You are on page 1of 135

Lt.

Danny Cunliffe-Wellman
OTEC 1AC
Plan
Thus Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its
development of ocean thermal energy resources by:
-Streamlining the regulatory framework for ocean thermal energy projects to
permit one-stop shop licensing by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
-Reactivating the dedicated budget line item for Department of Energy research and
development of ocean thermal energy conversion.
-Providing federal cost-sharing to develop prototype OTEC commercial electric
plants.


Contention 1 is Inherency

1. OTEC funding isnt widely available- large commercial plants require heavy
capital investment
(Asian Development Bank June 30
th
)
[Asian Development Bank, 06/30/2014, Asian Development Bank, Wave Energy Conversion and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Potential in Developing Member
Countries, http://www.adb.org/publications/wave-energy-conversion-ocean-thermal-energy-conversion-potential-dmcs, 07/08/2014, PD]
In theory, ocean thermal resources could be used to generate most of the energy required. The major challenge to
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) implementation is posed by the need to secure financing for a
capital-intensive technology without an operational record. How can a developer secure, for example, the more than $750 million
for a 100 MW plant without a track record and without invoking national security, global warming, or environmental
credits? The next step requires the realistic determination of the costs and the potential global environmental impact of OTEC plants, and
this can only be accomplished by deploying and subsequently monitoring operations with first generation
plants. Ninety-eight nations and territories with access to the OTEC thermal resource within their 200-nautical mile EEZ have been identified. There is also a market for
countries that could manufacture and supply the equipment required for OTEC plants. As outlined in this report, the worldwide resource, for
example, is equivalent to plants of at least 7 terawatts or 70,000 plants of 100 MW capacity. Each 100 MW
plant will require a capital investment of about $750 million, so the ultimate market, in a few decades,
would be valued in the trillions of dollars.
2. Regulatory gap for OTEC in the status quo- too many overlapping actors and
agencies are overwhelmed
(Carlson 09)
[Doug, 11/19/9, Hawaii Energy Options, NOAA Officials Visit Hints at Stepped-Up Effort on OTEC Development, http://hawaiienergyoptions.blogspot.com/2009/11/noaa-
officials-visit-hints-at-stepped.html, accessed 7/12/14, TYBG]
He said a regulatory gap exists for OTEC and that a demonstration plant isnt even defined in existing
regulations. NOAA would have a predicament if an OTEC demonstration plant applied for licensing.
Kehoe said as many as 10 federal agencies have a role in authorizing the first OTEC demonstration
plant.When people in these agencies hear about this technology, they tend to be shell-shocked, Kehoe said,
explaining that OTEC issues are arriving on desks that already are piled high with other work. OTEC is on a
scale so much larger than anything weve dealt with before, he said. Others noted that a large OTEC plant will
require the vertical movement of huge rivers of water a realization that contributes to the shock.
A Coast Guard representative said public buy-in will be critical to achieving OTEC commercialization. He said the public
relations people have a job cut out for them because of the anticipated high cost of OTEC
commercialization and public perceptions of potential environmental impact. But others said they believe Hawaii residents have a good understanding about the need
to reduce the states debilitating dependence on oil for 90 percent of its energy.


Advantage 1 is Warming

1. Warming is real and anthropogenic studies done by the IPCC prove
IPCC, UN panel of Climate Change experts, 2007
(IPCC, UN panel of Climate Change experts, 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007: Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science
Basis IPCC; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Accessed: 6/24/14) //AMM
The widespread change detected in temperature observations of the surface (Sections 9.4.1, 9.4.2, 9.4.3), free atmosphere
(Section 9.4.4) and ocean (Section 9.5.1), together with consistent evidence of change in other parts of the climate system
(Section 9.5), strengthens the conclusion that greenhouse gas forcing is the dominant cause of warming
during the past several decades. This combined evidence, which is summarised in Table 9.4, is substantially stronger than the evidence that is available from
observed changes in global surface temperature alone (Figure 3.6). The evidence from surface temperature observations is strong: The observed warming is
highly significant relative to estimates of internal climate variability which, while obtained from models, are consistent
with estimates obtained from both instrumental data and palaeoclimate reconstructions. It is extremely unlikely (<5%) that recent
global warming is due to internal variability alone such as might arise from El Nio (Section 9.4.1). The widespread nature of the
warming (Figures 3.9 and 9.6) reduces the possibility that the warming could have resulted from internal variability.
No known mode of internal variability leads to such widespread, near universal warming as has been observed in the past few decades. Although modes of internal variability such
as El Nio can lead to global average warming for limited periods of time, such warming is regionally variable, with some areas of
cooling (Figures 3.27 and 3.28). In addition, palaeoclimatic evidence indicates that El Nio variability during the 20th century is not unusual relative to earlier periods
(Section 9.3.3.2; Chapter 6). Palaeoclimatic evidence suggests that such a widespread warming has not been observed in the NH in at least the past 1.3 kyr (Osborn and Briffa,
2006), further strengthening the evidence that the recent warming is not due to natural internal variability. Moreover, the response to anthropogenic
forcing is detectable on all continents individually except Antarctica, and in some sub-continental regions.
Climate models only reproduce the observed 20th-century global mean surface warming when both anthropogenic and natural forcings are included (Figure 9.5). No model that
has used natural forcing only has reproduced the observed global mean warming trend or the continental mean warming trends in all individual continents (except Antarctica) over
the second half of the 20th century. Detection and attribution of external influences on 20th-century and palaeoclimatic reconstructions, from both natural and anthropogenic
sources (Figure 9.4 and Table 9.4), further strengthens the conclusion that the observed changes are very unusual relative to internal climate
variability. The energy content change associated with the observed widespread warming of the atmosphere is small relative to the energy content change of the ocean, and
also smaller than that associated with other components such as the cryosphere. In addition, the solid Earth also shows evidence for warming in boreholes (Huang et al., 2000;
Beltrami et al., 2002; Pollack and Smerdon, 2004). It is theoretically feasible that the warming of the near surface could have occurred due to a reduction in the heat content of
another component of the system. However, all parts of the cryosphere (glaciers, small ice caps, ice sheets and sea ice) have decreased in extent
over the past half century, consistent with anthropogenic forcing (Section 9.5.5, Table 9.4), implying that the
cryosphere consumed heat and thus indicating that it could not have provided heat for atmospheric
warming. More importantly, the heat content of the ocean (the largest reservoir of heat in the climate system) also increased, much more
substantially than that of the other components of the climate system (Figure 5.4; Hansen et al., 2005; Levitus et al., 2005). The warming of the upper ocean during the latter half
of the 20th century was likely due to anthropogenic forcing (Barnett et al., 2005; Section 9.5.1.1; Table 9.4). While the statistical evidence in this research is very strong that the
warming cannot be explained by ocean internal variability as estimated by two different climate models, uncertainty arises since there are discrepancies between estimates of ocean
heat content variability from models and observations, although poor sampling of parts of the World Ocean may explain this discrepancy. However, the spatial pattern
of ocean warming with depth is very consistent with heating of the ocean resulting from net positive
radiative forcing, since the warming proceeds downwards from the upper layers of the ocean and there is
deeper penetration of heat at middle to high latitudes and shallower penetration at low latitudes (Barnett et al., 2005;
Hansen et al., 2005). This observed ocean warming pattern is inconsistent with a redistribution of heat between the surface and
the deep ocean. Thus, the evidence appears to be inconsistent with the ocean or land being the source of the warming at the surface. In addit ion, simulations
forced with observed SST changes cannot fully explain the warming in the troposphere without increases in
greenhouse gases (e.g., Sexton et al., 2001), further strengthening the evidence that the warming does not originate from the ocean. Further evidence for forced changes
arises from widespread melting of the cryosphere (Section 9.5.5), increases in water vapour in the atmosphere (Section 9.5.4.1) and changes
in top-of-the atmosphere radiation that are consistent with changes in forcing. The simultaneous increase in
energy content of all the major components of the climate system and the pattern and amplitude of warming in the different
components, together with evidence that the second half of the 20th century was likely the warmest in 1.3 kyr (Chapter 6) indicate that the cause of the
warming is extremely unlikely to be the result of internal processes alone. The consistency across different lines of evidence
makes a strong case for a significant human influence on observed warming at the surface. The observed rates of surface temperature and ocean heat content change are consistent
with the understanding of the likely range of climate sensitivity and net climate forcings. Only with a net positive forcing, consistent with observational and model estimates of the
likely net forcing of the climate system (as used in Figure 9.5), is it possible to explain the large increase in heat content of the
climate system that has been observed (Figure 5.4).

2. Current models show the point of no return for humanity to be 6 years from now, and
even sooner for tropical regions Its try or die
(Bernstein 13)
(Lenny Bernstein, Writer and Climate Researcher for the Washington Post, October 9, 2013, JapanTimes, from WashingtonPost, Earths climate change tipping point to start in
2020, new model predicts, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/10/10/environment/earths-climate-change-tipping-point-to-start-in-2020-new-model-predicts/#.U6tDxvldXVp,
Accessed: 6/25/14) //AMM
WASHINGTON Locations around the globe will soon reach climatic tipping points, with some in tropical
regions home to most of the worlds biodiversity feeling the first impacts of unprecedented eras of
elevated temperatures as soon as seven years from now, according to a study released Wednesday. On average, locations
worldwide will leave behind the climates that have existed from the middle of the 19th century through the
beginning of the 21st century by 2047 if no progress is made in curbing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, said
researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who sought to project the timing of that event for 54,000 locations. If they are correct, the transition would
occur by 2020 in Manokwari, Indonesia; by 2023 in Kingston, in the Caribbean; by 2029 in Lagos; by 2047
in Washington; by 2066 in Reykjavik; and by 2071 in Anchorage, Alaska. The boundary of passing from the
climate of the past to the climate of the future really happens surprisingly soon, said Christopher Field, director of the
Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science, who was not part of the research team but has read the study, published in the journal Nature. Researchers
said at a news briefing that their estimates are conservative, based on mountains of data from 39 different models and accurate within five years in either direction for any of the
locations they studied. Although scientific research shows more warming occurs nearer Earths poles and the melting of Arctic ice sheets is the iconic image of a warming
planet the tropics are especially vulnerable because even a small change in climate will affect a wide range of
species. It is also alarming because the area around the equator is home to billions of people in poor nations
with fewer resources to help them cope. The new study is hardly the first to document the steady march toward hotter temperatures around the globe.
Less than two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fifth report, describing a planet that is warming at an
accelerated pace because of human activity. The past three decades have been the hottest since 1850, according to the panel established by the
United Nations which added that warming and sea-level rise will continue through the 21st century. But by predicting the tipping point when traditional climates will be
replaced by hotter futures, the new studys group led by Camilo Mora, an assistant professor in the geography department of the University of Hawaii at Manoa provided a
fresh way to look at a problem that often is seen as a global phenomenon, except by authorities who must respond to the increasing toll of floods, droughts, wildfires and severe
weather, experts said. I think people dont appreciate the fact that one of the metrics we are most familiar with, and definitely have the most difficulty dealing with, extreme heat,
is coming down the track, said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University. The people who are going to be really
hard hit are in developing countries. But I wouldnt say the U.S. is exactly safe, he added. Judith Curry, chairwoman of the
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who has questioned the accuracy of climate modeling, said she found the Mora teams
conclusions less alarming than the IPCCs analysis and thought the studys methodology was compelling. Under the best of circumstances, the climate change milestone
worldwide will be reached by 2069, even if nations manage to hold the emission of carbon dioxide to a much lower level, the authors said. Once any location
reaches the tipping point, the average temperature of its coolest year will be greater than the average
temperature of its hottest year between 1860 and 2005, the period set by the researchers as their baseline for comparison. Sea levels
will continue to rise, and oceans will continue to become more acidic, they said. They also said acidification of world
oceans has already changed their traditional climate, in 2008. Mora and colleagues Abby G. Frazier and Ryan J. Longman wrote that because
the tropics experience so little variability in climate, it will take less warming there to cause noticeable
change, and it will happen sooner. I am certain there will be massive social and biological consequences. Mora
said. The specifics I cannot tell you. In their study, the researchers wrote: The tropics will experience the earliest emergence of historically
unprecedented climates. This probably occurs because the relatively small natural climate variability in this region of the
world generates narrow climate bounds that can be easily surpassed by relatively small climate changes.
Tropical species live in areas with climates near their physiological tolerances and are therefore vulnerable to relatively small climate changes, they added. Longman said
tropical species affected by climate change will have three choices: Adapt, move or become
extinct.Considerable changes in community structure and extinction have been shown to have coincided
with the emergence of unprecedented climates in the past, the authors wrote. In addition, recent short-term extreme
climatic events have been associated with die-offs in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, highlighting the
potentially serious consequences of reaching historically unprecedented climates.

3. And 97% of climate experts agree
(Cook et al 13)
(John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland 5/15/13, IOP Publishing Ltd, Quantifying the Consensus on
Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/1748-9326_8_2_024024.pdf, Accessed: 6/24/14) //AMM
An accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support
for climate policy (Ding et al 2011). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people's acceptance that climate change (CC) is happening
(Lewandowsky et al 2012). Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide public perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global
warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012, Pew 2012). In the most comprehensive analysis performed to date, we have
extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers in Oreskes (2004). We examined a large sample of the
scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of
scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic
global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found strong agreement (9798%) regarding
AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009, Anderegg et al 2010). Repeated surveys of scientists found that
scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010). This is reflected in the increasingly
definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996, 2001, Solomon et al 2007). The peer-
reviewed scientific literature provides a ground-level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 19932003
matching the search 'global climate change' found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW
(Oreskes 2004). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in
the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010). Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the scientific community still
disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of the US public believes there is significant disagreement
among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth
is very likely warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Through analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study provides the
most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level and
evolution of consensus over the last two decades.

4. Warming leads to extinction
(Tickell 8)
(Oliver Tickell, Climate Researcher, The Gaurdian, On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction,
8/11http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange)
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to
Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale
would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for
humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable,
bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports,
cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed
much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would
become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely
reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die. Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned
that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is
already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more
sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of
billions of tonnes of methane a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years captured under melting permafrost is already
under way. To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of
6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests
grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this
historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar
hothouse Earth.
5. OTEC solves warming- it cools the ocean and reduces emissions
(Curto, former NASA Chief Technologist, 2010)
(Dr. Paul Curto, December 15
th
, OpEdNews.com, American Energy Policy V -- Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, http://www.opednews.com/articles/American-Energy-
Policy-V--by-Paul-from-Potomac-101214-315.html, 6/25/14, JA]
OTEC is a true triple threat against global warming. It is the only technology that acts to directly
reduce the temperature of the ocean (it was estimated one degree Fahrenheit reduction every twenty years for 10,000 250 MWe plants in '77),
eliminates carbon emissions, and increases carbon dioxide absorption (cooler water absorbs more CO2) at the same time. It generates fuel that is
portable and efficient, electricity for coastal areas if it is moored, and possibly food from the nutrients brought up from the
ocean floor. It creates jobs, perhaps millions of them, if it is the serious contender for the future multi-
trillion-dollar energy economy. In concert with wind and solar power, OTEC will complete the conversion of the human race to a balance with Nature. We
need only choose life over convenience. Some folks know that I've been a proponent of ocean power since the late '70s. Rummaging through old stuff on the internet, I found this
ancient photo of me in Miami in 1977, on a panel discussing OTEC. This may have been the first time that OTEC was discussed in public in terms of global warming. Oddly
enough, the concern was that we might cause an Ice Age! This technology may be deployed as a means to bring the ocean
back into balance, not to upset it. The designs for these OTEC ships have features that are quite innovative and
cost effective. Estimates range from $3000 to $6000 per kWe installed in 2010 dollars, depending on the configuration and proximity to shore. The capacity
factor should be close to 100%, especially with the modular designs for the power modules. This means that OTEC annual power
production will average three times that of solar and wind per unit of power capacity. Gulf plants may be moored in deep
water and connected directly to the grid, bypassing the ammonia step. Tropical ships may graze from site to site and perform stationkeeping to stay in place when it's advantageous
to do so. One design called for neutrally buoyant hulls to allow for submerging the ship in the event of any major storm to levels below the wave action zone. The major expenses
are for the heat exchangers (titanium alloys or aluminum), cold water pipe, and ammonia production/electrical generation and transmission facilities.
6. Each OTEC facility reduces carbon emissions by half a million tons
(Hamilton 2013)
[Tyler Hamilton, 04-17-13, The Energy Collective Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: One Step Closer to Reality,
http://theenergycollective.com/tyhamilton/211241/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion-gets-one-step-closer-commercial-reality, 06-25-14, JY]
Lockheed is trying to demonstrate that the day has come. Constructing a sea-based, multi-megawatt pilot OTEC power plant for Reignwood Group is the final step in making it an
economic option to meet growing needs for clean, reliable energy, said Dan Heller, vice-president of new ventures for Lockheeds mission systems and training group. Lockheed
said the technology is well-suited to island and coastal communities where because of transportation logistics energy prices tend to be high and there is great dependency
on oil for power generation. Unlike other renewable energy technologies, this power is also base load, meaning it can
be produced consistently 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, said Lockheed. A commercial-scale OTEC plant will have the capability to
power a small city. The energy can also be used for the cultivation of other crucial resources such as clean drinking water and hydrogen for applications such as electric vehicles.
Continues Lockheed: Once the proposed plant is developed and operational, the two companies plan to use the knowledge gained to improve the design of the additional
commercial-scale plants, to be built over the next 10 years. Each 100-megawatt OTEC facility could produce the same amount of
energy in a year as 1.3 million barrels of oil, decrease carbon emissions by half a million tons and provide a
domestic energy source that is sustainable, reliable and secure. With oil trading near $100 a barrel, the fuel-
savings from one plant could top $130 million per year.

Advantage 2 is Oil Dependency

Scenario 1 is the Economy

1. The United States is dependent primarily on oil absent a drastic shift in energy
production makes global economic collapse inevitable creating new energy sources
solves
Ahmed, investigative journalist and international security scholar, 5-28-14
(Nafeez, March 28
th
, Ex govt adviser: "global market shock" from "oil crash" could hit in 2015 A former oil man calls for renewable "Renaissance" to ward off shale dystopia,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/28/global-market-shock-oil-crash-2015-peak, accessed 6/29/14, LLM)
In a new book, former oil geologist and government adviser on renewable energy, Dr. Jeremy Leggett, identifies five "global systemic risks
directly connected to energy" which, he says, together "threaten capital markets and hence the global economy" in
a way that could trigger a global crash sometime between 2015 and 2020. According to Leggett, a wide range of experts and
insiders "from diverse sectors spanning academia, industry, the military and the oil industry itself, including until recently the
International Energy Agency or, at least, key individuals or factions therein" are expecting an oil crunch "within a few years," most likely "within a
window from 2015 to 2020." Interconnected risks Despite its serious tone, The Energy of Nations: Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance, published by the reputable
academic publisher Routledge, makes a compelling and ultimately hopeful case for the prospects of transitioning to a clean energy system in tandem with a new form of
sustainable prosperityThe five risks he highlights cut across oil depletion, carbon emissions, carbon assets, shale gas, and the
financial sector: "A market shock involving any one these would be capable of triggering a tsunami of economic
and social problems, and, of course, there is no law of economics that says only one can hit at one time." At
the heart of these risks, Leggett argues, is our dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuel resources. His wide-ranging
analysis pinpoints the possibility of a global oil supply crunch as early as 2015. "Growing numbers of people in and around the oil industry", he says, privately consider such a
forecast to be plausible. "If we are correct, and nothing is done to soften the landing, the twenty-first century is almost certainly heading for
an early depression." Leggett also highlights the risk of parallel developments in the financial sector: "Growing numbers of financial
experts are warning that failure to rein in the financial sector in the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008 makes a second crash almost
inevitable." A frequent Guardian contributor, Leggett has had a varied career spanning multiple disciplines. A geologist and former oil industry consultant for over a
decade whose research on shale was funded by BP and Shell, he joined Greenpeace International in 1989 over concerns about climate change. As the organisation's science
director he edited a landmark climate change report published by Oxford University Press. Industry's bad bet Leggett points to an expanding body of evidence that what he calls
"the incumbency" - "most of the oil and gas industries, their financiers, and their supporters and defenders in public
service" - have deliberately exaggerated the quantity of fossil fuel reserves, and the industry's capacity to exploit them. He points
to a leaked email from Shell's head of exploration to the CEO, Phil Watts, dated November 2003: "I am becoming sick and tired of lying about the
extent of our reserves issues and the downward revisions that need to be done because of far too aggressive/ optimistic bookings." Leggett
reports that after admitting that Shell's reserves had been overstated by 20%, Watts still had to "revise them down a
further three times." The company is still reeling from the apparent failure of investments in the US shale gas boom. Last October the Financial Times reported that
despite having invested "at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America", so far the bet "has yet to pay off." With its upstream business
struggling "to turn a profit", Shell announced a "strategic review of its US shale portfolio after taking a
$2.1bn impairment." Shell's outgoing CEO Peter Voser admitted that the US shale bet was a big regret: "Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned."
Leggett thus remains highly sceptical that shale oil and gas will change the game. Despite "soaring drilling rates,"
US tight oil production has lifted "only around a million barrels a day." As global oil consumption is at
around 90 milion barrels a day, with conventional crude depleting "by over four million barrels a day of capacity each year" according to International Energy
Agency (IEA) data, tight oil additions "can hardly be material in the global picture." He reaches a similar verdict for shale gas, which he notes "contributes well
under 1% of US transport fuel." Even as Prime Minister David Cameron has just reiterated the government's commitment to prioritise shale, Leggett says:
"Shale-gas drilling has dropped off a cliff since 2009. It is only a matter of time now before US shale-gas production falls. This is not material to the timing of a global oil crisis."
In an interview, he goes further, questioning the very existence of a real North American 'boom': "How it can be that there is a prolonged and sustainable shale boom when so
much investment is being written off in America - $32 billion at the last count?" It is a question that our government, says Leggett, is ignoring. Crunch time In his book, Leggett
cites a letter he had obtained in 2004 written by the First Secretary for Energy and Environment in the British embassy in Washington, referring to a presentation on oil supply by
the leading oil and gas consulting firm, PFC Energy (now owned by IHS, the US government contractor which also owns Cambridge Energy Research Associates). According to
Leggett, the diplomat's letter to his colleagues in London reads as follows: "The presentation drew some gasps from the assembled energy cognoscenti. They predict a
peaking of global supply in the face of high demand by as early as 2015. This will lead to a more regionalised oil market, a key role for
West African producers, and continued high and volatile prices." The text of the 2004 letter is corroborated by a 2009 PFC Energy report commissioned
by the International Energy Forum which concluded that world conventional oil supply was approaching "peak production, where
the petroleum industry's ability to continue to increase - or even maintain - production of conventional oil
(and eventually gas) is constrained... "Exploitation of unconventional oil will provide additional liquids, but in all probability
only at increasingly higher costs, and it will depend on significant investments to develop appropriate technologies to convert today's resources into
tomorrow's reserves. The exact timing of both the plateau and onset of irreversible decline will be influenced by the factors that determine long-term changes in supply and
demand. Nevertheless, the challenge is coming, and this emerging world of limited conventional production will require major
adjustments on the part of both consumers and producers." Requests for comment from PFC Energy and Cuadrilla, a UK energy company,
concerning Leggett's warning of a near-term oil crash despite shale gas production received no response. Critics point out that Leggett and others warning of peak oil are wrong
because they never saw the prospect of shale. In response, Leggett tells me: "Its true that the short burst of shale gas and shale oil has
taken a lot of 'peakists', myself included, somewhat by surprise, and that the oil peak has been pushed out in time a little by tight oil. What
hasn't changed is the basic issue: most of the incumbency says the 'all-liquids' oil production peak is many
years hence, the minority doubting the narrative says it is much nearer, within this decade. And lets not forget:
conventional crude oil has already peaked, as even the IEA admits." After his stint as Greenpeace's science chief, Jeremy Leggett went on to found the
UK's largest solar energy company, SolarCentury, and to advise the British government on renewable energy from 2002 to 2006. He is now convener of the UK Industry Task
Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security which includes major multinationals like Arup Group and Virgin, chairman of the Carbon Tracker Initiative which aims to improve the
transparency of carbon embedded in equity markets, and a co-organiser of the Trans-Atlantic Energy Security Dialogue I reported on last January. That same month, Leggett
addressed world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos about his forecast. The 2015 oil crunch forecast, Leggett writes, is corroborated by the Industry Task Force report:
"In this report we updated the evidence that defines global oil reserves and extraction rates, and concluded that the global peak production rate for oil would likely occur within the
decade, very likely by 2015 at the latest at a value no higher than 92 million barrels per day." Based on flow rate data, the report found that
"increases in extraction would be slowing down in 201113 and dropping thereafter." From then on, global oil
production would drop "at 1% a year from 2015. If the then IEA forecast of demand rising to 105 million barrels a day in 2030 were to prove
correct, supply would fall short in 2015."



Scenario 2 is War
2. China perceives US Oil dependence causing an Energy Containment policy leads to
Chinese aggression and conflict
Salameh, International Association for Energy Economics International Oil
Economist, 2014
(Dr Mamdouh G., Oil Wars, file:///C:/Users/loganmcroberts/Downloads/SSRN-id2430960.pdf, accessed 6/25/14, LLM)
The great rivalry between the United States and China will shape the 21st century. It is a truth universally
acknowledged that a great power will never voluntarily surrender pride of place to a challenger. The United States is the
pre-eminent great power. China is now its potential challenger. Though a terrifying possibility, a war between the oil titans could be triggered by
a race to secure a share of dwindling reserves of oil or over Taiwan or over the disputed Islands in the South China
Sea claimed by both China and Japan with the US coming to the defence of Japan. In such conflicts, the
United States would try to starve China of oil by blocking any oil supplies from the Middle East passing
through the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca. Chinas robust economic growth and its emergence as an
economic superpower would falter without oil, particularly from the Middle East. Chinas global oil diplomacy
is, therefore, geared towards ensuring that this never happens. 26 As Chinese state-owned companies scour the globe for oil and gas to fuel their
countrys rapid economic growth, criticism of China for supporting despotic, oil-rich regimes, for driving up U.S. oil prices, and for worsening global warming has grown more
strident. Some Washington hard-liners say the United States should prepare for future energy conflict with China by
strengthening alliances with key oil producers while denying China access to strategic oil supplies. Such policies
would increase Chinese concern about the security of oil supplies, encourage China to lock in oil resources
from unsavoury regimes, and undermine moderates in Beijing. Hard-line policies on oil could even become
a self-fulfilling prophecy, fostering a new Cold War between the United States and China and possibly a
hot one. Chinas economic boom, fuelled by its massive supply of coal, has begun to overwhelm its domestic energy resources. While coal still meets 68% of Chinas
primary energy needs, the percentage filled by imported oil is growing. A net oil exporter in 1993, China today is the worlds largest importer and the second-largest consumer of
oil. Over the next 15 years, its demand is expected to roughly double. By 2020, China will likely import 70% of the oil it consumes, compared to
65% today. 27 Chinas leaders worry that this dependence on imported oil leaves them vulnerable, since long-
term global energy scarcity that undermines economic growth and increases unemployment could bring social instability.
Beijing also worries that the United States will exploit its energy weakness. For some people in Washington, Chinas
global oil strategy is a menace to U.S. interests. They would deny China access to energy resources, build
up U.S. military capability and strengthen alliances with key oil-producing states. Africa, which supplies
over a quarter of Chinas oil and gas imports and is expected to provide a quarter of all U.S. oil imports by 2015,
is already emerging as the next point of discord. The newest U.S. military command, AFRICOM, focuses on the
Gulf of Guinea, a region dominated by major oil-producing states. The growing dependence on oil imports
particularly from the Middle East has created an increasing sense of energy insecurity among Chinese
leaders. Some Chinese analysts even refer to the possibility that the US is practicing an energy containment
policy toward China, or could implement one in the future. Chinese leaders tend to believe that dependence on
imported oil leads to great strategic vulnerability. The war on Iraq and growing US hegemony in the
Middle East have made it even more urgent for China to reduce its dependence on the Arab Gulf. 28 Much of Chinas imported
oil from the Middle East must pass through a major chokepoint: the Strait of Hormuz which is guarded by the US
navy (see Figure 1).

3. China war escalates to extinction
Wittner professor of history emeritus at SUNY Albany, 2011
[Lawrence, 11-30-2011, Is Nuclear War with China Possible, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/nuclear-war-china_b_1116556.html, DOI 7/12014]
While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for centuries
international 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
China's growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China's
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 their conflict over the future of China's 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 didn't 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 haven't been very many -- at 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. Pakistan's 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, don't nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously,
NATO leaders didn't feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO's 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 expensive -- and probably unworkable -- military 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 5,000 nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total
inventory of roughly 300 . Moreover, only about 40 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? An attack with
these Chinese nuclear weapons 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 globe -- destroying agriculture, 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.
Potential Scenario 1
OTEC provides an economically, environmentally, and technically viable form of
sustainable hydrogen production
Ryzin, Ph.D in Ocean Engineering, Grandelli, Senior Ocean Engineer in
charge of OTEC design, Lipp, Ocean Engineer working in OTEC software,
Argall, Ocean Engineer at Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc, 2005
[Joseph V., Patrick, David, Richard, 2005, Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc., The Hydrogen Economy of
2050: OTEC Driven?, http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/energie/hydrogene.pdf, 6-24-14, KB]
Depending upon the outcome of the NAEs four pivotal questions, it will be 10-30 years (or perhaps never) until the hydrogen
economy develops. One initial method where the U.S. can begin a shift to carbon-free domestic energy using
present technology is to use OTEC-derived hydrogen to produce ammonia. OTEC ammonia would
compete with ammonia made from foreign natural gas, reducing American dependence on imported
energy.
The single largest worldwide use of hydrogen (25 million tonnes worldwide) is as an intermediate step in
the production of 140 million tonnes of ammonia from natural gas. High natural gas prices in the U.S. are causing
increased import of ammonia synthesized from low-cost foreign natural gas [26]. In 2004, the U.S. imported 6 million tonnes of
ammonia, equivalent to 1 million tonnes of hydrogen, which represents one-eighth of U.S. hydrogen production. Ammonia is shipped
worldwide using propane tankers much simpler than shipping hydrogen.
We modified our baseline 100-tonne per day OTEC hydrogen model to include costs of the ammonia synthesis reactor vessels,
nitrogen air separation unit, and 14-day storage. Electrolyzer purchase cost was increased to today's value of $1000 per kW [17]
instead of the $125 per kW future value. Financing was modified to 5% interest and a 30-year design life and assumes that federal
obligation guarantees, up to $1.65 billion have been obtained from the United States' OTEC Demonstration Fund [27]. Constructing
such a plant seems within present offshore fabrication capabilities. Table 5 presents the costs of major subsystems of this plant.
The cost per tonne of ammonia with these parameters is $494 per tonne, as shown in Fig. 11. This price is 66% more than the current
price of $297 per tonne for imported ammmonia[28]. One or two decades in the future, it is quite conceivable that ammonia from
natural gas would cost the same as ammonia from OTEC.
A tax credit of 1.9 per kWhr for renewable energy production [29] presently exists. If this tax credit is applied to ammonia
production, the cost for Subsidized OTEC 2010 ammonia becomes a nearly competitive $335 per tonne. This subsidized cost would
be competitive if natural gas costs increase 13%.
This study developed a technical and economic model for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants
supplying a widespread hydrogen economy. Upon comparing the results with other potential hydrogen
sources, its clear that no source is ideal but OTEC is attractive overall. Momentous choices must be made.
Major technical breakthroughs, especially for hydrogen storage, are needed for the hydrogen economy to evolve.
With these breakthroughs, OTEC hydrogen will cost slightly more than biomass gasification and wind turbine electrolysis, but
significantly less than solar photo-voltaic electrolysis.
Coal gasification and nuclear thermochemical splitting with CO2 or nuclear waste sequestration will cost the least. Both entail
technical risks and bequeath humankind with potentially catastrophic stored waste.
Massive-scale biomass and wind energy will displace limited land resources used for farming and living. Massive-scale solar
energy is the highest cost option.
OTEC is the most sustainable massive-scale energy source. It is the only source that uses non-
intermittent solar energy, and it does not use land.
Ammonia created using OTEC with present technology could reduce foreign energy imported in the
form of ammonia. OTEC ammonia with subsidies is within 13% of the present ammonia market price.
OTEC is both a technically and economically viable hydrogen production pathway for delivery of massive
quantities of energy; it is cost competitive with other renewable technologies and it is environmentally
sustainable. OTEC should be considered a legitimate player in the envisioned hydrogen economy but ironically it is barely
mentioned today in hydrogen economy documents. The US and the world are on a path towards a non-oil-based future and the
decisions ahead are momentous. As a minimum, OTEC, which is low-risk and environmentally sustainable, should be developed in
parallel with those other technologies that appear to be economically attractive but have significant environmental risks attached.
Technically, environmentally and economically not considering OTEC is a risk the world can not afford
to take.

The future of sustainable energy is dependent upon hydrogen fuel sources, which produce no CO
2,
are incredibly efficient, and shifts the globe away from oil dependence
Edwards, Head of Organic Chemistry Oxford University, et al, 2008
[Peter P., Dr Vladimir L. Kuznetsov Research Fellow University of Oxford, Professor
William I. F. David, Visiting Professor in Inorganic Chemistry University of Oxford,
Professor Nigel Brandon Shell Chair in Sustainable Development in Energy Imperial
College, London, Office of Science and Innovation UK, Hydrogen and fuel cells:
towards a sustainable energy future, http://www.dti.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/energy/hydrogen-
and-fuel-cells-towards-a-sustainable-future.pdf, 6/25/14, KB]
Hydrogen is a very attractive alternative fuel. It can be obtained from diverse resources, both renewable
(hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal) and non-renewable (coal, natural gas, nuclear). Hydrogen can
then be utilized in high-efficiency power-generation systems, including fuel cells for both vehicular
transportation and distributed electricity generation. Fuel cells convert hydrogen or a hydrogen-rich fuel
and an oxidant (usually pure oxygen or oxygen from the air) directly into electricity by an electrochemical
process. Fuel cells, operating on hydrogen or hydrogen-rich fuels, have the potential to become major
factors in catalyzing the transition to a future sustainable energy system with low-CO2 emissions. The
importance attached to such developments is rapidly increasing. Many countries are now compiling roadmaps, in many cases with
specific numerical targets for the advancement of fuel- cell and hydrogen technologies. As just one potent example, Japan's Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry has now set a target of 5 million hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles and 10 million kW for the total power
generation by stationary fuel cells by the year 2020! At the present time, there are three major technological barriers that must be
overcome for a transition from a carbon-based (fossil fuel) energy system to a hydrogen-based economy. First, the cost of efficient and
sustainable hydrogen production and delivery must be significantly reduced. Second, new generations of hydrogen storage systems for
both vehicular and stationary applications must be developed. Finally, the cost of fuel-cell and other hydrogen-based systems must be
reduced. The vision of such an integrated energy system of the future would combine large and small fuel cells for domestic and
decentralized heat and electricity power generation with local (or more extended) hydrogen supply networks that would also be used
to fuel conventional (internal combustion) or fuel-cell vehicles. Unlike coal, gas or oil, hydrogen is not a primary energy source. Its
role more closely mirrors that of electricity as an 'energy carrier', which first is produced using energy from another source and then
transported for future use, where its stored chemical energy can be utilized. Hydrogen can be stored as a fuel and utilized
in transportation and distributed heat and power generation using fuel cells, internal combustion engines or
turbines, and, importantly, a hydrogen fuel cell produces only water and no CO2. Hydrogen can also be
used as a storage medium for electricity generated from intermittent, renewable resources such as solar,
wind, wave and tidal power. It therefore provides the solution to one of the major issues of sustainable
energy, namely the vexing problem of intermittency of supply. As long as the hydrogen is produced from
non-fossil-fuel feed stock, it is a genuinely green fuel. Moreover, locally produced hydrogen allows the
introduction of renewable energy to the transport sector, provides potentially large economic and energy
security advantages and the benefits of an infrastructure based on distributed generation. It is this key
element of the energy storage capacity of hydrogen that provides the potent link between sustainable
energy technologies and a sustainable energy economy, generally placed under the umbrella term of
'hydrogen economy'.

Potential Scenario 2
Scenario 3: Terror
The U.S electricity grid is fragile and vulnerable to terror attacks switching to a
hydrogen economy solves
Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, 2002
[Jeremy, December 23, The Nation, Hydrogen: Empowering the People,
http://www.thenation.com/article/hydrogen-empowering-people, DOI 6/24/2014,
MEL]
While the fossil-fuel era enters its sunset years, a new energy regime is being born that has the potential to remake
civilization along radically new lines--hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most basic and ubiquitous element in the universe. It never runs out and produces
no harmful CO2emissions when burned; the only byproducts are heat and pure water. That is why it's been called "the forever fuel." Hydrogen has
the potential to end the world's reliance on oil. Switching to hydrogen and creating a decentralized power
grid would also be the best assurance against terrorist attacks aimed at disrupting the national power grid and
energy infrastructure. Moreover, hydrogen power will dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global
warming. In the long run, the hydrogen-powered economy will fundamentally change the very nature of our
market, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.\

Two scenarios for extinction
-First: Cyber terror attacks are being planned now, absent new electricity systems
the U.S loses military deterrence power which results in war
Habiger, retired air force general, 2010
[Eugue, 2/1, The Cyber Security Institute, Cyberwarfare and Cyberterrorism, p 11-19]
However, from a strategic defense perspective, there are enough warning signs to warrant preparation. In addition to the threat of cyberwar, the limited
resources required to carry out even a large scale cyberattack also makes likely the potential for a significant cyberterror attack against the United States.
However, the lack of a long list of specific incidences of cyberterrorism should provide no comfort. There is strong evidence to suggest
that al Qaeda has the ability to conduct cyberterror attacks against the United States and its allies. Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations are extremely active in cyberspace, using these technologies to communicate among themselves and others, carry out logistics, recruit
members, and wage information warfare. For example, al Qaeda leaders used email to communicate with the 911 terrorists and the 911 terrorists used
the Internet to make travel plans and book flights. Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda members routinely post videos and other messages to online sites
to communicate. Moreover, there is evidence of efforts that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are actively developing cyberterrorism capabilities
and seeking to carry out cyberterrorist attacks. For example, the Washington Post has reported that U.S. investigators have found evidence in the logs
that mark a browser's path through the Internet that al Qaeda operators spent time on sites that offer software and programming instructions for the digital
switches that run power, water, transport and communications grids. In some interrogations . . . al Qaeda prisoners have described intentions, in general
terms, to use those tools.25 Similarly, a 2002 CIA report on the cyberterror threat to a member of the Senate stated that al Qaeda and Hezbollah have
become "more adept at using the internet and computer technologies.26 The FBI has issued bulletins stating that, U. S. law enforcement and
intelligence agencies have received indications that Al Qaeda members have sought information on Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)
systems available on multiple SCADArelated web sites.27 In addition a number of jihadist websites, such as 7hj.7hj.com, teach computer attack and
hacking skills in the service of Islam.28 While al Qaeda may lack the cyberattack capability of nations like Russia and China, there is every reason to
believe its operatives, and those of its ilk, are as capable as the cyber criminals and hackers who routinely effect great harm on the worlds digital
infrastructure generally and American assets specifically. In fact, perhaps, the most troubling indication of the level of the cyberterrorist threat is the
countless, serious nonterrorist cyberattacks routinely carried out by criminals, hackers, disgruntled insiders, crime syndicates and the like. If runofthe
mill criminals and hackers can threaten powergrids, hack vital military networks, steal vast sums of money, take down a citys of traffic lights,
compromise the Federal Aviation Administrations air traffic control systems, among other attacks, it is overwhelmingly likely that terrorists can carry
out similar, if not more malicious attacks. Moreover, even if the worlds terrorists are unable to breed these skills, they can
certainly buy them. There are untold numbers of cybermercenaries around the worldsophisticated hackers with advanced training who would
be willing to offer their services for the right price. Finally, given the nature of our understanding of cyber threats, there is always the possibility that we
have already been the victim or a cyberterrorist attack, or such an attack has already been set but not yet effectuated, and we dont know it yet. Instead, a
welldesigned cyberattack has the capacity cause widespread chaos, sow societal unrest, undermine national governments, spread
paralyzing fear and anxiety, and create a state of utter turmoil, all without taking a single life. A sophisticated cyberattack could throw a
nations banking and finance system into chaos causing markets to crash, prompting runs on banks, degrading confidence in markets, perhaps even
putting the nations currency in play and making the government look helpless and hapless. In todays difficult economy, imagine how Americans would
react if vast sums of money were taken from their accounts and their supporting financial records were destroyed. A truly nefarious cyberattacker could
carry out an attack in such a way (akin to Robin Hood) as to engender populist support and deepen rifts within our society, thereby making efforts to
restore the system all the more difficult. A modestly advanced enemy could use a cyberattack to shut down (if not physically
damage) one or more regional power grids. An entire region could be cast into total darkness, powerdependent systems could be shutdown. An
attack on one or more regional power grids could also cause cascading effects that could jeopardize our entire
national grid. When word leaks that the blackout was caused by a cyberattack, the specter of a foreign
enemy capable of sending the entire nation into darkness would only increase the fear, turmoil and unrest. While the finance and
energy sectors are considered prime targets for a cyberattack, an attack on any of the 17 delineated critical infrastructure sectors could have a major
impact on the United States. For example, our healthcare system is already technologically driven and the Obama Administrations ehealth efforts will
only increase that dependency. A cyberattack on the U.S. ehealth infrastructure could send our healthcare system into chaos and put countless of lives at
risk. Imagine if emergency room physicians and surgeons were suddenly no longer able to access vital patient information. A cyberattack on our nations
water systems could likewise cause widespread disruption. An attack on the control systems for one or more dams could put entire communities at risk of
being inundated, and could create ripple effects across the water, agriculture, and energy sectors. Similar water control system attacks could be used to at
least temporarily deny water to otherwise arid regions, impacting everything from the quality of life in these areas to agriculture. In 2007, the U.S. Cyber
Consequences Unit determined that the destruction from a single wave of cyberattacks on critical infrastructures could exceed $700 billion, which would
be the rough equivalent of 50 Katrinaesque hurricanes hitting the United States all at the same time.29 Similarly, one IT security source has estimated
that the impact of a single day cyberwar attack that focused on and disrupted U.S. credit and debit card transactions would be approximately $35
billion.30 Another way to gauge the potential for harm is in comparison to other similar noncyberattack infrastructure failures. For example, the August
2003 regional power grid blackout is estimated to have cost the U.S. economy up to $10 billion, or roughly .1 percent of the nations GDP. 31 That said, a
cyberattack of the exact same magnitude would most certainly have a much larger impact. The origin of the 2003 blackout was almost immediately
disclosed as an atypical system failure having nothing to do with terrorism. This made the event both less threatening and likely a single time occurrence.
Had it been disclosed that the event was the result of an attack that could readily be repeated the impacts would likely have grown substantially, if not
exponentially. Additionally, a cyberattack could also be used to disrupt our nations defenses or distract our national leaders in advance of a more
traditional conventional or strategic attack. Many military leaders actually believe that such a disruptive cyber pre
offensive is the most effective use of offensive cyber capabilities. This is, in fact, the way Russia utilized cyberattackers
whether government assets, governmentdirected/ coordinated assets, or allied cyber irregularsin advance of the invasion of Georgia. Widespread
distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks were launched on the Georgian governments IT systems. Roughly a day later Russian armor rolled into
Georgian territory. The cyberattacks were used to prepare the battlefield; they denied the Georgian government a critical communications tool isolating it
from its citizens and degrading its command and control capabilities precisely at the time of attack. In this way, these attacks were the functional
equivalent of conventional air and/or missile strikes on a nations communications infrastructure.32 One interesting element of the Georgian cyberattacks
has been generally overlooked: On July 20th, weeks before the August cyberattack, the website of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was
overwhelmed by a more narrowly focused, but technologically similar DDOS attack.33 This should be particularly chilling to American national security
experts as our systems undergo the same sorts of focused, probing attacks on a constant basis. The ability of an enemy to use a cyberattack to counter our
offensive capabilities or soften our defenses for a wider offensive against the United States is much more than mere speculation. In fact, in Iraq it is
already happening. Iraq insurgents are now using offtheshelf software (costing just $26) to hack U.S. drones (costing $4.5 million each), allowing them
to intercept the video feed from these drones.34 By hacking these drones the insurgents have succeeded in greatly reducing one of our most valuable
sources of realtime intelligence and situational awareness. If our enemies in Iraq are capable of such an effective cyberattack against one of our more
sophisticated systems, consider what a more technologically advanced enemy could do. At the strategic level, in 2008, as the United States Central
Command was leading wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a cyber intruder compromised the security of the Command and sat within its IT systems,
monitoring everything the Command was doing. 35 This time the attacker simply gathered vast amounts of intelligence. However, it is clear that the
attacker could have used this access to wage cyberwaraltering information, disrupting the flow of information, destroying information, taking down
systemsagainst the United States forces already at war. Similarly, during 2003 as the United States prepared for and began the War in Iraq, the IT
networks of the Department of Defense were hacked 294 times.36 By August of 2004, with America at war, these ongoing attacks compelled then
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to write in a memo that, "Recent exploits have reduced operational capabilities on our networks."37 This
wasnt the first time that our national security IT infrastructure was penetrated immediately in advance of a U.S. military option.38 In February of 1998
the Solar Sunrise attacks systematically compromised a series of Department of Defense networks. What is often overlooked is that t hese attacks occurred
during the ramp up period ahead of potential military action against Iraq. The attackers were able to obtain vast amounts of sensitive information
information that would have certainly been of value to an enemys military leaders. There is no way to prove that these actions were purposefully
launched with the specific intent to distract American military assets or degrade our capabilities. However, such ambiguitiesthe inability to specifically
attribute actions and motives to actorsare the very nature of cyberspace. Perhaps, these repeated patterns of behavior were mere coincidence, or perhaps
they werent. The potential that an enemy might use a cyberattack to soften physical defenses, increase the gravity of harms from kinetic attacks, or both,
significantly increases the potential harms from a cyberattack. Consider the gravity of the threat and risk if an enemy, rightly or wrongly, believed that it
could use a cyberattack to degrade our strategic weapons capabilities. Such an enemy might be convinced that it could win a warconventional or even
nuclearagainst the United States. The effect of this would be to undermine our deterrencebased defenses, making us
significantly more at risk of a major war.

