by power, are ontologically separated from it? In other words, why not merely call domination 'power' once again, and revert back to the original, Manichean distinction between social life and power? However the point of this distinction is to show that this essential separation is now impossible. Domination -- oppressive political institutions like the State -- now comes from the same world as power. In other words it disrupts the strict Manichean separation of society and power. Anarchism and indeed radical politics generally, cannot remain in this comfortable illusion that we as political subjects, are somehow not complicit in the very regime that oppresses us. According to the Foucauldian definition of power that I have employed, we are all potentially complicit, through our everyday actions, in relations of domination. Our everyday actions, which inevitably involve power, are unstable and can easily form into relations that dominate us. As political subjects we can never relax and hide behind essentialist identities and Manichean structures -- behind a strict separation from the world of power. Rather we must be constantly on our guard against the possibility of domination. Foucault says: "My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous...If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism."[52] In order to resist domination we must be aware of its risks -- of the possibility that our own actions, even political action ostensibly against domination, can easily give rise to further domination. There is always the possibility, then, of contesting domination, and of minimizing its possibilities and effects. According to Foucault, domination itself is unstable and can give rise to reversals and resistance. Assemblages such as the State are based on unstable power relations that can just as easily turn against the institution they form the basis of. So there is always the possibility of resistance against domination. However resistance can never be in the form of revolution -- a grand dialectical overcoming of power, as the anarchists advocated. To abolish central institutions like the State with one stroke would be to neglect the multiform and diffuse relations of power they are based on, thus allowing new institutions and relations of domination to rise up. It would be to fall into the same reductionist trap as Marxism, and to court domination. Rather, resistance must take the form of what Foucault calls agonism -- an ongoing, strategic contestation with power -based on mutual incitement and provocation -- without any final hope of being free from it.[53] One can, as I have argued, never hope to overcome power completely -because every overcoming is itself the imposition of another regime of power. The best that can be hoped for is a reorganization of power relations -- through struggle and resistance -- in ways that are less oppressive and dominating. Domination can therefore be minimized by acknowledging our inevitable involvement with power, not by attempting to place ourselves impossibly outside the world of power. The classical idea of
revolution as a dialectical overthrowing of power -- the image that has haunted the radical political imaginary -- must be abandoned. We must recognize the fact that power can never be overcome entirely, and we must affirm this by working within this world, renegotiating our position to enhance our possibilities of freedom.
NG Prices Low
Natural gas prices are low- hot weather and speculation Investing.com 7/5
Investing.com, Commodity News Service, Natural gas prices drop as weather models point to moderate temperatures, Jul 05, 20 13, http://www.investing.com/news/commodities-news/natural-gas-prices-drop-as-weather-models-point-to-moderate-temperatures249921
Natural gas prices dropped on Friday after updated weather forecasting models called for moderate temperatures across portions of the eastern half of the U.S. Mild summer temperatures cut into the need for gas-fired electricity to cool homes and businesses, dampening demand for natural gas. In the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas futures for delivery in August traded at USD3.583 per million British thermal units, down 2.91%. The commodity hit a session low of USD3.578 and
a high of USD3.681. Weather forecasting services predicted normal temperatures coupled with pockets of below-normal temperatures to move across the Midwest and head east across the northeastern reaches of the country. While most areas in that region will experience near-normal temperatures and some may even seen warming trends, the absence of
hotter-than-normal
NG Prices High
Sun spots show natural gas price hikes are inevitable Constable 6/29
SIMON CONSTABLE, Barrons, Sun Spots Down, Gas Prices Up, JUNE 29, 2013, http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704382404578565463702730052.html SECOND, TRACK THE NATURAL-GAS market, Coxe says. "You can assume because of the low level of sunspot activity that we will have colder winters and shorter growing seasons than expected," he says. Those colder winters will drive up natural-gas prices , as people use more of the fuel to heat their homes and businesses. In 2008, temperatures fell an average of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit for the year, and natural-gas prices rose 25% in the winter months. That year the sunspot count dropped close to zero. In addition, the shorter growing seasons for crops will also drive up demand for natural gas to make more fertilizer. Natural gas is used to make nitrogen-based plant food, which is vital to growing corn and rice. Typically, a shorter growing season means more fertilizer is required.