-Second: The U.S is vulnerable to an EMP grid attack by terrorists or a natural
disaster, independently causes extinction
Harrington, writer at the Washington Free Beacon, 2014
[Elizabeth, 5/8, Washington Free Beacon, Hearing: Electric Grid Vulnerable to EMP Witness: Could kill 9 in 10 Americans,
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/hearing-electric-grid-vulnerable-to-emp/, DOI 6/25/2014, MEL]
Experts on Capitol Hill Thursday warned that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack aimed at the nations electrical grid
could leave the majority of Americans dead. The hearing, Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): Threat to Critical Infrastructure, before the
House Homeland Security Committees Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies explored the effects an
EMP would have. Some would say its low probability, but the damage that could be caused in the event of an EMP attack,
both by the sun, a solar event, or a man-made attack, would be catastrophic, said Rep. Michael McCaul
(R., Texas). We talk a lot about a nuclear bomb in Manhattan, and cybersecurity threat to the power grid
in the Northeast, and all of these things would actually probably pale in comparison to the devastation that
an EMP attack could perpetrate on Americans. Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), who has worked to raise awareness on the issue for
years, testified during the first panel that catastrophic civilian casualties could result unless Congress acts. An overload of
radio waves to electric systems, an EMP could result from a natural disaster, such as a solar storm, or a
terrorist attack. Franks said every single facet of modern human life would be crippled by such an event. It strikes at my very core when I
think of the men, women, and children in cities and rural towns across America with a possibility of no access to food, water, or transportation, he said.
In a matter of weeks or months at most, a worst-case scenario could bring devastation beyond
imagination. Franks told the Washington Free Beacon that while the nations critical defense assets, including nuclear
defense capabilities, are currently protected against an EMP, the civilian grid is almost entirely
vulnerable. The civilian grid, in my judgment, is very vulnerable, he said. Some of the largest transformers,
the very largest ones, have an inherent resistance to all but the more intense electromagnetic pulses. But the
fact is, we have enough of those mid-range transformers where a major event would be catastrophic. To
protect the civilian grid against an EMP event, Franks has introduced H.R. 3410, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would enable the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement practical steps to protect the electric grid. Dr. Michael J. Frankel, a senior scientist at
Pennsylvania State University, said Franks bill is a necessary first step for the defense of the electric grid. The bill currently has 19 cosponsors. The
issue is an urgent one, said Dr. Peter Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on
National and Homeland Security, who testified that an EMP event could wipe out 90 percent of Americas population.
Natural EMP from a geomagnetic super-storm, like the1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack
from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9 of 10
Americans through starvation, disease, and societal collapse, he said. Subcommittee Vice Chairman Scott Perry (R., Pa.)
said that Americas adversaries may already have the ability to launch an EMP attack, which could be achieved by dropping a nuclear warhead miles
above the electric grid. Currently the nations of Russia and China have the technology to launch an EMP attack, and we
have speculated that Iran and North Korea may be developing EMP weapon technology, Perry said. This is
why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to mitigate the effects of an EMP attack. Franks told the Free Beacon
that Americans are unaware of the devastation that would occur if the country experienced a solar storm
similar to the Carrington Event. Named after British astronomer Richard Carrington, Carrington is the biggest solar storm on record, and took place in
1859. If a Carrington event happened now, its an unthinkable, almost cataclysmic event, Franks said. What people dont
realize, were so used to things we think, Oh, well power goes down for a week and it usually comes back up. And most of the reason it does is because
of a lightning storm. Well, lightning is EMP. Lightning is E2. We have put a lot of hardware-based protections against lightning over our grid
installations, he continued. Even so, we still once in a while have some extended damage for a few days. But it almost always comes back. The thing
that people dont realize is its the length of the blackout that begins to make it dangerous, Franks said. Everybody thinks,
Oh, well well go outside and well build a campfire and well have a nice evening at home, well break out the candles, itll be nice. A couple of days
like that is okay. A week like that might be okay. But you start looking at two or three months, you start looking at a very dangerous
and unthinkable scenario in a society that is as dependent on electric supply as we are. This entry was posted in
National Security and tagged China, Iran, MIchael McCaul, North Korea, Russia, Trent Franks. Bookmark the permalink.

Possible Scarcity Advantage
Resource shortages are priming global conflictfood energy and water shortages
are the most probable scenarios for escalation
Klare 2013(Michael, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and defense
correspondent for The Nation, 2013, " How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a
Global Explosion", http://www.thenation.com/article/173967/how-resource-scarcity-and-climate-change-
could-produce-global-explosion)

Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the US intelligence community, the earth is
already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, youre on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity
has never before experienced. Two nightmare scenariosa global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of
extreme climate changeare already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave
of unrest, rebellion, competition and conflict. Just what this tsunami of disaster will look like may, as yet, be hard to
discern, but experts warn of water wars over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring
prices for lifes basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence) and the breakdown of
social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia and other areas of
the underdeveloped South, but in time, all regions of the planet will be affected. To appreciate the power of this encroaching
catastrophe, its necessary to examine each of the forces that are combining to produce this future cataclysm. Resource Shortages and
Resource Wars Start with one simple given: the prospect of future scarcities of vital natural resources, including
energy, water, land, food and critical minerals. This in itself would guarantee social unrest, geopolitical friction and
war. It is important to note that absolute scarcity doesnt have to be on the horizon in any given resource category for this scenario to
kick in. A lack of adequate supplies to meet the needs of a growing, ever more urbanized and industrialized global population is
enough. Given the wave of extinctions that scientists are recording, some resourcesparticular species of fish, animals and trees, for
examplewill become less abundant in the decades to come, and may even disappear altogether. But key materials for modern
civilization like oil, uranium and copper will simply prove harder and more costly to acquire, leading to supply bottlenecks and
periodic shortages. Oilthe single most important commodity in the international economyprovides an apt example. Although
global oil supplies may actually grow in the coming decades, many experts doubt that they can be expanded
sufficiently to meet the needs of a rising global middle class that is, for instance, expected to buy millions of new cars
in the near future. In its 2011 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency claimed that an anticipated global oil demand
of 104 million barrels per day in 2035 will be satisfied. This, the report suggested, would be thanks in large part to additional supplies
of unconventional oil (Canadian tar sands, shale oil and so on), as well as 55 million barrels of new oil from fields yet to be found
and yet to be developed. However, many analysts scoff at this optimistic assessment, arguing that rising production costs (for
energy that will be ever more difficult and costly to extract), environmental opposition, warfare, corruption and other
impediments will make it extremely difficult to achieve increases of this magnitude. In other words, even if
production manages for a time to top the 2010 level of 87 million barrels per day, the goal of 104 million barrels will
never be reached and the worlds major consumers will face virtual, if not absolute, scarcity. Water provides another
potent example. On an annual basis, the supply of drinking water provided by natural precipitation remains more
or less constant: about 40,000 cubic kilometers. But much of this precipitation lands on Greenland, Antarctica, Siberia and inner
Amazonia where there are very few people, so the supply available to major concentrations of humanity is often surprisingly limited.
In many regions with high population levels, water supplies are already relatively sparse. This is especially true
of North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, where the demand for water continues to grow as a result
of rising populations, urbanization and the emergence of new water-intensive industries. The result, even when the supply remains
constant, is an environment of increasing scarcity. Wherever you look, the picture is roughly the same: supplies of critical resources
may be rising or falling, but rarely do they appear to be outpacing demand, producing a sense of widespread and systemic scarcity.
However generated, a perception of scarcityor imminent scarcityregularly leads to anxiety, resentment, hostility
and contentiousness. This pattern is very well understood, and has been evident throughout human history. In his
book Constant Battles, for example, Steven LeBlanc, director of collections for Harvards Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, notes that many ancient civilizations experienced higher levels of warfare when faced with resource
shortages brought about by population growth, crop failures or persistent drought. Jared Diamond, author of the bestseller Collapse,
has detected a similar pattern in Mayan civilization and the Anasazi culture of New Mexicos Chaco Canyon. More recently, concern
over adequate food for the home population was a significant factor in Japans invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and Germanys
invasions of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941, according to Lizzie Collingham, author of The Taste of War. Although the
global supply of most basic commodities has grown enormously since the end of World War II, analysts see the persistence of
resource-related conflict in areas where materials remain scarce or there is anxiety about the future reliability of supplies. Many
experts believe, for example, that the fighting in Darfur and other war-ravaged areas of North Africa has been driven, at least in part,
by competition among desert tribes for access to scarce water supplies, exacerbated in some cases by rising population levels. In
Darfur, says a 2009 report from the UN Environment Programme on the role of natural resources in the conflict, recurrent drought,
increasing demographic pressures, and political marginalization are among the forces that have pushed the region into a spiral of
lawlessness and violence that has led to 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than two million people since 2003. Anxiety
over future supplies is often also a factor in conflicts that break out over access to oil or control of contested
undersea reserves of oil and natural gas. In 1979, for instance, when the Islamic revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah and the Soviets
invaded Afghanistan, Washington began to fear that someday it might be denied access to Persian Gulf oil. At that point, President
Jimmy Carter promptly announced what came to be called the Carter Doctrine. In his 1980 State of the Union Address, Carter
affirmed that any move to impede the flow of oil from the Gulf would be viewed as a threat to Americas vital interests and would
be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. In 1990, this principle was invoked by President George H.W. Bush
to justify intervention in the first Persian Gulf War, just as his son would use it, in part, to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Today, it
remains the basis for US plans to employ force to stop the Iranians from closing the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway
connecting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean through which about 35 percent of the worlds seaborne oil commerce passes.
Recently, a set of resource conflicts have been rising toward the boiling point between China and its neighbors in Southeast Asia when
it comes to control of offshore oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea. Although the resulting naval clashes have yet to result in a
loss of life, a strong possibility of military escalation exists. A similar situation has also arisen in the East China Sea, where China and
Japan are jousting for control over similarly valuable undersea reserves. Meanwhile, in the South Atlantic Ocean, Argentina and
Britain are once again squabbling over the Falkland Islands (called Las Malvinas by the Argentinians) because oil has been
discovered in surrounding waters. By all accounts, resource-driven potential conflicts like these will only
multiply in the years ahead as demand rises, supplies dwindle and more of what remains will be found in
disputed areas. In a 2012 study titled Resources Futures, the respected British think-tank Chatham House expressed
particular concern about possible resource wars over water, especially in areas like the Nile and Jordan River basins
where several groups or countries must share the same river for the majority of their water supplies and few possess the wherewithal
to develop alternatives. Against this backdrop of tight supplies and competition, issues related to water rights, prices, and pollution
are becoming contentious, the report noted. In areas with limited capacity to govern shared resources, balance competing demands,
and mobilize new investments, tensions over water may erupt into more open confrontations.
Scenario one is water:
Water conflicts will go nuclear
Weiner 1990 (Jonathan, Visiting Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, The Next
One Hundred Years: Shaping Fate of Our Living Earth, p214)

If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-bomb and the H-bomb, then we may destroy ourselves with the C-bomb, the
Change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the
Middle East, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf and from the Nile to the Euphrates, tensions over dwindling water
supplies and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint. A climate
shift in the single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some of the
60,000 nuclear warheads the world has stockpiled since Trinity.
Water shortages Central Asian war
Privadarshi 2012 (Nitish, lecturer in the department of environment and water management at Ranchi
University in India, War for water is not a far cry, June 16,http://www.cleangangaportal.org/node/44)

That's been a constant dilemma for the Central Asian states since they became independent after the Soviet break-up. Much of
Central Asia's water flows from the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, leaving downstream countries
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan dependent and worried about the effects of planned
hydropower plants upstream. Tashkent fears that those two countries' use of water from Central Asia's two great rivers -- the
Syr Darya and Amu Darya -- to generate power will diminish the amount reaching Uzbekistan, whose 28 million inhabitants to make
up Central Asia's largest population. After the collapse of communism in the 1990s, a dispute arose between Hungary and Slovakia
over a project to dam the Danube River. It was the first of its type heard by the International Court of Justice and highlighted the
difficulty for the Court to resolve such issues decisively. There are 17 European countries directly reliant on water
from the Danube so there is clear potential for conflict if any of these countries act selfishly. Experts worry
that dwindling water supplies could likely result in regional conflicts in the future. For example, in oil-and-gas
rich Central Asia, the upstream countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan hold 90 percent of the region's water
resources, while Uzbekistan, the largest consumer of water in the region, is located downstream.
Extinction
Blank 2000(Stephen, Expert on the Soviet Bloc for the Strategic Studies Institute, American Grand
Strategy and the Transcaspian Region, World Affairs. 9-22)

Thus many structural conditions for conventional war or protracted ethnic conflict where third parties intervene now exist
in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. The outbreak of violence by disaffected Islamic elements, the drug trade, the
Chechen wars, and the unresolved ethnopolitical conflicts that dot the region, not to mention the undemocratic and
unbalanced distribution of income across corrupt governments, provide plenty of tinder for future fires. Many Third
World conflicts generated by local structural factors also have great potential for unintended escalation. Big powers
often feel obliged to rescue their proxies and proteges. One or another big power may fail to grasp the stakes
for the other side since interests here are not as clear as in Europe. Hence commitments involving the use of nuclear
weapons or perhaps even conventional war to prevent defeat of a client are not well established or clear as in Europe. For
instance, in 1993 Turkish noises about intervening on behalf of Azerbaijan induced Russian leaders to threaten a nuclear war in that
case. Precisely because Turkey is a NATO ally but probably could not prevail in a long war against Russia, or if it could,
would conceivably trigger a potential nuclear blow (not a small possibility given the erratic nature of Russia's declared
nuclear strategies), the danger of major war is higher here than almost everywhere else in the CIS or the "arc of crisis"
from the Balkans to China. As Richard Betts has observed, The greatest danger lies in areas where (1) the potential for
serious instability is high; (2) both superpowers perceive vital interests; (3) neither recognizes that the other's perceived
interest or commitment is as great as its own; (4) both have the capability to inject conventional forces; and (5) neither has willing
proxies capable of settling the situation.(77)
Otec is key to solve shortagesonly efficient energy source for desalination
Oney 2013(Dr. Steven, Chief Science Advisor for OTE, Ocean Engineering Expert, November 20,
"Ocean Thermal Energy and Water Production", http://empowertheocean.com/ocean-thermal-energy-
water-production/)

The scarcity of potable water is a growing problem worldwide, particularly in arid regions and among developing
countries. Compounding this problem is the increasing contamination of freshwater sources, which comprise only about 2.5% of all
water on Earth. Of this small portion, only 0.5% of the total fresh water available is found in easily accessible sources such as lakes,
rivers and aquifers. The rest is frozen in glaciers. The remaining 97.5% is seawater. water In the United States alone, each person
consumes an average of 400 liters of fresh water per day. That is more than 87 gallons daily per U.S. citizen. By contrast, in other
western countries, the consumption level reaches only 150 liters per day. Some countries in Africa have daily consumption rates as
low as 20 liters, which is at the World Health Organizations recommended lower limit for individual survival. When considering
infrastructure and communal needs such as those of schools and hospitals, the necessary level is more than doubled to 50 liters per
person per day. With the rising global population, industrialization of developing nations and overall increase in quality of life
throughout most parts of the world, fresh water consumption levels are rising rapidly. Approximately 67% of the worlds
population will be water stressed by 2025, as reported by the UN. According to the United Nations Atlas of the Oceans,
more than 44% of the worlds inhabitants live within 150 kilometers of the coast. In the United States, this is true for 53% of the
population. In another 30 years, it is estimated that over 70% of the global population will be coastal. The crowding of
the population in limited areas inevitably leads to overexploitation of regional resources including fresh water. Given the number
of people within access of the coast and the sea, it is naturally advantageous to turn to the ocean for
adequate fresh water supplies. Over 75% of the worlds desalinated water capacity is used by the Middle East and North
Africa according to the USGS. The United States is one of the most important industrialized countries in terms of desalinated water
consumption at about 6.5%. California and Florida are the major consumers of desalinated water in the US. Additionally, populated
areas struck by natural disasters are faced with a great need to quickly supply potable water to the victims for drinking, cooking and
sanitation purposes. In industrialized nations, the existing freshwater infrastructure is often damaged during a disaster or contaminated
to the point that it is unusable in the immediate recovery period. In developing nations, freshwater infrastructure might be entirely
absent, making the acquisition and distribution of potable water all the more difficult. Importance of water production in association
with OTEC Seawater desalination requires a significant amount of energy regardless of the technique used.
There are several renewable energy (RE) technologies currently in use to power desalination processes. Some of these relationships
are in commercial operation today; others have yet to be demonstrated. Solar and wind are proven, and tidal and wave energy have
very recently begun to show much promise, but are still in the early phases of commercialization. Ocean thermal energy conversion
(OTEC) is unique in that it naturally combines opportunities for power production with seawater
desalination. Using the temperature differential between warm ocean surface water and cold deep water to
generate clean baseload (24/7) renewable energy, in a closed cycle OTEC system, the heat from the surface water is
used to boil a working fluid with a low boiling point (such as ammonia), creating steam which turns a turbine generator to produce
electricity. The chill from the cold deep water is then used to condense the steam back into liquid form, allowing the system to
continuously repeat this process, perpetually fuelled by the suns reliable daily heating of the surface water. Because massive
amounts of seawater are pumped through an OTEC system in order to generate this baseload (24/7) power, the
proximity of the voluminous energy and water supplies allow OTEC to function efficiently and
economically with typical thermal desalination processes, as well as those driven solely by electricity. The
environmental impact of desalinating seawater is quite high when using fossil fuels. Replacing the energy supply with a renewable
energy source, such as OTEC, eliminates the pollution caused by fossil fuels and other problems associated with the use of fossil fuels
to produce potable water. Greater self-sufficiency is also achieved through the use of a readily available source of energy like OTEC,
making it unnecessary to rely on increasingly expensive fossil fuels imported from often unstable or unfriendly countries. In the last
two decades, rising fossil fuel prices and technical advances in the offshore oil industry, many of which are
applicable to deep cold water pipe technology for OTEC, mean that small (5-20MW) land-based OTEC plants
can now be built with off-the-shelf components, with minimal technology/engineering risks for plant construction and operation.
In fact, the authoritative US Government agency NOAA issued a 2009 report concluding that, using a single cold water
pipe (CWP), a 10MW OTEC plant is now technically feasible using current design, manufacturing, deployment
techniques and materials. These two historic changes have now made OTEC electricity pricing increasingly competitive, particularly
in tropical island countries where electricity prices, based almost entirely on imported fossil fuels, are currently in the exorbitant range
of 30-60 cents/kwh. Adding potable water production to the equation only further improves the economic
attractiveness of this technologys unique symbiosis between clean reliable energy and fresh water. With the
growing global need for potable water, the lack of available fresh water sources, increasing concentration of populations in coastal
regions, and rising energy prices, pairing potable water production with baseload (24/7) renewable energy from the sea is a natural fit.
And with data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy indicating that at least 68
countries and 29 territories around the globe are potential candidates for OTEC plants, the technologys world-wide capacity for fresh
water production and CO2 emissions diminution is truly staggering. Although it has not yet reached its commercial potential, OTEC
is now a technically and economically viable option that is rapidly emerging not only as a top contender in meeting the energy demand
for coastal communities in years to come, but also a major global player in the sustainable potable water generation market as well.
While there is certainly truth in the old adage that oil and water do not mix, OTEC is concrete proof that the same cannot be said of
energy and water.
Scenario two is food:
Food shortages cause extinction
Cribb 2010(Julian, principal of JCA, fellow of the Australian Academy
of Technological Sciences and Engineering, The Coming Famine: The
Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It, pg 10)

The character of human conflict has also changed: since the early 1990S, more wars have been triggered by disputes over
food, land, and water than over mere political or ethnic differences. This should not surprise US: people have fought over
the means of survival for most of history. But in the abbreviated reports on the nightly media, and even in the rarefied realms of
government policy, the focus is almost invariably on the playersthe warring national, ethnic, or religious factionsrather than on
the play, the deeper subplots building the tensions that ignite conflict. Caught up in these are groups of ordinary, desperate people
fearful that there is no longer sufficient food, land, and water to feed their childrenand believing that they must fight the others to
secure them. At the same time, the number of refugees in the world doubled, many of them escaping from conflicts and famines
precipitated by food and resource shortages. Governments in troubled regions tottered and fell. The coming famine is
planetary because it involves both the immediate effects of hunger on directly affected populations in
heavily populated regions of the world in the next forty yearsand also the impacts of war, government
failure, refugee crises, shortages, and food price spikes that will affect all human beings, no matter who they are
or where they live. It is an emergency because unless it is solved, billions will experience great hardship, and not only in the poorer
regions. Mike Murphy, one of the worlds most progressive dairy farmers, with operations in Ireland, New Zealand, and North and
South America, succinctly summed it all up: Global warming gets all the publicity but the real imminent threat to the human race is
starvation on a massive scale. Taking a 1030 year view, I believe that food shortages, famine and huge social
unrest are probably the greatest threat the human race has ever faced. I believe future food shortages are a far
bigger world threat than global warming.2 The coming famine is also complex, because it is driven not by one or two, or even a half
dozen, factors but rather by the confluence of many large and profoundly intractable causes that tend to amplify one another. This
means that it cannot easily be remedied by silver bullets in the form of technology, subsidies, or single-country policy changes,
because of the synergetic character of the things that power it.
OTEC solves multiple internals to scarcity
Binger 2004 (Al, Visiting Professor at Saga University Institute of Ocean Energy, Director of the
University of West Indies Centre for Environment and Development, Potential and Future Prospects for
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) In Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization)
Food Security in SIDS and the Potential of OTEC)

In the majority of SIDS, particularly the smaller islands, the limited availability of land with fertile soil and limited
water availability severely constrains food production. All SIDS depend on imports of food to meet both domestic and
tourism needs. Food security for SIDS is therefore an issue of having the foreign exchange availability to import the grains, milk and
protein sources that they are either unable to produce or cannot produce in adequate quantities for their demand. With growing
population and increasing tourism, the majority of SIDS will have no option but to increase importation of essential foods. OTEC
has the potential to contribute to food security in SIDS in many ways. First, direct contribution is the
utilization of large volumes of nutrient rich cold water, which would be discharged from an operating
facility at about 10 degrees Celsius, for Mari-culture production. This application is demonstrated in Hawaii, US. Feasibility
studies conducted by the University of the West Indies Centre for Environment and Development (UWICED), based on the Hawaiian
experience, showed that the gross return perunit of land used for Mari-culture8 would be more than ten times
greater than which accrued from growing bananas for export, and more than thirty times sugar earning. The
employment generated was 300% greater than for bananas and more than 600% for sugar. Therefore, the first potential
contribution by OTEC to food security would be a combination of enhanced domestic protein production
and foreign exchange earnings. The second potential contribution would be through increased availability of fresh
water as a co- product from the OTEC plant, which would be available to support hydroponics farming. The third
potential contribution would be using some of the cold seawater discharge to regulate greenhouse
temperature and thereby maximize yield. The fourth potential would be based on the use of the water
discharged from the plant to regulate the temperature of reefs to maximize photosynthetic activity and
increase natural marine production in the coastal areas and beyond. The final potential contribution would
come from the significant reduction in the vulnerability of SIDS to the escalating and volatile prices for
petroleum, thereby significantly increasing the availability of foreign exchange available to import food
supplies.

Potential Other impacts
Dependency causes Middle East conflict, instability and fuels totalitarian
governments in the region
Otto, International Relations Graduate Scholar for Indiana University, 2009 (Zach, U.S. Dependency on Middle Eastern Oil,
http://www.indiana.edu/~spea/pubs/undergrad-honors/honors_vol.3_no.4.pdf, accessed 6/24/14, LLM)
By importing Middle Eastern oil the US is funding the governments of the exporting states. These
governments and the people they serve are in large part at odds with US beliefs. By continuing to fund
these totalitarian regimes the US is helping to ensure that they have no incentive to change. In a country run
with oil money there is no incentive for the government to tap into its people to come up with better leadership strategies or new
business. This money has a tendency to impede the institutions and values necessary for a free, democratic, market based economy.
Money from oil is literally funding the entire government and stratifying the social structure. With a wealthy upper class and very poor
lower class there is inevitable civil unrest. Iraq is a good example. It is difficult to get figures from corresponding years due to
the secrecy of the Hussein regime, but US intelligence agencies have gathered some information. Money from oil has been streaming
into Iraq since the discovery of oil there in 1908.xx Oil money accounted for roughly 60% of Iraqs GDP from 1989 until 1996.xxi
However, according to the CIA, the per capita GDP in 2008 was US$4,000. With the Iraqi gross domestic product of US$112.8 billion
in 2008 and a population of just under 30 million, the math doesnt add up. This disparity clearly shows the unfairness of money
disparity in Iraq between the ruling and middle and lower classes. Also, because of the lack of other industries besides oil, the
unemployment rate in 2008 hovered somewhere in between 18 and 30 percent. There are other factors including the war that are
involved in this figure, but if one looks at pre-war figures, they are similarly dismal. In 2000 the Iraqi GDP was US$33 billion (2003
US dollars), per capita GDP was US$887.17xxiii. The unemployment rate is contested for year 2000 until the overthrow of Hussein,
but in 2003 it was between 50 and 60 percent. These statistics show how the investment in the oil industry in Iraq has greatly hindered
its development. As can be seen in this example, by the United States investing so heavily in Iraqi oil it has
inadvertently blocked development from occurring because all of the money went to the unstable Iraqi
government and already wealthy individuals in Iraqs society. With this occurring, civil unrest evolved into an all out
war. Iraq is now all but dependent on oil revenues and aid from other countries (including the US) to develop or simply sustain itself
as a country. Since until recently, Iraq has been largely financed through its natural resources, it has had no incentive to evolve into a
multi-industry nation with a market based economy that could benefit it by entering into trade with other nations. By not being able to
enter international markets and trade with other nations, reverse globalization has occurred. This has occurred in Iraq and, though
improving, Iraq is still politically unstable and a trade liability for all nations). Instead of countries like Iraq benefitting
from comparative advantages and information and technology trading, they doom themselves by
developing only one industry (natural resources). Could this not be a comparative advantage? It certainly can be. However, as
mentioned earlier, with the majority of a nations funds being drawn from one industry and then reinvested into the industry or simply
misused, social structural differences are stratified, other industries cannot get the funding they need to develop, and the very
infrastructure of political and social institutions necessary for growth are not able to be formed. Money coming into a developing
nation needs to be spread out across all economic sectors to allow for efficient growth. The USs heavy dependence on
Middle Eastern oil funds this exact problem and leads to political and therefore social unrest in such
nations. This unrest leads to radicalism and the ultimate problems like war that the US is currently facing in
the Middle East. A problem unique to the United States is that of the war in the Middle East. It is difficult to
classify the issue as the War on Terror because of the US deep involvement in each countrys political climate as well as their
economies. Many argue that it isnt a war on terror but a war for resources. This is an issue that is beyond the focus of
this paper, but it must be recognized as a definite influence on all that occurs in the Middle East both now and in the future.

Switching to a hydrogen economy would prevent a terror attack on the electricity
grid
Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, 2002
[Jeremy, December 23, The Nation, Hydrogen: Empowering the People,
http://www.thenation.com/article/hydrogen-empowering-people, DOI 6/24/2014,
MEL]
While the fossil-fuel era enters its sunset years, a new energy regime is being born that has the potential to remake
civilization along radically new lines--hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most basic and ubiquitous element in the universe. It never runs out and produces
no harmful CO2emissions when burned; the only byproducts are heat and pure water. That is why it's been called "the forever fuel." Hydrogen has
the potential to end the world's reliance on oil. Switching to hydrogen and creating a decentralized power
grid would also be the best assurance against terrorist attacks aimed at disrupting the national power grid and
energy infrastructure. Moreover, hydrogen power will dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global
warming. In the long run, the hydrogen-powered economy will fundamentally change the very nature of our
market, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.\

Grid cyber terrorism causes nuclear war
Habiger, retired air force general, 2010
[Eugue, 2/1, The Cyber Security Institute, Cyberwarfare and Cyberterrorism, p 11-19]
However, from a strategic defense perspective, there are enough warning signs to warrant preparation. In addition to the threat of cyberwar, the limited
resources required to carry out even a large scale cyberattack also makes likely the potential for a significant cyberterror attack against the United States.
However, the lack of a long list of specific incidences of cyberterrorism should provide no comfort. There is strong evidence to suggest
that al Qaeda has the ability to conduct cyberterror attacks against the United States and its allies. Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations are extremely active in cyberspace, using these technologies to communicate among themselves and others, carry out logistics, recruit
members, and wage information warfare. For example, al Qaeda leaders used email to communicate with the 911 terrorists and the 911 terrorists used
the Internet to make travel plans and book flights. Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda members routinely post videos and other messages to online sites
to communicate. Moreover, there is evidence of efforts that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are actively developing cyberterrorism capabilities
and seeking to carry out cyberterrorist attacks. For example, the Washington Post has reported that U.S. investigators have found evidence in the logs
that mark a browser's path through the Internet that al Qaeda operators spent time on sites that offer software and programming instructions for the digital
switches that run power, water, transport and communications grids. In some interrogations . . . al Qaeda prisoners have described intentions, in general
terms, to use those tools.25 Similarly, a 2002 CIA report on the cyberterror threat to a member of the Senate stated that al Qaeda and Hezbollah have
become "more adept at using the internet and computer technologies.26 The FBI has issued bulletins stating that, U. S. law enforcement and
intelligence agencies have received indications that Al Qaeda members have sought information on Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)
systems available on multiple SCADArelated web sites.27 In addition a number of jihadist websites, such as 7hj.7hj.com, teach computer attack and
hacking skills in the service of Islam.28 While al Qaeda may lack the cyberattack capability of nations like Russia and China, there is every reason to
believe its operatives, and those of its ilk, are as capable as the cyber criminals and hackers who routinely effect great harm on the worlds digital
infrastructure generally and American assets specifically. In fact, perhaps, the most troubling indication of the level of the cyberterrorist threat is the
countless, serious nonterrorist cyberattacks routinely carried out by criminals, hackers, disgruntled insiders, crime syndicates and the like. If runofthe
mill criminals and hackers can threaten powergrids, hack vital military networks, steal vast sums of money, take down a citys of traffic lights,
compromise the Federal Aviation Administrations air traffic control systems, among other attacks, it is overwhelmingly likely that terrorists can carry
out similar, if not more malicious attacks. Moreover, even if the worlds terrorists are unable to breed these skills, they can
certainly buy them. There are untold numbers of cybermercenaries around the worldsophisticated hackers with advanced training who would
be willing to offer their services for the right price. Finally, given the nature of our understanding of cyber threats, there is always the possibility that we
have already been the victim or a cyberterrorist attack, or such an attack has already been set but not yet effectuated, and we dont know it yet. Instead, a
welldesigned cyberattack has the capacity cause widespread chaos, sow societal unrest, undermine national governments, spread
paralyzing fear and anxiety, and create a state of utter turmoil, all without taking a single life. A sophisticated cyberattack could throw a
nations banking and finance system into chaos causing markets to crash, prompting runs on banks, degrading confidence in markets, perhaps even
putting the nations currency in play and making the government look helpless and hapless. In todays difficult economy, imagine how Americans would
react if vast sums of money were taken from their accounts and their supporting financial records were destroyed. A truly nefarious cyberattacker could
carry out an attack in such a way (akin to Robin Hood) as to engender populist support and deepen rifts within our society, thereby making efforts to
restore the system all the more difficult. A modestly advanced enemy could use a cyberattack to shut down (if not physically
damage) one or more regional power grids. An entire region could be cast into total darkness, powerdependent systems could be shutdown. An
attack on one or more regional power grids could also cause cascading effects that could jeopardize our entire
national grid. When word leaks that the blackout was caused by a cyberattack, the specter of a foreign
enemy capable of sending the entire nation into darkness would only increase the fear, turmoil and unrest. While the finance and
energy sectors are considered prime targets for a cyberattack, an attack on any of the 17 delineated critical infrastructure sectors could have a major
impact on the United States. For example, our healthcare system is already technologically driven and the Obama Administrations ehealth efforts will
only increase that dependency. A cyberattack on the U.S. ehealth infrastructure could send our healthcare system into chaos and put countless of lives at
risk. Imagine if emergency room physicians and surgeons were suddenly no longer able to access vital patient information. A cyberattack on our nations
water systems could likewise cause widespread disruption. An attack on the control systems for one or more dams could put entire communities at risk of
being inundated, and could create ripple effects across the water, agriculture, and energy sectors. Similar water control system attacks could be used to at
least temporarily deny water to otherwise arid regions, impacting everything from the quality of life in these areas to agriculture. In 2007, the U.S. Cyber
Consequences Unit determined that the destruction from a single wave of cyberattacks on critical infrastructures could exceed $700 billion, which would
be the rough equivalent of 50 Katrinaesque hurricanes hitting the United States all at the same time.29 Similarly, one IT security source has estimated
that the impact of a single day cyberwar attack that focused on and disrupted U.S. credit and debit card transactions would be approximately $35
billion.30 Another way to gauge the potential for harm is in comparison to other similar noncyberattack infrastructure failures. For example, the August
2003 regional power grid blackout is estimated to have cost the U.S. economy up to $10 billion, or roughly .1 percent of the nations GDP. 31 That said, a
cyberattack of the exact same magnitude would most certainly have a much larger impact. The origin of the 2003 blackout was almost immediately
disclosed as an atypical system failure having nothing to do with terrorism. This made the event both less threatening and likely a single time occurrence.
Had it been disclosed that the event was the result of an attack that could readily be repeated the impacts would likely have grown substantially, if not
exponentially. Additionally, a cyberattack could also be used to disrupt our nations defenses or distract our national leaders in advance of a more
traditional conventional or strategic attack. Many military leaders actually believe that such a disruptive cyber pre
offensive is the most effective use of offensive cyber capabilities. This is, in fact, the way Russia utilized cyberattackers
whether government assets, governmentdirected/ coordinated assets, or allied cyber irregularsin advance of the invasion of Georgia. Widespread
distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks were launched on the Georgian governments IT systems. Roughly a day later Russian armor rolled into
Georgian territory. The cyberattacks were used to prepare the battlefield; they denied the Georgian government a critical communications tool isolating it
from its citizens and degrading its command and control capabilities precisely at the time of attack. In this way, these attacks were the functional
equivalent of conventional air and/or missile strikes on a nations communications infrastructure.32 One interesting element of the Georgian cyberattacks
has been generally overlooked: On July 20th, weeks before the August cyberattack, the website of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was
overwhelmed by a more narrowly focused, but technologically similar DDOS attack.33 This should be particularly chilling to American national security
experts as our systems undergo the same sorts of focused, probing attacks on a constant basis. The ability of an enemy to use a cyberattack to counter our
offensive capabilities or soften our defenses for a wider offensive against the United States is much more than mere speculation. In fact, in Iraq it is
already happening. Iraq insurgents are now using offtheshelf software (costing just $26) to hack U.S. drones (costing $4.5 million each), allowing them
to intercept the video feed from these drones.34 By hacking these drones the insurgents have succeeded in greatly reducing one of our most valuable
sources of realtime intelligence and situational awareness. If our enemies in Iraq are capable of such an effective cyberattack against one of our more
sophisticated systems, consider what a more technologically advanced enemy could do. At the strategic level, in 2008, as the United States Central
Command was leading wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a cyber intruder compromised the security of the Command and sat within its IT systems,
monitoring everything the Command was doing. 35 This time the attacker simply gathered vast amounts of intelligence. However, it is clear that the
attacker could have used this access to wage cyberwaraltering information, disrupting the flow of information, destroying information, taking down
systemsagainst the United States forces already at war. Similarly, during 2003 as the United States prepared for and began the War in Iraq, the IT
networks of the Department of Defense were hacked 294 times.36 By August of 2004, with America at war, these ongoing attacks compelled then
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to write in a memo that, "Recent exploits have reduced operational capabilities on our networks."37 This
wasnt the first time that our national security IT infrastructure was penetrated immediately in advance of a U.S. military option.38 In February of 1998
the Solar Sunrise attacks systematically compromised a series of Department of Defense networks. What is often overlooked is that these attacks occurred
during the ramp up period ahead of potential military action against Iraq. The attackers were able to obtain vast amounts of sensitive information
information that would have certainly been of value to an enemys military leaders. There is no way to prove that these actions were purposefully
launched with the specific intent to distract American military assets or degrade our capabilities. However, such ambiguitiesthe inability to specifically
attribute actions and motives to actorsare the very nature of cyberspace. Perhaps, these repeated patterns of behavior were mere coincidence, or perhaps
they werent. The potential that an enemy might use a cyberattack to soften physical defenses, increase the gravity of harms from kinetic attacks, or both,
significantly increases the potential harms from a cyberattack. Consider the gravity of the threat and risk if an enemy, rightly or wrongly, believed that it
could use a cyberattack to degrade our strategic weapons capabilities. Such an enemy might be convinced that it could win a warconventional or even
nuclearagainst the United States. The effect of this would be to undermine our deterrencebased defenses, making us
significantly more at risk of a major war.

Contention 3 is Solvency

1. USFG K2 get private sector on board reduces cost by 30% which is key to feasibility
(Vega, PhD in Engineering Sciences, 2010)
[Luis A. Vega, manager of the USDOE National Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii and MS in aeronautical engineering from CALTECH and Applied
Ocean Sciences @ UCSD, May, Economics of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC): An Update, presentation at the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference, JF]
These estimates are applicable for equipment purchased in USA, Europe or Japan and with installation by
USA firms. Deployment and installation costs are included. One might speculate, based on the
implementation of similar technologies, that later generation designs will reach cost reductions of as much
as 30%. However, the premise herein is to indicate that first generation plants can be cost effective under
certain scenarios if the cost estimates presented here are met. With more detailed equipment information,
the first generation design can be optimized and likely lead to lower capital costs. However, some potential
suppliers of key components have been reluctant to provide the detailed information needed to optimize the
design. This is because, in the past, their OTEC work did not yield a single order (excluding the experimental plants),
mainly because there were no real customers for the technology. This situation will change if, for example,
the USA Federal Government gets involved as outlined in the Conclusions Section (e.g., see Table 7).

2. New tech and development allows OTEC to be economically competitive with oil
Ocean Thermal Energy Cooperation, An American Association for Thermal Energy
Provider and Environmental Teams, 14
(3-6-14, Market Wired News, Feasability Study for Worlds First US-Based Commercial OTEC Plant and Seawater Air Conditioning(SWAC) Systems in USVI,
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/feasibility-study-worlds-first-us-145532684.html, accessed 6-29-14, YLP)
Under the 2013 agreement between OTE and DCNS, OTE will serve as the developer that will build, own and operate on-shore and off-shore OTEC systems and SWAC systems
globally, as well as securing financing. DCNS will be the EPC contractor for these systems in selected international markets. The projects will be pursued together by OTE and
DCNS with direction from the Joint Marketing Council established by the companies.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), there are
more than 100 countries and territories world-wide, including USVI, with conditions appearing favorable
for OTEC and SWAC facilities. And with many of these locations having numerous sites for these clean
technologies, there are literally hundreds of potential OTEC and SWAC applications in the tropics and subtropics, where 3 billion people live. Eighty percent of the sun's
solar energy is stored in the surface waters of the world's oceans. That is 4000 times the amount of energy the world uses every day... and this energy is replenished daily by the
sun. OTEC taps into that vast renewable energy source by using the temperature differential between the warm surface water and cold deep ocean water to make clean baseload
(24/7) electricity. In 2009, after more than 30 years and $300 million spent on OTEC Research and Development,
the U.S. Government agency NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) issued a report as
to OTEC's readiness for immediate implementation. The NOAA report concluded that, using a single cold water pipe (CWP), a 10MW
OTEC plant is now "technically feasible using current design, manufacturing, deployment techniques and
materials." Utilizing more than one CWP, 20MW OTEC plants can now be built using off the shelf components. SWAC uses the deep cold ocean water as the non-
polluting refrigerant for cooling buildings, reducing electricity consumption by an estimated 80-90%. This technology is already commercialized and successfully operating in
several locations around the world. OTEC and SWAC, both proven technologies, can also produce plentiful amounts of
fresh drinking water, dramatically decrease carbon emissions, and potentially save customers significant
sums in energy costs. With 20 years of rising oil prices and major engineering advances, both technologies
are now economically competitive in appropriate markets.



Lt. Danny Jankovsky-Murchison
Offshore Wind 1AC
Plan Text

The United States Department of Energy should build offshore wind farms within
the United States Exclusive Economic Zone
Advantage 1 Hegemony

U.S. hegemony declining now
Shor, Wayne State University Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor, 11*
[Fran, 2011, Stateofnature, Declining U.S. Hegemony + Rising Chinese Power: A Formula for Conflict?,
http://www.stateofnature.org/?p=4541, Accessed: 6-26-14, CLF]

A defining historical feature of the decline of specific empires in the world capitalist system has been the
conflict surrounding the emergence of a successor. The United States and Germany engaged in a protracted
struggle in the first half of the twentieth century to determine which country would replace Great Britain as
the dominant hegemon. After Germanys second defeat in a world war in 1945, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
contended for global hegemony even though the U.S. was the pre-eminent power in economic and military
terms throughout the four decades of the Cold War. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has
attempted to use its unrivaled military power as a weapon to retain an eroding hegemony. However,
given extensive internal and external contradictions, the U.S. Empire faces global competition and
realignment, especially, but not exclusively, as a consequence of the rise of Chinese power. [1] This essay
will focus on those sites of U.S./China conflict in the present period and project, albeit tentatively, where
such conflict may lead in the future.
While it may be that global capital has, to a certain extent, delinked itself from the nation-state, in the case
of the United States, in particular, the state and state apparatus, especially in the form of military neo-
imperialism, still perform essential geostrategic functions. [2] A fully realized deterritorialized and
decentered global system, whether envisioned by Hardt and Negri on the left or Thomas Friedman on the
right, does not yet exist. Indeed, the dialectical relation between territorial and capitalist logics of power,
which David Harvey identifies as the defining characteristic of the new imperialism, still persists. [3]
That persistence of territorial logic, described by Chalmers Johnson as an empire of bases, [4] i.e.,
military neo-imperialism, more than a predetermined inter-imperialist rivalry or an emergent transnational
capitalist class, underscores the growing geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and China. Nonetheless, it is
necessary to account for both elements in Harveys dialectic in order to demarcate those sites of
US/Chinese competition and conflict.
While the United States no longer dominates the global economy as it did during the first two
decades after WWII, it still is the leading economic power in the world. However, over the last few
decades China, with all its internal contradictions, has made enormous leaps until it now occupies the
number two spot. In fact, the IMF recently projected that the Chinese economy would become the
worlds largest in 2016. In manufacturing China has displaced the US in so many areas , including
becoming the number one producer of steel and exporter of four-fifths of all of the textile products in the
world and two-thirds of the worlds copy machines, DVD players, and microwaves ovens. Yet, a
significant portion of this manufacturing is still owned by foreign companies, including U.S. firms like
General Motors. [5]
[NOTE: *Last date cited]

Growth maintains U.S. hegemony key to preventing escalatory conflicts and great
power wars
Khalilzad, Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor and former
ambassador to the UN, 11
(Zalmay, 3-8-11, National Review Online, The Economy and National Security
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad,
Accessed: 6-26-14, CLF)

Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the most severe long-term threat to the United States position as
global leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the
economies of rival powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift
from American primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased geopolitical rivalry
and even war among the great powers.
The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation in the business cycle.
Recovery is likely to be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous
amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy ultimately totaling almost 350 percent of GDP and the
development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst,
huge amounts of wealth were destroyed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax
revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S. government on an unsustainable fiscal path.
Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years.
Without faster economic growth and actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to
reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise significantly, annual interest payments which
already are larger than the defense budget would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax
increases that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated events trigger what
economists call a sudden stop in credit markets for U.S. debt, the United States would be unable to roll
over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would almost certainly compel a
radical retrenchment of the United States internationally.
Such scenarios would reshape the international order. It was the economic devastation of Britain and
France during World War II, as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their
empires. In the late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic capacity to maintain a
presence east of Suez. Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to
their decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan, abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow
the Soviet Union to fragment. If the U.S. debt problem goes critical, the United States would be compelled
to retrench, reducing its military spending and shedding international commitments.
We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even
though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and
economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global
distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S.
policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new
international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could
intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major
powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of
the higher risk of escalation.
The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era
of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics
resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international
systems produced both world wars
American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket,
regional powers could rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there
would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out
conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their
geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make
aggressive moves in their regions.

Offshore wind promotes growth more jobs than fossil fuels and other renewables
Todd et al, International Economic Development Council Economic Development
Associate, 13
[Jennifer, Jess Chen a research fellow and PhD candidate at American University, Frankie Clogston is an
IEDC consultant and a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, 10-1-13, IEDC, Creating the Clean
Energy Economy, http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf,
accessed 6-25-14, AKS]

There is evidence that offshore wind energy will create new jobs and economic investment. Offshore wind
generates more jobs per megawatt than onshore wind and other fossil fuels due to the labor
associated with manufacturing, operating, and servicing the wind farms. As the European Wind
Energy Association (EWEA) states, the offshore wind industry has an additional employment effect
due to the higher cost of installing, operating, and maintaining offshore wind turbines than land-based
ones.1
It is also likely that offshore wind job creation will come at a time and to those places where it is
particularly needed. As the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) indicates, many of the jobs for the new
offshore industry will potentially be located in economically depressed ports and shipyards. These locations
will serve as fabrication and staging areas for manufacture, installation, and maintenance of offshore wind
turbines.2 These areas can particularly stand to gain jobs in a new offshore wind industry, since they have
experienced a double blow from the downturn in manufacturing and the recent recession.

Jobs key to sustained economic growth
Scarpetta, OECD Directorate for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Director,
14
(Stefano, 2014, OECD, Jobs are key for inclusive growth, http://www.oecd.org/employment/jobs-are-
key-for-inclusive-growth.htm, accessed 6-27-14, CLF)

High unemployment cannot be addressed without a return to sustained growth. But growth alone does
not guarantee adequate job creation, as recent spates of jobless growth testify. More and better jobs
with decent prospects are needed to kick-start a virtuous circle of rising confidence in the future and
sustainable growth. A broad range of structural reforms is also needed to increase competition and
enhance productivity, as are labour and social policies that orientate workers towards more productive
jobs, and provide support to jobseekers and vulnerable groups.
Helping youths get off to a good start in their careers is an absolute priority. This is why we have devised
an Action Plan for Youth, launched at our OECD Ministerial Council Meeting in May 2013, which
combines short-term measures to boost job creation for youth with more in-depth reforms to enhance
access to jobs, improve education and strengthen the skills match.
Promoting inclusive growth requires both higher participation in the workforce and more productive
and rewarding jobs that draw people to the labour market. An important aim should be to increase
female participation rates, for instance, and to make sure women do not feel confined to low-paid/low-
productivity employment with dim prospects of improvement, but can access better-paid, full-time jobs too.
Nor should women feel forced to take on unprotected informal jobs, as is frequently the case in emerging
markets. With labour forces set to shrink in many OECD and partner countries over the next 20 years, and
with women increasingly outperforming men on several fronts in education, policies that boost female
labour force participation and tear down long-standing structural obstacles to their employment would yield
widespread benefits, while making economies more resilient and societies more inclusive. This applies not
only to women but to other groups that are underrepresented in the labour market, such as youths, disabled
people, low-skilled workers and older unemployed people.


Sufficient to reverse decline major boom to job market
Ndolo, Camoin Associates, associate principal, 10
[Michael, Fall 2010, Camoin Associates, Offshore Development Can Yield
Economic Benefits, http://www.camoinassociates.com/pdf/CAWindarticle.pdf, p.
1,2, 7-2-14, AAZ]

Wind power is a job-creation engine. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind
industry supported over 85,000 jobs in 2009 alone. Most of these jobs were in manufacturing, an area of the
U.S. labor force that has been declining rapidly for years. The wind energy industry represents a significant
opportunity for turning this decline around. Although wind power industry clusters exist in North
America, there are many specifics to offshore wind that differentiate it from its onshore cousin.
Requirements such as installation vessels, unique turbine components, specialized research focus, and
professional and technical experience are not yet present in the North American workforce skill set. All of
these unique requirements represent an economic opportunity for job creation, ranging from research,
design and manufacturing to operations and maintenance. Vessels. Highly specialized installation vessels
must be built, operated, repaired and docked during the off-season. The newest generation of such vessels
under development in Europe can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and can require a small
army of workers in ports with sufficient ship-building capacity. In addition, other smaller vessels are
necessary for ongoing maintenance and repair operations. The Jones Act requires that all goods transported
by water between U.S. ports are carried in U.S.-flagged ships that are constructed in the U.S., owned by
U.S. citizens and crewed by permanent residents of the U.S. Although some developers have been
successful in requesting an exception, allowing them to use foreign vessels, the Jones Act creates a
significant barrier for off-shore developers. Investing and developing a domestic vessel industry to serve
the offshore market would significantly increase the attractiveness of a region to offshore developers and
investors, in addition to creating jobs to support the new industry. Components. Offshore components tend
to he larger and bulkier. Certain components are either unique to (foundations) or modified for
(hermetically sealed nacelles, seaworthy substations, nacelle-mounted or substation-mounted helicopter
pads for maintenance, and corrosion-resistant materials) offshore use. One of the largest portions of the
installed cost of a typical offshore wind farm is directly attributable to the manufacturing and pro-assembly
of turbine and foundation components. In regions where a high level of wind component manufacturing
currently exists, there is significant opportunity for creating offshore wind component manufacturing
clusters. Installation. Turbines and foundations must be assembled in a staging area, loaded onto a vessel
and installed. There are limitations on the ability of any one state or province to service both coasts, but it is
reasonable to assume, for example, that an installation cluster in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. could
provide installation capacity for a number of projects on the East Coast.


Advantage 2 Warming

Warming is real and human caused four warrants
Prothero, California Institute of Technology Geobiology lecturer, 12
(Donald R., Professor of Geology at Occidental College and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California
Institute of Technology, 1-3-12, Skeptic, "How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human Caused",
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/, accessed: 6-29-14, CLF)

How do we know that global warming is real and primarily human caused? There are numerous lines of
evidence that converge toward this conclusion. 1. Carbon Dioxide Increase. Carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere has increased at an unprecedented rate in the past 200 years. Not one data set collected over a
long enough span of time shows otherwise. Mann et 3. (1999) compiled the past 900 years' worth of
temperature data from tree rings, ice cores, corals, and direct measurements in the past few centuries, and
the sudden increase of temperature of the past century stands out like a sore thumb. This famous graph is
now known as the "hockey stick" because it is long and straight through most of its length, then bends
sharply upward at the end like the blade of a hockey stick. Other graphs show that climate was very stable
within a narrow range of variation through the past 1000, 2000, or even 10,000 years since the end of the
last Ice Age. There were minor warming events during the Climatic Optimum about 7000 years ago, the
Medieval Warm Period, and the slight cooling of the Little Ice Age in the 1700s and 1800s. But the
magnitude and rapidity of the warming represented by the last 200 years is simply unmatched in all of
human history. More revealing, the timing of this warming coincides with the Industrial Revolution, when
humans first began massive deforestation and released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning an
unprecedented amount of coal, gas, and oil. 2. Melting Polar Ice Caps. The polar icecaps are thinning and
breaking up at an alarming rate. In 2000, my former graduate advisor Malcolm McKenna was one of the
first humans to fly over the North Pole in summer time and see no ice, just open water. The Arctic ice cap
has been frozen solid for at least the past 3 million years (and maybe longer),'' but now the entire ice sheet
is breaking up so fast that by 2030 (and possibly sooner) less them half of the Arctic will be ice covered in
the summer.^ As one can see from watching the news, this is an ecological disaster for everything that lives
up there, from the polar bears to the seals and walruses to the animals they feed upon, to the 4 million
people whose world is melting beneath their feet. The Antarctic is thawing even faster. In February-March
2002, the Larsen B ice shelfover 3000 square km (the size of Rhode Island) and typical of nearly all the
ice shelves in Antarctica. The Larsen B shelf had survived all the previous ice ages and interglacial
warming episodes over the past 3 million years, and even the warmest periods of the last 10,000 yearsyet
it and nearly all the other thick ice sheets on the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctic are vanishing at a rate
never before seen in geologic history. 3. Melting Glaciers. Glaciers are all retreating at the highest rates
ever documented. Many of those glaciers, along with snow melt, especially in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps,
and Sierras, provide most of the freshwater that the populations below the mountains depend uponyet
this fresh water supply is vanishing. Just think about the percentage of world's population in southern Asia
(especially India) that depend on Himalayan snowmelt for their fresh water. The implications are
staggering. The permafrost that once remained solidly frozen even in the summer has now thawed,
damaging the Inuit villages on the Arctic coast and threatening all our pipelines to the North Slope of
Alaska. This is catastrophic not only for life on the permafrost, but as it thaws, the permafrost releases
huge amounts of greenhouse gases which are one of the major contributors to global warming. Not
only is the ice vanishing, but we have seen record heat waves over and over again, killing thousands of
people, as each year joins the list of the hottest years on record. (2010 just topped that list as the hottest
year, surpassing the previous record in 2009, and we shall know about 2011 soon enough). Natural animal
and plant populations are being devastated all over the globe as their environments change.^ Many animals
respond by moving their ranges to formerly cold climates, so now places that once did not have to worry
about disease-bearing mosquitoes are infested as the climate warms and allows them to breed further north.
4. Sea Level Rise. All that melted ice eventually ends up in the ocean, causing sea levels to rise, as it has
many times in the geologic past. At present, the sea level is rising about 3-4 mm per year, more than ten
times the rate of 0.10.2 mm/year that has occurred over the past 3000 years. Geological data show that the
sea level was virtually unchanged over the past 10,000 years since the present interglacial began. A few
mm here or there doesn't impress people, until you consider that the rate is accelerating and that most
scientists predict sea levels will rise 80-130 cm in just the next century. A sea level rise of 1.3 m (almost 4
feet) would drown many of the world's low-elevation cities, such as Venice and New Orleans, and low-
lying countries such as the Netherlands or Bangladesh. A number of tiny island nations such as Vanuatu
and the Maldives, which barely poke out above the ocean now, are already vanishing beneath the waves.
Eventually their entire population will have to move someplace else.' Even a small sea level rise might not
drown all these areas, but they are much more vulnerable to the large waves of a storm surge (as happened
with Hurricane Katrina), which could do much more damage than sea level rise alone. If sea level rose by 6
m (20 feet), most of the world's coastal plains and low-lying areas (such as the Louisiana bayous, Florida,
and most of the world's river deltas) would be drowned. Most of the world's population lives in low-
elevation coastal cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Miami, and
Shanghai. All of those cities would be partially or completely under water with such a sea level rise. If all
the glacial ice caps melted completely (as they have several times before during past greenhouse episodes
in the geologic past), sea level would rise by 65 m (215 feet)! The entire Mississippi Valley would flood, so
you could dock an ocean liner in Cairo, Illinois. Such a sea level rise would drown nearly every coastal
region under hundreds of feet of water, and inundate New York City, London and Paris. All that would
remain would be the tall landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower. You
could tie your boats to these pinnacles, but the rest of these drowned cities would lie deep underwater.

Warming causes extinction preponderance of evidence proves it's real,
anthropogenic, and outweighs other threats
Deibel, National War College Foreign Affairs Professor, 7
(Terry, "Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic of American Statecraft," Page: 387, CX)

Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent
nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the
stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the
gathering of this threat for three decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed through
probability to near certainty. Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in
refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. In
legitimate scientific circles, writes Elizabeth Kolbert, it is virtually impossible to find evidence of
disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming. Evidence from a vast international scientific
monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international
panel predicts brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet over the next century; climate
change could literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the
spread of cholera and malaria; glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than
expected, andworldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade ago; rising sea
temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes;
NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on
record, with 1998 a close second; Earths warming climate is estimated to contribute to
more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year as disease spreads;
widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidadkilled broad swaths of corals due to a 2-degree rise in sea
temperatures. The world is slowly disintegrating, concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles
from the Arctic Circle. They call it climate changebut we just call it breaking up. From the founding of
the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in
the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are
accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels.
Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels,
only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and
how serious the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above show, we are already experiencing
the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass die offs of plants and
animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of
Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets
could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolinas outer banks,
swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village.
Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the
winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline
once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of
GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is
runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the
atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions,
associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even
though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this
specter, the best one can conclude is that humankinds continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse
effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earths climate and humanitys life support system. At
worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, were just going to burn everything
up; were going to het the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were
crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse. During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan
popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and
the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global
warming is the post-Cold War eras equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better
supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form terrorism and traditional military challenges
to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially to the
continued existence of life on this planet.

Wind power is sufficient to curb emissions zero emissions and fossil fuel cutback
Ziza, New England School of Law JD, 8
[Iva, Spring 2008, New England School of Law, SITING OF RENEWABLE
ENERGY FACILITIES AND ADVERSARIAL LEGALISM: LESSONS FROM
CAPE COD, http://www.nesl.edu/userfiles/file/lawreview/Vol42/2-
3/Ziza.%20Final.pdf, p.1, AAZ]
The atmospheric concentration of carbon-dioxide, which is released by fossil fuel consumption, has been
rapidly increasing since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. n38 In the last few years, the most widely
debated consequence of fossil fuel consumption is global warming, an increase of temperatures worldwide
due to the trapping of greenhouse gases in the [*598] Earth's atmosphere. n39 Global warming in turn
causes what is commonly referred to as "climate change." n40
Despite some political and media attempts to paint the issue as inconclusive, the notion that the burning of
fossil fuels raises global temperatures has by now been accepted by the overwhelming majority of climate
scientists worldwide. n41 Rising global temperatures have, in turn, been linked to the melting of permafrost
and ice sheets, rapid species extinction, rise in global sea levels, damage to coral reefs and aquacultures,
heat waves and droughts, and increased hurricane intensities. n42 Additionally, the burning of fossil fuels
has been linked to lung cancers and other respiratory problems, both in children and in adults. n43
Specifically, emissions of particulate matter due to the burning of fossil fuels are linked to a nationwide
increase in asthma and allergy instances. n44
In West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states, coal companies use a technique known as
mountaintop removal, which essentially destroys mountain peaks with all their vegetation to collect low-
sulfur coal, forever changing the landscape in these areas. n45 The practice inflicts terrific damage on local
communities, wildlife, and local streams and rivers. n46
[*599]
B. Case for Wind Energy
Replacing fossil fuels with sources of cleaner, renewable energy would alleviate most of the problems
addressed above. One of the most convenient and readily available sources of renewable power is wind,
a solar power whose kinetic energy can be converted into mechanical power through the use of wind
turbines. n47 Historical records indicate that men used wind power as early as the third or second century
B.C.E., and by the eleventh or twelfth century windmills were an established part of the European
landscape. n48
In 2005, wind energy generated more than 2,400 megawatts, enough to produce electricity for more than
half a million American homes. n49 According to the wind energy industry, wind has the potential to
satisfy twenty percent of the nation's energy needs. n50
Wind is a clean source of energy that produces zero emissions. n51 It is highly affordable, domestically
produced, and virtually inexhaustible. n52 The encouragement of the wind energy industry has already
resulted in energy security, pollution reduction, and the creation of high-tech jobs. n53 The greatest
disadvantage of wind power is the fact that it is intermittent. n54
[*600] Although measures such as raising automobile fuel efficiency standards are also a step in the right
direction, the deployment of alternative, reliable energy sources is the most effective means to actually
solve the current climate crisis. n55 As of January 2008 all the proposed and existing wind projects in the
United States have so far produced 16,818.78 megawatts of energy. n56 Yet the United States, where wind
power served nearly three million households at the end of 2006, is far behind Europe, where the wind
power is projected to satisfy residential needs of 195 million Europeans by the year 2020. n57
If constructed, Cape Wind would displace approximately 802 tons of sulfur-dioxide, 497 tons of nitrous-
oxide, and 733,876 tons of carbon-dioxide, significantly improving air quality of southeastern
Massachusetts and areas upwind from the farm. n58

Acting to solve climate change now is keyinvisible threshold
Chestney, Reuters Staff Writer, 13
(Nina, January 13, Huffington Post, " Climate Change Study: Emissions Limits Could Avoid Damage By
Two-Thirds", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/climate-change-study-emissions-
limits_n_2467995.html accessed: 6-29-14, CLF)

The world could avoid much of the damaging effects of climate change this century if greenhouse gas
emissions are curbed more sharply, research showed on Sunday.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first comprehensive assessment of the
benefits of cutting emissions to keep the global temperature rise to within 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, a
level which scientists say would avoid the worst effects of climate change.
It found 20 to 65 percent of the adverse impacts by the end of this century could be avoided.
"Our research clearly identifies the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions - less severe impacts on
flooding and crops are two areas of particular benefit," said Nigel Arnell, director of the University of
Reading's Walker Institute, which led the study.
In 2010, governments agreed to curb emissions to keep temperatures from rising above 2 degrees C, but
current emissions reduction targets are on track to lead to a temperature rise of 4 degrees or more by 2100.
The World Bank has warned more extreme weather will become the "new normal" if global temperature
rises by 4 degrees.
Extreme heatwaves could devastate areas from the Middle East to the United States, while sea levels could
rise by up to 91 cm (3 feet), flooding cities in countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, the bank has said.
The latest research involved scientists from British institutions including the University of Reading, the
Met Office Hadley Centre and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, as well as Germany's Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research.
It examined a range of emissions-cut scenarios and their impact on factors including flooding, drought,
water availability and crop productivity. The strictest scenario kept global temperature rise to 2 degrees C
with emissions peaking in 2016 and declining by 5 percent a year to 2050.
FLOODING
Adverse effects such as declining crop productivity and exposure to river flooding could be reduced by 40
to 65 percent by 2100 if warming is limited to 2 degrees, the study said.
Global average sea level rise could be reduced to 30cm (12 inches) by 2100, compared to 47-55cm (18-22
inches) if no action to cut emissions is taken, it said.
Some adverse climate impacts could also be delayed by many decades. The global productivity of spring
wheat could drop by 20 percent by the 2050s, but the fall in yield could be delayed until 2100 if strict
emissions curbs were enforced.
"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions won't avoid the impacts of climate change altogether of course, but
our research shows it will buy time to make things like buildings, transport systems and agriculture more
resilient to climate change," Arnell said.
Solvency

Offshore wind can power America
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 12
[BOEM, last cited NREL Technical report form 2012, BOEM, Offshore Wind Energy,
http://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy-program/renewable-energy-guide/offshore-wind-energy.aspx,
accessed 6-27-14, CLF]
Offshore wind turbines are being used by a number of countries to harness the energy of strong, consistent
winds that are found over the oceans. In the United States, 53% of the nations population lives in coastal
areas, where energy costs and demands are high and land-based renewable energy resources are often
limited. Abundant offshore wind resources have the potential to supply immense quantities of renewable
energy to major U.S. coastal cities, such as New York City and Boston.
Offshore winds tend to blow harder and more uniformly than on land. The potential energy produced
from wind is directly proportional to the cube of the wind speed. As a result, increased wind speeds of only
a few miles per hour can produce a significantly larger amount of electricity. For instance, a turbine at a site
with an average wind speed of 16 mph would produce 50% more electricity than at a site with the same
turbine and average wind speeds of 14 mph. This is one reason that developers are interested in pursuing
offshore wind energy resources. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provides a number of maps
showing average wind speed data through its Resource Assessment & Characterization page and through
National Renewable Energy Laboratorys (NREL)MapSearch.
Wind resource potential is typically given in gigawatts (GW), and1 GW of wind power will supply
between 225,000 to 300,000 average U.S. homes with power annually. In a July 2012 Technical Report,
NREL estimates a gross wind power resource of 4,223 GW off the coast of the United States. That is
roughly four times the generating capacity of the current U.S. electric grid. Even if only a fraction of
that potential is developed, clearly there is enough offshore wind resource to power a substantial portion of
our nations energy needs.

Strong federal mandate is key to development an aggressive mandate overcomes
barriers blocking development
Schroeder, University of California-Berkeley, School of Law JD, 10
[Erica, October 2010, University of Cal, Berkeley, School of Law, Turning
Offshore Wind On,
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=cal
ifornialawreview, p.1, AAZ]

Both state and federal governments share control over offshore wind project siting approval and permitting.
Geography determines the jurisdiction of each: state governments control their respective Coastal Zones,
from the baseline of their shores out three nautical miles, n92 and the federal government controls the
Outer Continental Shelf beyond that. n93 Offshore wind turbines are typically located on the Outer
Continental Shelf; n94 thus, the federal government sites and permits this component of an offshore wind
project. n95 To get the electricity to consumers on land, however, offshore wind projects must necessarily
include transmission lines from the turbines, through state waters and onto land. State governments control
the siting and permitting of these [*1643] transmission lines. n96 Both federal and state jurisdiction are
described in more detail later, along with the CZMA. The CZMA provides the primary mechanisms for
balancing state and federal interests in coastal waters. n97 It leaves states with substantial discretionary
power and no federal mandate regarding offshore wind power development, despite its undertones of
environmental protection.
A. Federal Jurisdiction
Federal jurisdiction begins more than three nautical miles from the shore, along the Outer Continental
Shelf, and ends two hundred nautical miles out to sea. n98 Analyses of offshore wind capacity typically
assume that wind farms will be built in federal waters, more than five miles from the coast. n99 Thus,
federal jurisdiction covers the generation component of an offshore wind project, mainly the turbines. n100
This includes site approval and permitting for project construction. n101
Section 388 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 grants the Department of the Interior (DOI) primary authority
over offshore wind farm approval and permitting. n102 Section 388 specifies that the Minerals
Management Service (MMS), a branch of DOI, controls the offshore wind facility permitting process; the
Secretary of the Interior makes the final permitting decision. n103 This grant of authority extends MMS's
existing authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which gives it management
rights over the Outer Continental Shelf primarily for offshore fossil fuel extraction. n104 Because of
MMS's experience with managing offshore oil and gas extraction, Congress deemed it the proper body for
offshore wind permitting as well. n105 Opponents of the decision have been concerned with MMS's lack of
experience with marine habitat regulation and protection. n106 Fortunately, MMS appears receptive to
coordinating with other agencies with relevant experience, like the Army Corps of Engineers, National
Marine Fisheries Service, Coast Guard, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, as
well [*1644] as appropriate state actors. n107
Section 388 came in response to controversy over which federal agency had permitting authority during the
early stages of the Cape Wind project, which is described in more detail in Part IV. While Section 388 does
not resolve all of the issues relating to federal jurisdiction over offshore wind, n108 its designation of MMS
as the primary permitting agency marks Congress's first step toward a unified review process for offshore
alternative energy. n109 Nonetheless, the current federal regulatory environment for offshore wind remains
confusing. In April 2009, President Obama took a first step toward remedying some of that confusion by
announcing a coordinated program, headed by DOI, for federal offshore renewable energy permitting. The
program will cover not only offshore wind power generation, but also other offshore renewable energy,
such as electricity generated from ocean currents. n110 Despite this progress toward an improved federal
regulatory program, barriers to offshore wind power still exist, largely due to the absence of a strong and
effective federal mandate promoting offshore wind power development and the powers that states retain
over project siting. n111
B. State Jurisdiction
Under the Submerged Lands Act, state jurisdiction generally covers ocean territory three miles or less from
the coast, n112 an area known as the Coastal Zone. n113 As noted previously, any electricity generated in
an offshore facility must be transmitted to land through the state controlled Coastal Zone. Therefore, state -
and sometimes local - authorities ultimately have a role to play in any offshore wind project through the
siting and permitting of transmission cables that are necessary to bring electricity from the turbines to land.
Although state and localities may only exert direct control over the permitting of transmission cables, they
will almost certainly consider the impact of the generation turbines on their aesthetic view environment.
They know that denying transmission permits effectively stalls or destroys the construction of generation
facilities. States will also likely consider such [*1645] aesthetic and environmental considerations in the
federal consistency review process, with which they may also block federal activities and permits. n114
Federal consistency review is a component of the CZMA, and will be described in more detail below.
Because most of the costs of offshore wind power development are local, there is a strong argument for
state and local control over offshore wind project siting: because localities must deal with the downsides of
offshore wind projects, they should control where those projects are placed. n115 On the other hand, there
are broader, positive effects of offshore wind power development - such as energy security improvement
and environmental benefits like climate change mitigation - that imply a need for stronger federal
intervention to balance appropriately the costs and benefits of offshore wind. n116 The CZMA attempts to
provide a formal structure for such balancing, but it ultimately leaves the states with too much power, and
the federal government and offshore wind farm proponents with no formal federal encouragement or
support.
C. The Coastal Zone Management Act: Attempting to Reconcile Local Interests with National Priorities
The overarching goal of the CZMA is "to preserve, protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or
enhance, the resources of the Nation's coastal zone for this and succeeding generations." n117 The CZMA
mentions the development of energy facilities in the Coastal Zone, but its language is vague, and generally
requires only that states undertake "adequate consideration of the national interest" in siting energy
facilities, and "give consideration" to any applicable national or interstate energy plan or program. n118
The CZMA also mentions energy with regard to funding for development: "The national objective of
attaining a greater degree of energy self-sufficiency would be advanced by providing Federal financial
assistance to meet state and local needs resulting from new or expanded energy activity in or affecting the
coastal zone." n119 However, the CZMA does not mention offshore wind energy or renewable energy at
all.
Although the CZMA acknowledges the "national interest in the effective management, beneficial use,
protection, and development of the coastal zone," n120 it allows states substantial discretion over their
coastal zone management through CZMPs, which the Secretary of Commerce oversees. n121 As noted
previously, the Submerged Lands Act defines state coastal zones as [*1646] three miles from the shoreline.
n122 The CZMA mechanism of federal consistency review extends state power further, past their coastal
zones, by allowing states to review and sometimes overrule federal actions and permits in federal waters.
n123
Before the CZMA was promulgated, the coastal zone had long been subject to decentralized management.
n124 The CZMA continues this tradition with its own approach to federalism, explicitly encouraging
cooperation between local, state, and federal levels of government in their management of coastal
resources. n125 Specifically, under the CZMA, each state makes its own CZMP. n126 The CZMA provides
a variety of policy considerations for states to incorporate into their management programs. Prioritizing
construction of certain facilities, specifically energy facilities, in states' coastal zones is one of several listed
considerations. n127 Others include protecting natural resources; minimizing the loss of life and property to
flooding and sea level rise; improving coastal water quality; allowing public recreational access to the
coast; restoring urban waterfronts and preserving coastal features; coordinating and simplifying
governmental management procedures for coastal resources; consulting and coordinating with federal
agencies; giving timely and effective notice for public and local participation in governmental decision
making; comprehensive planning for marine resource preservation; and studying sea level rise and land
subsidence. n128 The Secretary of Commerce examines states' CZMPs, making sure they are in accordance
with the CZMA's policy considerations and other mandates, and any other federal regulations. n129 In
particular, the CZMA requires that states adequately consider the national interest in "siting of facilities
such as energy facilities which are of greater than local significance. In the case of energy facilities, the
Secretary shall find that the State has given consideration to any applicable national or interstate energy
plan or program." n130 Once approved by the Secretary of Commerce, however, state CZMPs are subject
to very little federal constraint under the CZMA, leaving states with nearly complete discretion within their
coastal zones.
State control is expanded by federal consistency review, n131 a mechanism unique to the CZMA.
Consistency review allows a state to review a federal agency activity or permit within or outside of the
coastal zone for compatibility [*1647] with the state's CZMP when the activity or permit affects the state's
coastal zone. n132 Under this mechanism, the federal agency must submit a "consistency determination"
(for an activity) or "consistency certification" (for a permit) to the state before moving forward with the
project. n133 For federal permits, which would be more relevant to offshore renewable development than
federal actions, the state then has the opportunity to concur with or object to the agency's certification. n134
"No license or permit shall be granted by the Federal agency until the state ... has concurred with the
applicant's certification." n135 Thus, a coastal state's control extends beyond its own coastal zone into
federal waters, as it has the ability to review - and potentially block - any project that affects their coastal
zone. In the end, however, the Secretary of Commerce - by her own initiative or in response to an appeal -
can overrule the state's protest by finding that a permit is consistent with the objectives of the CZMA or
otherwise in the interest of national security. n136
Since the passage of the CZMA in 1972 until March 2010, states had filed 141 appeals with the Secretary
protesting federal permits affecting their coastal zones. n137 States settled their issues with the federal
government in 64 instances, or 45 percent of these cases. n138 The Secretary dismissed or overrode state
appeals in 32 instances, or 23 percent of these cases. n139 Of the remaining 45 appeals that the Secretary
considered for their substance, the Secretary overrode the state's objection in 14 cases, or 31 percent of the
time, and accepted the state's objection in 30 cases, or 67 percent of the time. n140 Only 19 of the 45
appeals related to energy facilities, but all of these related to oil or natural gas projects; the Secretary
overrode these appeals about half of the time. n141 Although states do not choose to use their federal
consistency review power over federal permits frequently, as these numbers show, it is nonetheless a
powerful tool that extends their power beyond their coastal zones.
Ultimately, the CZMA, with its focus on decentralized, state control over coastal-zone management, leaves
the federal government and offshore wind proponents with minimal recourse in their struggle to develop
offshore wind [*1648] projects. The CZMA allows states near-complete control over their coastal zones
through their CZMPs, with almost no role for the federal government in promoting offshore wind energy
(or any kind of renewable energy). Because electricity transmission lines must necessarily run through
states' coastal zones to reach consumers, states therefore have significant control over offshore wind
projects. Through federal consistency review, their direct control can even extend into federal waters;
though states have not often employed this process, the Secretary of Commerce has seemed willing to give
them some deference when they do. Given a policy of such strong local control, and the absence of a firm
federal mandate for offshore wind power development, local interests have been able to stall both federal
and state permitting processes, often through litigation. Proponents of offshore wind have little federal
support, and no guaranteed source of state support, on which to rely. Cape Wind presents a compelling and
frustrating illustration of this problem.
Wind energy costs less than fossil fuels monetarily and environmentally
Mahan, Clean Energy Southern Alliance energy promotion overseer, et. al, 2010
[Simon, Isaac Pearlman (UC Santa Barbara Sustainable Fisheries Group Project Researcher, Former
California State Parks and Recreation Department NOAA Sea Grant Fellow), Jacqueline Savitz (Oceana
US Oceans Vice President, Former Chesapeake Bay Foundation Environmental Scientist), Sep. 2010,
Oceana, Untapped Wealth: Offshore Wind Can deliver Cleaner, More affordable energy and More Jobs
than Offshore Oil, edited by: Michael Hirshfield, PhD (Oceana Chief Scientist and Strategy Officer),
Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb (University of Melbourne School of Land and Environment PhD Candidate,
Former Oceana Marine Scientist), Nick Hurwit (Corvallis Environmental Center Manager, Former Oceana
Federal Policy Intern), Carmen Calzadilla (VESTAS Wind & Site Engineer, Former Oceana Energy and
Climate Change Analyst, University of Cdiz Sustainable Management of Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
MSc), Matt Niemerski (American Rivers Western Water Policy Director, Former Oceana Ocean Advocate,
Vermont Law School Energy, Public Lands, and Water Resources Law, JD), Kiersten Weissenger (Former
Oceana Climate Change Campaign Intern), Margot Stiles (Oceana Science and Strategy Director), Jessica
Wiseman (Oceana International Marketing & Communications Manager, Former Oceana Marine Pollution
Fellow), Matt Dundas (Former Oceana Climate and Energy Campaign Manager), Remy Luerssen (James
Madison University Virginia Center for Wind Energy Associate Director, University of Maine
Oceanography MS, Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium), Scott Baker (University of Delaware
College of Earth, Ocean and Environment), Jennifer Banks (American Wind Energy Association Offshore
Wind and Siting Specialist), http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Offshore_Wind_Report_-
_Final_1.pdf, p. 21, accessed: 6-30-2014), KS]

As shown in the three previous examples, offshore wind energy can create more electricity, heat more
homes or power more cars than the offshore oil and gas that is being considered for production on the East
Coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Offshore wind energy potential is much greater than that of new
offshore oil and gas and the cost is much lower. Developing the 127 gigawatts of offshore wind energy
described above would cost about $36 billion less over 20 years than the estimated cost of producing the
economically recoverable oil and natural gas combined. Better still, unlike the oil and natural gas resources,
offshore wind is not finite and, unlike the oil and gas, will not become depleted. However, the estimated
lifetime of an offshore wind turbine is about 20 years and a new turbine will eventually need to be installed
in order to continue to capture wind energy. Therefore a comparison of costs and benefits over 20 years is
an appropriate one.
According to MMS, 20 years worth of East Coast offshore oil at $110 per barrel would cost consumers
$720 billion, and the natural gas would cost $449 billion. After the East Coasts offshore oil and gas have
been extracted, nearly $1.17 trillion will have been transferred from consumers to the oil and gas industry,
and then no more energy will be available. Developing the 127 gigawatts of offshore wind energy
described above instead of drilling for oil and gas, would cost about $1.13 trillion, $36 billion less than
the oil and gas costs over 20 years. Notwithstanding the cost savings, as described above the wind
investment also produced more energy in every scenario considered. By investing in offshore wind on the
East Coast, instead of offshore oil and gas in the areas that were previously protected in the Atlantic and
eastern Gulf, Americans would get more energy for less money.
There is another downside to high oil and gas prices. As oil and gas prices increase, the industry can use the
proceeds to extract resources that were previously not cost-effective to recover for instance, deep water
oil and gas resources. In turn, the oil and gas companies sell these harder-to-extract resources at higher
prices to customers. Thus, high oil prices not only increase the cost at the pump, they also increase the risks
and potential harm to marine life from more extreme production processes.