Liam, The Telegraphy of London, "Russia joins the 'global club' as economy slows," 8/25/12 www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/9499282/Russia-joins-the-global-club-aseconomy-slows.html AD 8/26/12 One of the very few pieces of good news in terms of the global economy last week was that Russia became the 156th member of the World Trade Organisation. During the 21 years since the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian economy, despite the trauma of the transition from state-planning, has emerged as the ninth largest on earth, and the sixth largest as measured by purchasing-power parity. Despite what you read in the papers, the Russian economy isnt all about commodities. While oil and gas accounted for 40pc of GDP in 2003, last year the figure was 17pc. Russias service sector, pretty much nonexistent under the state-planning of yesteryear, has grown like Topsy and is now three times bigger than its commodity sector.
same time leaves input costs floating. For consumers, the baffled price transmission mechanism stabilizes commodity prices even when oil-price shock happens. This can somewhat mitigate the short-term effect. For producers, their aggregate profit rate is more sensitive to oil-price shocks because of limited space for them to mark up their products. This would doubtlessly cause the decrease in investment, and thus amplify the long-term impact.
Chinese economic decline would collapse the global economy and ensure war over Taiwan Lewis 7
Dan, Research Director of the Economic Research Council, The nightmare of a Chinese economic collapse, April 19, http://www.worldfinance.com/news/137/ARTICLE/1144/2007-04-19.html A reduction in demand for imported Chinese goods would quickly entail a decline in Chinas economic growth rate. That is alarming. It has been calculated that to keep Chinas society stable ie to manage the transition from a rural to an urban society without devastating unemployment - the minimum growth rate is 7.2 percent. Anything less than that and unemployment will rise and the massive shift in population from the country to the cities becomes unsustainable. This is when real discontent with communist party rule becomes vocal and hard to ignore. It doesnt end there. That will at best bring a global recession. The crucial point is that communist authoritarian states have at least had some success in keeping a lid on ethnic tensions so far. But when multi-ethnic communist countries fall apart from economic stress and the implosion of central power, history suggests that they dont become successful democracies overnight. Far from it. Theres a very real chance that China might go the way of Yugoloslavia or the Soviet Union chaos, civil unrest and internecine war. In the very worst case scenario, a Chinese government might seek to maintain national cohesion by going to war with Taiwan whom America is pledged to defend.
Taiwan conflict would lead to US-China conflict that escalates to nuclear conflict. Glaser 11 Professor of Political Science and International Affaits @ George Washington University
Charles Glaser, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Will China's Rise Lead to War? Why Realism Does Not Mean Pessimism. Foreign Affairs. Mar/Apr 2011. Vol. 90, Iss. 2; pg. 80. ProQuest. The prospects for avoiding intense military competition and war may be good, but growth in China's power may nevertheless require some changes in U.S. foreign policy that Washington will find disagreeable- particularly regarding Taiwan. Although it lost control of Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War more than six decades ago, China still considers
Taiwan to be part of its homeland, and unification remains a key political goal for Beijing. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence , and much of
China's conventional military buildup has been dedicated to increasing its ability to coerce Taiwan and reducing the United States' ability to intervene. Because China places such high value on Taiwan and because the United States and China-whatever they might formally agree to-have such different attitudes regarding the legitimacy of the status quo, the issue poses special dangers and challenges for the U.S.-Chinese relationship, placing it in a different category than Japan or South Korea. A crisis over Taiwan could fairly easily
escalate to nuclear war, because each step along the way might well seem rational to the actors involved. Current U.S. policy is designed to reduce the probability that Taiwan will declare
independence and to make clear that the United States will not come to Taiwan's aid if it does. Nevertheless, the United States would find itself under pressure to protect Taiwan against any sort of attack, no matter how it originated . Given the different interests and
perceptions of the various parties and the limited control Washington has over Taipei's behavior, a crisis could unfold in which the United States found itself following events rather than leading them. Such dangers have been around for decades, but ongoing improvements in China's military capabilities may make Beijing more willing to escalate a Taiwan crisis . In addition to its improved conventional capabilities, China is modernizing its nuclear forces to increase their ability to survive and retaliate following a large-scale U.S. attack. Standard
deterrence theory holds that Washington's current ability to destroy most or all of China's nuclear force enhances its bargaining position. China's nuclear modernization might remove
that check on Chinese action, leading Beijing to behave more boldly in future crises than it has in past ones. A U.S. attempt to preserve its ability to defend Taiwan, meanwhile, could fuel
a conventional and nuclear arms race. Enhancements to U.S. offensive targeting capabilities and strategic ballistic missile defenses might be interpreted by China as a signal of malign U.S. motives, leading to further Chinese military efforts and a general poisoning of U.S.-Chinese relations.