Lt. Danny Lin-Tan
OTEC 1AC
Plan
The United States federal government should fund the development of Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion plants.
Contention 1 Warming
OTEC solves both power plants and vehicle emissionskey to reduce CO2
Magesh 2010 (R., Coastal Energ Pvt, "OTEC TEchnology - A World of Clean Energy and Water,"
World Congress on Engineering, Vol II, June 30)

Scientists all over the world are making predictions about the ill effects of Global warming and its consequences on the mankind.
Conventional Fuel Fired Electric Power Stations contribute nearly 21.3% of the Global Green House Gas
emission annually. Hence, an alternative for such Power Stations is a must to prevent global warming. One fine
alternative that comes to the rescue is the Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) Power Plant, the complete Renewable
Energy Power Station for obtaining Cleaner and Greener Power. Even though the concept is simple and old, recently it has gained
momentum due to worldwide search for clean continuous energy sources to replace the fossil fuels. The design of a 5 Megawatt
OTEC Pre-commercial plant is clearly portrayed to brief the OTEC technical feasibility along with economic consideration studies for
installing OTEC across the world. OTEC plant can be seen as a combined Power Plant and Desalination plant. Practically, for every
Megawatt of power generated by hybrid OTEC plant, nearly 2.28 million litres of desalinated water is obtained every day. Its value is
thus increased because many parts of the globe are facing absolute water scarcity. OTEC could produce enough drinking water to ease
the crisis drought-stricken areas. The water can be used for local agriculture and industry, any excess water being given or sold to
neighboring communities. Index TermsDesalinated water, Ocean Temperature Differences, Rankine Cycle, Renewable Energy. I.
INTRODUCTION CEAN thermal energy conversion is a hydro energy conversion system, which uses the temperature difference that
exists between deep and shallow waters in tropical seas to run a heat engine. The economic evaluation of OTEC plants indicates that
their commercial future lies in floating plants of approximately 100 MW capacity for industrialized nations and smaller plants for
small-island-developing-states (SIDS). The operational data is needed to earn the support required from the financial community and
developers. Considering a 100 MW (4-module) system, a 1/5-scaled version of a 25 MW module is proposed as an appropriate size. A
5 MW precommercial plant is directly applicable in some SIDS. OTEC works on Rankine cycle, using a low-pressure turbine to
generate electric power. There are two general types of OTEC design: closed-cycle plants utilize the evaporation of a working fluid,
such as ammonia or propylene, to drive the turbinegenerator, and open-cycle plants use steam from evaporated R. Magesh is with
Coastal Energen Pvt. Ltd., Chennai 600 006, Tamilnadu, India (e-mail: wellingtonmagesh@ gmail.com). sea water to run the turbine.
Another commonly known design, hybrid plants, is a combination of the two. In fact, the plants would cool the ocean by the same
amount as the energy extracted from them. Apart from power generation, an OTEC plant can also be used to pump up the cold deep
sea water for air conditioning and refrigeration, if it is brought back to shore. In addition, the enclosed sea water surrounding the plant
can be used for aquaculture. Hydrogen produced by subjecting the steam to electrolysis during the OTEC process
can fuel hybrid automobiles, provided hydrogen can be transported economically to sea shore. Another undeveloped
opportunity is the potential to mine ocean water for its 57 elements contained in salts and other forms and dissolved in solution. The
initial capital cost of OTEC power station would look high, but an OTEC plant would not involve the
wastetreatment or astronomical decommissioning costs of a nuclear facility. Also, it would offset its
expense through the sale of the desalinated water.
OTEC is keyit provides baseload power, has the capability to power the globe
Blue Rise 2012(BlueRise, technology provider in the Ocean Energy Market, "Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion", http://www.bluerise.nl/technology/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion/)
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a marine renewable energy technology that harnesses
the solar energy absorbed by the oceans. OTEC generates electricity by exchanging heat with the
warm water from the ocean surface and with the cold water from the deep ocean. The exchanged
heat drives a Rankine Cycle, which converts it to electricity. The technology is viable primarily in
equatorial areas where the year-round temperature differential is at least 20 degrees Celsius. One of the
main advantages when comparing OTEC to other renewables, such as wind and solar energy, is the
fact that OTEC is a baseload source, available day and night. This is a big advantage for tropical
islands that typically have a small, isolated, electric grids, not capable of handling a large share of
intermittent power. The potential of OTEC is vast. One square meter of Ocean surface area on average
receives about 175 watts of solar irradiation. The total amount of globally received solar power is
therefore about 90 petawatts. This is over 6,000 times the total global energy usage. If we exploit just
of fraction of that energy, we have enough to power the world. Todays advanced offshore industry
provides sufficient know-how for deployment and operation in the harsh oceanic environment.
Offering a continuous and environmentally clean operation, OTEC is an attractive alternative form
of energy.
It sequesters enough carbon to end climate change
Barry 2008 (Christopher, Naval Architect and Co-Chair of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine
Engineers, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and CO2 Sequestration, July 1,
http://renewenergy.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion-and-co2-sequestration/)

However, deep cold water is laden with nutrients. In the tropics, the warm surface waters are lighter than the cold water and
act as a cap to keep the nutrients in the deeps. This is why there is much less life in the tropical ocean than in coastal waters or near the
poles. The tropical ocean is only fertile where there is an upwelling of cold water. One such upwelling is off the coast of Peru,
where the Peru (or Humboldt) Current brings up nutrient laden waters. In this area, with lots of solar energy and
nutrients, ocean fertility is about 1800 grams of carbon uptake per square meter per year, compared to only 100
grams typically. This creates a rich fishery, but most of the carbon eventually sinks to the deeps in the form of
waste products and dead microorganisms. This process is nothing new; worldwide marine microorganisms
currently sequester about forty billion metric tonnes of carbon per year. They are the major long term sink
for carbon dioxide. In a recent issue of Nature, Lovelock and Rapley suggested using wave-powered pumps to
bring up water from the deeps to sequester carbon. But OTEC also brings up prodigious amounts of deep
water and can do the same thing. In one design, a thousand cubic meters of water per second are required to produce 70
MW of net output power. We can make estimates of fertility enhancement and sequestration, but a guess is that an OTEC plant
designed to optimize nutrification might produce 10,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration per
year per MW. The recent challenge by billionaire Sir Richard Branson is to sequester one billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide per year in order to halt global warming, so an aggressive OTEC program, hundreds of several
hundred MW plants might meet this.
Warming is real and anthropogenicthe debate is over
Prothero 2012(Donald, Professor of Geology at Occidental College and Lecturer in Geobiology at the
California Institute of Technology, March 1, "How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human
Caused", EBSCO)

How do we know that global warming is real and primarily human caused? There are numerous
lines of evidence that converge toward this conclusion. 1. Carbon Dioxide Increase. Carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere has increased at an unprecedented rate in the past 200 years. Not one data set collected
over a long enough span of time shows otherwise. Mann et 3. (1999) compiled the past 900 years' worth of
temperature data from tree rings, ice cores, corals, and direct measurements in the past few
centuries, and the sudden increase of temperature of the past century stands out like a sore thumb.
This famous graph is now known as the "hockey stick" because it is long and straight through most of its length, then bends sharply
upward at the end like the blade of a hockey stick. Other graphs show that climate was very stable within a narrow range of variation
through the past 1000, 2000, or even 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age. There were minor warming events during the
Climatic Optimum about 7000 years ago, the Medieval Warm Period, and the slight cooling of the Little Ice Age in the 1700s and
1800s. But the magnitude and rapidity of the warming represented by the last 200 years is simply
unmatched in all of human history. More revealing, the timing of this warming coincides with the
Industrial Revolution, when humans first began massive deforestation and released carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere by burning an unprecedented amount of coal, gas, and oil. 2. Melting Polar Ice Caps.
The polar icecaps are thinning and breaking up at an alarming rate. In 2000, my former graduate advisor
Malcolm McKenna was one of the first humans to fly over the North Pole in summer time and see no ice, just open water. The
Arctic ice cap has been frozen solid for at least the past 3 million years (and maybe longer),'' but now
the entire ice sheet is breaking up so fast that by 2030 (and possibly sooner) less them half of the
Arctic will be ice covered in the summer.^ As one can see from watching the news, this is an ecological disaster
for everything that lives up there, from the polar bears to the seals and walruses to the animals they feed upon, to the 4 million
people whose world is melting beneath their feet. The Antarctic is thawing even faster. In February-March 2002, the
Larsen B ice shelfover 3000 square km (the size of Rhode Island) and typical of nearly all the ice shelves in Antarctica. The Larsen
B shelf had survived all the previous ice ages and interglacial warming episodes over the past 3 million years, and even the warmest
periods of the last 10,000 yearsyet it and nearly all the other thick ice sheets on the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctic are
vanishing at a rate never before seen in geologic history. 3. Melting Glaciers. Glaciers are all retreating at
the highest rates ever documented. Many of those glaciers, along with snow melt, especially in the
Himalayas, Andes, Alps, and Sierras, provide most of the freshwater that the populations below the
mountains depend uponyet this fresh water supply is vanishing. Just think about the percentage of
world's population in southern Asia (especially India) that depend on Himalayan snowmelt for their fresh water.
The implications are staggering. The permafrost that once remained solidly frozen even in the summer has now thawed,
damaging the Inuit villages on the Arctic coast and threatening all our pipelines to the North Slope of
Alaska. This is catastrophic not only for life on the permafrost, but as it thaws, the permafrost
releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases which are one of the major contributors to global
warming. Not only is the ice vanishing, but we have seen record heat waves over and over again, killing thousands
of people, as each year joins the list of the hottest years on record. (2010 just topped that list as the hottest year, surpassing the
previous record in 2009, and we shall know about 2011 soon enough). Natural animal and plant populations are being
devastated all over the globe as their environments change.^ Many animals respond by moving their ranges to formerly
cold climates, so now places that once did not have to worry about disease-bearing mosquitoes are infested as the
climate warms and allows them to breed further north. 4. Sea Level Rise. All that melted ice
eventually ends up in the ocean, causing sea levels to rise, as it has many times in the geologic past. At present, the
sea level is rising about 3-4 mm per year, more than ten times the rate of 0.10.2 mm/year that has occurred over
the past 3000 years. Geological data show that the sea level was virtually unchanged over the past
10,000 years since the present interglacial began. A few mm here or there doesn't impress people, until you consider that the
rate is accelerating and that most scientists predict sea levels will rise 80-130 cm in just the next century. A
sea level rise of 1.3 m (almost 4 feet) would drown many of the world's low-elevation cities, such as Venice and
New Orleans, and low-lying countries such as the Netherlands or Bangladesh. A number of tiny island nations such as Vanuatu and
the Maldives, which barely poke out above the ocean now, are already vanishing beneath the waves. Eventually their entire population
will have to move someplace else.' Even a small sea level rise might not drown all these areas, but they are much more vulnerable to
the large waves of a storm surge (as happened with Hurricane Katrina), which could do much more damage than sea
level rise alone. If sea level rose by 6 m (20 feet), most of the world's coastal plains and low-lying areas (such as
the Louisiana bayous, Florida, and most of the world's river deltas) would be drowned. Most of the world's population
lives in low-elevation coastal cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
D.C., Miami, and Shanghai. All of those cities would be partially or completely under water with
such a sea level rise. If all the glacial ice caps melted completely (as they have several times before during past greenhouse
episodes in the geologic past), sea level would rise by 65 m (215 feet)! The entire Mississippi Valley would flood, so you
could dock an ocean liner in Cairo, Illinois. Such a sea level rise would drown nearly every coastal region under
hundreds of feet of water, and inundate New York City, London and Paris. All that would remain
would be the tall landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower. You could tie your boats to
these pinnacles, but the rest of these drowned cities would lie deep underwater.

97% of climate experts believe in anthropogenic warming plan key to public
support
Cook, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the
University of Queensland, et al 13
(John, 5/15/13, IOP Publishing Ltd, Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the
Scientific Literature http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/1748-9326_8_2_024024.pdf,
Accessed: 6/24/14) //AMM
An accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support for
climate policy (Ding et al 2011). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people's acceptance that climate change
(CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012). Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide public perception that
climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012, Pew 2012). In the most
comprehensive analysis performed to date, we have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers
in Oreskes (2004). We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21
year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing
most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found
strong agreement (9798%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009,
Anderegg et al 2010). Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased
from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996, 2001, Solomon et al 2007). The peer-reviewed scientific
literature provides a ground-level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts
published from 19932003 matching the search 'global climate change' found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the
consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found
a consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010). Despite these independent indicators of a
scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the scientific community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of
GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of the US public believes there is significant disagreement
among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or
were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very likely warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Through analysis of
climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study provides the most comprehensive analysis of its kind
to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level and evolution of consensus over the last two decades.

Warming causes extinction - a preponderance of evidence proves it's real,
anthropogenic, and outweighs other threats
Deibel 2007 (Terry, "Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic of American Statecraft," Conclusion: American
Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)

Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which, though
far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon which
all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three
decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty.
Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals from
1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. In legitimate scientific circles, writes Elizabeth
Kolbert, it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global
warming. Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as
this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts brutal droughts, floods and violent
storms across the planet over the next century; climate change could literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions
of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria; glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster
than expected, andworldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade ago; rising sea temperatures have been
accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes; NASA scientists have concluded from direct
temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second; Earths warming climate is
estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year as disease spreads; widespread
bleaching from Texas to Trinidadkilled broad swaths of corals due to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. The world is slowly
disintegrating, concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. They call it climate changebut we
just call it breaking up. From the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution,
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are
accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric
CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for
significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper
stories quoted above show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease,
mass die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the
Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could
disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolinas outer banks, swamp the
southern third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect
would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than
its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate
levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening
scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in
the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated
with only 5-10 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-
increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that humankinds continuing
enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earths climate and humanitys life support
system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, were just going to burn everything up;
were going to het the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then
everything will collapse. During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how
a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possible end life on
this planet. Global warming is the post-Cold War eras equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and
considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form terrorism and traditional
military challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but
potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet.
Independently, CO2 releases cause acidification
Messenger 2012(Stephen, Freelance Author specializing in environmental issues, January 22, "Study
Links Rising Ocean Acidification to CO2 Emissions", http://www.treehugger.com/ocean-
conservation/rising-ocean-acidification-linked-co2-emissions.html)jn

Earth's oceans may be an inconceivably vast ecosystem home to countless species yet unknown to science,
but a new study reaffirms that they too are susceptible to the damaging impact of carbon emissions released
by humans. According to researchers from the University of Hawaii, ocean acidity levels in some regions
have spiked more quickly in the last 200 years than in the preceding 21 thousand years -- threatening the
future existence of some of the planet's most important marine life. While airborne CO2 emissions are
already considered a key factor to climate change on the planet's surface, researchers say that nearly a third
of all emissions released by humans actually wind up absorbed into the oceans -- and that the resulting
acidification could have devastating effects on aquatic organisms. To measure rises in acidification,
researchers examined the levels of a calcium carbonate called aragonite, an element essential for the
construction of corral reefs and the shells of mollusks. As acidity levels rise, the levels of aragonite drop,
warn University of Hawaii scientists -- and its rate of decline seems to parallel human's creation of CO2
emissions: Today's levels of aragonite saturation in these locations have already dropped five times below
the pre-industrial range of natural variability. For example, if the yearly cycle in aragonite saturation varied
between 4.7 and 4.8, it varies now between 4.2 and 4.3, which based on another recent study may
translate into a decrease in overall calcification rates of corals and other aragonite shell-forming organisms
by 15%. Given the continued human use of fossil fuels, the saturation levels will drop further, potentially
reducing calcification rates of some marine organisms by more than 40% of their pre-industrial values
within the next 90 years. "In some regions, the man-made rate of change in ocean acidity since the
Industrial Revolution is hundred times greater than the natural rate of change between the Last Glacial
Maximum and pre-industrial times," says the study's lead author, Tobias Friedrich.
Ocean acidification will cause extinction
Romm 2012 (Joe Romm, Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, March 2,
2012, Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanitys Ability to Feed Itself,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-
humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/)

The worlds oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during
four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a
new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast
time period. What were doing today really stands out, said lead author Brbel Hnisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia
Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not
wiped outnew species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue
at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care aboutcoral reefs, oysters, salmon. Thats the news release from a
major 21-author Science paper, The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification (subs. reqd). We knew from a 2010 Nature
Geoscience study that the oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine
species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million and found that the unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently
taking place has put marine life at risk in a frighteningly unique way: the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands
out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300
My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, its
not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown by end of century as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are
also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature
Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones devoid of fish and seafood are poised to expand and remain for thousands of years.
Its not too latebut acting now is key
Chestney 2013(Nina, Huffington Post Staff, January 13, " Climate Change Study: Emissions Limits
Could Avoid Damage By Two-Thirds", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/climate-change-study-
emissions-limits_n_2467995.html)

The world could avoid much of the damaging effects of climate change this century if greenhouse gas emissions
are curbed more sharply, research showed on Sunday. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first
comprehensive assessment of the benefits of cutting emissions to keep the global temperature rise to within 2 degrees Celsius by 2100,
a level which scientists say would avoid the worst effects of climate change. It found 20 to 65 percent of the adverse
impacts by the end of this century could be avoided. "Our research clearly identifies the benefits of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions - less severe impacts on flooding and crops are two areas of particular benefit," said Nigel Arnell,
director of the University of Reading's Walker Institute, which led the study. In 2010, governments agreed to curb emissions to keep
temperatures from rising above 2 degrees C, but current emissions reduction targets are on track to lead to a
temperature rise of 4 degrees or more by 2100. The World Bank has warned more extreme weather will become the "new
normal" if global temperature rises by 4 degrees. Extreme heatwaves could devastate areas from the Middle East to the United States,
while sea levels could rise by up to 91 cm (3 feet), flooding cities in countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, the bank has said.
The latest research involved scientists from British institutions including the University of Reading, the Met Office Hadley Centre and
the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, as well as Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. It examined a range of
emissions-cut scenarios and their impact on factors including flooding, drought, water availability and crop productivity. The
strictest scenario kept global temperature rise to 2 degrees C with emissions peaking in 2016 and declining
by 5 percent a year to 2050. FLOODING Adverse effects such as declining crop productivity and exposure to river flooding could be
reduced by 40 to 65 percent by 2100 if warming is limited to 2 degrees, the study said. Global average sea level rise could be reduced
to 30cm (12 inches) by 2100, compared to 47-55cm (18-22 inches) if no action to cut emissions is taken, it said. Some adverse
climate impacts could also be delayed by many decades. The global productivity of spring wheat could drop by 20 percent
by the 2050s, but the fall in yield could be delayed until 2100 if strict emissions curbs were enforced. "Reducing greenhouse gas
emissions won't avoid the impacts of climate change altogether of course, but our research shows it will buy time to make
things like buildings, transport systems and agriculture more resilient to climate change," Arnell said.
Contention 2 Heg
Investment in offshore OTEC is critical to US OTEC leadership and international
OTEC development
Moore 2006(Bill, citing Dr. Hans Krock, founder of OCEES, April 12, "OTEC Resurfaces",
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1008)

While onshore installations like the one in Hawaii have their place in providing island communities with
power, water, air conditioning and aquaculture, OCEES believes the real potential is offshore. The limiting factor
for onshore is the size and length of the pipe needed to reach deep, cold water. Offshore production requires relatively short pipes that can be much larger in diameter that drop
straight down below the platform. Krock said he is confident that we can now built 100 megawatt plants and he can foresee the day when 500 megawatt and 1000 megawatt (1
gigawatt) plants will be possible. Because the resource is far out into the ocean, far away from any national political entit y, it isn't under the jurisdiction of any particular nation.
"So countries such as Switzerland or others could go out there and be completely self-sufficient in energy by having their own energy supply in the tropical zone on the high seas
far outside anybodys two hundred mile economic zone." Global Warming's Benefit Krock explained that the solar energy stored in the world's oceans is what drives the planet's
weather and that a single category five hurricane generates more energy in a day than all mankind uses in a year. This may be the only benefit of global warming, providing even
more warm water from which to produce power. "The ocean has increased in temperature by about point six degrees. That extra amount of heat that is in the ocean that has been
stored in there over, say, the last forty years; that amount of heat, that amount of energy is enough to run all of humankind's energy requirements for the next five hundred years...
just the extra." I asked Dr. Krock about two potential drawbacks to OTEC: environmental disruption and susceptibility to storm damage. He explained that his team has carefully
looked at the first issue, environmental disruption, and determined that there would be none despite bringing up hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day to run the facility,
because the water could be shunted back down to a level in the ocean where it would be neutrally buoyant. As to the question of tropical storms like typhoons or hurricanes and the
risk they might pose for offshore OTEC platforms, he explained that these storms form outside of a tropical zone which extends approximately 4-5 degrees above and below the
equator. Platforms operating within this narrower belt won't have to worry about these powerful storms and the damage they might cause, though he does plan to engineer for such
contingencies. Unlike the illustration above that uses propellers to drive the plant, Krock's concept for moving the "grazing" OTEC mini-islands
would rely on two intriguing systems: thrust vectoring and ocean current "sails". An OTEC plant generates a great deal of
thrust from the uptake and expulsion of seawater, which can be directed to gradually move the platform in a desired direction. The 1000-feet stand pipe below the plant is like an
inverted mast on a sailing ship. Sensors can detect the direction of the current at various depths, allowing the deployment of underwater "sails" that could also be used to passively
steer the plant. "There is nothing better than working with nature," Krock commented. "This is simply a model on a human scale of the world's hydrological cycle." When
compared to other renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass, he calls the heat energy stored in the ocean as the "elephant in the room". Krock envisions a plant made of
floating concrete that is five square acres in size and could include fish processing facilities, ocean mineral mining and refining and the aforementioned rocket launch pad. An
earlier Lockheed design was circular, measured some 100 meters in diameter and would generate 500 megawatts of electric power. "This is a transformation of endeavors from
land to the ocean. The world is 70 percent oceans, 30 percent [land]... which we have used up to a large extent. The only major resource we have left is the ocean. This is a
mechanism to utilize the ocean." "We do not have the luxury of waiting far into the future because I am sure you have read peak oil is coming... Unless we do this now, a
transformation of this magnitude takes time. We have to allocate at least 50 years to do this, but that means we have to start now, because in fifty years we won't have the luxury of
having another energy source to let us do the construction for these things. "The United States is the best placed of any country in the
world to do this," he contends. "The United States is the only country in the world of any size whose budget
for its navy is bigger than the budget for its army." It's his contention that this will enable America to
assume a leadership position in OTEC technology, allowing it to deploy plants in the Atlantic, Caribbean
and Pacific, but he offers a warming. "If we are stupid enough not to take advantage of this, well then this
will be China's century and not the American century." Krock is currently negotiating with the U.S.
Navy to deploy first working OTEC plant offshore of a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean --
most likely Diego Garcia though he wouldn't confirm this for security purposes.
Manufacturing key to US competitiveness
Timmons, CEO National Association of Manufacturers, 14
[Jay, 2/25/14, Real Clear Politics, Manufacturing: A Key Ingredient for U.S. Growth,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/02/25/manufacturing_a_key_ingredient_for_us_growth_121
698.html, accessed 7/6/14, CM]
For the past two weeks weve witnessed Olympians reach amazing heights through hard work and determination and overcome
obstacles and challenges along the way. In many ways, manufacturings can-do attitude is a lot like the Olympic spiritand
manufacturers hard work and determination have propelled our nation to its position as the most
prosperous on earth. Today, manufacturing is poised for a comeback. There was no medal ceremony, but for the first time in
history, manufacturing in the United States surpassed the $2 trillion mark. Taken alone, the manufacturing sector would rank as the
worlds eighth-largest economy. Manufacturing output has soared since the end of the recession, and manufacturing employment
surged in the last months of 2013. The challenge now is maintaining this momentum. Making the comeback a reality comes down to
a focus on three areas: products, people and policy. Manufacturers in America are making more products today and making them
better than ever before. Innovation is a big reason. The ability to adapt, innovate and improve shows up in abundance in
manufacturing. Who would have thought, for example, that in 2014 the U.S. would be in a position to become
energy independent and even export our energy resources? But innovation made it possible, helping to
spawn the boom in domestic energy production. New technologies and techniques are allowing us to tap
energy reserves that were out of reach not long ago. Affordable natural gas has made production more cost effective for
manufacturers across the board. The result is more jobs for workers and more economic growth in America. The American Chemistry
Council reports that $90 billion of new private-sector manufacturing investments are planned, thanks to the shale boom. As
production ramps up and manufacturers make new investments, theyll need the support of a strong workforce. The good news is that
the people involved in manufacturing are second to none. From the CEOs office to the shop floor, manufacturing attracts some of the
most dedicated, hardworking, innovative and talented women and men in America. But we dont have enough of them. Eighty-two
percent of manufacturers report that jobs are going unfilled because they cant find people with the right skills. The National
Association of Manufacturers-affiliated Manufacturing Institute is helping to bridge this gap by developing a skills-certification
program that enables American workers to receive a portable credential and by reaching out to veterans, many of whom have skill sets
that are perfectly aligned with what manufacturers need. But theres also a need for public policy reforms that will broaden the pool
of skilled workers and address a host of other challenges confronting manufacturers. For the past few years, manufacturers
have succeeded in spite of Washington, which has stood still on manufacturers priorities or, even worse,
enacted policies that make it harder to compete. Manufacturers have a number of ideas to spur economic growth and job
creation, but were tired of waiting on Washington. Common-sense solutions abound. For one, policymakers should let the shale
energy revolution continue to blossom. The energy industry is at risk of suffocation by regulation. It seems like all we hear from the
administrationparticularly the Environmental Protection Agencyand its allies in Congress is that they want to put a stop to the use
of oil, gas and coal. President Obama could also score a major victory for economic growth by approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
If Washington stays out of the way, the United States will not only continue to decrease its reliance on energy imports from potentially
unstable parts of the globe, but also will become a major exporter of energy. Exports represent a significant growth opportunity for
manufacturers. Ninety-five percent of the worlds consumers live outside the United States, so its
encouraging that we are pursuing two major market-opening agreements: the Trans-Pacific Partnership and
the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. However, to complete these agreements, Congress and
the administration need to approve Trade Promotion Authority or risk falling even further behind our
competitors in our efforts to reach and expand in new markets abroad. For America to maintain our mantle
of economic leadership, we need policies that harness the innovation and ingenuity that have created world-
changing products as well as the incredible strength of people who work in manufacturing. The 12 million
men and women who make things in America strive every single day to ensure the strength of our nations
economy. Its time for Washington to demonstrate that same commitment to our nations future.

Heg is a greater internal link to all of their impacts prevents escalation and
transition wars
Zhang and Shi 2011(Yuhan, researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Lin,
Columbia University, consultant for the Eurasia Group and World Bank, January 22, "America's Decline:
A Harbinger of Conflict and Rivalry", http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-
harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/)

Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the US military. Under these
circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned with US hegemony and
accepted a subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and the
Philippines have all joined the US, creating a status quo that has tended to mute great power conflicts. However,
as the hegemony that drew these powers together withers, so will the pulling power behind the US alliance.
The result will be an international order where power is more diffuse, American interests and influence can
be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder to avoid. As history attests, power decline
and redistribution result in military confrontation. For example, in the late 19th century Americas emergence as a
regional power saw it launch its first overseas war of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century, accompanying the
increase in US power and waning of British power, the American Navy had begun to challenge the notion that Britain rules the
waves. Such a notion would eventually see the US attain the status of sole guardians of the Western Hemispheres security to become
the order-creating Leviathan shaping the international system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this US-centred system are
three key characteristics: enforcement of property rights, constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and groups and some
degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As a result of such political stability, free markets,
liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have appeared. And, with this, many countries have
sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating stable and cooperative relations. However,
what will happen to these advances as Americas influence declines? Given that Americas authority, although
sullied at times, has benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as well as parts of
Africa and, quite extensively, Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way. Public
imagination and academia have anticipated that a post-hegemonic world would return to the
problems of the 1930s: regional blocs, trade conflicts and strategic rivalry. Furthermore, multilateral
institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO might give way to regional organisations. For example, Europe and
East Asia would each step forward to fill the vacuum left by Washingtons withering leadership to
pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders. Free markets would become more
politicised and, well, less free and major powers would compete for supremacy. Additionally, such
power plays have historically possessed a zero-sum element. In the late 1960s and 1970s, US economic power
declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western European economies, with the US dollar also becoming less attractive. And,
as American power eroded, so did international regimes (such as the Bretton Woods System in 1973). A world without
American hegemony is one where great power wars re-emerge, the liberal international system is
supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, anti-
globalisation barriers. This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled
US primacy.
Statistical data proves heg prevents war and is key to stable global order
Brooks, Dartmouth government professor, et al., 13
[Brooks, Stephen G., Ikenberry, G. John, Wohlforth, William C., STEPHEN G. BROOKS is Associate
Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. G. JOHN IKENBERRY is Albert G. Milbank Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee
University in Seoul. WILLIAM C. WOHLFORTH is Daniel Webster Professor of Government at
Dartmouth College, Foreign Affairs, Lean Forward, Jan/Feb2013, Vol. 92, Issue 1, Academic Search
Complete, accessed 7-2-13, AFB]
In Defense of American Engagement Since the end of World War II, the United States has pursued a single
grand strategy: deep engagement. In an effort to protect its security and prosperity, the country has
promoted a liberal economic order and established close defense ties with partners in Europe, East Asia,
and the Middle East. Its military bases cover the map, its ships patrol transit routes across the globe, and
tens of thousands of its troops stand guard in allied countries such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
The details of U.S. foreign policy have differed from administration to administration, including the
emphasis placed on democracy promotion and humanitarian goals, but for over 60 years, every president
has agreed on the fundamental decision to remain deeply engaged in the world, even as the rationale for
that strategy has shifted. During the Cold War, the United States' security commitments to Europe, East
Asia, and the Middle East served primarily to prevent Soviet encroachment into the world's wealthiest and
most resource-rich regions. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the aim has become to make these same
regions more secure, and thus less threatening to the United States, and to use these security partnerships
to foster the cooperation necessary for a stable and open international order. Now, more than ever,
Washington might be tempted to abandon this grand strategy and pull back from the world. The rise of
China is chipping away at the United States' preponderance of power, a budget crisis has put defense
spending on the chopping block, and two long wars have left the U.S. military and public exhausted.
Indeed, even as most politicians continue to assert their commitment to global leadership, a very different
view has taken hold among scholars of international relations over the past decade: that the United States
should minimize its overseas military presence, shed its security ties, and give up its efforts to lead the
liberal international order. Proponents of retrenchment argue that a globally engaged grand strategy wastes
money by subsidizing the defense of well-off allies and generates resentment among foreign populations
and governments. A more modest posture, they contend, would put an end to allies' free-riding and defuse
anti-American sentiment. Even if allies did not take over every mission the United States now performs,
most of these roles have nothing to do with U.S. security and only risk entrapping the United States in
unnecessary wars. In short, those in this camp maintain that pulling back would not only save blood and
treasure but also make the United States more secure. They are wrong. In making their case, advocates of
retrenchment overstate the costs of the current grand strategy and understate its benefits. In fact, the
budgetary savings of lowering the United States' international profile are debatable, and there is little
evidence to suggest that an internationally engaged America provokes other countries to balance against it,
becomes overextended, or gets dragged into unnecessary wars. The benefits of deep engagement, on the
other hand, are legion. U.S. security commitments reduce competition in key regions and act as a check
against potential rivals. They help maintain an open world economy and give Washington leverage in
economic negotiations. And they make it easier for the United States to secure cooperation for combating a
wide range of global threats. Were the United States to cede its global leadership role, it would forgo these
proven upsides while exposing itself to the unprecedented downsides of a world in which the country was
less secure, prosperous, and influential
Heg deters conflict and nuclear crises
Brooks, Dartmouth government professor, et al., 13
[Brooks, Stephen G., Ikenberry, G. John, Wohlforth, William C., STEPHEN G. BROOKS is Associate
Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. G. JOHN IKENBERRY is Albert G. Milbank Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee
University in Seoul. WILLIAM C. WOHLFORTH is Daniel Webster Professor of Government at
Dartmouth College, Foreign Affairs, Lean Forward, Jan/Feb2013, Vol. 92, Issue 1, Academic Search
Complete, accessed 7-2-13, AFB]
KEEPING THE PEACE Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of retrenchment
claim, they would not be worth bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The most obvious benefit of the
current strategy is that it reduces the risk of a dangerous conflict. The United States' security commitments
deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and dissuade U.S.
partners from trying to solve security problems on their own in ways that would end up threatening other
states. Skeptics discount this benefit by arguing that U.S. security guarantees aren't necessary to prevent
dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the high costs of territorial conquest and the many
tools countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words,
major powers could peacefully manage regional multipolarity without the American pacifier. But that
outlook is too sanguine. If Washington got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand
their military capabilities and go nuclear, which could provoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It's worth
noting that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear weapons; the only
thing that stopped them was the United States, which used its security commitments to restrain their nuclear
temptations. Similarly, were the United States to leave the Middle East, the countries currently backed by
Washington--notably, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--might act in ways that would intensify the region's
security dilemmas. There would even be reason to worry about Europe. Although it's hard to imagine the
return of great-power military competition in a post-American Europe, it's not difficult to foresee
governments there refusing to pay the budgetary costs of higher military outlays and the political costs of
increasing EU defense cooperation. The result might be a continent incapable of securing itself from threats
on its periphery, unable to join foreign interventions on which U.S. leaders might want European help, and
vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers. Given how easily a U.S. withdrawal from key regions
could lead to dangerous competition, advocates of retrenchment tend to put forth another argument: that
such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States could
survive the return of conflict among powers in Asia or the Middle East--but at what cost? Were states in
one or both of these regions to start competing against one another, they would likely boost their military
budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start regional proxy wars, all of which should concern the
United States, in part because its lead in military capabilities would narrow. Greater regional insecurity
could also produce cascades of nuclear proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South
Korea, and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also
seek nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear deterrence can promote stability between two states with the kinds of
nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there are multiple nuclear
rivals with less robust arsenals. As the number of nuclear powers increases, the probability of illicit
transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, and unforeseen crises goes up.

Contention 3 Economy
OTEC provides an economically, environmentally, and technically viable form of
sustainable hydrogen production
Ryzin, Ph.D in Ocean Engineering, Grandelli, Senior Ocean Engineer in charge of OTEC design, Lipp,
Ocean Engineer working in OTEC software, Argall, Ocean Engineer at Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc,
2005
[Joseph V., Patrick, David, Richard, 2005, Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc., The Hydrogen Economy of
2050: OTEC Driven?, http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/energie/hydrogene.pdf, 6-24-14, KB]
Depending upon the outcome of the NAEs four pivotal questions, it will be 10-30 years (or perhaps never) until the hydrogen
economy develops. One initial method where the U.S. can begin a shift to carbon-free domestic energy using
present technology is to use OTEC-derived hydrogen to produce ammonia. OTEC ammonia would
compete with ammonia made from foreign natural gas, reducing American dependence on imported
energy. The single largest worldwide use of hydrogen (25 million tonnes worldwide) is as an intermediate
step in the production of 140 million tonnes of ammonia from natural gas.High natural gas prices in the U.S. are
causing increased import of ammonia synthesized from low-cost foreign natural gas [26]. In 2004, the U.S. imported 6 million tonnes
of ammonia, equivalent to 1 million tonnes of hydrogen, which represents one-eighth of U.S. hydrogen production. Ammonia is
shipped worldwide using propane tankers much simpler than shipping hydrogen. We modified our baseline 100-tonne per day
OTEC hydrogen model to include costs of the ammonia synthesis reactor vessels, nitrogen air separation unit, and 14-day storage.
Electrolyzer purchase cost was increased to today's value of $1000 per kW [17] instead of the $125 per kW future value. Financing
was modified to 5% interest and a 30-year design life and assumes that federal obligation guarantees, up to $1.65 billion have been
obtained from the United States' OTEC Demonstration Fund [27]. Constructing such a plant seems within present offshore fabrication
capabilities. Table 5 presents the costs of major subsystems of this plant. The cost per tonne of ammonia with these parameters is
$494 per tonne, as shown in Fig. 11. This price is 66% more than the current price of $297 per tonne for imported ammmonia[28].
One or two decades in the future, it is quite conceivable that ammonia from natural gas would cost the same as ammonia from OTEC.
A tax credit of 1.9 per kWhr for renewable energy production [29] presently exists. If this tax credit is applied to ammonia
production, the cost for Subsidized OTEC 2010 ammonia becomes a nearly competitive $335 per tonne. This subsidized cost would
be competitive if natural gas costs increase 13%. This study developed a technical and economic model for Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion plants supplying a widespread hydrogen economy. Upon comparing the
results with other potential hydrogen sources, its clear that no source is ideal but OTEC is attractive
overall. Momentous choices must be made. Major technical breakthroughs, especially for hydrogen storage, are needed for the
hydrogen economy to evolve. With these breakthroughs, OTEC hydrogen will cost slightly more than biomass gasification and wind
turbine electrolysis, but significantly less than solar photo-voltaic electrolysis. Coal gasification and nuclear thermochemical splitting
with CO2 or nuclear waste sequestration will cost the least. Both entail technical risks and bequeath humankind with potentially
catastrophic stored waste. Massive-scale biomass and wind energy will displace limited land resources used for farming and living.
Massive-scale solar energy is the highest cost option. OTEC is the most sustainable massive-scale energy source. It is
the only source that uses non-intermittent solar energy, and it does not use land. Ammonia created using
OTEC with present technology could reduce foreign energy imported in the form of ammonia. OTEC
ammonia with subsidies is within 13% of the present ammonia market price. OTEC is both a technically
and economically viable hydrogen production pathway for delivery of massive quantities of energy; it is
cost competitive with other renewable technologies and it is environmentally sustainable. OTEC should be
considered a legitimate player in the envisioned hydrogen economy but ironically it is barely mentioned today in hydrogen economy
documents. The US and the world are on a path towards a non-oil-based future and the decisions ahead are momentous. As a
minimum, OTEC, which is low-risk and environmentally sustainable, should be developed in parallel with those other technologies
that appear to be economically attractive but have significant environmental risks attached. Technically, environmentally and
economically not considering OTEC is a risk the world can not afford to take.

The future of sustainable energy is dependent upon hydrogen fuel sources, which
produce no CO2, are incredibly efficient, and shifts the globe away from oil
dependence
Edwards, Head of Organic Chemistry Oxford University, et al, 2008
[Peter P., Dr Vladimir L. Kuznetsov Research Fellow University of Oxford, Professor William I. F. David,
Visiting Professor in Inorganic Chemistry University of Oxford, Professor Nigel Brandon Shell Chair in
Sustainable Development in Energy Imperial College, London, Office of Science and Innovation UK,
Hydrogen and fuel cells: towards a sustainable energy future,
http://www.dti.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/energy/hydrogen-and-fuel-cells-towards-a-sustainable-
future.pdf, 6/25/14, KB]
Hydrogen is a very attractive alternative fuel. It can be obtained from diverse resources, both renewable
(hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal) and non-renewable (coal, natural gas, nuclear). Hydrogen can
then be utilized in high-efficiency power-generation systems, including fuel cells for both vehicular
transportation and distributed electricity generation. Fuel cells convert hydrogen or a hydrogen-rich fuel
and an oxidant (usually pure oxygen or oxygen from the air) directly into electricity by an electrochemical
process. Fuel cells, operating on hydrogen or hydrogen-rich fuels, have the potential to become major
factors in catalyzing the transition to a future sustainable energy system with low-CO2 emissions. The
importance attached to such developments is rapidly increasing. Many countries are now compiling roadmaps, in many cases with
specific numerical targets for the advancement of fuel- cell and hydrogen technologies. As just one potent example, Japan's Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry has now set a target of 5 million hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles and 10 million kW for the total power
generation by stationary fuel cells by the year 2020! At the present time, there are three major technological barriers that must be
overcome for a transition from a carbon-based (fossil fuel) energy system to a hydrogen-based economy. First, the cost of efficient and
sustainable hydrogen production and delivery must be significantly reduced. Second, new generations of hydrogen storage systems for
both vehicular and stationary applications must be developed. Finally, the cost of fuel-cell and other hydrogen-based systems must be
reduced. The vision of such an integrated energy system of the future would combine large and small fuel cells for domestic and
decentralized heat and electricity power generation with local (or more extended) hydrogen supply networks that would also be used
to fuel conventional (internal combustion) or fuel-cell vehicles. Unlike coal, gas or oil, hydrogen is not a primary energy source. Its
role more closely mirrors that of electricity as an 'energy carrier', which first is produced using energy from another source and then
transported for future use, where its stored chemical energy can be utilized. Hydrogen can be stored as a fuel and utilized
in transportation and distributed heat and power generation using fuel cells, internal combustion engines or
turbines, and, importantly, a hydrogen fuel cell produces only water and no CO2. Hydrogen can also be
used as a storage medium for electricity generated from intermittent, renewable resources such as solar,
wind, wave and tidal power. It therefore provides the solution to one of the major issues of sustainable
energy, namely the vexing problem of intermittency of supply. As long as the hydrogen is produced from
non-fossil-fuel feed stock, it is a genuinely green fuel. Moreover, locally produced hydrogen allows the
introduction of renewable energy to the transport sector, provides potentially large economic and energy
security advantages and the benefits of an infrastructure based on distributed generation. It is this key
element of the energy storage capacity of hydrogen that provides the potent link between sustainable
energy technologies and a sustainable energy economy, generally placed under the umbrella term of
'hydrogen economy'.
-First is ECON. The United States is dependent primarily on oil absent a drastic
shift in energy production, global economic collapse is inevitable: Two internal
links- The first internal link is peak oil creating new energy sources solves
Ahmed, investigative journalist and international security scholar, 5-28-14
(Nafeez, March 28
th
, Ex govt adviser: "global market shock" from "oil crash" could hit in 2015 A former oil man calls for renewable
"Renaissance" to ward off shale dystopia, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/28/global-market-shock-
oil-crash-2015-peak, accessed 6/29/14, LLM)
In a new book, former oil geologist and government adviser on renewable energy, Dr. Jeremy Leggett, identifies five "global
systemic risks directly connected to energy" which, he says, together "threaten capital markets and hence the
global economy" in a way that could trigger a global crash sometime between 2015 and 2020. According to
Leggett, a wide range of experts and insiders "from diverse sectors spanning academia, industry, the military and the
oil industry itself, including until recently the International Energy Agency or, at least, key individuals or factions therein" are
expecting an oil crunch "within a few years," most likely "within a window from 2015 to 2020." Interconnected risks
Despite its serious tone, The Energy of Nations: Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance, published by the reputable academic
publisher Routledge, makes a compelling and ultimately hopeful case for the prospects of transitioning to a clean energy system in
tandem with a new form of sustainable prosperity. The five risks he highlights cut across oil depletion, carbon emissions,
carbon assets, shale gas, and the financial sector: "A market shock involving any one these would be capable of
triggering a tsunami of economic and social problems, and, of course, there is no law of economics that
says only one can hit at one time." At the heart of these risks, Leggett argues, is our dependence on increasingly
expensive fossil fuel resources. His wide-ranging analysis pinpoints the possibility of a global oil supply crunch as early as 2015.
"Growing numbers of people in and around the oil industry", he says, privately consider such a forecast to be plausible. "If we are
correct, and nothing is done to soften the landing, the twenty-first century is almost certainly heading for an early
depression." Leggett also highlights the risk of parallel developments in the financial sector: "Growing numbers of
financial experts are warning that failure to rein in the financial sector in the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008 makes a
second crash almost inevitable." A frequent Guardian contributor, Leggett has had a varied career spanning multiple
disciplines. A geologist and former oil industry consultant for over a decade whose research on shale was funded by BP and Shell, he
joined Greenpeace International in 1989 over concerns about climate change. As the organisation's science director he edited a
landmark climate change report published by Oxford University Press. Industry's bad bet Leggett points to an expanding body of
evidence that what he calls "the incumbency" - "most of the oil and gas industries, their financiers, and their
supporters and defenders in public service" - have deliberately exaggerated the quantity of fossil fuel
reserves, and the industry's capacity to exploit them. He points to a leaked email from Shell's head of exploration to the CEO, Phil
Watts, dated November 2003: "I am becoming sick and tired of lying about the extent of our reserves issues and
the downward revisions that need to be done because of far too aggressive/ optimistic bookings." Leggett reports that after
admitting that Shell's reserves had been overstated by 20%, Watts still had to "revise them down a further
three times." The company is still reeling from the apparent failure of investments in the US shale gas boom. Last October the
Financial Times reported that despite having invested "at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America", so far
the bet "has yet to pay off." With its upstream business struggling "to turn a profit", Shell announced a "strategic
review of its US shale portfolio after taking a $2.1bn impairment." Shell's outgoing CEO Peter Voser admitted that the
US shale bet was a big regret: "Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned." Leggett thus remains highly sceptical
that shale oil and gas will change the game. Despite "soaring drilling rates," UStight oil production has lifted
"only around a million barrels a day." As global oil consumption is at around 90 milion barrels a day, with
conventional crude depleting "by over four million barrels a day of capacity each year" according to International Energy Agency
(IEA) data, tight oil additions "can hardly be material in the global picture." He reaches a similar verdict for shale gas, which he
notes "contributes well under 1% of US transport fuel." Even as Prime Minister David Cameron has just reiterated the
government's commitment to prioritise shale, Leggett says: "Shale-gas drilling has dropped off a cliff since 2009. It is only a matter of
time now before US shale-gas production falls. This is not material to the timing of a global oil crisis." In an interview, he goes
further, questioning the very existence of a real North American 'boom': "How it can be that there is a prolonged and sustainable shale
boom when so much investment is being written off in America - $32 billion at the last count?" It is a question that our government,
says Leggett, is ignoring. Crunch time In his book, Leggett cites a letter he had obtained in 2004 written by the First Secretary for
Energy and Environment in the British embassy in Washington, referring to a presentation on oil supply by the leading oil and gas
consulting firm, PFC Energy (now owned by IHS, the US government contractor which also owns Cambridge Energy Research
Associates). According to Leggett, the diplomat's letter to his colleagues in London reads as follows: "The presentation drew some
gasps from the assembled energy cognoscenti. They predict a peaking of global supply in the face of high demand by as early as
2015. This will lead to a more regionalised oil market, a key role for West African producers, and continued high and
volatile prices." The text of the 2004 letter is corroborated by a 2009 PFC Energy report commissioned by the International
Energy Forum which concluded that world conventional oil supply was approaching "peak production, where the
petroleum industry's ability to continue to increase - or even maintain - production of conventional oil (and
eventually gas) is constrained... "Exploitation of unconventional oil will provide additional liquids, but in all
probability only at increasingly higher costs, and it will depend on significant investments to develop appropriate technologies
to convert today's resources into tomorrow's reserves. The exact timing of both the plateau and onset of irreversible decline will be
influenced by the factors that determine long-term changes in supply and demand. Nevertheless, the challenge is coming, and this
emerging world of limited conventional production will require major adjustments on the part of both
consumers and producers." Requests for comment from PFC Energy and Cuadrilla, a UK energy company, concerning
Leggett's warning of a near-term oil crash despite shale gas production received no response. Critics point out that Leggett and others
warning of peak oil are wrong because they never saw the prospect of shale. In response, Leggett tells me: "Its true that the short
burst of shale gas and shale oil has taken a lot of 'peakists', myself included, somewhat by surprise, and that the oil
peak has been pushed out in time a little by tight oil. What hasn't changed is the basic issue: most of the
incumbency says the 'all-liquids' oil production peak is many years hence, the minority doubting the narrative says it
is much nearer, within this decade. And lets not forget: conventional crude oil has already peaked, as even the
IEA admits." After his stint as Greenpeace's science chief, Jeremy Leggett went on to found the UK's largest solar energy company,
SolarCentury, and to advise the British government on renewable energy from 2002 to 2006. He is now convener of the UK Industry
Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security which includes major multinationals like Arup Group and Virgin, chairman of the
Carbon Tracker Initiative which aims to improve the transparency of carbon embedded in equity markets, and a co-organiser of the
Trans-Atlantic Energy Security Dialogue I reported on last January. That same month, Leggett addressed world leaders at the World
Economic Forum in Davos about his forecast. The 2015 oil crunch forecast, Leggett writes, is corroborated by the Industry Task
Force report: "In this report we updated the evidence that defines global oil reserves and extraction rates, and concluded that the
global peak production rate for oil would likely occur within the decade, very likely by 2015 at the latest at a value no higher than 92
million barrels per day." Based on flow rate data, the report found that "increases in extraction would be slowing
down in 201113 and dropping thereafter." From then on, global oil production would drop "at 1% a year from
2015. If the then IEA forecast of demand rising to 105 million barrels a day in 2030 were to prove correct, supply would fall
short in 2015."


-The second internal link is job creation. The United States is dependent primarily
on oil absent a drastic shift in energy production global economic collapse is
inevitable: OTEC generates a massive number of jobs
Lockheed Martin, global technology company, No Date
[Lockheed Martin, OTEC: The Time is Now,
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/100years/stories/otec.html, DOI 6/29/2014,
MEL]
Beyond the obvious energy and environmental advantages, OTEC offers additional benefits as well. With the
world economy struggling, wide spread OTEC development would create an entire new industry. A
University of California, Berkley study estimates that each commercial OTEC plant would create 3,500 to 4,000 direct
jobs. With the potential for thousands of OTEC plants, the economic impact would be enormous.

Jobs are key to economic growth; correlational data proves
Patten, Forbes Contributor, 2012
[Mike, 8/27, Forbes, The Key to Economic Growth: Reduce The Unemployment Rate!,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2012/08/27/the-key-to-economic-growth-reduce-the-
unemployment-rate/, DOI 6/29/2014, MEL]
Weve all heard how the U.S. economy has been slow to recover. In the final analysis, there is one issue which
resides at the epicenter of economic growth. That is our unemployment dilemma. How important is the
unemployment rate to our economic recovery? Let me put it in these terms. Employment is to economic growth
what oxygen is to the human existence. You cant have one without the other. In this article, I will present evidence to
bolster the point that until the unemployment rate is brought down to a more reasonable level, our economic recovery will falter. Just
The Facts The chart below illustrates how unemployment and GDP move in opposition to each other. Using data from
January 1948 until the present, one can easily see the inverse relationship between the two. Upon more careful scrutiny, you will
notice that most of the time GDP falls as unemployment rises and vice versa. When you calculate the correlation
of these two data sets, you find it is -0.38%. As a refresher, correlation measures how closely two (or more) series of data
move relative to each other. The scale is from negative one (-1) to positive one (+1). If the correlation was positive one, then it would
be said that the two items moved exactly together. If negative one, then they move in the exact opposite direction. In layman terms,
correlation measures how each zigs and/or zags in relation to each other. With unemployment and GDP having a correlation of -
0.38%, there is a strong negative relationship. Therefore, we must get the American worker back into the labor
force. More Evidence If you need additional evidence, consider this. When you include all calendar quarters from January 1948
through the end of the second quarter 2012, the average unemployment rate during quarters when GDP was negative (i.e.; the
economy contracted), was 7.4%. The average rate during the entire period was 5.8%. When you exclude all quarters with negative
GDP, the average unemployment rate was 5.6%. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that until we can get unemployment down to say less
than 6.0%, GDP will likely remain sluggish.

Economic collapse causes extinction.
Royal, director of cooperative threat reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense,
10
[Jedediah, Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problems of
Economic Crises, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, legal and Political
Perspectives, ed Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-214]
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline mayincrease the likelihood of external conflict. Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions
follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory,
finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and
the often bloody transitionfrom one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic
crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power
balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation(Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution
of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power
(Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact
the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between
global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of
trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is asignificant variablein understanding economic
conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from
trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline,
particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be
inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade
expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have
considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg
and Hess (2002) find astrong correlationbetween internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during
periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and
mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence
of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each
other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with anincrease in the likelihood of
terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions.
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. Diversionary theory" suggests that, when
facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg,
Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are
greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to
being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of
weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an
increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an
increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political sciencescholarship links economic decline with
external conflictat systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed
conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not
contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of
external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic
interdependence instead of global interdependenceand do not specifically consider the occurrence of and
conditions created byeconomic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.


Contention 4 Solvency
Federal funding is keycreating early adaption plants signals to the industry the
technology is effective and solves current investment gapsfederal development is
necessary to develop a regulatory scheme
Meyer, Cooper and Varley 2011(Laurie, Dennis, and Robert, Lockhheed Martin, September, "Are
We There Yet? A Developer's Roadmap to OTEC Commercialization", http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2010/01/OTEC-Road-to-Commercialization-September-2011-_-LM.pdf)

In 2006, Makai Ocean Engineering was awarded a small business innovative research (SBIR) contract from the Office of Naval
Research (ONR) to investigate the potential for OTEC to produce nationally-significant quantities of hydrogen in at- sea floating
plants located in warm, tropical waters. Realizing the need for larger partners to actually commercialize OTEC, Makai approached
Lockheed Martin to renew their previous relationship and determine if the time was ready for OTEC. And so in 2007, Lockheed
Martin resumed our OTEC journey and became a subcontractor to Makai to support their SBIR. Lockheed Martin separately began to
engage with Makai Ocean Engineering and others to collectively review the work that was done over the decades to commercialize
OTEC, a dream kept alive by Joe Van Ryzin, Luis Vega, CB Panchal, Bob Cohen, Jim Anderson, Hans Krock, and others. Developing
the envisioned vast marine-industrial sector supporting affordable commercial OTEC applications (Stage 5) required conducting Stage
2 proofs of concepts for any new technology, deploying a pilot facility (Stage 3), and building the first commercial plant (Stage 4). We
developed a vision, commercialization roadmap, and technology strategy focused on what we saw as the primary risks
and hurdles to scaling OTEC to utility applications. Our vision (Fig. 4) began with the need to field an integrated pilot
plant to enable our move to Stage 4 - commercial market entre to electric utilities in locations with existing high costs of
electricity. We expect that as more plants are fielded, we will move down the learning curve and see decreasing
unit costs, eventually enabling entre to lower cost electricity markets. Initial market entree requires larger plants due to OTEC
economics. Smaller plants may eventually become affordable, but in the near future, small plants will need to be subsidized. As
electricity generation becomes established and progress is made toward Stage 5, larger OTEC plants grazing in the open oceans will
be developed to produce energy carriers and/or synthetic fuels. These plants will have the potential to begin to offset transportation
fluids. Achieving our vision required us to understand technology solutions and develop realistic cost and schedule estimates to
determine whether OTEC commercialization could yet be realized. Based on assessments, we developed our commercialization
roadmap to provide another view of our commercialization plan (Fig. 5). Though much technology and system work exists, much has
also changed since the 1970s. We identified a number of technology development/ demonstration tasks to reduce remaining risk.
However, successful risk reduction is not the only barrier for commercialization. We needed to address the
Valley-of- Death, finding funds to build a pilot facility large enough to convince investors and Lockheed Martin
management we could be successful at commercial utility scales. We believe an integrated megawatt scale pilot
plant is still needed to obtain the large amounts of private financing needed for commercial, utility scale OTEC plants. Our early
focus was on a 10 megawatt (MW) floating design. We viewed scaling 10 MW up to an initial commercial 100 MW plant as a
reasonable step with acceptable risk for the private financing requirements. The pilot plant serves several purposes and
addresses multiple stakeholder concerns. It provides an integrated system demonstration of the technology.
When connected to a local grid, it provides the utility with the opportunity to ensure baseload OTEC power
performs as expected. The pilot plant allows measurement of environmental parameters so the regulatory
agencies can understand and assess how larger, commercial plants will operate. The pilot plant will also enable
NOAA, the federal agency with OTEC licensing authority, to fine tune their regulatory process. The pilot project will
validate cost and schedule plans so both industry and financial communities can extrapolate results to commercial projects. Since no
commercial OTEC plants are in operation today, the pilot plant will provide the opportunity to validate estimate of
operations & maintenance (O&M) requirements. Finally, a pilot plant will provide public relations and community
education opportunities about this new renewable resource. We developed sufficient confidence and optimism to invest in tasks that
would refine our design. Along the way, we picked up new friends, companies that provided key skills and credibility to make real
progress. Complementing our Lockheed Martin / Makai Ocean Engineering team (Fig. 6), weve added companies with expertise in
the offshore industry, naval architecture, ocean engineering, OTEC systems, composites, and the environment. The primary technical
challenges included heat exchanger optimization, affordable and survivable cold water pipes at 10m+ diameter and 1km length, stable
and affordable ocean platform concepts, and affordable and efficient system designs. We invested in heat exchanger design efforts to
address performance, corrosion, and producibility (Fig. 7). A companion test program focused on understanding the behavior of
candidate alloys in both warm and cold seawater was devised by Makai. Today we have over a year of exposure for hundreds of
samples. To confirm performance estimates for our HX designs, we have conducted testing at both small scale (laboratory) (Fig. 8)
and large scale at NELHA (Fig. 9) using multiple working fluids and a range of representative environmental operating conditions. A
separate paper at this conference addresses more details. We identified a survivable, lower cost composite cold water pipe solution
that could be fabricated on the platform to reduce deployment challenges (Fig. 10). Teamed with the DoE, we validated the composite
pipe fabrication approach and key elements of the composite tooling (Fig. 11). Teamed with the USN, our team addressed the
challenging interfaces between that composite pipe and the steel platform structure (Fig. 12). Future plans include integration of the
full pipe fabrication system for a full scale land based demonstration. We surveyed the offshore industry to understand the state of the
art in large stable floating structures for offshore deepwater applications (Fig. 13). As one might expect, because of the progress
in the offshore oil and gas industry moving into deeper and deeper operational environments, many of what
were challenges in the 1980s are no longer viewed by the industry as technology challenges today. However, these
deepwater technologies have been exquisitely engineered to address oil and gas challenges which dont necessarily plague OTEC and
hence are not necessarily cost optimized for our application. Our team has worked hard to understand the applicability of existing
offshore standards in the ultimate design of an OTEC system, and we have begun working with certification and classification experts
focused on safety of operations as well as NOAA and environmental experts to ensure our design addresses key ecological concerns.
III. ARE WE THERE YET ? Were making progress. Capital cost is the primary challenge. Since we believe private
financing will require a substantial demonstration to show performance, validate environmental predictions,
confirm cost and schedule estimates, and collect operational data our focus has been on a pilot plant. But we
face a conundrum a pilot plant will be a small OTEC plant; small OTEC plants arent economic. We have therefore focused
on federal support for a pilot plant program. Unfortunately, todays budget woes challenge the ability of the federal
government to support a substantial demonstration.
OTEC is feasiblenew tech developments solve design issues
McCallister and McLaughlin 2012(Captain Michael, Senior Engineer with Sound and Sea
Technology, Commander Steve, Critical Infrastructure Programs Manager at Sound and Sea Technology,
January, "Renewable Energy from the Ocean", U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 138, Issue 1,
EBSCO)

The well-known OTEC operating principles date to the original concept proposed by Jacques-Arsne d'Arsonval in 1881. OTEC
recovers solar energy using a thermodynamic cycle that operates across the temperature difference between warm surface water and
cold deep water. In the tropics, surface waters are above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, while at depths of about 1,000 meters water
temperatures are just above freezing. This gradient provides a differential that can be used to transfer energy from the warm surface
waters and generate electricity. For a system operating between 85 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature differential yields a
maximum thermodynamic Carnot cycle efficiency of 9.2 percent. Although this is considered low efficiency for a power plant, the
"fuel" is free. Hence, the real challenge is to build commercial-scale plants that yield competitively priced electricity. Overcoming
Barriers Previous attempts to develop a viable and practical OTEC commercial power system suffered from
several challenges. The low temperature delta requires large seawater flows to yield utility scale outputs. Therefore, OTEC plants
must be large. Thus, they will also be capital-intensive. As plant capacity increases, the unit outlay becomes more cost-effective due to
economy of scale. Survivable cold-water pipes, cost-efficient heat exchangers, and to a lesser extent offshore
structures and deep-water moorings represent key technical challenges. However, developments in offshore
technologies, new materials, and fabrication and construction processes that were not available when the
first serious experimental platforms were developed in the 1970s now provide solutions. When located close to
shore, an OTEC plant can transmit power directly to the local grid via undersea cable. Plants farther from
shore can also produce power in the form of energy carriers like hydrogen or ammonia, which can be used both as
fuel for transportation and to generate power ashore. In agricultural markets, reasonably priced, renewable-based ammonia can
displace natural gas in fertilizer production. Combined with marine algae aqua-culture programs, OTEC plants can also produce
carbon-based synthetic fuels. OTEC facilities can be configured to produce fresh water, and, from a military perspective, system
platforms can also serve as supply bases and surveillance sites. Facing Reality Availability of relatively "cheap" fossil fuels limits
societal incentives to change and makes energy markets difficult to penetrate. However, the realization of "peak oil" (the theoretical
upper limit of global oil production based on known reserves), ongoing instability in Middle East political conditions, adversarial oil-
supply partners, and concerns over greenhouse-gas buildup and global warming all contribute to the need for renewable energy
solutions. An assessment of OTEC technical readiness by experts at a 2009 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
workshop indicated that a 10 megawatt (MW) floating OTEC facility is technically feasible today, using current design,
manufacturing, and installation technologies. While readiness and scalability for a 100 MW facility were less clear, the conclusion
was that experience gained during the construction, deployment, and operation of a smaller pilot plant would be a necessary step in
OTEC commercialization. The Navy now supports the development of OTEC, with the goal of reducing technical risks associated
with commercialization.
New tech makes OTEC cost competitive
Ferris 2012(David, Forbes Staff, March 31, "Market for Deep Ocean Energy Heats Up",
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidferris/2012/03/31/market-for-deep-ocean-energy-starts-to-heat-up/)

Scientists have entertained the idea of OTEC since the 19th Century and Lockheed Martin created a
working model during the 1970s energy crisis . But the budding market withered in the 1980s as fuel prices
dropped. Now, with energy prices rising again, OTEC is back. Ted Johnson, a veteran of some early
Lockheed experiments, is a senior vice president at OTE Corporation. Johnson told me that OTEC systems
are becoming cost competitive because the technology for pipes, heat exchangers and other equipment has
improved greatly, thanks in part to innovations by the oil and gas industry. Meanwhile, creating electricity
on remote islands is expensive as ever.



Lt. Danny Howard-Thani
Makah Whaling 1AC
Plan:
The United States Supreme Court should grant certiorari to Anderson v Evans and
rule that the Makahs whaling rights under the Treaty of Neah Bay exempts them
from the Marine Mammal Protection Act permit requirements.

Observation 1 is Inherency:
The Makahs last legal whale hunt was in 1999while they have permission from
the IWC to take up to 20 whales, their federal permit has not been renewed and
participants in a 2007 whale hunt were convicted of a federal crime and imprisoned.
Peninsula Daily News, 2014
(Makah Whalers Commemorate 15
th
Anniversary of Last Legal Whale Kill,
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20140518/NEWS/305189969/makah-
whalers-commemorate-15th-anniversary-of-last-legal-whale-kill, accessed July 10,
DVOG)

NEAH BAY Fifteen years after returning from their tribe's last legal whale kill, some members of the
crew of Makah whale hunters who led that hunt set out again into the bay aboard the Hummingbird
whaling canoe Saturday.
It gives me chills. It just gives me chills, said Charlotte Williams King.
Descended from a long line of whalers, King thought of her ancestors as she watched the canoes paddle in
Neah Bay.
Her great-grandfather, John Hiska McCarty, dove underwater to tie closed the mouths of harpooned
whales.
I didn't really realize it, but 15 years is a long time, she said.
Saturday's paddle, which included a chase canoe, was organized by the Makah Whaling Commission.
It commemorated the anniversary of the tribe's successful whale hunt on May 17, 1999. It was the first time
in 50 years that the Makah had harpooned a whale, and it happened aboard Hummingbird.
Members of the 1999 hunt crew led by Capt. Wayne Johnson were Theron Parker, Mike Steves, Darrell
Markishtum, Glenn Johnson, Keith Johnson, Arnie Hunter, Franklin Wilson, Bruce Gonzelas, Dan Greene,
Gordon Parker, Andy Noel, Donald H. Swan and Greg Arnold.
Most were aboard Hummingbird on Saturday.
Keith Johnson, president of the whaling commission, recalled the controversy that surrounded the 1999 kill
of a gray whale, nicknamed May, whose skeleton now hangs in the Makah Cultural and Research Center
in Neah Bay.
Last time we had a whaling crew in that [canoe], those terrorists, those eco-terrorists, that were out there
in their Zodiacs waking our boat and throwing smoke canisters at us, Keith Johnson remembered.
The last whale killed by Makah tribal members was in 2007, when a group of five illegally shot dead a gray
whale.
Members of the 2007 crew were Wayne Johnson, Parker, Noel, Gonzales and William Secor Sr.
Wayne Johnson served five months in federal prison and Noel 90 days for their roles in the kill.
Hummingbird was retired in 2006 after it capsized, killing Joseph Andrew Jerry Jack, a hereditary chief
of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht tribe of Vancouver Island, during an InterTribal Canoe Journey.
Some had called for Hummingbird to be burned, Keith Johnson said, saying it had been cursed.
You don't burn a whaling canoe, he said Saturday. You bless it.
The Makah voluntarily stopped hunting gray whales in the 1920s when populations diminished. Gray
whales were listed as endangered species in 1970.
When the species was taken off the list in 1994, the Makah worked to resume subsistence hunting.
In the 15 years since the legal kill, the tribe's right to hunt whales, guaranteed in the 1855 Treaty of Neah
Bay, has been embroiled in court reviews over science.
After being allowed to hunt in 1998 and 1999,which ended in the killing of one whale, whale hunts were
stopped shortly thereafter by a federal court order saying the Makah needed an environmental impact
statement to obtain a waiver from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The International Whaling Commission in 2007 granted the tribe the right to kill as many as 20 whales over
five years with no more than five in a single year but it still must get a federal waiver to conduct a
hunt.
We have judges that are animal rights activists that will do anything to put a road block in front of our
treaty right to hunt whales, Keith Johnson said.
Just leave us alone.



Observation 2 is Sovereignty:
The Makah have a right to hunt whales, granted to them by the Treaty of Neah Bay
in 1855.
Stevens, 2012 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga
Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)

And the Makah have been hunting whales for 1,500 years.14 Makah religion in fact instructs that
Thunderbird, a flying wolflike god, delivered a whale to their shores to save them from starvation.15 For
at least 3,000 years since, the gray whales have been sacred icons in the petroglyphs, jewelry, art,
carvings, songs, and dances16 of the Makah. Whaling has not only been a source of subsistence to the
Makah as they have learned to survivethrive, even, before westward expansion squeezed them onto their
current reservationatop their clump of clay, rock, and dirtwhaling has been an expression of religious
faith and community cohesion.17 Nowhere else is this reverence, this sense of cultural inter-dependence,
more illustrated than in the Treaty of Neah Bay.18

The Treaty of Neah Bay is the constitutionally binding source of federal plenary authority and dominion
over the Makah Indiansthe exercise of the Indian Commerce clause which grants the congressional right
to dictate by legislative fiat the totality of Makah affairs. Effectuated in 1855, it is but one of the eleven
different treaties, each with several different tribes19 produced by Governor Isaac Stevens.20

Congress chosen method of opening up vast swaths of Pacific Northwest land for white westward
expansion was through the negotiation of treaties, as an instrument of conquest.21
And to clear the way for white settlement onto Indian lands, to accommodate the increasing flow of
American settlers pouring into the lowlands of Puget Sound and the river valleys north of the Columbia
River, Governor Isaac Stevens was tasked with inducing the Indians of the area to movevoluntarily22
onto reservations. Indeed, Governor Stevens was well-suited for the undertaking. He recognized in the
Makah not much concern for their land (save for their village, burial sites, and other sundry locations), but
recognized great concern for their marine hunting and fishing rights.23
The Governor therefore reassured the Makah that the United States government did not intend to stop
them from marine hunting and fishing but in fact would help them to develop these pursuits. 24 But
Governor Stevens did not speak the Makahs language, nor did the Makah representatives speak English.
Instead, the Treaty of Neah Bay was negotiated in English and an interpreter translated English into
Chinook Jargon which then a member of the Clallum Tribe translated into Makah: English into Chinook
into Makah, and back.25Nevertheless, Governor Stevens was sufficiently intuitive and well enough
informed to recognize the primacy of the whale in Makah culture; indeed the man promised United States
assistance in securing a treaty-based right for the Makah to whale and promote Makah whaling because in
his own words, The Great Father knows what whalers you are.27 Much of the official record of the
treaty negotiations thus deals with securing the right to whale; and as consideration for that treaty-reserved
right, the Makah ceded 91% of their landa full 300,000 square acresand retained only a 27,000 square
acre wind-swept, crag-ridden, mountainous, forest covered region, with no arable land except the low
swamp and marsh.28 The Makah were not interested in becoming tillers of soil or hunters of the elk, deer,
and bear which dwelt among them. Yes, the Makah grew their potatoes and gathered berries when the
season was proper, but no culture can survive on tubers and berries alone; a people requires animal food,
and [the Makah] prefer[red] the products of the ocean to the farina of the land.29 As a testament to the
importance of the whale to every aspect of Makah culture and as an illustration of the extent to which the
act of whaling was more important to the Makah than it was to any other tribe with which the Government
negotiated a treaty, the Treaty of Neah Bay is the only United States-Indian treaty which secures for the
Indians the express right to whale: the right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual and
accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common 30 with all citizens of the
United States.31



NOAA recognized that treaty right when they advocated for the exemption to the
IWC, which was granted in 1998.
Stevens, 2012 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga
Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)

Happily, by June of 1994, the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) population of the California Gray Whale had
recovered to near its estimated original population size and [was] neither in danger of extinction
throughout all or a significant portion of its range, nor likely to again become endangered within the
foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range.48 This steady, stable population of
approximately 20,000 California Gray Whales 49 leisurely roaming the seas was delisted under the ESA
that same year, and the Makah decided to resume its hunting of those who migrated through the
Sanctuary.50 To accomplish this end, the Makah sought the assistance of the Federal governments
Department of Commerce: specifically, the NOAA which Congress had tasked with the promulgation of
regulations to implement the Whaling Convention Act. Indeed, on March 22, 1996, the Makah and the
NOAA entered into a formal written agreement by which the NOAA, through the United States
Commissioner to the IWC, will make a formal proposal to the IWC for a quota of gray whales for
subsistence and ceremonial use by the Makah Tribe.51
But in response to this agreement, in June of 1997, two organizationsAustralians for Animals and the
BEACH Marine Protectionsubmitted a letter to NOAA alleging that the United States Government had
violated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by authorizing and promoting the Makah whaling
proposal without preparing an52 Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS). The NOAA responded by distributing an EA for public comment, in compliance with the National
Environmental Policy Act, on August 22, 1997.53 A short time later, on October 13, 1997, NOAA and the
Makah entered into a new written agreement which required the Makah to confine hunting activities to the
open waters of the Pacific Ocean.54 After the signing of this new agreement, the NOAA issued a Finding
of No Significant Impact (FONSI) four days later, on October 17, 1997.55

One day later at the IWCs annual meeting the United States on behalf of the Makah, and the Russian
Confederation on behalf of a Siberian aboriginal group called the Chukotka, submitted a joint proposal for
a five-year block quota of 620 whales. The total quota of 620 assumed an average annual harvest of 120
whales by the Chukotka and an average annual harvest of four whales by the Makah.56 Yet some
delegates expressed doubts about whether the Makah qualified for the quota under the aboriginal
subsistence exception,57 and therefore suggested amending the joint proposal to allow the quota to be
used only by aboriginal groups whose traditional subsistence and cultural needs have been recognized by
the International Whaling Commission.58 The United States rejected this amendment, arguing that the
IWC had no established mechanism for recognizing such needs.59 The proposal submitted by the United
States and the Russian Federation was thus amended to allow the block quota of 620 whales to be used only
by aboriginal groups whose traditional subsistence and cultural needs have been recognized.60 This
quota shortly thereafter was approved, and on April 6, 1998, NOAA issued a Federal Register Notice
allocating a quota to the Makah for limited hunts in 1999. This allowed the Makah, in lawful exercise of its
re-established expressly-reserved treaty right, to engage in whaling pursuant to the IWC-approved quota
and Whaling Convention Act regulations.61

Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals incorrectly requires the Makah to
comply with the MMPA, which abrogates that treaty right.
Stevens, 2012 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga
Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)

Anderson arose in the wake of the NMFS and the NOAA response to Metcalf. Complying with that courts
directive, in January of 2001 NMFS and NOAA published another Draft Environmental Assessment. The
whale quota in this Draft, and in the Makah Management Plan which accompanied it, targeted migrating
whales. This meant that whaling would be allowed only in the open waters of the Pacific Ocean which are
outside the Tatoosh-Bonilla Line,155 thus targeting migratory whales. But the Makah revised their
management plan; the amended plan, in contrast to the Tribes earlier management plan, did not contain
any general geographic limitations on the whale hunt.156 This amendment was not incorporated into the
Draft Environmental Assessment and there had thus been no opportunity for public comment on the
important 157 change. Additionally, none of the scientific studies relied upon in the Draft EA evaluated
the impact of the revised management plan. 158 Nevertheless, the NOAA and the NMFS issued a FONSI,
thereby obviating the need to proceed, under NEPA, with an EIS. 15 The next step in the administrative
saga took place when NOAA and the NMFS issued a Federal Register notice on December 13, 2001
announcing a quota160 of five gray whales in 2001 and 2002, and in approval of the Makah management
plan.161

It should come as no surprise, then, that citizens and animal welfare groups filed another complaint in
January 2002, alleging violations of both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Marine Mammal
Protection Act. Once again, the Makah Tribe intervened as a defendant, and once again, on the district
court level, summary judgment was granted to the defendants, whereupon the plaintiffs, once again,
appealed.162 The saga took its most relevant and unhappy turn when the Ninth Circuit considered the
plaintiffs appeal from the district courts summary judgment, and reversed the lower court. The court held
in Anderson v. Evans that the governments failure to prepare an EIS violated NEPA and the MMPAs take
moratorium and permitting process was binding upon the Tribes exercise of its treaty-reserved right to
hunt whales. On November 26, 2003 163 and June 7, 2004,164 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied
en banc rehearings and issued amended opinions which clarified the (faulty) legal reasoning of its decision,
but did not alter the conclusion.

Having held that the Marine Mammal Protection Act proscribes the Makah Tribes treaty-reserved whaling
rights, the Anderson Court stated that they were not overruling the Treaty of Neah Bays explicitly-reserved
right to whale; this however is in essence the practical impact of the decision. In reaching its conclusion,
the Court used the state conservation necessity test which the United States Supreme Court in Puyallup I, II
and US v. Washington used to assess the constitutionality of state laws which infringe upon Indian treaty
rights, while the MMPA is a federal law. Regardless of the United States Supreme Courts clear intention
to promulgate two distinct tests to assess a federal or a state statutes constitutionality when the statute
infringes upon a treaty-reserved right, it is this latter test, this state conservation necessity test, which the
Ninth Circuit followed in applying the MMPA in Anderson v. Evans.

The satisfaction of the state conservation necessity test was instrumental in the Ninth Circuits ruling
against a Tulalip Indian who shot and killed a bald eagle on the Tulalip reservation in United States v.
Fryberg.165 In Fryberg, the Ninth Circuit faced in 1980 the same issue the Supreme Court would address
in 1986 in Dion: whether the Eagle Protection Act modified or abrogated Indian treaty-reserved rights. In
deciding the matter, the Ninth Circuit took its cue from the Puyallup cases, applying the state conservation
necessity test, this time to a federal statute, which the United States Supreme Court in Puyallup I and
Puyallup II etched into judicial granite. Yet each Puyallup case involved state conservation laws, not
federal statutes. Further illustrative of the fact that the United States Supreme Court in Dion was
developing a distinct test to be used for determining the relevance of federal statutes to treaty-reserved
rights, is the incontrovertible fact that not oncenot in the text, not in a footnotein its Dion opinion did the
United States Supreme Court six years later mention either Fryberg or any of the Puyallup cases. Indeed,
there was no need to mention either because neither was relevant. Instead, there was to be a distinction
between manner of determining the relevance of a states conservation statute to treaty-reserved tribal
rights and determining the relevance of a federal statute to treaty-reserved tribal rights because the
provenance of state authority over Indian tribes differs from the provenance of federal authority over Indian
tribes.

The Ninth Circuit was careful to note in Anderson, however, that they were not deciding whether or not the
MMPA actually abrogated the Makah treaty-reserved right to whale, holding only that satisfaction of the
state conservation necessity test bound the Makah to MMPA regulations.166 But hearkening to the
distinction between regulation and abrogation as a way to avoid the larger abrogation analysis is intellectual
sophistry which skirts the issue of whether Congress intended a federal statute to even apply toand in this
way to limitan Indian treaty-reserved right. Applying the state conservation necessity test to determine the
effects of a state statute violates a sacrosanct tenet in the field of Federal Indian Law and a Supreme Court
admonition: congressional intent to
modify or abrogate Indian treaty-rights is not to be lightly imputed.167 Having used the state
conservation and necessity test to bind the Makah to the MMPA, the Ninth Circuit has subjected the
Makahs treaty-reserved right to whale to the academics and the expert administrators whose power-
drives may very well reflect the rise and fall in our democratic faith.168



Whaling is key to preservation of Makah cultureit is a critical transgression
against Western society that unites the tribe in opposition to cultural imperialism
and assimilation.
Van Ginkel, Anthropology Senior Lecturer at University of Amsterdam, 2004 (Rob,
The Makah Whale Hunt and Leviathans Death: Reinventing Tradition and Disputing Authenticity in the
Age of Modernity, Etnofoor, Volume 17, No ,
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25758069?uid=24956&uid=3739960&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=
24955&uid=62&uid=3739256&sid=21104306615977, accessed 7/11/2014, DVOG)

This may be so, but in the process of authenticating Makah tradition, a vast majority of the tribe chose to
single out, mobilize and articulate what they perceived to be an essential cultural element. No less than
ninety-four per cent of the respondents of a 2001 survey among Makah households believed that resuming
the hunt had affected the tribe positively. The political process of strategic essentialism provided an angle
to restore cultural pride. To achieve this, Leviathan offered its life (at least, in the Makah perception),
dividing-reuniting-dividing the tribal community, sending scorn from the world without on it, but also for
better or for worse giving a blood-infusion to its culture. In this sense, a major objective the Makah had
with recreating the whale hunt was realized against all odds, despite overwhelming opposition and largely
on their terms.
Of all possibilities, reclaiming and reenacting the cultural practice of the whale hunt could define the
Makah much more saliently than, say, basket weaving, wood carving or most other native activities that
are far less controversial to the world without.
In the final analysis, the degree to which reinstating the tribal tradition of the whale hunt was authentic in
the sense of a return to some genuine and pristine cultural stage is untenable and irrelevant because culture
is always complex, multiple, fluid and in flux (Munn 2000:352). Authenticity in this regard is a particular
cultural construct of the modern Western world (Handler 1986). There is, however, another view of
authenticity or being authentic that does have a bearing in the present case. Authenticity is often
regarded as a stance against the dominant cultural norms of mass society, the ordinary and everyday
(Handler and Saxton 1988:243; Lindholm 2002:336). Thus, conformism is inherently inauthentic.
Ultimately, being Makah is constituted through practice and experience. It does not really matter whether
the Makah whale hunt as it was conducted in 1999 harks back in every detail to history, tradition or cultural
fact at a particular point in time. What does matter is that the Makah feel they live their perception of
being Makah through their actions: an authentic experience : : : is one in which individuals feel themselves
to be in touch both with a real world and with their real selves (Handler and Saxton 1988:243). This is
not a fixed reality that can be established once and for all, but it must be produced over and over again. And
it is here that authenticity and identity become intimately connected. As Handler argues, assertions of
authenticity always have embedded within them assertions of identity (2002:964). Consequently,
authenticity refers to the recognition of difference (Fine 2003:155).Authentic behavior is distinctive
behavior. In this regard, the act of killing one gray whale was authentic enough. By transgressing a taboo of
mainstream Western society, the Makah showed the world without that they are different. In doing so,
they found their true selves and reinvented themselves as Makah.

Independently, the discursive site of treaties offers unique space for resistance by
indigenous groupswe re-appropriate treaty discourse to provide for indigenous
rights and reject attempts by the USFG to place treaty rights in the past.
Allen, English Professor at Ohio State, 2000 (Postcolonial Theory and the Discourse of
Treaties, American Quarterly, Volume 52, No 1,
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v052/52.1allen.html, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

For many American Indian individuals and communities, treaties had, by the late 1960s, come to be
regarded as a significant public record and the clearest hard evidence of the sovereign nature of indigenous
American nations; as such, treaties were seen as valid before the international community. 34 Moreover,
like Maori in New Zealand, many--though certainly not all--American Indians had long regarded treaties as
sacred covenants, solemn pledges between their [End Page 70] ancestors and the U.S. government made
before the eyes of the Creator. 35 And increasingly--but especially during and after attempts in the 1950s to
terminate several tribes' federally protected status--treaties became important symbols of American Indians'
continuing distinctiveness as nations and peoples. 36 By the late 1960s, therefore, local, ongoing histories
of treaty violations acquired political and moral connotations that resonated far beyond the reservation
boundaries established in specific documents. During the Alcatraz occupation, for example, the Treaty of
1868, signed at Fort Laramie by representatives of various Sioux bands and their allies the Arapaho, was
held up as symbolic of the sovereignty and rights of all American Indian nations and of the continuing
responsibilities of the federal government toward its treaty partners. 37 This same treaty was evoked again
in 1973 during the armed occupation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota to declare an independent Oglala
nation. 38
The Alcatraz Proclamation makes clear that American Indian appropriations of treaty discourse easily
conflate a popularized version of treaties and treaty-making--in which the government pledges to uphold
promises "for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea"--with the less colorful
provisions of specific documents. Such conflation strategically counters typical deployments of treaty
discourse by the dominant Euro-American culture. For inevitably, both the U.S. government and white U.S.
citizens have had to argue that treaty promises are politically retrograde, a contemporarily meaningless
discourse designed in the past to pacify Indians or to ameliorate their inevitable subjugation. In discussing
mid-nineteenth-century treaties, the dominant culture has had to foreground the ideas that these documents
were little more than bothersome formalities, or that they were ruses designed to deceive, or that, whatever
the federal government's intentions at the time of signing, treaty promises are no longer practical for the
nation. These ideas are held up as the important truths hidden behind the facades of actual treaty
documents. Clearly, such arguments are intended to undermine the sovereignty of American Indian nations.

To counter this dominant ideology, as I suggest above, activist texts like the Alcatraz Proclamation
foreground instead precisely those surface features of treaties that the dominant culture wishes to ignore.
Though deployed as a parody, the treaty discourse of the Alcatraz Proclamation draws attention to the ideas
that treaties are the founding discourse for peaceful relations between American Indian [End Page
71] nations and the United States, and that treaties are undeniable records of binding agreements, whatever
the U.S. government may have intended at the time of signing or may desire today. As I demonstrate in the
next section, like the activists at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, a number of American Indian writers invite
their audiences to re-recognize the discourse through which the United States both acknowledges their
nations as sovereign and solemnly pledges to uphold that sovereignty.
Promises Paper Thin: Treaty Discourse as Metaphor and Metonymy
Comprehensive studies of contemporary American Indian literature emphasize this body of work's
overwhelming concern with themes of personal identity and sense of place, articulation and
inarticulateness, and commitment to community. 39 The redeployment of treaty discourse can be situated
within this thematic matrix as one of the many strategies American Indian writers employ to represent
recovery of self, place, voice, and community--specifically, as a strategy employed to rearticulate
indigenous nations as sovereign. American Indian writers mobilize treaty discourse to create metaphors for
Indian-white relations and inscribe treaty documents in their texts as metonyms for those promises made--
and most often broken--by the federal government. The title of Thomas King's 1993 comic novel Green
Grass, Running Water, for example, refers explicitly to the over-determined, overly-metaphorical language
popularly associated with historic treaties. 40 In King's hands this language acquires significant
contemporary meaning. The novel's title announces its central theme, the contemplation of the idea that
treaties were supposed to remain in force "in perpetuity." Settlers may forecast (and hope) that Indians will
simply vanish--and with them, all treaty claims disappear--and there may be periods of real peril. But
King's novel argues that, like the forces of moving water or plant growth evoked in the discourse of
treaties, Indian peoples and their traditions tenaciously return.

Thus, the affirmative functions as a subversive act that mocks white narratives of
dominance and subjugation.
Allen, English Professor at Ohio State, 2000 (Postcolonial Theory and the Discourse of
Treaties, American Quarterly, Volume 52, No 1,
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v052/52.1allen.html, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

In recounting their peoples' struggles against settler domination, the American Indian writers discussed
above, like their Maori counterparts, engage the discourse of treaties as one of the sanctioned discourses for
inscribing such stories. But--and here is the critical maneuver--they refuse to engage, and even mock, the
subsequent rules of recognition that have enabled the dominant culture to (mis)read treaty discourse as an
enduring sign of Indian subjugation rather than as an enduring sign of compromise between mutually
respected sovereignties. Their hard won subversion is manifest in their re-recognition of a treaty discourse
that acknowledges Indian sovereignty and in their insistence on the continuing authority of that original
recognition. Given demographic and political realities, in which American Indians make up less than one
percent of the U.S. population and have little say in the design or enforcement of U.S. laws, such
maneuvers represent a deft tactics of activist occupation of significant sites of colonial discourse. As on the
tiny island of Alcatraz or at the embattled site of Wounded Knee, literary occupations of treaty discourse do
not seek to disrupt or displace the dominant colonial narrative but to realign its contemporary consumption
with the terms of the relevant past, to assert that it has an ongoing rather than a narrowly situated
authenticity.
55

Because treaties recognize indigenous nations as sovereign, they continue to offer strong legal and moral
bases from which indigenous peoples can argue land and resources rights, as well as cultural and identity
politics. Moreover, because the discourse of treaties is simultaneously pragmatic and idealistic, imposing
one group's expectations upon the other even as it envisions their reconciliation, it offers [End Page
82] indigenous activists and writers a widely recognized symbol and a set of widely recognized statements
through which they can not only express anger over past and present acts of colonial violence but,
simultaneously, continue to imagine the possibility of future peace.
56



Self-determination of cultural values is key to check back dehumanization and is
even more critical than political sovereignty.
Wiessner, Law Professor at St Thomas University, 2007 (Siegfried, Indigenous
Sovereignty: A Reassessment in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Volume 41, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jotl/manage/wp-
content/uploads/Wiessner_final_7.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

As law, in essence, ought to serve human beings, any effort to design a better law should be conceived as a
response to human needs and aspirations. These vary from culture to culture, and they change over time.
As Michael Reisman has explained, humans have a distinct need to create and ascribe meaning and value
to immutable experiences of human existence: the trauma of birth, the discovery of the self as separate
from others, the formation of gender or sexual identity, procreation, the death of loved ones, ones own
death, indeed, the mystery of it all. Each culture . . . records these experiences in ways that provide
meaning, guidance and codes of rectitude that serve as compasses for the individual as he or she navigates
the vicissitudes oflife.185 Thus, from the need to make sense of ones individual and cultural experiences
arise inner worlds, or each persons inner reality. The international human rights system, as Reisman sees
it, is concerned with protecting, for those who wish to maintain them, the integrity of the unique visions of
these inner worlds, from appraisal and policing in terms of the cultural values of others. This must be, for
these inner world cosmovisions, or introcosms, are the central, vital part of the individuality of each of us.
This is, to borrow Holmes wonderful phrase, where we live. Respect for the other requires, above all,
respect for the others inner world.186 The cultures of indigenous peoples have been under attack and are
seriously endangered. One final step is the death of their language. As George Steiner wrote in 1975: Today
entire families of language survive only in the halting remembrances of aged, individual informants . . . or
in the limbo of tape recordings. Almost at every moment in time, notably in the sphere of
American Indian speech, some ancient and rich expression of articulate being is lapsing into irretrievable
silence.187
Reisman concluded that political and economic self-determination in this context are important, but it is
the integrity of the inner worlds of peoplestheir rectitude systems or their sense of spiritualitythat is
their distinctive humanity. Without an opportunity to determine, sustain, and develop that integrity, their
humanityand ours is denied.188 Similarly, the late Vine Deloria, Jr., revered leader of the U.S.
indigenous revival, stated that indigenous sovereignty consist[s] more of a continued cultural integrity
than of political powers and to the degree that a nation loses its sense of cultural identity, to that degree it
suffers a loss of sovereignty.189 Sovereignty, explains another great Native American leader, Kirke
Kickingbird, cannot be separated from people or their culture.190 In this vein, Taiaiake Alfred appeals
for a process of de-thinking sovereignty. He states: Sovereignty . . . is a social creation. It is not an
objective or natural phenomenon, but the result of choices made by men and women, indicative of a
mindset located in, rather than a natural force creative of, a social and political order. The reification of
sovereignty in politics today is the result of a triumph of a particular set of ideas over othersno more
natural to the world than any other man-made object.
Indigenous perspectives offer alternatives, beginning with the restoration of a regime of respect. This ideal
contrasts with the statist solution, still rooted in a classical notion of sovereignty that mandates a
distributive rearrangement but with a basic maintenance of the superior posture of the state. True
indigenous formulations are nonintrusive and build frameworks of respectful coexistence by
acknowledging the integrity and autonomy of the various constituent elements of the relationship. They go
far beyond even the most liberal Western conceptions of justice in promoting the achievement of peace,
because they explicitly allow for difference while mandating the construction of sound relationships among
autonomously powered elements.191 June McCue, Director of First Nations Studies at the University of
British Columbia and member of the Neduten tribe, says: I can connect sovereignty and self-determination
within the distinct context of my people by making an analogy to the trees on my Clan or house territory.
The roots, trunk, and bark of the trees represent sovereignty to me. The special sap, food, medicines and
seedlings that come from our trees are symbiotic with the life force or energy of my people and the land,
united in a consciousness and connected through the web of life. . . .
Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty are found in the respective traditions of Indigenous peoples and
their relationships with their territories. The power to exercise sovereignty flows from their laws, customs,
and governing systems and their interconnectedness with theEarth. . . .
My peoples power is sourced or rooted in our creation stories, our spirituality and our organic and peaceful
institutions. Sovereignty requires the energy of the land and the people and is distinct about locality.192
Creation stories, in particular, are much more than accounts of the genesis of the Earth. They are essentially
normative, as they portray appropriate, model behavior193like the hadith, the traditions of the Prophet in
Islam. As the Western Shoshone say, decisions are made by consensus; the whole community thus has
ownership of the decision made.194 Those decisions are ultimately based on natural laws that are not
written by humans but imposed by the Creator, variously referred to as Mother Earth and Father Sky.195
There is no separation between church and state. McCue explains: From an Indigenous prospective,
sovereignty is not just human-centered and hierarchical; it is not solely born or sustained through brute
force. Indigenous sovereignty must be birthed through a genuine effort to establish peace, respect, and
balance in this world. Indigenous sovereignty is interconnected with self-determination. Non-Indigenous
formulations of sovereignty treat states as artificial entities that hold sovereign rights such as territorial
integrity or sovereign equality. Self-determination is severed as a right possessed by peoples which can
limit state powers. Finally, Indigenous sovereignty is sacred and renewed with ceremonies that are rooted
in the land. . . .
In this sense, sovereignty can be seen as the frame that houses the life force or energy that can flow at high
or low levels depending on how the people are living at any given particular moment in their territories.
Such sovereign attributes are renewed each and every time we use our potlatch system and when clan
members choose to fulfill their roles and responsibilities to each other and to their neighbors. These
attributes are renewed when we act as stewards for our ecological spaces. These sovereign attributes do not
negate the fact that my people also exercise attributes of sovereignty similar to those upon which Western
societies found their state systemssuch as protecting and defending territorial boundaries, and engaging
in external foreign relations with trade and commerce. I would add peacemaking, possessing governing
institutions for the people, a citizenry or permanent population with a language, and powers of wealth and
resource redistribution amongst our clans. The comparative inquiry is rather one of the priorities and
whether or not conduct or behaviors of the people are coordinate with our principles of living a good life
and maintaining and securing peaceful good relations.196
Taiaiake Alfred, even more focused on culture, has called for a physical and spiritual self-renewal of
indigenous communities, a radical indigenous resurgence.197 Self-help and re-empowerment are, thus,
key to the survival and the flourishing of indigenous communities. These gains cannot be achieved,
however, if indigenous peoples and their cultures are crushed by the constant onslaught of modern societys
influences. While it is impossible and undesirable to imprison indigenous peoples in a living museum of
their culture, the world community at large ought to support their choice to live according to the codes of
their inner worlds.

Dehumanization allows us to see people as disposable and thus extinguishable,
setting up a chain of events that terminates in endless war and genocide.
Dillon, Professor at the University of Lancaster, 1999 (Michael, ANOTHER JUSTICE,
POLITICAL THEORY VOL. 27, NO. 2, APRILL 1999, JSTOR)

Otherness is born(e) within the self as an integral part of itself and in such a way that it always remains an
inherent stranger to itself." It derives from the lack, absence, or ineradicable incompleteness which comes
from having no security of tenure within or over that of which the self is a particular hermeneutical
manifestation; namely, being itself. The point about the human, betrayed by this absence, is precisely that it
is not sovereignly self-possessed and complete, enjoying undisputed tenure in and of itself. Modes of
justice therefore reliant upon such a subject lack the very foundations in the self that they most violently
insist upon seeing inscribed there. This does not, however, mean that the dissolution of the subject also
entails the dissolution of Justice.Quite the reverse. The subject was never a firm foundation for justice,
much less a hospitable vehicle for the reception of the call of another Justice. It was never in possession of
that self-possession which was supposed to secure the certainty of itself, of a self-possession that would
enable it ultimately to adjudicate everything. The very indexicality required of sovereign subjectivity gave
rise rather to a commensurability much more amenable to the expendability required of the political and
material economies of mass societies than it did to the singular, invaluable, and uncanny uniqueness of the
self. The value of the subject became the standard unit of currency for the political arithmetic of States and
the political economies of capitalism. They trade in it still to devastating global effect. The technologisation
of the political has become manifest and global.Economies of evaluation necessarily require calculability.
Thus no valuation without mensuration and no mensuration without indexation. Once rendered calculable,
however, units of account are necessarily submissible not only to valuation but also, of course, to
devaluation. Devaluation, logically, can extend to the point of counting as nothing. Hence, no mensuration
without demensuration either. There is nothing abstract about this: the declension of economies of value
leads to the zero point of holocaust. However liberating and emancipating systems of value-rights-may
claim to be, for example, they run the risk of counting out the invaluable. Counted out, the invaluable may
then lose its purchase on life. Herewith, then, the necessity of championing the invaluable itself. For we
must never forget that, "we are dealing always with whatever exceeds measure. But how does that necessity
present itself? Another Justice answers: as the surplus of the duty to answer to the claim of Justice over
rights. That duty, as with the advent of another Justice, is integral to the lack constitutive of the human way
of being.


Observation 3: Precedent

The US federal courts have moved from the last bastion of hope for redress of
Native concerns to the most oppressive branch of governmentplan takes the first
step in reversing the last 25 years of oppression.
Young, Professor of Communication at Wayne State, 2005 (Kelly, The Ghost of Moby-
Dick and the Rhetorical Haunting of the Ninth Courts Anderson v. Evans Decision, Communication Law
Review, Volume 10, Issue 1, http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i1/PDFs/The_Ghost_of_Moby-
Dick_and_the_Rhetorical_Haunting.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

Historically, federal courts have been viewed as champions of civil rights and progressive social change.1
Particularly in Native American2 affairs, the federal judiciarydue to the legacy of landmark decisions
made by the Marshall courtwere perceived to be the only branch that respected and protected Indian
sovereignty.3 For example, the judiciary was the first branch to boldly address the status of preexisting
tribal political and property rights, giving the courts an air of sanctity and legitimacy in defining the
scope and meaning of Indian sovereignty.4 As a result, the courts began to exercise their own plenary
power over matters of Native American affairs, especially in the last 25 years.5 Subsequently, the legal
system has attributed itself with a sense of authority over Native American legal rights and sovereignty.6
However, the courts regularly downplay their increasingly influential role in Indian affairs.
For example, courts regularly argue that they would prefer to have clear congressional or executive
guidance to assist them in resolving sovereignty disputes.7 Yet, even when they receive clear direction
from the other branches, the courts are unwilling to follow this guidance. 8 Additionally, while their
authority and influence over Indian affairs has dramatically increased, the courts have become more fearful
of creating broad rulings that might make them appear to be interventionist. 9 Consequently, the courts
have severely diminished Indian sovereignty over the last 25 years without acknowledging their role in the
process.10
Yet, this legal anxiety is not solely confined to matters of Native American affairs. The legal system has
historically been viewed by minoritarian groups as an authoritative forum where matters of multicultural
difference can be properly resolved, even when the courts rulings have had detrimental effects on ethnic
minority rights.11 Here too, much like in their handling of tribal sovereignty cases, the courts strive to
appear impartial and non-interventionist. Despite their efforts, they haphazardly use selective precedence
and unjustified interpretations of statutory language and decisions that establish new doctrines that
undermine important cultural and legal rights.

12 In light of these legal patterns, this essay explores how courts discursively negotiate and reproduce their
political authority to curtail Native American self-determination and sovereignty. To do so, the written
opinion of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2002 Anderson v. Evans13 decision about the legality and
environmental impact of the Makah tribes efforts to reclaim a sovereign right to hunt gray whales is
examined. This decision was chosen for close examination because it addresses highly controversial and
complex conflicts between federal environmental regulations, international law and tribal sovereignty.14 In
particular, the decision asks the court to afford the Makah a treaty-based right to engage in an activity U.S.
law has deemed dangerous and threatening to global whale populations and the ocean ecosystem. As a
result, the case forces the court to confront the conflict that is created when treaty rights clash with national
and international norms and laws. While the Makah example is a rather narrow instance, the conflict of
issues before the court are ones that speak to a host of issues that affect the courts ability to recognize and
respect racial difference in a globalized era.15 Marshalling fundamental tenets of Critical Tribal Race
Theory (Tribal Crit), this essay examines how the discourse of the Anderson decision forecloses an
important opportunity for the Ninth court to recognize its colonialist authority to restrict Native American
sovereignty. What is of particular interest is the way in which European American16 cultural fears about
the loss of legal authority and the sublime force of nature, as discussed through allusions to the terrifying
whale in Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, call forth and mask the operation of whiteness as a governing
ideology throughout the decision. Specifically, Tribal Crit and rhetorical analysis are utilized in this essay
to expose how the law discursively deploys European American fears of Moby-Dick and the sublime to
constrain Native American beliefs, values and cultural practices in order to maintain legal legitimacy.


Anderson sets a precedentthe case allows courts to ignore treaty rights.
Young, Professor of Communication at Wayne State, 2005 (Kelly, The Ghost of Moby-
Dick and the Rhetorical Haunting of the Ninth Courts Anderson v. Evans Decision, Communication Law
Review, Volume 10, Issue 1, http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i1/PDFs/The_Ghost_of_Moby-
Dick_and_the_Rhetorical_Haunting.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

Furthermore, the courts discourse sets dangerous precedent for Native American rights and sovereignty. In
making its decision, the court can ignore consideration of sovereign rights and specific treaty language
because the deployment of Moby-Dick allows the justices to privilege the underlying conservation
necessity of the Marine Mammal Protection Act as their overriding reason to reject the cultural and
religious reasons for the hunt. By deciding the case based on conservation principles made exceptionally
visible by the literary allusion to Moby-Dick, issues of treaty abrogation were never fully considered. As
the court explained, because of our conclusion that the MMPA applies in light of the conservation purpose
of the statute and the literal language of the treaty, we need not consider plaintiffs alternative arguments
that the MMPA applies by virtue of treaty abrogation.82 As this statement makes clear, the court
considered the question of treaty abrogation irrelevant once presumption was made in favor of species
conservation

. Illuminated by Tribal Crit, this shift in presumption is dangerous for Native American sovereignty. Due to
its plenary power over all Native American issues, Congress can abrogate or amend existing Federal-Indian
treaties. However, the Supreme Court has held that courts should adopt a strong presumption that federal
laws generally do not veto treaty rights unless Congress expressly discussed the issue and chose to modify
the treaty right.83 Despite these measures to protect Native American sovereignty, in reaching its decision,
the Anderson court ignored specific statements from members of Congress that outlined how the MMPA
did not abrogate treaty rights.84 Thus, once the court concluded that this was an issue of conservation
necessity and not treaty rights, they were able to disregard a rather strong precedence in favor of treaty
rights while increasing colonial interference and their authority to act against Native American interests.
Additionally, the discourse of the court exposes how little Native American values and traditions are
considered by the court. When the court explains the background of the case, they limited their description
to the mechanical process through which the Makah made their request. There is only one paragraph that
mentions the treaty-based reasons justifying why the Makah wanted to hunt. In this section the court
stated, The Treatyis the only treatythat specifically protects the right to hunt whales suggests the
historic importance of whaling to the Makah.85 Note here that whaling is cast as a historic and past need.
Thus, even when the Makah have an opportunity to present their own voices and beliefs before the court,
Makah culture is constituted as counter to the natural progression of European American culture and
time.86 In this particular instance, the court reaffirms whiteness as the basis for its decision and uses the
law as a silencing agent fueled by racism when the Makah tribe and Native American culture are
discursively situated as remote, distant and thus unimportant in comparison to the contemporary, eco-
friendly and civilized culture of European America.
Lastly, the only other substantive discussion of the treaty examined the treaty language on its face
to conclude that the treaty gave equal rights to all citizens of the U.S. to use whale resources.87 Because all
citizens enjoy this right, the court concluded that it could not grant special privilege to the Makah to hunt
when all other (European American) citizens are restricted from whaling. However, what the court fails to
explain in this argument is that the special privilege is not something that the court would be creating as a
result of its decision. Instead, the right to whale was given to Makah in exchange for their territory and
sovereign independence. Thus, the privilege cannot be special when European Americans have not made
similar sacrifices for this right. Here whiteness surfaces as a marker of racialized dismissal in that the
underlying assumption in the decision is that everyone is equal, despite the long history of colonial
relations between European and Native Americans that have relegated Native American identity and
culture to a position of legal and social inferiority.88


The USFG has a legal and moral obligation to uphold treaties signed with Native
Americans
Tanner, co-coordinator of Borderlands Research and Education, 2009
(Charles Tanner Jr, 9-18-09, Keeping our Word: Indigenous Sovereignty and Treaty Rights,
https://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/treaty-rights-and-tribal-sovereignty/319-keeping-our-word-indigenous-
sovereignty-and-treaty-rights, 6-9-14, DMM)
Treaty rights are inherent legal and moral rights held by indigenous nations. A treaty is a legal contract
between sovereign nations. European colonizers used treaties to legitimize the transfer of land from tribal
peoples. Treaties were also means of achieving peaceful relations and creating boundaries. Tribal leaders
often saw treaties as bringing about multi-cultural unity and relations of support and alliance.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the president can sign treaties with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.
Once approved by the Senate, Article 6 Section 2 of the Constitution states that "[A]ll Treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the
judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any state to the
contrary notwithstanding."
By signing treaties with tribes, the U.S. government recognized their existence as sovereign nations. This
was stated clearly in 1979 when the Supreme Court explained that "A treaty, including one between the
United States and an Indian tribe, is essentially a contract between two sovereign nations." [7]
Anti-Indian activists and politicians often describe treaties as giving rights to Indian tribes. Likewise, they
claim that treaty rights are "special rights" and that Indians are "supercitizens" as a result of treaties.
Such ideas are simply wrong.
In reality, treaties reserved rights long held by tribes. In exchange for land and other commitments tribes
secured recognition of their status and a federal commitment to encroach no further on the rights made
explicit and implied in treaties. The idea of treaty rights as reserved rights was recognized by the Supreme
Court in 1905 in U.S. v. Winans:
That is, treaties gave nothing to tribes, only to the U.S. government and its citizens. By entering into
treaties the United States obtained the land and resource base that have allowed it to become the wealthiest
society on earth.
It is important to recognize the unequal context in which treaty-making occurred. The era of treaty-
making from the colonial period to 1871 coincided with aggressive westward expansion by Americans,
forced Indian removal and repeated wars of aggression by the United States against indigenous peoples.
While not all treaties were signed under threat of forced removal and warfare, many were. Treaties were
negotiated in English and limited inter-tribal languages, a fact used to the advantage of U.S. treaty
negotiators.[9] Treaties were sometimes altered by the Senate without tribal approval and the United States
often used treaties to "divide and conquer" tribes.[10] White settlers also repeatedly rushed into Indian
Country, with the support of the U.S. military, in express violation of treaties some of the continents first
"illegal aliens."
The unequal relationship between tribes and the U.S. government during treaty-making is recognized by
the Supreme Court. As a result of this inequality and the federal "trust" obligation to act in the interests of
tribes, the Court has developed "canons of construction" used to interpret treaty cases. These canons hold
that treaties should be interpreted as they would have been understood by tribes; that ambiguities in treaty
language be interpreted liberally in support of tribes; and that treaties must be liberally interpreted in favor
of tribes. While these rules have produced favorable rulings for tribes, courts have also ignored them in
order to rule against tribes or limit tribal rights.
While the United States has legal and moral obligations to uphold treaty rights, treaty violations by federal
and state governments and U.S. citizens have been frequent. In part, these violations stem from the fact that
a legacy of colonialism continues to influence U.S. relations with Indian tribes.[11] In Lone Wolf v.
Hitchcock (1903) the Supreme Court described a congressional plenary power over tribes that can be used
to violate treaties:
The Court ruled that Congress can abrogate agreements with tribes even when doing so is a result of fraud
and misrepresentation and takes place without tribal consent.
Based on Lone Wolf and cases like it, the Supreme Court has expanded the "legal" means used to violate
treaties. While earlier cases required "explicit statutory language" to rule that a treaty had been abrogated,
in U.S. v Dion the Court ruled that Congressional abrogation can be inferred if there is evidence that
Congress "considered the conflict between its intended actionand an Indian treaty," and then chose to
resolve the "conflict by abrogating the treaty."[13] While treaty violations are often considered wrongs
committed in the distant past, the U.S. government has created both congressional and judicial mechanisms
for continuing to violate treaties with indigenous nations.
Not surprisingly, treaties continue to be violated by federal and state governments and U.S. citizens.
Treaties can be abrogated outright, as in U.S. v Dion, or violated when federal laws are imposed on tribes
and interfere with the exercise of treaty-reserved rights. The latter occurred when the 9th Circuit Appeals
Court imposed the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) on the Makah nation despite the tribes treaty-
reserved right to hunt whales. When five Makah men, frustrated with the pace of federal permitting under
the MMPA, hunted a gray whale in 2007, the federal government compounded this violation by arresting
them. The federal government has also allotted lands in express violation of treaty terms (1868 Treaty of
Fort Laramie with the Lakota) and assumed control of lands never ceded by treaty (1863 Treaty of Ruby
Valley with the Western Shoshone).[14]
Treaties have also been violated when treaty-reserved resources are destroyed by federal or state
governments or U.S. citizens. Washington State is presently in violation of six treaties signed in the 1850s
with Pacific Northwest tribes. These treaties reserved a "right of taking fish at usual and accustomed
groundsin common with all citizens." In 1974 inU.S. v Washington a federal district court recognized a
treaty-reserved right to one-half the fish passing through these "usual and accustomed" tribal fishing
grounds.[15] However, the ongoing collapse of Pacific salmon stocks, a result of multiple non-Indian
economic practices, violates the treaties by destroying the treaty-reserved fishery. In 2001, twenty tribes
sued Washington State over hundreds of state-constructed culverts that cut off hundreds of miles of salmon
habitat. A 2006 sub-proceeding of U.S. v Washington upheld a state obligation to "refrain from building or
operating culverts under State-maintained roads that hinder fish passage and thereby diminish the number
of fish that would otherwise be available for Tribal harvest."[16] Because negotiations between tribes and
the state failed to resolve the issue, the implementation phase of the case will be heard in federal district
court in October.


Solvency:
All is not lostthe Supreme Court can review the case for errors of law and correct
the precedent.
Stevens, 2012 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga
Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)

But the Ninth Circuit for its part seems to have corrected itself and embarked upon a path destined to either
proscribe the applicability of Andersons use of the conservation necessity test only to assessing the
relationship between state regulations and treaties with in common rights,194or ridding itself
altogether of the Makahs tragic, crushing millstone. Addressing a pre-trial motion195 in a case involving
whether or not the Migratory Bird Treaty Act abrogated hunting rights reserved by the Yakama Treaty, on
August 13, 2009, federal judge Edward F. Shea of the Eastern District of Washington addressed squarely
the Anderson courts errors. [A] court analyzing the impact of federal legislation on treaty rights must
determine whether Congress clearly and plainly intended to modify or abrogate an Indian treaty right. 196
Judge Shea then addressed the series of cases Puyallup I and II and Fryberg which develop and chart
the application of the conservation necessity test to state statutes that would infringe upon Indian treaty-
reserved rights. Judge Shea then described the weight and consideration test implemented by Dion, noting
that while Congress has the authority to abrogate an Indian treaty right, a state does not.197 Although
the Ninth Circuit [in Anderson] was analyzing a federal [statute], not a state statute or regulation, the
Ninth Circuit failed to use congressional treaty abrogation analysis. This failure conflicts with . . . basic
principles of Indian treaty analysis.198 Judge Shea noted that the Anderson court, despite its intellectual
prestidigitations, did recognize that Dion did not discuss the conservation necessity test but the Anderson
court erroneously concluded that the conservation necessity test . . . has not been undermined by later
cases and is supported by the Supreme Court authorities.199 This conclusion, Judge Shea asserted, was
reached without analysis and is wrong. The Supreme Court cases alluded to [in Anderson] involved state
regulations and treaties with in common rights. When the Supreme Court has explicitly used
congressional treaty abrogation analysis to interpret federal statutes, the same analysis should be used when
interpreting the same federal statutes and treaty rights.200
Judge Shea is not alone in this belief. Writing for the District Court from the District of Nevada and
similarly called upon to address the extent to which the Migratory Bird Treaty Act may have abrogated
Indian treaty-reserved rights, Magistrate Judge Lawrence R. Leavitt similarly criticized the Anderson
fiat.201 In assessing whether Congress implicitly abrogated a treaty right, what is essential, is clear and
convincing evidence that Congress considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and
Indian treaty rights on the other. [After undergoing this analysis, if Congress subsequently] chose to resolve
the conflict by abrogating the treaty . . . the proper approach, continued Magistrate Leavitt, would be
clear but for the Ninth Circuits 1980 decision in United States v. Fryberg and the application of Frybergs
analysis [ the conservation necessity test ] in Anderson v. Evans.202 Magistrate Leavitt then went on to
repeat that in developing its conservation necessity test, the Ninth Circuit based its doctrine on various
Supreme Court cases, all of which involve state conservation statutes or regulations, and not congressional
treaty abrogation power.203 In recognizing that the Dion Court used the weight and consideration test to
determine the applicability of a congressional enactment to a treaty-reserved right, Magistrate Leavitt was
similarly careful to note that in Dion the Supreme Court employed an abrogation analysis in reaching its
holding, without once referring to Fryberg or the state-based conservation necessity analysis [from the
Ninth Circuit]. Nevertheless, eight years after Dion, the Ninth Circuit in Anderson v. Evans applied the
conservation necessity doctrine to a federal statute without recognizing or engaging in an abrogation
analysis.204 As categorically as Judge Shea had, Magistrate Leavitt then concluded that the Ninth
Circuits decision in Anderson cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Courts decision in Dion.205 The
Anderson Courts conclusion that its own conservation necessity test ought to be applied in determining the
applicability of congressional enactments to Indian treaty-reserved rights was reached without
analysis.206
The Anderson court clearly conflated the state conservation necessity test with the federal weight and
consideration test in holding the Makahs exercise of their treaty-reserved right to whale bound by the
MMPA. But the great tragic irony of the matter is that in defense of four whales per year of the estimated
20,000 global beasts, three circuit judges have embarked upon a course which further erodes tribal
sovereignty and cultural identity when the absence of whaling presents devastating consequences on Makah
health and their collective psyche.207 Particularly illustrative of the ridiculousness of this fact and the
decided, intuitive injustice of it all is the quota of 120 whales per year granted by the IWCthe recognized
global expert administrative body on the California Gray Whaleto the Russian Confederation on behalf of
the Chukotka while three circuit judges sitting on a domestic American court have prohibited the Makah
from hunting four whales per year in exercise of its treaty-reserved right to do so. Compounding the
maddening injustice is that in doing this, these circuit judges have chosen to ignore United States Supreme
Court precedent in favor of applying the test the Ninth Circuit itself developed, even when the United
States Supreme Court has held that the Ninth Circuits test is to be applied in determining the effect state
statutesnot federal statuteshave on Indian treaty-reserved rights. As Indian Law scholar Felix S. Cohen
presciently penned 60 years ago, stifling the exercise of much of what it means to be Makah reflects the
rise and fall in our democratic faith208 as the Ninth Circuit brings the Makah under the heel of expert
administrators whose power-drives are always accompanied by soft music about the withering away of the
state or the ultimate liquidation of this or that bureau.209
The aff also functions on a rhetorical levelcriticizing court decisions and calling
for revision of bad case law is critical to understanding how the courts operate as
oppressors. The plan begins the process of reversing courts undermining of Native
sovereignty.
Young, Professor of Communication at Wayne State, 2005 (Kelly, The Ghost of Moby-
Dick and the Rhetorical Haunting of the Ninth Courts Anderson v. Evans Decision, Communication Law
Review, Volume 10, Issue 1, http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i1/PDFs/The_Ghost_of_Moby-
Dick_and_the_Rhetorical_Haunting.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)

While other Tribal Crit accounts of the law have noted how the law stabilizes and evokes whiteness to
defend contemporary European-Native American relations, the analysis of the Anderson decision
elucidates how important it is to reveal how whiteness infiltrates the court in seemingly small and
unexpected ways. For instance, Tribal Crit scholars such as Robert Clinton and Robert Porter contend that
the entire foundation of federal policy is rooted in white colonialism, which suggests a certainty and
intentionality of racism within the legal system.90 Yet, the reasoning found in the Anderson case and many
other Native American decisions demonstrate that the courts act in very incremental, confusing and
contradictory ways that appear far more accidental and hesitant.91 In the presence of such confusion and
uncertainty, whiteness emerges in a seemingly innocent fashion as a sense of normality that guides the
courts decisions. While Tribal Crit provides powerful means to evaluate the white colonial effects of broad
and new judicial doctrine changes, it has yet to explicate the more subtle ways that Native American law is
transformed through rhetorical maneuvers masked as sensible precedence and presumption. Furthermore
scholars must avoid the common problem of treating the courts as impartial and politically-insulated
entities. For too long, as Lucaites points out, the communication studies discipline has treated the law as a
sacred cow.92 In other words, communication studies has often failed to appreciate how the courts
discourse legitimates and masks its role in undermining Native American sovereignty. Instead, our
discipline tends discipline tends to examine the courts as a context in which certain speakers or genres of
speech operate.
Until we incorporate a more critical interrogation of the political nature of the legal system, communication
studies analyses of the law and its impact will be, at best, ineffective and, at worst, counterproductive.
These shortcomings found in Tribal Crit and Communication Studies suggest why a combined
rhetorical/Tribal Crit approach, such as the one used in this study, is important to elucidate how the courts
and the law undermine Native American sovereignty. In examining the discursive maneuvers made in
Anderson v. Evans, we observe how whiteness appears and becomes legitimized within the courts rhetoric.
What makes the Anderson decision quite fascinating is that whiteness in this courts decision is not hidden
at all in actuality; instead, it surfaces as a large, terrifying (white) whale in the opening epigraph of the
courts written opinion. While it could be tempting to dismiss the literary allusions to Moby-Dick as mere
rhetorical embellishment, the analysis offered here demonstrates that the sublime discourse of Moby-Dick
seems to be the only clear logic that the court is following. Furthermore, while the Anderson decision is a
rather unique and narrow example of this type of discourse

because it is only about one Native American controversy in one decision, it offers a rare and highly
illustrative opportunity to see the courts response to multicultural difference in a globalized era.
Obviously, not all courts or justices will utilize the same rhetorical technologies, but signs of allusions,
metaphors, and other cultural references within legal decisions may give important clues as to how the
court privileges whiteness to undermine Native American and other minoritarian attempts to secure legal
remedies.


Lt. Danny Xu-Liu
Makah Whaling 1AC:
Plan:
The United States Supreme Court should grant certiorari to Anderson v Evans and
rule that the Makahs whaling rights under the Treaty of Neah Bay exempts them
from the Marine Mammal Protection Act permit requirements.
Contention 1 is Inherency:

The Makah arent being allowed to whale
Smillie 14 (Joe, Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor, 5/17, Peninsula Daily News,
Makah whalers commemorate 15th anniversary of last legal whale kill,
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20140518/NEWS/305189969/makah-
whalers-commemorate-15th-anniversary-of-last-legal-whale-kill, Accessed 7/14/14)
NEAH BAY Fifteen years after returning from their tribe's last legal whale kill, some members of the crew of Makah whale
hunters who led that hunt set out again into the bay aboard the Hummingbird whaling canoe Saturday. It gives me chills. It just gives
me chills, said Charlotte Williams King. Descended from a long line of whalers, King thought of her ancestors as she watched the
canoes paddle in Neah Bay. Her great-grandfather, John Hiska McCarty, dove underwater to tie closed the mouths of harpooned
whales. I didn't really realize it, but 15 years is a long time, she said. Saturday's paddle, which included a chase
canoe, was organized by the Makah Whaling Commission. It commemorated the anniversary of the tribe's successful
whale hunt on May 17, 1999. It was the first time in 50 years that the Makah had harpooned a whale, and it
happened aboard Hummingbird. Members of the 1999 hunt crew led by Capt. Wayne Johnson were Theron Parker, Mike Steves,
Darrell Markishtum, Glenn Johnson, Keith Johnson, Arnie Hunter, Franklin Wilson, Bruce Gonzelas, Dan Greene, Gordon Parker,
Andy Noel, Donald H. Swan and Greg Arnold. Most were aboard Hummingbird on Saturday. Keith Johnson, president of the whaling
commission, recalled the controversy that surrounded the 1999 kill of a gray whale, nicknamed May, whose skeleton now hangs in
the Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay. Last time we had a whaling crew in that [canoe], those
terrorists, those eco-terrorists, that were out there in their Zodiacs waking our boat and throwing smoke
canisters at us, Keith Johnson remembered. The last whale killed by Makah tribal members was in 2007, when a
group of five illegally shot dead a gray whale. Members of the 2007 crew were Wayne Johnson, Parker,
Noel, Gonzales and William Secor Sr. Wayne Johnson served five months in federal prison and Noel 90
days for their roles in the kill. Hummingbird was retired in 2006 after it capsized, killing Joseph Andrew Jerry Jack, a hereditary
chief of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht tribe of Vancouver Island, during an InterTribal Canoe Journey. Some had called for
Hummingbird to be burned, Keith Johnson said, saying it had been cursed. You don't burn a whaling canoe, he said Saturday. You
bless it. The Makah voluntarily stopped hunting gray whales in the 1920s when populations diminished.
Gray whales were listed as endangered species in 1970. When the species was taken off the list in 1994, the
Makah worked to resume subsistence hunting. In the 15 years since the legal kill, the tribe's right to hunt
whales, guaranteed in the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, has been embroiled in court reviews over science. After
being allowed to hunt in 1998 and 1999,which ended in the killing of one whale, whale hunts were stopped
shortly thereafter by a federal court order saying the Makah needed an environmental impact statement to
obtain a waiver from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The International Whaling Commission
in 2007 granted the tribe the right to kill as many as 20 whales over five years with no more than five in
a single year but it still must get a federal waiver to conduct a hunt. We have judges that are animal rights
activists that will do anything to put a road block in front of our treaty right to hunt whales, Keith Johnson said. Just leave us alone.



Contention 2 is Sovereignty:

The Makah have a right to hunt whales by treaty
Stevens 12 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal, Volume
1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)
And the Makah have been hunting whales for 1,500 years.14 Makah religion in fact instructs that
Thunderbird, a flying wolflike god, delivered a whale to their shores to save them from starvation.15 For
at least 3,000 years since, the gray whales have been sacred icons in the petroglyphs, jewelry, art, carvings, songs,
and dances16 of the Makah. Whaling has not only been a source of subsistence to the Makah as they have learned to survive
thrive, even, before westward expansion squeezed them onto their current reservationatop their clump of clay, rock, and dirtwhaling
has been an expression of religious faith and community cohesion.17 Nowhere else is this reverence, this sense of
cultural inter-dependence, more illustrated than in the Treaty of Neah Bay.18 The Treaty of Neah Bay is the
constitutionally binding source of federal plenary authority and dominion over the Makah Indiansthe
exercise of the Indian Commerce clause which grants the congressional right to dictate by legislative fiat
the totality of Makah affairs. Effectuated in 1855, it is but one of the eleven different treaties, each with several different
tribes19 produced by Governor Isaac Stevens.20 Congress chosen method of opening up vast swaths of Pacific Northwest land for
white westward expansion was through the negotiation of treaties, as an instrument of conquest.21 And to clear the way for white
settlement onto Indian lands, to accommodate the increasing flow of American settlers pouring into the lowlands of Puget Sound and
the river valleys north of the Columbia River, Governor Isaac Stevens was tasked with inducing the Indians of the area to
movevoluntarily22 onto reservations. Indeed, Governor Stevens was well-suited for the undertaking. He recognized in the
Makah not much concern for their land (save for their village, burial sites, and other sundry locations), but recognized
great concern for their marine hunting and fishing rights.23 The Governor therefore reassured the Makah
that the United States government did not intend to stop them from marine hunting and fishing but in fact
would help them to develop these pursuits. 24 But Governor Stevens did not speak the Makahs language, nor did the
Makah representatives speak English. Instead, the Treaty of Neah Bay was negotiated in English and an interpreter translated English
into Chinook Jargon which then a member of the Clallum Tribe translated into Makah: English into Chinook into Makah, and
back.25Nevertheless, Governor Stevens was sufficiently intuitive and well enough informed to recognize the
primacy of the whale in Makah culture; indeed the man promised United States assistance in securing a
treaty-based right for the Makah to whale and promote Makah whaling because in his own words, The
Great Father knows what whalers you are.27 Much of the official record of the treaty negotiations thus
deals with securing the right to whale; and as consideration for that treaty-reserved right, the Makah ceded
91% of their landa full 300,000 square acresand retained only a 27,000 square acre wind-swept, crag-
ridden, mountainous, forest covered region, with no arable land except the low swamp and marsh.28 The Makah
were not interested in becoming tillers of soil or hunters of the elk, deer, and bear which dwelt among them. Yes, the Makah grew
their potatoes and gathered berries when the season was proper, but no culture can survive on tubers and berries alone; a people
requires animal food, and [the Makah] prefer[red] the products of the ocean to the farina of the land.29 As a
testament to the importance of the whale to every aspect of Makah culture and as an illustration of the
extent to which the act of whaling was more important to the Makah than it was to any other tribe with
which the Government negotiated a treaty, the Treaty of Neah Bay is the only United States-Indian treaty
which secures for the Indians the express right to whale: the right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing
at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common 30 with all citizens of
the United States.31



NOAA and the IWC recognizes that right.
Stevens 12 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal, Volume
1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)
Happily, by June of 1994, the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) population of the California Gray Whale had
recovered to near its estimated original population size and [was] neither in danger of extinction
throughout all or a significant portion of its range, nor likely to again become endangered within the
foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range.48 This steady, stable population of
approximately 20,000 California Gray Whales 49 leisurely roaming the seas was delisted under the ESA that same
year, and the Makah decided to resume its hunting of those who migrated through the Sanctuary.50 To accomplish this
end, the Makah sought the assistance of the Federal governments Department of Commerce: specifically,
the NOAA which Congress had tasked with the promulgation of regulations to implement the Whaling Convention Act. Indeed, on
March 22, 1996, the Makah and the NOAA entered into a formal written agreement by which the NOAA,
through the United States Commissioner to the IWC, will make a formal proposal to the IWC for a quota of
gray whales for subsistence and ceremonial use by the Makah Tribe.51 But in response to this agreement, in June of
1997, two organizationsAustralians for Animals and the BEACH Marine Protectionsubmitted a letter to NOAA alleging that the
United States Government had violated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by authorizing and promoting the Makah whaling
proposal without preparing an52 Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The NOAA
responded by distributing an EA for public comment, in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, on August 22,
1997.53 A short time later, on October 13, 1997, NOAA and the Makah entered into a new written agreement which required the
Makah to confine hunting activities to the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.54 After the signing of this new agreement, the NOAA
issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) four days later, on October 17, 1997.55 One day later at the IWCs annual
meeting the United States on behalf of the Makah, and the Russian Confederation on behalf of a Siberian aboriginal group
called the Chukotka, submitted a joint proposal for a five-year block quota of 20 whales. The total quota of 20
assumed an average annual harvest of 120 whales by the Chukotka and an average annual harvest of four whales by the
Makah.56 Yet some delegates expressed doubts about whether the Makah qualified for the quota under the aboriginal
subsistence exception,57 and therefore suggested amending the joint proposal to allow the quota to be used only by aboriginal
groups whose traditional subsistence and cultural needs have been recognized by the International Whaling Commission.58 The
United States rejected this amendment, arguing that the IWC had no established mechanism for recognizing such needs.59 The
proposal submitted by the United States and the Russian Federation was thus amended to allow the block quota of 620 whales to be
used only by aboriginal groups whose traditional subsistence and cultural needs have been recognized.60 This quota shortly
thereafter was approved, and on April 6, 1998, NOAA issued a Federal Register Notice allocating a quota to the
Makah for limited hunts in 1999. This allowed the Makah, in lawful exercise of its re-established
expressly-reserved treaty right, to engage in whaling pursuant to the IWC-approved quota and Whaling
Convention Act regulations.61

The Ninth Circuit court of appeals requires the Makah to comply with the MMPA
abrogating that treaty right.
Stevens 12 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal, Volume
1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)
Anderson arose in the wake of the NMFS and the NOAA response to Metcalf. Complying with that courts directive, in January of
2001 NMFS and NOAA published another Draft Environmental Assessment. The whale quota in this
Draft, and in the Makah Management Plan which accompanied it, targeted migrating whales. This meant
that whaling would be allowed only in the open waters of the Pacific Ocean which are outside the Tatoosh-Bonilla
Line,155 thus targeting migratory whales. But the Makah revised their management plan; the amended plan, in contrast to the
Tribes earlier management plan, did not contain any general geographic limitations on the whale hunt.156 This amendment was not
incorporated into the Draft Environmental Assessment and there had thus been no opportunity for public comment on the important
157 change. Additionally, none of the scientific studies relied upon in the Draft EA evaluated the impact of the revised management
plan. 158 Nevertheless, the NOAA and the NMFS issued a FONSI, thereby obviating the need to proceed, under
NEPA, with an EIS. 15 The next step in the administrative saga took place when NOAA and the NMFS
issued a Federal Register notice on December 13, 2001 announcing a quota160 of five gray whales in 2001
and 2002, and in approval of the Makah management plan.161 It should come as no surprise, then, that citizens and
animal welfare groups filed another complaint in January 2002, alleging violations of both the National Environmental Policy Act and
the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Once again, the Makah Tribe intervened as a defendant, and once again, on the district court
level, summary judgment was granted to the defendants, whereupon the plaintiffs, once again, appealed.162 The saga took its
most relevant and unhappy turn when the Ninth Circuit considered the plaintiffs appeal from the district
courts summary judgment, and reversed the lower court. The court held in Anderson v. Evans that the
governments failure to prepare an EIS violated NEPA and the MMPAs take moratorium and permitting
process was binding upon the Tribes exercise of its treaty-reserved right to hunt whales. On November 26, 2003
163 and June 7, 2004,164 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied en banc rehearings and issued amended opinions which clarified
the (faulty) legal reasoning of its decision, but did not alter the conclusion. Having held that the Marine Mammal Protection Act
proscribes the Makah Tribes treaty-reserved whaling rights, the Anderson Court stated that they were not overruling
the Treaty of Neah Bays explicitly-reserved right to whale; this however is in essence the practical impact
of the decision. In reaching its conclusion, the Court used the state conservation necessity test which the United States Supreme
Court in Puyallup I, II and US v. Washington used to assess the constitutionality of state laws which infringe upon Indian treaty rights,
while the MMPA is a federal law. Regardless of the United States Supreme Courts clear intention to promulgate
two distinct tests to assess a federal or a state statutes constitutionality when the statute infringes upon a
treaty-reserved right, it is this latter test, this state conservation necessity test, which the Ninth Circuit
followed in applying the MMPA in Anderson v. Evans. The satisfaction of the state conservation necessity test was
instrumental in the Ninth Circuits ruling against a Tulalip Indian who shot and killed a bald eagle on the Tulalip reservation in United
States v. Fryberg.165 In Fryberg, the Ninth Circuit faced in 1980 the same issue the Supreme Court would address in 1986 in Dion:
whether the Eagle Protection Act modified or abrogated Indian treaty-reserved rights. In deciding the matter, the Ninth Circuit took its
cue from the Puyallup cases, applying the state conservation necessity test, this time to a federal statute, which the United States
Supreme Court in Puyallup I and Puyallup II etched into judicial granite. Yet each Puyallup case involved state conservation laws, not
federal statutes. Further illustrative of the fact that the United States Supreme Court in Dion was developing a distinct test to be used
for determining the relevance of federal statutes to treaty-reserved rights, is the incontrovertible fact that not oncenot in the text, not
in a footnotein its Dion opinion did the United States Supreme Court six years later mention either Fryberg or any of the Puyallup
cases. Indeed, there was no need to mention either because neither was relevant. Instead, there was to be a distinction between manner
of determining the relevance of a states conservation statute to treaty-reserved tribal rights and determining the relevance of a federal
statute to treaty-reserved tribal rights because the provenance of state authority over Indian tribes differs from the provenance of
federal authority over Indian tribes. The Ninth Circuit was careful to note in Anderson, however, that they were not
deciding whether or not the MMPA actually abrogated the Makah treaty-reserved right to whale, holding
only that satisfaction of the state conservation necessity test bound the Makah to MMPA regulations.166
But hearkening to the distinction between regulation and abrogation as a way to avoid the larger abrogation
analysis is intellectual sophistry which skirts the issue of whether Congress intended a federal statute to even
apply toand in this way to limitan Indian treaty-reserved right. Applying the state conservation necessity
test to determine the effects of a state statute violates a sacrosanct tenet in the field of Federal Indian Law
and a Supreme Court admonition: congressional intent to modify or abrogate Indian treaty-rights is not to
be lightly imputed.167 Having used the state conservation and necessity test to bind the Makah to the MMPA, the Ninth
Circuit has subjected the Makahs treaty-reserved right to whale to the academics and the expert
administrators whose power-drives may very well reflect the rise and fall in our democratic faith.168

Compliance with the MMPA requires the NOAA and the Makah to file
Environmental Impact Statements and to continually re-apply for permits, binding
the Makah to bureaucratic obstacle courses which result in denying them access to
whaling.
Stevens 12 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal, Volume
1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)
And so in September of 2003, having worked closely with federal agencies on marine mammal issues for
over fifteen years, the Makah Tribe formally instituted a Marine Mammal Management Program of its
own.170 The Tribe intended to monitor marine mammal populations, particularly the Eastern North Pacific stock of
gray whales, within its usual and accustomed whaling areas171 and to develop regulations regarding marine mammals
that might be stranded in Makah territory or be caught as incidental bycatch in the Tribes fisheries.172 Paramount among the
programs motives was to reduce incidental mortality of marine mammals . . . and look at ways to reduce harm to gear.173 The
program scheduled and oversaw marksmanship training174 for hopeful whaling crews and for the next three years would participate
in survey operations, charged with identifying gray whales by visual observations and aerial photographs.175 In 2004, the Makah
Program began to participate in the IWC Scientific Committee meetingssending its marine biologist to participate
in the meetings as a United States delegateand this collaboration continued in 2005 and 2006.176 In 2004, the Makah marine
biologist was invited to join a research project that documented and monitored contaminants in marine mammals collected in the
Makahs usual and accustomed nwhaling grounds.177 Having become of its own accord entirely satisfied that resuming its treaty-
reserved whaling practice yet again would pose absolutely no deleterious effects on the global California Gray Whale population, on
February 14, 2005, the Makah sent NOAA Fisheries a request for a limited waiver of the MMPA take
moratorium, including the issuance of regulations and any necessary permits. The application submitted
explicitly explained the Makahs request, the applicable law, the international California Gray Whale
populations, and the impact Makah whaling may have on the California Gray Whale population.178 In
response, NOAA published a notice of availability of the waiver request on March 3, 2005 179 and the
process began anew for the third time. On August 25, 2005, NOAA Fisheries published a Notice of Intent to conduct public
scoping meetings and to prepare the EIS required under NEPA, the MMPA and Anderson, related to the Makah Tribes request to
resume its treaty-reserved practice of whaling.180 Initially, NOAA proposed that its updated draft EIS would be ready for public
comment in December of 2006 and that the final draft EIS would be complete in August or September 181 of 2007; the comment
period would then begin and a final document, and a final decision, would follow eight to ten months later, in the summer of
2008.182 But not until nearly three years later, on May 9, 2008, did NOAA Fisheries announce the release of
a draft EIS, and the comment period began.183 And even now, more than four years after the comment period
began, NOAA has still failed to make a final determination. Of particular importance to NOAAs consideration of the
Tribe's request is information on the genetic structure of the Eastern Northern Pacific Stock of Gray Whales. Three Technical
Memorandums184 currently under consideration implicitly argue that the 2008 Draft EIS is insufficient for failing to address the
possibility that the Eastern North Pacific stock185 of the California Gray Whale is sufficiently isolated from the rest of the global
population to merit a new Draft EIS. The majority of California Gray whales migrate north to summer feeding grounds in the Bering,
Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas [while] a small number of individuals [of about 200] spend the summer feeding in the waters ranging
from northern California to southeast Alaska.186 The scientific/academic community commonly regards the former constituency as
the northern feeding group and the latter as the southern feeding group. A California Gray whale learns from its mother site fidelity
to different feeding grounds.187 Because California Gray whale calves have through the ages learned from their mothers what and
where a feeding ground is, one memorandum contends that knowledge of specific feeding areas is only present within certain
matrilines. Therefore, if whales are extirpated from a specific feeding ground, they will not be replaced (or the area will not be
repopulated) by others.188 The memorandum also demonstrates that there are very slight mitochondrial differences extant between
the northern and southern feeding groups and argues that these differences predate whaling.189 Accordingly, because with the
extirpation of the 200 whales which the authors presume comprise the southern feeding group, the strain of whales possessing that
slight mitochondrial distinction will not re-populate. The authors themselves concede that there is some degree of migration between
the northern and southern feeding groups, but assert that although reliable estimates of migration rates could not be obtained here, the
data clearly show that rate of migration is low enough for the two groups to represent independent demographic entities.190 The
authors then conclude that the southern feeding group consequently qualifies as a separate management unit, and requires separate
management considerations.191While the Memorandum does not state exactly what these considerations should compel, all they can
compel is another EIS. Taking the authors contentions to be true, the authors still fail to address the near extirpation of the species
and the geographic size of the southern feeding groups southern feeding grounds. Consider the following: if the southern feeding
group is a distinct management unit, as the authors contend, and if once extirpated cannot repopulate, then the near extinction of the
entire global population of California Gray Whales failed to eliminate that small southern feeding group. But somehow the Makahs
hunting of four whales per yearnot necessarily killing four whales per yearwhen the northern feeding group is also passing through
the Makahs usual and accustomed whaling areas bound for their winter feeding grounds is a sufficiently grave threat to the population
of a presumed amount of 200 whales, is enough to merit an entirely new Draft EIS. Further, by the authors own admission, the
southern feeding grounds of the southern feeding group extends from northern California to southeast Alaska.192 But the Makahs
usual and accustomed whaling areas is an area that does not extend south of the Olympic Peninsula.193 Still more maddening is
that to combat this kind of scientific speculation and murkiness, courts past have fashioned the Canons of
Treaty Construction and developed from them the federal weight and consideration test. The recent
Technical Memorandums, are stultifying the current NOAA process. The potential result of yet another
Draft EIS demonstrates just a handful of consequences attending three judges decision to bind the Makahs
treaty-reserved right to whale to the rubric of the conservation necessity test, in defiance of Supreme Court
precedent.

Whaling is an important cultural and spiritual ritual for the Makah Tribe, but is currently restricted
by court rulings
Schabner 02 ( Dean, weekend manager and editor at ABC news, May 29 2002, Save the Whales, Kill
a Culture?, http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90125&page=1&singlePage=true)
For the Makah, whaling is a tradition dating back centuries, but one animal protection group says that in the modern
world, there is no place for such "recreation." The Fund for Animals, the Humane Society of the United States and other groups have
been waging a legal battle to keep the Makah, an American Indian tribe who live along the coasts of the Olympic Peninsula in
Washington state, from rowing out from the shore in traditional dugout canoes and hunting whales in a manner very much the way
their ancestors did. Opponents of the hunt say the Makah should not be allowed to kill whales because, unlike some tribes in Alaska
and northern Canada and the indigenous people of parts of Russia, they do not need whale meat to survive. They characterize the
Makah hunt as sport or recreation, and discount the tribe's claim that whaling is culturally important to
them. "That's incredibly insulting and racist," said Janine Bowechop, the director of the Makah museum.
"For them to determine what it means to us brings us back to the last century when it was thought that
Indians could not speak for themselves and determine what things mean to us. I would not pretend to
determine what something means to another culture." She said that despite the 70 years when the tribe did not have a
whale hunt, it is still "a regular and important part of our lives." "There are lots of strengthening values associated with whaling," she
said. "There are lots of spiritual values that feed sharing and cooperation among our community. And it
connects us with the ocean in ways that Makahs have always been connected with the ocean." Navigating
Legal Waters While commercial whaling has come a long way since the days of Moby Dick, when men took their lives in their hands
trying to harpoon whales and drag them down from small boats, the Makah hunt is in many ways unchanged. The biggest difference,
the Makah say, is that now they use high-powered rifles instead of harpoons to kill the whale a change they made to limit the
suffering of the whales they catch. If, that is, they catch one. In the five years since the Makah have been allowed to
resume their hunt, they have caught one whale, and have spent more time navigating turbulent legal waters
in the courts than fighting ocean waves in their dugout canoes. The Makah may be nearing the end of their legal fight,
though. On May 17, a federal judge in Tacoma, Wash., refused to issue a restraining order to stop the Makah from whaling until a
decision is reached in the animal rights groups' lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National
Marine Fisheries Service, and the Commerce Department agencies that cleared the way for the tribe to resume the hunt. In the suit,
the groups claim that the agencies did not do a thorough job of assessing the potential impact of Makah whaling both on the whale
population and on public safety, because of the risk of stray bullets as the whalers try to shoot their prey. Judge Franklin Burgess said
in his ruling that the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, since there is no evidence that the Makah hunt will have
any impact, other than the "aesthetic, emotional" effect on the animal rights groups.

Whaling is key to preservation of Makah cultureit is a critical transgression
against Western society that unites the tribe in opposition to cultural imperialism
and assimilation.
Ginkel 04 (Rob Van, Anthropology Senior Lecturer at University of Amsterdam, The Makah Whale
Hunt and Leviathans Death: Reinventing Tradition and Disputing Authenticity in the Age of Modernity,
Etnofoor, Volume 17, No ,
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25758069?uid=24956&uid=3739960&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=
24955&uid=62&uid=3739256&sid=21104306615977, accessed 7/11/2014, DVOG)
This may be so, but in the process of authenticating Makah tradition, a vast majority of the tribe chose to single
out, mobilize and articulate what they perceived to be an essential cultural element. No less than ninety-four per
cent of the respondents of a 2001 survey among Makah households believed that resuming the hunt had affected the
tribe positively. The political process of strategic essentialism provided an angle to restore cultural pride.
To achieve this, Leviathan offered its life (at least, in the Makah perception), dividing-reuniting-dividing the tribal
community, sending scorn from the world without on it, but also for better or for worse giving a blood-
infusion to its culture. In this sense, a major objective the Makah had with recreating the whale hunt was
realized against all odds, despite overwhelming opposition and largely on their terms. Of all possibilities,
reclaiming and reenacting the cultural practice of the whale hunt could define the Makah much more
saliently than, say, basket weaving, wood carving or most other native activities that are far less
controversial to the world without. In the final analysis, the degree to which reinstating the tribal tradition of the
whale hunt was authentic in the sense of a return to some genuine and pristine cultural stage is untenable
and irrelevant because culture is always complex, multiple, fluid and in flux (Munn 2000:352). Authenticity
in this regard is a particular cultural construct of the modern Western world (Handler 1986). There is, however,
another view of authenticity or being authentic that does have a bearing in the present case. Authenticity is often
regarded as a stance against the dominant cultural norms of mass society, the ordinary and everyday (Handler
and Saxton 1988:243; Lindholm 2002:336). Thus, conformism is inherently inauthentic. Ultimately, being Makah is
constituted through practice and experience. It does not really matter whether the Makah whale hunt as it
was conducted in 1999 harks back in every detail to history, tradition or cultural fact at a particular point
in time. What does matter is that the Makah feel they live their perception of being Makah through their
actions: an authentic experience : : : is one in which individuals feel themselves to be in touch both with a
real world and with their real selves (Handler and Saxton 1988:243). This is not a fixed reality that can be
established once and for all, but it must be produced over and over again. And it is here that authenticity
and identity become intimately connected. As Handler argues, assertions of authenticity always have
embedded within them assertions of identity (2002:964). Consequently, authenticity refers to the recognition of
difference (Fine 2003:155).Authentic behavior is distinctive behavior. In this regard, the act of killing one
gray whale was authentic. By transgressing a taboo of mainstream Western society, the Makah showed the
world without that they are different. In doing so, they found their true selves and reinvented themselves
as Makah.


Thus, the affirmative functions as a subversive act that mocks white narratives of
dominance and subjugation.
Allen 2k (English Professor at Ohio State, Postcolonial Theory and the Discourse of Treaties,
American Quarterly, Volume 52, No 1,
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v052/52.1allen.html, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)
In recounting their peoples' struggles against settler domination, the American Indian writers discussed
above, like their Maori counterparts, engage the discourse of treaties as one of the sanctioned discourses for
inscribing such stories. But--and here is the critical maneuver--they refuse to engage, and even mock, the
subsequent rules of recognition that have enabled the dominant culture to (mis)read treaty discourse as an
enduring sign of Indian subjugation rather than as an enduring sign of compromise between mutually
respected sovereignties. Their hard won subversion is manifest in their re-recognition of a treaty discourse
that acknowledges Indian sovereignty and in their insistence on the continuing authority of that original
recognition. Given demographic and political realities, in which American Indians make up less than one percent of the U.S.
population and have little say in the design or enforcement of U.S. laws, such maneuvers represent a deft tactics of activist
occupation of significant sites of colonial discourse. As on the tiny island of Alcatraz or at the embattled site of Wounded
Knee, literary occupations of treaty discourse do not seek to disrupt or displace the dominant colonial
narrative but to realign its contemporary consumption with the terms of the relevant past, to assert that it
has an ongoing rather than a narrowly situated authenticity.
55
Because treaties recognize indigenous nations
as sovereign, they continue to offer strong legal and moral bases from which indigenous peoples can argue
land and resources rights, as well as cultural and identity politics. Moreover, because the discourse of treaties
is simultaneously pragmatic and idealistic, imposing one group's expectations upon the other even as it
envisions their reconciliation, it offers [End Page 82] indigenous activists and writers a widely recognized
symbol and a set of widely recognized statements through which they can not only express anger over past
and present acts of colonial violence but, simultaneously, continue to imagine the possibility of future
peace.
56



Self-determination of cultural values is key to check back dehumanization
Wiessner 07 (Siegfried, Law Professor at St Thomas University Indigenous Sovereignty: A
Reassessment in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Vanderbilt Journal of
Transnational Law, Volume 41, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jotl/manage/wp-
content/uploads/Wiessner_final_7.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)
As law, in essence, ought to serve human beings, any effort to design a better law should be conceived as a
response to human needs and aspirations. These vary from culture to culture, and they change over time. As
Michael Reisman has explained, humans have a distinct need to create and ascribe meaning and value to
immutable experiences of human existence: the trauma of birth, the discovery of the self as separate from others, the
formation of gender or sexual identity, procreation, the death of loved ones, ones own death, indeed, the mystery of it all. Each
culture . . . records these experiences in ways that provide meaning, guidance and codes of rectitude that serve as
compasses for the individual as he or she navigates the vicissitudes oflife.185 Thus, from the need to make sense of ones
individual and cultural experiences arise inner worlds, or each persons inner reality. The international human
rights system, as Reisman sees it, is concerned with protecting, for those who wish to maintain them, the
integrity of the unique visions of these inner worlds, from appraisal and policing in terms of the cultural
values of others. This must be, for these inner world cosmovisions, or introcosms, are the central, vital part of the individuality of
each of us. This is, to borrow Holmes wonderful phrase, where we live. Respect for the other requires, above all,
respect for the others inner world.186 The cultures of indigenous peoples have been under attack and are
seriously endangered. One final step is the death of their language. As George Steiner wrote in 1975: Today entire families of
language survive only in the halting remembrances of aged, individual informants . . . or in the limbo of tape recordings. Almost at
every moment in time, notably in the sphere of American Indian speech, some ancient and rich expression of articulate being is
lapsing into irretrievable silence.187 Reisman concluded that political and economic self-determination in this context
are important, but it is the integrity of the inner worlds of peoplestheir rectitude systems or their sense
of spiritualitythat is their distinctive humanity. Without an opportunity to determine, sustain, and develop
that integrity, their humanityand ours is denied.188 Similarly, the late Vine Deloria, Jr., revered leader of the U.S.
indigenous revival, stated that indigenous sovereignty consist[s] more of a continued cultural integrity than of
political powers and to the degree that a nation loses its sense of cultural identity, to that degree it suffers a
loss of sovereignty.189 Sovereignty, explains another great Native American leader, Kirke Kickingbird, cannot be
separated from people or their culture.190 In this vein, Taiaiake Alfred appeals for a process of de-thinking sovereignty.
He states: Sovereignty . . . is a social creation. It is not an objective or natural phenomenon, but the result of
choices made by men and women, indicative of a mindset located in, rather than a natural force creative of,
a social and political order. The reification of sovereignty in politics today is the result of a triumph of a
particular set of ideas over othersno more natural to the world than any other man-made object.
Indigenous perspectives offer alternatives, beginning with the restoration of a regime of respect. This ideal
contrasts with the statist solution, still rooted in a classical notion of sovereignty that mandates a
distributive rearrangement but with a basic maintenance of the superior posture of the state. True
indigenous formulations are nonintrusive and build frameworks of respectful coexistence by acknowledging the
integrity and autonomy of the various constituent elements of the relationship. They go far beyond even the most liberal
Western conceptions of justice in promoting the achievement of peace, because they explicitly allow for
difference while mandating the construction of sound relationships among autonomously powered
elements.191 June McCue, Director of First Nations Studies at the University of British Columbia and member of the Neduten tribe,
says: I can connect sovereignty and self-determination within the distinct context of my people by making an analogy to the trees on
my Clan or house territory. The roots, trunk, and bark of the trees represent sovereignty to me. The special sap, food, medicines and
seedlings that come from our trees are symbiotic with the life force or energy of my people and the land, united in a consciousness and
connected through the web of life. . . . Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty are found in the respective traditions of Indigenous
peoples and their relationships with their territories. The power to exercise sovereignty flows from their laws, customs, and governing
systems and their interconnectedness with theEarth. . . . My peoples power is sourced or rooted in our creation stories, our spirituality
and our organic and peaceful institutions. Sovereignty requires the energy of the land and the people and is distinct
about locality.192 Creation stories, in particular, are much more than accounts of the genesis of the Earth. They are essentially
normative, as they portray appropriate, model behavior193like the hadith, the traditions of the Prophet in Islam. As the Western
Shoshone say, decisions are made by consensus; the whole community thus has ownership of the decision made.194 Those decisions
are ultimately based on natural laws that are not written by humans but imposed by the Creator, variously referred to as Mother Earth
and Father Sky.195 There is no separation between church and state. McCue explains: From an Indigenous prospective,
sovereignty is not just human-centered and hierarchical; it is not solely born or sustained through brute
force. Indigenous sovereignty must be birthed through a genuine effort to establish peace, respect, and
balance in this world. Indigenous sovereignty is interconnected with self-determination. Non-Indigenous
formulations of sovereignty treat states as artificial entities that hold sovereign rights such as territorial
integrity or sovereign equality. Self-determination is severed as a right possessed by peoples which can
limit state powers. Finally, Indigenous sovereignty is sacred and renewed with ceremonies that are rooted
in the land. . . . In this sense, sovereignty can be seen as the frame that houses the life force or energy that can
flow at high or low levels depending on how the people are living at any given particular moment in their
territories. Such sovereign attributes are renewed each and every time we use our potlatch system and when
clan members choose to fulfill their roles and responsibilities to each other and to their neighbors. These
attributes are renewed when we act as stewards for our ecological spaces. These sovereign attributes do not negate
the fact that my people also exercise attributes of sovereignty similar to those upon which Western societies found their state
systemssuch as protecting and defending territorial boundaries, and engaging in external foreign relations with trade and commerce.
I would add peacemaking, possessing governing institutions for the people, a citizenry or permanent population with a language, and
powers of wealth and resource redistribution amongst our clans. The comparative inquiry is rather one of the priorities and whether or
not conduct or behaviors of the people are coordinate with our principles of living a good life and maintaining and securing peaceful
good relations.196 Taiaiake Alfred, even more focused on culture, has called for a physical and spiritual self-renewal of indigenous
communities, a radical indigenous resurgence.197 Self-help and re-empowerment are, thus, key to the survival and
the flourishing of indigenous communities. These gains cannot be achieved, however, if indigenous peoples
and their cultures are crushed by the constant onslaught of modern societys influences. While it is
impossible and undesirable to imprison indigenous peoples in a living museum of their culture, the world
community at large ought to support their choice to live according to the codes of their inner worlds.

Dehumanization allows us to see people as disposable and thus extinguishable,
setting up a chain of events that results in endless war and genocide.
Dillon 99 (Michael, Professor at the University of Lancaster, ANOTHER JUSTICE, POLITICAL
THEORY VOL. 27, NO. 2, APRILL 1999, JSTOR)
Otherness is born(e) within the self as an integral part of itself and in such a way that it always remains an
inherent stranger to itself." It derives from the lack, absence, or ineradicable incompleteness which comes
from having no security of tenure within or over that of which the self is a particular hermeneutical
manifestation; namely, being itself. The point about the human, betrayed by this absence, is precisely that it
is not sovereignly self-possessed and complete, enjoying undisputed tenure in and of itself. Modes of justice
therefore reliant upon such a subject lack the very foundations in the self that they most violently insist upon seeing inscribed there.
This does not, however, mean that the dissolution of the subject also entails the dissolution of Justice.Quite the reverse. The subject
was never a firm foundation for justice, much less a hospitable vehicle for the reception of the call of another Justice. It was never in
possession of that self-possession which was supposed to secure the certainty of itself, of a self-possession that would enable it
ultimately to adjudicate everything. The very indexicality required of sovereign subjectivity gave rise rather to a commensurability
much more amenable to the expendability required of the political and material economies of mass societies than it did to the singular,
invaluable, and uncanny uniqueness of the self. The value of the subject became the standard unit of currency for the political
arithmetic of States and the political economies of capitalism. They trade in it still to devastating global effect. The technologisation of
the political has become manifest and global.Economies of evaluation necessarily require calculability. Thus no valuation without
mensuration and no mensuration without indexation. Once rendered calculable, however, units of account are
necessarily submissible not only to valuation but also, of course, to devaluation. Devaluation, logically, can
extend to the point of counting as nothing. Hence, no mensuration without demensuration either. There is
nothing abstract about this: the declension of economies of value leads to the zero point of holocaust.
However liberating and emancipating systems of value-rights-may claim to be, for example, they run the
risk of counting out the invaluable. Counted out, the invaluable may then lose its purchase on life.
Herewith, then, the necessity of championing the invaluable itself. For we must never forget that, "we are
dealing always with whatever exceeds measure. But how does that necessity present itself? Another Justice
answers: as the surplus of the duty to answer to the claim of Justice over rights. That duty, as with the
advent of another Justice, is integral to the lack constitutive of the human way of being.

Contention 3 is Precedent:

Anderson sets a precedentthe case allows courts to ignore treaty rights. The plan
is the first step to preventing the subjugation of natives.
Young 05 (Kelly, Professor of Communication at Wayne State, The Ghost of Moby-Dick and the
Rhetorical Haunting of the Ninth Courts Anderson v. Evans Decision, Communication Law Review,
Volume 10, Issue 1, http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i1/PDFs/The_Ghost_of_Moby-
Dick_and_the_Rhetorical_Haunting.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)
Furthermore, the courts discourse sets dangerous precedent for Native American rights and sovereignty. In
making its decision, the court can ignore consideration of sovereign rights and specific treaty language
because the deployment of Moby-Dick allows the justices to privilege the underlying conservation necessity of
the Marine Mammal Protection Act as their overriding reason to reject the cultural and religious reasons for
the hunt. By deciding the case based on conservation principles made exceptionally visible by the literary allusion to
Moby-Dick, issues of treaty abrogation were never fully considered. As the court explained, because of our
conclusion that the MMPA applies in light of the conservation purpose of the statute and the literal
language of the treaty, we need not consider plaintiffs alternative arguments that the MMPA applies by
virtue of treaty abrogation.82 As this statement makes clear, the court considered the question of treaty
abrogation irrelevant once presumption was made in favor of species conservation. Illuminated by Tribal Crit,
this shift in presumption is dangerous for Native American sovereignty. Due to its plenary power over all
Native American issues, Congress can abrogate or amend existing Federal-Indian treaties. However, the
Supreme Court has held that courts should adopt a strong presumption that federal laws generally do not
veto treaty rights unless Congress expressly discussed the issue and chose to modify the treaty right.83
Despite these measures to protect Native American sovereignty, in reaching its decision, the Anderson
court ignored specific statements from members of Congress that outlined how the MMPA did not abrogate
treaty rights.84 Thus, once the court concluded that this was an issue of conservation necessity and not treaty
rights, they were able to disregard a rather strong precedence in favor of treaty rights while increasing
colonial interference and their authority to act against Native American interests. Additionally, the discourse
of the court exposes how little Native American values and traditions are considered by the court. When the
court explains the background of the case, they limited their description to the mechanical process through
which the Makah made their request. There is only one paragraph that mentions the treaty-based reasons
justifying why the Makah wanted to hunt. In this section the court stated, The Treatyis the only
treatythat specifically protects the right to hunt whales suggests the historic importance of whaling to the
Makah.85 Note here that whaling is cast as a historic and past need. Thus, even when the Makah have an
opportunity to present their own voices and beliefs before the court, Makah culture is constituted as counter
to the natural progression of European American culture and time.86 In this particular instance, the court
reaffirms whiteness as the basis for its decision and uses the law as a silencing agent fueled by racism when
the Makah tribe and Native American culture are discursively situated as remote, distant and thus
unimportant in comparison to the contemporary, eco-friendly and civilized culture of European America.
Lastly, the only other substantive discussion of the treaty examined the treaty language on its face to
conclude that the treaty gave equal rights to all citizens of the U.S. to use whale resources.87 Because all
citizens enjoy this right, the court concluded that it could not grant special privilege to the Makah to hunt
when all other (European American) citizens are restricted from whaling. However, what the court fails to explain
in this argument is that the special privilege is not something that the court would be creating as a result
of its decision. Instead, the right to whale was given to Makah in exchange for their territory and sovereign
independence. Thus, the privilege cannot be special when European Americans have not made similar
sacrifices for this right. Here whiteness surfaces as a marker of racialized dismissal in that the underlying
assumption in the decision is that everyone is equal, despite the long history of colonial relations between
European and Native Americans that have relegated Native American identity and culture to a position of
legal and social inferiority.88

The USFG has a legal and moral obligation to uphold treaties signed with Native
Americans
Tanner 09
(Charles Tanner Jr, co-coordinator of Borderlands Research and Education, 9-18-09, Keeping our Word:
Indigenous Sovereignty and Treaty Rights, https://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/treaty-rights-and-tribal-
sovereignty/319-keeping-our-word-indigenous-sovereignty-and-treaty-rights, 6-9-14, DMM)
Treaty rights are inherent legal and moral rights held by indigenous nations. A treaty is a legal contract between
sovereign nations. European colonizers used treaties to legitimize the transfer of land from tribal peoples. Treaties were also means of
achieving peaceful relations and creating boundaries. Tribal leaders often saw treaties as bringing about multi-cultural unity and
relations of support and alliance. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president can sign treaties with the advice and
consent of the U.S. Senate. Once approved by the Senate, Article 6 Section 2 of the Constitution states that
"[A]ll Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme
law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws
of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." By signing treaties with tribes, the U.S. government recognized their
existence as sovereign nations. This was stated clearly in 1979 when the Supreme Court explained that "A treaty, including one
between the United States and an Indian tribe, is essentially a contract between two sovereign nations." [7] Anti-Indian activists and
politicians often describe treaties as giving rights to Indian tribes. Likewise, they claim that treaty rights are "special rights" and that
Indians are "supercitizens" as a result of treaties. Such ideas are simply wrong. In reality, treaties reserved rights long held by
tribes. In exchange for land and other commitments tribes secured recognition of their status and a federal commitment to encroach
no further on the rights made explicit and implied in treaties. The idea of treaty rights as reserved rights was recognized by the
Supreme Court in 1905 in U.S. v. Winans: That is, treaties gave nothing to tribes, only to the U.S. government and its citizens. By
entering into treaties the United States obtained the land and resource base that have allowed it to become the wealthiest society on
earth. It is important to recognize the unequal context in which treaty-making occurred. The era of treaty-making
from the colonial period to 1871 coincided with aggressive westward expansion by Americans, forced Indian removal and repeated
wars of aggression by the United States against indigenous peoples. While not all treaties were signed under threat of forced removal
and warfare, many were. Treaties were negotiated in English and limited inter-tribal languages, a fact used to the advantage of U.S.
treaty negotiators.[9] Treaties were sometimes altered by the Senate without tribal approval and the United States often used treaties to
"divide and conquer" tribes.[10] White settlers also repeatedly rushed into Indian Country, with the support of the U.S. military, in
express violation of treaties some of the continents first "illegal aliens." The unequal relationship between tribes and the U.S.
government during treaty-making is recognized by the Supreme Court. As a result of this inequality and the federal "trust" obligation
to act in the interests of tribes, the Court has developed "canons of construction" used to interpret treaty cases. These canons hold that
treaties should be interpreted as they would have been understood by tribes; that ambiguities in treaty language be interpreted liberally
in support of tribes; and that treaties must be liberally interpreted in favor of tribes. While these rules have produced favorable rulings
for tribes, courts have also ignored them in order to rule against tribes or limit tribal rights. While the United States has legal
and moral obligations to uphold treaty rights, treaty violations by federal and state governments and U.S.
citizens have been frequent. In part, these violations stem from the fact that a legacy of colonialism
continues to influence U.S. relations with Indian tribes.[11] In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) the Supreme Court
described a congressional plenary power over tribes that can be used to violate treaties: The Court ruled that Congress can abrogate
agreements with tribes even when doing so is a result of fraud and misrepresentation and takes place without tribal consent. Based on
Lone Wolf and cases like it, the Supreme Court has expanded the "legal" means used to violate treaties. While earlier cases required
"explicit statutory language" to rule that a treaty had been abrogated, in U.S. v Dion the Court ruled that Congressional abrogation can
be inferred if there is evidence that Congress "considered the conflict between its intended actionand an Indian treaty," and then
chose to resolve the "conflict by abrogating the treaty."[13] While treaty violations are often considered wrongs committed in the
distant past, the U.S. government has created both congressional and judicial mechanisms for continuing to violate treaties with
indigenous nations. Not surprisingly, treaties continue to be violated by federal and state governments and U.S.
citizens. Treaties can be abrogated outright, as in U.S. v Dion, or violated when federal laws are imposed on tribes
and interfere with the exercise of treaty-reserved rights. The latter occurred when the 9th Circuit Appeals
Court imposed the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) on the Makah nation despite the tribes treaty-
reserved right to hunt whales. When five Makah men, frustrated with the pace of federal permitting under
the MMPA, hunted a gray whale in 2007, the federal government compounded this violation by arresting
them. The federal government has also allotted lands in express violation of treaty terms (1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie with the
Lakota) and assumed control of lands never ceded by treaty (1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone).[14] Treaties
have also been violated when treaty-reserved resources are destroyed by federal or state governments or U.S. citizens. Washington
State is presently in violation of six treaties signed in the 1850s with Pacific Northwest tribes. These treaties
reserved a "right of taking fish at usual and accustomed groundsin common with all citizens." In 1974 inU.S. v Washington a federal
district court recognized a treaty-reserved right to one-half the fish passing through these "usual and accustomed" tribal fishing
grounds.[15] However, the ongoing collapse of Pacific salmon stocks, a result of multiple non-Indian economic practices, violates the
treaties by destroying the treaty-reserved fishery. In 2001, twenty tribes sued Washington State over hundreds of state-constructed
culverts that cut off hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. A 2006 sub-proceeding of U.S. v Washington upheld a state obligation to
"refrain from building or operating culverts under State-maintained roads that hinder fish passage and thereby diminish the number of
fish that would otherwise be available for Tribal harvest."[16] Because negotiations between tribes and the state failed to resolve the
issue, the implementation phase of the case will be heard in federal district court in October.

Solvency:
All is not lostthe Supreme Court can review the case for errors of law and correct
the precedent.
Stevens 12 (Jeremy, JD from Seattle University School of Law, American Indian Law Journal, Volume
1, Issue 1, Fall 2012, Of Whaling, Judicial Fiats, Treaties, and Indians: The Makah Saga Continues,
http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/ailj/Fall%20Issue/Whaling%20Jeremy%20Stevens%20Final.pdf,
accessed July 10, 2014, DVOG)
But the Ninth Circuit for its part seems to have corrected itself and embarked upon a path destined to either proscribe the applicability
of Andersons use of the conservation necessity test only to assessing the relationship between state regulations and treaties with in
common rights,194or ridding itself altogether of the Makahs tragic, crushing millstone. Addressing a pre-trial motion195 in a case
involving whether or not the Migratory Bird Treaty Act abrogated hunting rights reserved by the Yakama Treaty, on August 13, 2009,
federal judge Edward F. Shea of the Eastern District of Washington addressed squarely the Anderson courts errors.
[A] court analyzing the impact of federal legislation on treaty rights must determine whether Congress
clearly and plainly intended to modify or abrogate an Indian treaty right. 196 Judge Shea then addressed the series
of cases Puyallup I and II and Fryberg which develop and chart the application of the conservation necessity test to state statutes
that would infringe upon Indian treaty-reserved rights. Judge Shea then described the weight and consideration test implemented by
Dion, noting that while Congress has the authority to abrogate an Indian treaty right, a state does not.197 Although the Ninth
Circuit [in Anderson] was analyzing a federal [statute], not a state statute or regulation, the Ninth Circuit
failed to use congressional treaty abrogation analysis. This failure conflicts with . . . basic principles of
Indian treaty analysis.198 Judge Shea noted that the Anderson court, despite its intellectual prestidigitations,
did recognize that Dion did not discuss the conservation necessity test but the Anderson court erroneously
concluded that the conservation necessity test . . . has not been undermined by later cases and is supported
by the Supreme Court authorities.199 This conclusion, Judge Shea asserted, was reached without analysis
and is wrong. The Supreme Court cases alluded to [in Anderson] involved state regulations and treaties
with in common rights. When the Supreme Court has explicitly used congressional treaty abrogation
analysis to interpret federal statutes, the same analysis should be used when interpreting the same federal
statutes and treaty rights.200 Judge Shea is not alone in this belief. Writing for the District Court from the District of
Nevada and similarly called upon to address the extent to which the Migratory Bird Treaty Act may have abrogated Indian treaty-
reserved rights, Magistrate Judge Lawrence R. Leavitt similarly criticized the Anderson fiat.201 In assessing whether
Congress implicitly abrogated a treaty right, what is essential, is clear and convincing evidence that
Congress considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and Indian treaty rights on the
other. [After undergoing this analysis, if Congress subsequently] chose to resolve the conflict by abrogating
the treaty . . . the proper approach, continued Magistrate Leavitt, would be clear but for the Ninth Circuits 1980
decision in United States v. Fryberg and the application of Frybergs analysis [ the conservation necessity test ]
in Anderson v. Evans.202 Magistrate Leavitt then went on to repeat that in developing its conservation necessity test, the
Ninth Circuit based its doctrine on various Supreme Court cases, all of which involve state conservation
statutes or regulations, and not congressional treaty abrogation power.203 In recognizing that the Dion
Court used the weight and consideration test to determine the applicability of a congressional enactment to
a treaty-reserved right, Magistrate Leavitt was similarly careful to note that in Dion the Supreme Court
employed an abrogation analysis in reaching its holding, without once referring to Fryberg or the state-
based conservation necessity analysis [from the Ninth Circuit]. Nevertheless, eight years after Dion, the
Ninth Circuit in Anderson v. Evans applied the conservation necessity doctrine to a federal statute without
recognizing or engaging in an abrogation analysis.204 As categorically as Judge Shea had, Magistrate Leavitt then
concluded that the Ninth Circuits decision in Anderson cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Courts
decision in Dion.205 The Anderson Courts conclusion that its own conservation necessity test ought to be
applied in determining the applicability of congressional enactments to Indian treaty-reserved rights was
reached without analysis.206 The Anderson court clearly conflated the state conservation necessity test
with the federal weight and consideration test in holding the Makahs exercise of their treaty-reserved right
to whale bound by the MMPA. But the great tragic irony of the matter is that in defense of four whales per year of the
estimated 20,000 global beasts, three circuit judges have embarked upon a course which further erodes tribal
sovereignty and cultural identity when the absence of whaling presents devastating consequences on Makah
health and their collective psyche.207 Particularly illustrative of the ridiculousness of this fact and the decided, intuitive
injustice of it all is the quota of 120 whales per year granted by the IWCthe recognized global expert administrative body on the
California Gray Whaleto the Russian Confederation on behalf of the Chukotka while three circuit judges sitting on a domestic
American court have prohibited the Makah from hunting four whales per year in exercise of its treaty-reserved right to do so.
Compounding the maddening injustice is that in doing this, these circuit judges have chosen to ignore
United States Supreme Court precedent in favor of applying the test the Ninth Circuit itself developed, even
when the United States Supreme Court has held that the Ninth Circuits test is to be applied in determining
the effect state statutesnot federal statuteshave on Indian treaty-reserved rights. As Indian Law scholar Felix S.
Cohen presciently penned 60 years ago, stifling the exercise of much of what it means to be Makah reflects the
rise and fall in our democratic faith208 as the Ninth Circuit brings the Makah under the heel of expert
administrators whose power-drives are always accompanied by soft music about the withering away of the
state or the ultimate liquidation of this or that bureau.209


The aff also funnctions on a rhetorical levelcriticizing court decisions and calling
for revision of bad case law is critical to understanding how the courts operate as
oppressors. The plan begins the process of reversing courts undermining of Native
sovereignty.
Young 05 (Kelly, Professor of Communication at Wayne State, The Ghost of Moby-Dick and the
Rhetorical Haunting of the Ninth Courts Anderson v. Evans Decision, Communication Law Review,
Volume 10, Issue 1, http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i1/PDFs/The_Ghost_of_Moby-
Dick_and_the_Rhetorical_Haunting.pdf, accessed July 11, 2014, DVOG)
While other Tribal Crit accounts of the law have noted how the law stabilizes and evokes whiteness to defend contemporary
European-Native American relations, the analysis of the Anderson decision elucidates how important it is to reveal
how whiteness infiltrates the court in seemingly small and unexpected ways. For instance, Tribal Crit scholars such
as Robert Clinton and Robert Porter contend that the entire foundation of federal policy is rooted in white colonialism, which suggests
a certainty and intentionality of racism within the legal system.90 Yet, the reasoning found in the Anderson case and
many other Native American decisions demonstrate that the courts act in very incremental, confusing and
contradictory ways that appear far more accidental and hesitant.91 In the presence of such confusion and
uncertainty, whiteness emerges in a seemingly innocent fashion as a sense of normality that guides the
courts decisions. While Tribal Crit provides powerful means to evaluate the white colonial effects of broad and new judicial
doctrine changes, it has yet to explicate the more subtle ways that Native American law is transformed through rhetorical maneuvers
masked as sensible precedence and presumption. Furthermore scholars must avoid the common problem of treating the
courts as impartial and politically-insulated entities. For too long, as Lucaites points out, the communication
studies discipline has treated the law as a sacred cow.92 In other words, communication studies has often failed
to appreciate how the courts discourse legitimates and masks its role in undermining Native American
sovereignty. Instead, our discipline tends discipline tends to examine the courts as a context in which certain speakers or genres of
speech operate. Until we incorporate a more critical interrogation of the political nature of the legal system,
communication studies analyses of the law and its impact will be, at best, ineffective and, at worst,
counterproductive. These shortcomings found in Tribal Crit and Communication Studies suggest why a combined
rhetorical/Tribal Crit approach, such as the one used in this study, is important to elucidate how the courts and the
law undermine Native American sovereignty. In examining the discursive maneuvers made in Anderson v.
Evans, we observe how whiteness appears and becomes legitimized within the courts rhetoric. What
makes the Anderson decision quite fascinating is that whiteness in this courts decision is not hidden at all
in actuality; instead, it surfaces as a large, terrifying (white) whale in the opening epigraph of the courts written opinion. While it
could be tempting to dismiss the literary allusions to Moby-Dick as mere rhetorical embellishment, the analysis offered here
demonstrates that the sublime discourse of Moby-Dick seems to be the only clear logic that the court is following. Furthermore, while
the Anderson decision is a rather unique and narrow example of this type of discourse because it is only
about one Native American controversy in one decision, it offers a rare and highly illustrative opportunity
to see the courts response to multicultural difference in a globalized era. Obviously, not all courts or
justices will utilize the same rhetorical technologies, but signs of allusions, metaphors, and other cultural
references within legal decisions may give important clues as to how the court privileges whiteness to
undermine Native American and other minoritarian attempts to secure legal remedies.

Lt. Danny Li-Myers
1AC-Coral Reefs
Plan Text:
The USFG should construct artificial reefs to place in the U.S.s Exclusive Economic Zone
Inherency
Although theyre suffering, reefs can still be saved.
Science Daily, 13 (Science Daily, 5/9/13, Science Daily, Coral reefs suffering, but extinction not
inevitable, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130509123414.htm, 7/1/14, JW)
Coral reefs are in decline, but their collapse can still be avoided with local and global action. That's
according to findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 9 based on an
analysis that combines the latest science on reef dynamics with the latest climate models. "People
benefit by reefs' having a complex structure -- a little like a Manhattan skyline, but underwater," said
Peter Mumby of The University of Queensland and University of Exeter. "Structurally complex reefs
provide nooks and crannies for thousands of species and provide the habitat needed to sustain
productive reef fisheries. They're also great fun to visit as a snorkeler or diver. If we carry on the way
we have been, the ability of reefs to provide benefits to people will seriously decline." To predict the
reefs' future, the researchers spent two years constructing a computer model of how reefs work,
building on hundreds of studies conducted over the last 40 years. They then combined their reef
model with climate models to make predictions about the balance between forces that will allow
reefs to continue growing their complex calcium carbonate structures and those such as hurricanes
and erosion that will shrink them. Ideally, Mumby said, the goal is a carbonate budget that remains in
the black for the next century at least. Such a future is possible, the researchers' model shows, but
only with effective local protection and assertive action on greenhouse gases. "Business as usual isn't
going to cut it," he said. "The good news is that it does seem possible to maintain reefs -- we just have
to be serious about doing something. It also means that local reef management -- efforts to curb
pollution and overfishing -- are absolutely justified. Some have claimed that the climate change
problem is so great that local management is futile. We show that this viewpoint is wrongheaded."
Mumby and his colleagues also stress the importance of reef function in addition to reef diversity.
Those functions of reefs include the provision of habitat for fish, the provision of a natural
breakwater to reduce the size of waves reaching the shore, and so on. In very practical terms,
hundreds of millions of people depend directly on reefs for their food, livelihoods, and even building
materials. "If it becomes increasingly difficult for people in the tropics to make their living on coral
reefs, then this may well increase poverty," said the study's first author, Emma Kennedy. It's in
everyone's best interest to keep that from happening.
Current programs not sufficienthalf of reef ecosystems in poor/fair
condition
NOAA 08 (7/9/8, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Half Of US Coral Reefs In
'Poor' Or 'Fair' Condition, NOAA Report States,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080707112648.htm, 6/27/14, SM)
Nearly half of U.S. coral reef ecosystems are considered to be in "poor" or "fair" condition according to a
new NOAA analysis of the health of coral reefs under U.S. jurisdiction. The report issued July 7, The State of Coral Reef
Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008, says that the nation's coral reef ecosystems,
particularly those adjacent to populated areas, continue to face intense human-derived threats from
coastal development, fishing, sedimentation and recreational use. Even the most remote reefs are subject to
threats such as marine debris, illegal fishing and climate-related effects of coral bleaching, disease and ocean acidification.
The report was released by NOAA at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. More than 270
scientist and managers working throughout the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, the Atlantic and Pacific authored the 15
jurisdiction-specific chapters of the report. The scientists graded the coral ecosystems on a five tier scale: excellent, good, fair,
poor and unknown. "NOAA's coral program has made some significant progress since it was established
10 years ago, but we need to redouble our efforts to protect this critical resource," said retired Navy Vice
Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.
The 569-page document details coral reef conditions in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Navassa Island, southeast Florida,
the Florida Keys, Flower Garden Banks, the Main Hawaiian Islands, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, the
Pacific Remote Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and the Republic of Palau. "The report shows that this is a global issue," said Tim Keeney,
deputy assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and co-chair of the United States Coral Reef Task Force.
"While the report indicates reefs in general are healthier in the Pacific than the Atlantic, even remote reefs are subject to
threats stemming from climate change as well as illegal fishing and marine debris." The conditions of U.S. coral reefs
have been declining for several decades according to the report's authors. As an indicator of this decline, since the
last status report was released in 2005, two coral species -- Elkhorn and Staghorn corals --- have become the first corals ever
listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Need preservation nowcoral reef extinction in 40 years
Burgett, Researcher for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 14
(Jeff, 2/18/14, PhD, Reef Relief, New study reveals timeline of future coral reef decline, highlights
urgent need for action, http://reefrelief.org/2014/02/new-study-reveals-timeline-of-future-coral-
reef-decline-highlights-urgent-need-for-action/, 6/28/14, SM)
An international team of coral reef scientists has used the latest global climate models to reveal timelines for the
accelerating decline of the worlds coral reefs through the end of the century. If global emissions of
greenhouse gases keep rising at or near the current rate, within 40 years, nearly all coral reefs
globally will be subjected to stressful conditions so regularly that reefs are unlikely to persist as we
know them, says study co-lead Dr. Ruben van Hooidonk. Dr. van Hooidonk and his co-lead Dr. Jeffrey Maynard developed
interactive online maps of their study results, showing the timelines for when each coral reef area will experience
critical levels of temperature stress and ocean acidification. The study is published in Global Change Biology in its
January 2014 issue. Coral reefs provide food and commercial fisheries, protect coastlines from waves, support tourism, and
are inextricably interwoven into the cultural foundations for millions of people throughout the tropical oceans. Seychelles
Ambassador for Climate Change and Small Island Developing State Issues, Ronald Jumeau noted that, "It is a common
misconception that sea level rise is the greatest threat to small island countries, when in fact the decline of the coral reefs that
help feed and protect us and contribute to our wealth and well-being is a more immediate threat to the economic viability and
the very physical existence of many of our islands."
Biodiversity
Biodiversity low nowspecies extinction rates faster than ever
National Science Foundation 12
(6/6/12, National Science Foundation, Ecologists call for preservation of planet's remaining
biological diversity, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606164938.htm,
6/28/14, SM)
Twenty years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 17 ecologists are calling for renewed international efforts to curb the
loss of Earth's biological diversity. The loss is compromising nature's ability to provide goods and
services essential for human well-being, the scientists say. Over the past two decades, strong scientific
evidence has emerged showing that decline of the world's biological diversity reduces the
productivity and sustainability of ecosystems, according to an international team led by the University of
Michigan's Bradley Cardinale. It also decreases ecosystems' ability to provide society with goods and services like food, wood,
fodder, fertile soils and protection from pests and disease. "Water purity, food production and air quality are easy to take for
granted, but all are largely provided by communities of organisms," said George Gilchrist, program director in the National
Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research. "This paper demonstrates that it is not
simply the quantity of living things, but their species, genetic and trait biodiversity, that influences the delivery of many
essential 'ecosystem services.''' Human actions are dismantling ecosystems, resulting in species extinctions
at rates several orders of magnitude faster than observed in the fossil record
Coral Reefs Key To Bio Diversity- Millions of species build up the diversity that
translates into humans lives.
WWF, No Date (WWF, Coral Reefs,
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/coasts/coral_reefs/, 6/25/14, ML)

Coral reefs are home to 25% of all marine life on the planet. In fact the variety of life supported by
coral reefs rivals that of the tropical forests of the Amazon or New Guinea. But without urgent action
to address climate change, pollution, overfishing and other threats these beautiful and life-sustaining
organisms could disappear. The total area of the world's coral reefs amounts to less than one quarter
of 1% of the entire marine environment. Yet some estimates put the total diversity of life found in,
on, and around all coral reefs at up to 2 million species. All up, reefs are home to 25% of all
marine life, and form the nurseries for about a quarter of the ocean's fish - including commercially
important species that could end up on your dinner plate any night of the week. This biodiversity
translates directly into food security, income, and a multitude of other benefits to people. For
example, although scientists have only just begun to understand how reefs can contribute to
medicine, already coral reef organisms are being used in treatments for diseases like cancer and HIV.
For many coastal areas, coral reefs also provide an important barrier against the worst ravages of
storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. As thousands of communities across the world will tell you, coral
reefs are essential not only to ocean health, but also to human health and well-being.

Artificial Reefs Solve For biodiversity-- recreating ecosystems
Mauritius Marine Conservation Society, N/A (MMCS, Artificial Reefs, http://www.mmcs-
ngo.org/en/projects/artificial-reefs.aspx, 6/27/14, AEG) Importance of
artificial reefs The creation of artificial reefs in the sea favours biological productivity, therefore enhancing
the population of fish and invertebrates. These reefs have the power to attract marine life by offering a habitat. They not
only constitute a shelter but are also a valuable reproduction reservoir, which can recreate a whole ecosystem in
biological depleted zones. In Mauritius, the activities aimed at creating artificial reefs have been in development by the
MMCS since 1980. The creation of such reefs mainly aims at: Increasing the marine population in the
neighbouring reef areas An improvement in the fishermen's catch from these reef zones A study area
for scientists A tourist attraction for divers A rehabilitation of the areas destroyed by natural forces
or anthropogenic activities A creation of reproduction zones A beneficial use of solid wastes like old
boats, tyres and automobile carcasses etc. What are artificial reefs? Artificial reefs are man-made habitats typically
built to promote the growth of corals to develop reef systems and encourage marine life into the
area. It mimics a natural reef. By immersing old deserted ships in carefully chosen sites, the MMCS and, since more
recently, the MSDA and the National Coast Guard (NCG) have created 13 artificial reefs (see cartography). Other objects, like
old worn tyres have also been associated to these wreckages. How do artificial reefs develop? The colonisation of artificial
reefs is done progressively. In the beginning, devoid of any form of life, they are rapidly colonized by weed
and animal classes like sponges, hydroids, bryozoans, bivalve shells, barnacles, acids, anemones, halcyons, gorgons and
finally, after a few years' time, by corals with calcareous skeletons like Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora and
Pavonia. This encrusting fauna and flora provide food for sedentary and mobile animals like sea
cucumbers, starfishes, sea urchins, crabs and squids as well as small fishes like Snappers (Madras), Butterflyfish (Papillon),
Priacanthus (Fanal), Triggerfish (Bourse), Demoiselle, Sergent Major etc. In turn, these small fish attract pelagic and
predator species such as hinds, morays, Laffers, kingfishes, mackerels, Capitaines, barracudas, etc.

Biodiversity loss leads to extinction
Hamid, PhD from Michigan State University, 13
(Zakri A., 12/5/13, Master of Science from Michigan State University, Bachelor of Science from
Louisiana State University, Agriculture & Food Security, The dangerous, careless folly of biodiversity
loss, http://www.agricultureandfoodsecurity.com/content/2/1/16, 6/28/14, SM)
The accelerating disappearance of the Earths wild plants and animals constitutes a fundamental threat to the wellbeing and
even the survival of humankind. Biodiversity from terrestrial, marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems provides the
basis for ecosystems and the services they provide that underpin human wellbeing. However,
biodiversity and ecosystem services are declining at an unprecedented rate, and in order to address this
challenge, adequate local, national and international policies need to be adopted and implemented. To achieve this, decision-
makers need scientifically credible and independent information that takes into account the complex relationships between
biodiversity, ecosystem services and people. They also need effective methods to interpret this scientific information in order
to make informed decisions. The scientific community must understand the needs of decision-makers better in order to
provide them with the relevant information. In essence, the dialogue between the scientific community, governments and
other stakeholders on biodiversity and ecosystem services needs to be strengthened. To this end, a new platform has been
established by the international community - the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES). IPBES was established in April 2012, as an independent intergovernmental body open to all member countries of the
United Nations. The members are committed to building IPBES as the leading intergovernmental body for assessing the state
of the planets biodiversity, I am honoured to be the Founding Chair of the organisation. In the article that follows I have
outlined my perception of the background to the problem and of the way forward ecosystems and the essential services they
provide to society. Background Scientists are warning us in ever louder terms that the loss of plant and animal species
on Earth - both wild and domesticated - constitutes a fundamental threat to the wellbeing and even the
survival of humankind [1]. Most indicators of the state of biodiversity (covering species population trends,
extinction risk, habitat extent and condition, and community composition) showed declines, with no significant
recent reductions in rate, whereas indicators of pressures on biodiversity (including resource consumption,
invasive alien species, nitrogen pollution, overexploitation and climate change impacts) showed increases [2].


Ocean Acidification
Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster than the last extreme acidification event.
Iacurci, BS in Allied Health Sciences @ Uconn 14 (Jenna, 6/3/14, Nature World News, Ocean Acidification Rate 10
Times Faster than Ancient Upheaval, http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/7379/20140603/ocean-acidification-rate-10-times-
faster-than-ancient-upheaval.htm, 6/25/14, KM)

These days the ocean is acidifying at a rate 10 times faster than it did during a similar upheaval 56 million
years ago. During those ancient days, researchers estimate that ocean acidity increased by about 100 percent
in a few thousand years or more, and levels didn't bounce back to normal for another 70,000 years.
Some species were able to adapt and evolve to such radical environmental changes, while others perished and died off. Also during
this time, a wave of carbon dioxide (CO2) surged into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, and scientists have long suspected
that ocean acidification caused the crisis. For the first time, researchers are using the chemical composition of fossils to reconstruct
surface ocean acidity at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of intense warming on land and throughout the
oceans due to high CO2. "This could be the closest geological analog to modern ocean acidification," study co-author Brbel
Hnisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a statement. "As massive as
it was, it still happened about 10 times more slowly than what we are doing today." Since the Industrial
Revolution, oceans have absorbed about a third of the carbon humans have pumped into the air, helping to cool the Earth.
Consequentially, chemical reactions caused by that excess CO2 have made seawater grow more acidic, depleting it of the carbonate
ions that corals, mollusks and calcifying plankton need to build their shells and skeletons. "We are dumping carbon in the
atmosphere and ocean at a much higher rate today - within centuries," said study co-author Richard Zeebe, a paleoceanographer at the
University of Hawaii. "If we continue on the emissions path we are on right now, acidification of the surface ocean will be way more
dramatic than during the PETM." The studied fossils - ancient plankton taken from Japanese waters - reveal that the ocean pH has
indeed dropped, and will continue to do so. Researchers still aren't sure what caused the upheaval of CO2 into the atmosphere so
long ago. They speculate that the Earth's warming may have sent methane from the seafloor into the air, triggering the aforementioned
events.
Ocean acidification leads to mass extinction
Romm, Senior Fellow at American Progress, 12
(Joe, 3/2/12, Ph.D. in physics from MIT, Founding Editor of Climate Progress, Climate Progress, Science:
Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanitys Ability to Feed Itself,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-
humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/, 6/29/14, SM)
The worlds oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during
four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures
soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean
acidification over this vast time period. What were doing today really stands out, said lead author Brbel Hnisch, a
paleoceanographer at Columbia Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. We know that life during past ocean acidification
events was not wiped outnew species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at
the current pace, we may lose organisms we care aboutcoral reefs, oysters, salmon. James Zachos, a
paleoceanographer at University of California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from some 56 million years ago, when the oceans
underwent acidification that could be an analog to ocean changes today. Thats the news release from a major 21-author Science
paper, The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification (subs. reqd). We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience study that the
oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of
marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million and found that the unprecedented
rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place has put marine life at risk in a frighteningly unique way:
the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean
geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering
an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, its not just that acidifying oceans spell marine
biological meltdown by end of century as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean
and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience
study found that ocean dead zones devoid of fish and seafood are poised to expand and remain for thousands of years.
Ocean acidification exacerbates warmingdecrease in atmospheric sulfur
Barford, BSc in Biochemistry from Imperial College London, 13
(Eliot, 8/25/13, MSc in Science Communication, Nature, Rising ocean acidity will exacerbate global
warming, http://www.nature.com/news/rising-ocean-acidity-will-exacerbate-global-warming-1.13602,
6/27/14, SM)
The slow and inexorable increase in the oceans acidity as they soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
could itself have an effect on climate and amplify global warming, according to a new study. Acidification
would lead certain marine organisms to emit less of the sulphur compounds that help to seed the formation
of clouds and so keep the planet cool. Atmospheric sulphur, most of which comes from the sea, is a check
against global warming. Phytoplankton photosynthetic microbes that drift in sunlit water produces a compound
called dimethylsulphide (DMS). Some of this enters the atmosphere and reacts to make sulphuric acid, which
clumps into aerosols, or microscopic airborne particles. Aerosols seed the formation of clouds, which help cool the Earth
by reflecting sunlight. James Lovelock and colleagues proposed in the 1980s that DMS could provide a feedback mechanism
limiting global warming1, as part of Lovelocks Gaia hypothesis of a self-regulating Earth. If warming increased plankton
productivity, oceanic DMS emissions might rise and help cool the Earth. More recently, thinking has shifted towards predicting a
feedback in the opposite direction, because of acidification. As more CO2 enters the atmosphere, some dissolves in seawater, forming
carbonic acid. This is decreasing the pH of the oceans, which is already down by 0.1 pH units on pre-industrial times, and could be
down by another 0.5 in some places by 2100. And studies using 'mesocosms' enclosed volumes of seawater show that seawater
with a lower pH produces less DMS2. On a global scale, a fall in DMS emissions due to acidification could have a
major effect on climate, creating a positive-feedback loop and enhancing warming.

Coral reefs solve ocean acidificationbest studies prove
Scripps Institution of Oceanography 13
(11/26/13, Scripps Institution of Oceanography UC San Diego, Can Coral Reefs Delay the Damaging
Effects of Ocean Acidification?, https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/13963, 6/25/14, SM)
According to a paper published in the November issue of the journal Nature Climate Change, coral reefs may respond to
ocean acidification in ways that will partially offset expected changes in seawater acidity taking place as
the oceans take up human-produced carbon dioxide. Andreas Andersson, a chemical oceanographer at Scripps Institution
of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and lead author of the paper, said that most predictions of seawater acidification on
coral reefs are based on observations from the open ocean. But the effects of increasing CO2 on coral reefs
are very different than the changes in the open ocean, because the reef itself modifies the chemistry through
various biogeochemical processes. The study, based on observations of the Bermuda coral reef ecosystem, predicts that
changes to this system in response to ocean acidification could offset human-induced, CO2-driven decreases in pH by 12 to 24
percent. Andersson and colleagues also predict that these reef responses will counteract a predicted decrease in the seawater aragonite
saturation state, a measure of the availability of carbonate ions, by 15 to 31 percent. This is an important parameter because corals
need these ions to build their calcium carbonate (CaCO3) reefs. Other researchers have shown that different benthic communities can
alter the chemistry on the reef, but were the first to show it on this scale, the whole ecosystem scale, over five years of observations,
Andersson said. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has gone up by 42 percent and global average temperatures have increased by 0.8C
(1.4F) since the Industrial Revolution. These changes have well-defined effects on the open ocean, increasing both the acidity and
temperature of surface seawater. This decrease in ocean pH has left many scientists concerned about the detrimental effects it could
have on coral reefs. Increasing temperature and decreasing pH make it harder for corals to build calcium carbonate, and also cause
calcium carbonate to dissolve more readily. The reefs total ecosystem organic carbon production (photosynthesis minus organic
matter consumed) will also be affected. All of these processes calcification, dissolution, and ecosystem organic carbon production
affect seawater pH. By modeling how the balance between these processes will change in the future, Andersson and his coauthors
discovered that the expected changes may actually increase the pH on the reef relative to the open ocean, thus
partially offsetting the decrease in pH owing to uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere.


Food
Degradation of Fisheries and Food Security
Coral Triangular Initiative, 14
(Coral Triangular Initiative, 14, Coral Triangular Initiative,
http://www.ctknetwork.org/wp-content/documents/pdf/SCTR-PNG.pdf, 6/26/14, TH).
Fish is a major source of animal dietary protein in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Annual per capita fish
consumption is 13 kilograms (kg), but reaches 53.3 kg (Bell et al. 2009) in coastal communities. Subsistence
fishing accounts for approximately 64% of total fish consumption in rural areas. However, access to fish is
poor for residents living more than 5 kilometers (km) inland. This is reflected in their estimated annual per
capita fish consumption, which is less than 5 kg. Significant loss of coastal fisheries is evident along
PNGs coastline. Marine resources in provinces that have depended heavily on them to sustain livelihoods
have come under increasing stress because of fish catches that exceed sustainable levels, destructive fishing
methods, and use of outboard engine-powered crafts to access distant or protected fishing grounds.
Agroforestry projects are active in many of the 14 maritime provinces. Over the past 20 years, many of these
projects have contributed to marine resource degradation. Siltation from seasonal heavy rainfall has likewise
contributed to degrading marine resources, particularly when it follows extended droughts. Even coastal provinces
with major gold and copper mines have suffered from food insecurity. In the Western Province, which
borders Indonesia, flooding in MayJune 2012 caused by heavy rain along the Fly River inundated 15 coastal villages,
destroying food gardens, smothering seagrass meadows, and causing tributaries of the Fly River to flood. Following this, health
concerns were widespread, and most marine-based food was deemed unsafe to eat for several months.


Coral reefs key to fish and the fishing industry
NOAA, 12 (11/30/12, NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program : Fisheries, Fisheries,
coralreef.noaa.gov/aboutcorals/values/fisheries/, 6/24/14, CH)

Coral reefs serve as habitat for many commercially important species targeted for fishing. Fisheries
related to coral ecosystems range from artisanal subsistence fishing, commercial fisheries, aquaculture, the live reef fish for
food industry, recreational fishing, the aquarium/marine ornamental trade, and the curio and fashion industries. The fish
that grow and live on coral reefs are a significant food source for over a billion people worldwide
many of whom live far from the reefs that feed them. Of that number, at least 85 percent rely principally on fish
as their major source of protein.
[
a
]
With 350 million people living within 50 km of the coast, communities in
Southeast Asia are heavily reliant on marine and coastal resources for their livelihoods. This is
particularly true of small-scale fishermen living in rural areas and relying, at times solely, on these resources both as a source
of income and for food.
[
b
]
In fact, of the estimated 30 million small-scale fishers in the developing world,
most are dependent to some extent on coral reefs for food and livelihood,
[
c
]
with 25 percent of all fish
caught in these regions coming from coral reefs.
[
d
]
In the Philippines, more than 1 million small-scale fishers depend directly
on coral reefs for their livelihood.
[
c
]
Unsustainable fishing results in shifts in fish size and species composition within coral
communities, which may precipitate large-scale ecosystem changes alone or when combined with other threats. For example,
unsustainable fishing of large predatory and herbivorous fishes is credited as the beginning of the end for some Caribbean
reefs. In the absence of predators and competing herbivores, the long-spined sea urchin became the primary control of
macroalgae levels on these reefs. Their increased population density left the sea urchins extremely susceptible to an unknown
disease that killed off over 90 percent of the species in the Western Atlantic in 1982. This in turn led to algal overgrowth and
the decline of reefs in the region.
[
l
]
The live reef fish trade has two main componentslive food fish and ornamental
aquarium fish. Accurate figures are not available on the total value of these trades, but extrapolation from partial estimates
indicates that the total value of the trade exceeds $1 billion per year. Southeast Asia is the hub of this trade, supplying up to 85
percent of the aquarium trade and nearly all of the live food fish trade.
[
e
]
However, the US is the primary importer of marine
ornamentals. Trade in live reef food fish and marine ornamentals are both a source of income for many in Southeast Asia and a
source of local reef degradation due to destructive capture techniques such as blast and cyanide fishing.
[
f
]
Approximately
half of all federally managed fisheries in the United States depend on coral reefs and related habitats
for a portion of their life cycles. [g] The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service estimates the annual
commercial value of US fisheries from coral reefs to be over $100 million. Reef-based recreational fisheries
generate over $100 million annually in the US.
[
h
]
Globally, one estimate shows fisheries benefits account for $5.7 billion of the
total $29.8 billion global net benefit provided by coral reefs.
[
h
]
Sustainable coral reef fisheries in Southeast Asia
alone are valued at $2.4 billion per year. [i] These numbers do not take into account the value of
deep-sea corals, which are themselves home for many commercially valuable species and thus
additional fisheries value. Properly managed reefs can yield, on average, 15 tons of fish and other
seafood per square kilometer each year.
[
j
]
However, destructive fishing practices; such as dynamite fishing, cyanide
fishing, and trawling; and unsustainable fishing, are threatening the world's coral ecosystems and limiting the long-term
productivity of reef-related fisheries. Dynamite, cyanide and trawling gear physically damage coral ecosystems and their
inhabitants and these fishing practices are not solely affecting just a target species. More than 80 percent of the world's
shallow reefs are severely over-fished.
Worldwide, about one billion people depend on fish for their protein intake.
Cury no date
(Philippe, no date, Les dossiers the matiques de lIRD, A billion people dependent on fish in the
world https://www.mpl.ird.fr/suds-en-ligne/ecosys/ang_ecosys/pdf/ecosys_intro.pdf, 6/25/14,
JY)
On a world-wide scale, approximately one billion people are dependent on fish as the principal source of
animal protein. Since the 1960s, the availability of fish and fish by-products per inhabitant has practically doubled (with an
average consumption of 16 kg of fish per person per year at the end of the 1990s), rapidly gaining on demographic growth,
which also nearly doubled over the same period. In low-income food-deficit countries where the current
consumption of sea products is close to half of that of the richest countries, the contribution of fish to
total protein in-take is considerable, neighboring 20%. In certain insular or coastal countries of high
population density, fish protein is a deciding dietary contributor, providing at least 50% of total
protein intake (Bangladesh, North Korea, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Japan, Senegal, etc.).

Fisheries have an important role in food and nutrition to nearly 17% of the
worlds population.
FAO 12
(Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, 7/9/12, FAO, Fisheries and aquaculture
enabling a vital sector to contribute more,
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/150839/icode/, 6/25/14, JY)
Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture play a crucial role in food and nutrition security and in
providing for the livelihoods of millions of people. FAO's latest flagship publication on the state of fisheries and
aquaculture, launched at the opening of the 30th session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries, highlights the sector's vital
contribution to the world's well-being and prosperity, a point reflected in the recent Rio+20 Outcome Document. The State of
World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2012 reveals that the sector produced a record 128 million tonnes of fish for human food -
an average of 18.4 kg per person - providing more than 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of their animal protein intake.
Fisheries and aquaculture are also a source of income for 55 million people. "Fisheries and
aquaculture play a vital role in the global, national and rural economy," said FAO Director-General Jos
Graziano da Silva. "The livelihoods of 12 percent of the world's population depend directly or indirectly
on them. Fisheries and aquaculture give an important contribution to food security and nutrition.
They are the primary source of protein for 17 percent of the world's population and nearly a quarter
in low-income food-deficit countries."
Less Food Leads to Resource Wars- International conflict and war breaks out
over scarce resources.
Evans, Editor at Center on International Cooperation, 10 (Alex, 9/9/10, Western
Australia Water Corporation, Resource Scarcity, Climate Change and the Risk of Violent Conflict,
page 4, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTWDR2011/Resources/6406082-
1283882418764/WDR_Background_Paper_Evans.pdf, 6/25/14, ML)

Even before climate change is taken into account, scarcity of land, food, water and oil is likely to be an increasing
driver of change between now and 2030, and beyond. Climate change will exacerbate the challenge in all of these areas,
and the combined effect of these changes is likely to put tens to hundreds of millions more people at risk of
impacts including hunger, disease, displacement, injury, poverty or other forms of hardship.
Although the conflict risk posed by climate change and resource scarcity will almost always be better understood as a threat
multiplier than as a sole cause of violent conflict, a range of potential linkages between climate, scarcity and conflict risk can
nonetheless be identified, whether through intensifying existing problems, or through creating new environmental problems
that lead to instability. The most obvious such linkage is the risk of direct conflict over access to or control of
scarce resources such as land or water. Most current examples of such conflicts take place within countries, but
intensifying resource scarcity and climate change could see an increase in strategic resource
competition between states both at the regional level (particularly if abrupt climate effects, such as rapid glacial
melting, manifest themselves and thus impact trans-boundary water resources) and internationally (with some countries
already pursuing third country access rights to oil, land, food and potentially water). However, a range of other conflict risks
arising from climate change and resource scarcity also have the potential to make themselves felt in the future. Among them
are cases where livelihoods or economies are undermined by resource scarcity, potentially increasing
state fragility in the process; cases where violent conflict itself has the effect of contributing to environmental
degradation, thus potentially creating a cyclical relationship between scarcity and conflict; large-scale unplanned
migration as a result of climate impacts or resource scarcity; and the risk that changing geographical circumstances, such as
rising sea levels or changing water flows in trans-boundary watercourses, render existing legal agreements out of date.


Econ (maybe)
US economic decline nowGDP decline proves
Davidson, MBA from the City University of New York, PhD at the University of
Pennsylvania, 6/25
(Paul, 6/25/14, USA Today, Economy shrank 2.9% in 1Q, worst drop since '09,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/25/economy-first-
quarter/11332011/, 6/28/14, SM)
The U.S. economy turned in its worst quarter in five years during the first three months of 2014,
shrinking more sharply than previously estimated. The nation's gross domestic product in the first
quarter fell at a 2.9% annual rate, vs. the 1% contraction previously believed, the Commerce Department said
Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected a 1.8% drop in output from the fourth quarter. The decline
was the sharpest since growth tumbled 5.4% in the first quarter of 2009, during the Great Recession.
It was also one of the worst falloffs outside of a recession since 1960. The last time the economy
shrank was in the first quarter of 2011, almost two years after the 2007-2009 recession ended, when
it slipped 1.3%. STOCKS WEDNESDAY: Markets react The more dramatic drop last quarter was largely the result of
smaller growth in household consumption than previously estimated. Consumer spending increased just 1%, vs. the 3.1% gain
previously estimated as health care spending dipped slightly. The government previously said that medical expenditures
contributed about a percentage point to growth, as the Affordable Care Act began to cover more Americans. On Wednesday, it
said health care spending subtracted 0.16% from growth. Also, exports declined 8.9%, vs. the 6% drop previously estimated.
Businesses replenished their stocks even more slowly than believed after aggressively adding to inventories
late last year.
Coral reefs support millions of jobs and fisherieskey to preventing the
economy from declining
NOAA, 14
(NOAA, 3/12/14, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, How do coral reefs benefit the
economy?, http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_economy.html, 6/25/14, JW)
Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through
tourism and recreation. Approximately half of all federally managed fisheries depend on coral reefs and
related habitats for a portion of their life cycles. The National Marine Fisheries Service estimates the
commercial value of U.S. fisheries from coral reefs is over $100 million. Local economies also receive
billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants,
and other businesses based near reef ecosystems. Despite their great economic and recreational value, coral
reefs are severely threatened by pollution, disease, and habitat destruction. Once coral reefs are damaged,
they are less able to support the many creatures that inhabit them. When a coral reef supports fewer fish,
plants, and animals, it also loses value as a tourist destination.

Economic downturn causes deep poverty
Parrott Counselor for Human Services Policy 08 (Sharon, 11/24/08, Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, Recession Could Cause Large Increases in Poverty and Push Millions into Deep
Poverty, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1290, accessed 6/25/14 SH)
Like previous recessions, the current downturn is likely to cause significant increases both in the number of
Americans who are poor and the number living in deep poverty, with incomes below half of the
poverty line. Because this recession is likely to be deep and the government safety net for very poor families who
lack jobs has weakened significantly in recent years, increases in deep poverty in this recession are likely
to be severe. There are a series of steps that federal and state policymakers could take to soften the recessions harshest
impacts and limit the extent of the increases in deep poverty, destitution, and homelessness.[1] Goldman Sachs projects that
the unemployment rate will rise to 9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009 (the firm has increased its forecast for the
unemployment rate a couple of times in the last month). If this holds true and the increase in poverty relative to the increase in
unemployment is within the range of the last three recessions, the number of poor Americans will rise above its
2006 level by 8.4-10.9 million, the number of poor children will rise by 2.6-3.9 million, and the number
of children in deep poverty will climb by 1.5-2.4 million. (This increase will not take place in a single year, but
will occur over several years.)

Poverty is the deadliest form of structural violence it is equivalent to an
ongoing nuclear war.
Gilligan, Former Director of Mental Health for the Massachusetts Prison System 96
(James, 1996, Violence, p.)

In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative
poverty as would be killed in a nuclear that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year,
two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by
the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an
ongoing, unenending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetuated on the
weak and poor ever year of every decade, throughout the world.

Disease
Huge risk of HIV pandemicdrug resistant strains
Cooper, health reporter for the Independent, 14
(Charlie, 5/22/14, The Independent, Drug-resistant HIV pandemic is a 'real possibility', expert
claims, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/drugresistant-
hiv-pandemic-is-a-real-possibility-expert-claims-9420833.html, 6/25/14, SM)
A new HIV pandemic is a real possibility, one of the worlds leading authorities on infectious disease has said,
warning that a rise of drug resistant strains of the virus could reverse progress made since the 1980s
in combating the disease. Professor Jeremy Farrar said that the spectre of drug-resistant HIV threatened
to have a huge impact in the next 20 years, if drugs which have made vast improvements to the life expectancy of
patients since 1990s become less effective. His warning came as a coalition of scientists said that antimicrobial
resistance (AMR) the process by which bacteria and other microbes, including viruses, evolve to be immune to the
drugs we use to combat them should rank alongside climate change as one of the greatest threats facing humanity.
Professor Farrar, director of the leading research foundation the Wellcome Trust, said that it was inevitable that
resistance to HIV would increase because it was a virus which could easily mutate. Antiretroviral drugs
currently used to treat HIV have been so successful that people living with the virus can expect to live healthy, active lives if
they have access to the drugs and adhere to their regime. While hailing the incredible progress made since the 1980s in
treating HIV, Professor Farrar said that resistance to first resort drugs, and also some second and third resort, drugs had
already occurred and that drug options for the virus were not limitless. It is not unreasonable that a HIV pandemic could
return. he said. The possibility of a resistantly-driven HIV pandemic is quite real. He said it would be essential to use
existing treatments efficiently and effectively to avoid further resistance developing. We [also] need to ensure we
continue to develop new compounds rather than become complacent about the existing drugs we
have, he added. A vaccine is also crucial to ensure we do not have to rely on our current prevention and treatment options.
But an HIV vaccine will be incredibly difficult. In an article for the journal Nature published today, Professor Farrar and
another leading figure, Professor Mark Woolhouse, have called for the establishment of a powerful global organisation
similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to coordinate the worldwide response to the threat of anti-
microbial resistance. Scientists have warned for years that the rise of AMR risks undoing a century of medical progress with
routine operations and cancer treatments becoming deadly because of the risk of infection. Resistant strains of
tuberculosis, malaria, MRSA and HIV have already spread around the world, they write. The focus of concerns has
been antibiotic resistance, which relates to bacterial infections, but viral infections such as HIV and malaria are now also
showing signs of resistance. In Europe, there are estimated to be 25,000 deaths every year from drug-resistant
infections roughly the same as those killed in road accidents.
Coral reefs key to new developments in medicinechemical compounds are already
showing major advances
NOAA, 11 (Medicine,
http://coralreef.noaa.gov/aboutcorals/values/medicine/, 6/24/14, AVEN)
The genetic diversity found in coral ecosystems is unparalleled and this diversity has proven
beneficial for humans through the identification of potentially beneficial chemical compounds
and through the development of medicines, both derived from organisms found in coral
ecosystems. Many species found in coral ecosystems produce chemical compounds for defense or attack, particularly the
slow-moving or stationary species like nudibranchs and sponges. Searching for potential new
pharmaceuticals, termed bioprospecting, has been common in terrestrial environments for
decades. [a] In fact, nearly half of the medicines in use today have their origins in natural
products, mostly derived from terrestrial plants, animals, and microorganisms. [b] However,
bioprospecting is relatively new in the marine environment and is nowhere close to realizing
its full potential. [a] Creatures found in coral ecosystems are important sources of new medicines
being developed to induce and ease labor; treat cancer, arthritis, asthma, ulcers, human
bacterial infections, heart disease, viruses, and other diseases; as well as sources of
nutritional supplements, enzymes, and cosmetics. [b] The medicines and other potentially useful compounds
identified to date have led to coral ecosystems being referred to as the medicine cabinets of the 21st century by some, and the
list of approved and potential new drugs is ever growing. However, this focus on coral ecosystems for medical properties is
not unique to the 21st century. The unique medical properties of organisms found in coral reefs was recognized by Eastern
cultures as early as the 14th century; tonics and medicines derived from seahorse extracts continue to be in high demand for
traditional medicines. [b] The gall bladder of several fish species were used in Palauan traditional medicine to treat venomous
stings of other marine organisms, such as stonefish. [c] While knowledge and use of some traditional medicines has been lost,
there is renewed interest within modern medicine in researching some of these treatments. Toxins provided by reef
creatures are of particular interest in present day pharmaceutical research. Stonefish, sea snakes,
box jellyfish, cone shells, and pufferfish contain some of the most toxic compounds presently known to man. These chemical
compounds are being studied by researchers, and some have already been used to develop medicines or cosmetics. For
example, cone snail neurotoxin is showing promise as a powerful painkiller. [a] Other types of chemical
compounds are also proving fruitful. The antiviral drugs Ara-A and AZT and the anticancer
agent Ara-C, developed from extracts of sponges found on a Caribbean reef, were among the
earliest modern medicines obtained from coral ecosystems. [b] The anti-cancer properties of a number of
additional compounds derived from organisms found in coral ecosystems are also being studied. Chemicals derived from
Caribbean sea-whip corals have shown skincare, painkiller, and anti-inflammatory properties and a compound derived from a
Pacific sponge has lead to testing of over 300 chemical analogs for anti-inflammatory properties. [a], [d] Kainic acid, which is
used as a diagnostic chemical to investigate Huntington's chorea, a rare but fatal disease of the nervous system, was isolated
from organisms on a Japanese reef. [e] Australian researchers have developed a sun cream from a coral chemical that contains
a natural "factor 50" sun block. [e] NOAA is even playing a role in the discovery of new medical compounds. A research team,
including NOAA scientists at the Hollings Marine Laboratory, has discovered new compounds derived from a sea sponge and
corals. One compound eats away at the shield bacteria use to protect themselves from antibiotics. The second discovery was
compounds that fight some of the worst infectious bacterial strains. [e] Besides being the source of potentially
useful chemical compounds, the porous limestone skeleton of corals has been tested as bone
grafts in humans. Pieces of coral set into a fracture act as a scaffold around which the healing
can take place. The implant eventually disappears, absorbed by the new growth of bone. Rates
of rejection are much lower than with artificial grafting materials. [e] It should be noted that, aside
from the compounds mentioned here, there are likely many other compounds under development which have not yet been
disclosed to the wider public. It is safe to say that the published research is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the
pharmaceutical possibilities presented by compounds derived from creatures found in coral ecosystems, including the corals
themselves. Thus, it is nearly impossible to predict what the future economic benefits of bio prospecting will be, as more
potentially valuable medical compounds are isolated from organisms found in coral ecosystems. This aspect of reef value was
not incorporated into the estimated $5.5 billion total global value of coral reef biodiversity, but is certainly both a
consideration for the economic value of coral reefs and the costs to society if reefs are lost. [f]
Coral reefs solve HIVpotent proteins found in coral
ASBMB 14
(American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 4/29/14, Science Daily, Coral reefs
provide potent new anti-HIV proteins,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140429092649.htm, 6/24/14, SM)
Researchers have discovered a new class of proteins capable of blocking the HIV virus from
penetrating T-cells, raising hope that the proteins could be adapted for use in gels or sexual lubricants to provide a potent
barrier against HIV infection. The proteins, called cnidarins, were found in a feathery coral collected in waters
off Australia's northern coast. Researchers zeroed in on the proteins after screening thousands of natural product
extracts in a biorepository maintained by the National Cancer Institute. "It's always thrilling when you find a brand-new
protein that nobody else has ever seen before," said senior investigator Barry O'Keefe, Ph.D., deputy chief of the Molecular
Targets Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research. "And the fact that this protein appears to
block HIV infection -- and to do it in a completely new way -- makes this truly exciting." In the global fight against AIDS,
there is a pressing need for anti-HIV microbicides that women can apply to block HIV infection without relying on
a man's willingness to use a condom. Koreen Ramessar, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Cancer Institute
and a member of the research team, said cnidarins could be ideally suited for use in such a product because the proteins
block HIV transmission without encouraging the virus to become resistant to other HIV drugs.
"When developing new drugs, we're always concerned about the possibility of undermining existing successful treatments by
encouraging drug resistance in the virus," said O'Keefe. "But even if the virus became resistant to these proteins, it would
likely still be sensitive to all of the therapeutic options that are currently available." The research team identified and purified
the cnidarin proteins, then tested their activity against laboratory strains of HIV. The proteins proved astonishingly potent,
capable of blocking HIV at concentrations of a billionth of a gram by preventing the first step in HIV
transmission, in which the virus must enter a type of immune cell known as the T-cell. "We found that cnidarins bind to
the virus and prevent it from fusing with the T-cell membrane," said Ramessar. "This is completely different from what we've
seen with other proteins, so we think the cnidarin proteins have a unique mechanism of action." The next step is to refine
methods for generating cnidarins in larger quantities so the proteins can be tested further to identify potential side effects or
activity against other viruses. "Making more of it is a big key," said O'Keefe. "You can't strip Earth of this coral trying to
harvest this protein, so our focus now is on finding ways to produce more of it so we can proceed with preclinical testing."
The scientists discovered cnidarins while screening for proteins, a largely understudied component of natural product extracts
found in the National Cancer Institute's extract repository. The institute maintains a large collection of natural specimens
gathered from around the world under agreements with their countries of origin. The specimens are available to researchers
across the United States. "The natural products extract repository is a national treasure," said O'Keefe. "You never know what
you might find. Hopefully, discoveries like this will encourage more investigators to use this resource to identify extracts with
activity against infectious disease." Experimental Biology is an annual meeting comprised of more than 14,000 scientists and
exhibitors from six sponsoring societies and multiple guest societies. With a mission to share the newest scientific concepts
and research findings shaping clinical advances, the meeting offers an unparalleled opportunity for exchange among scientists
from across the United States and the world who represent dozens of scientific areas, from laboratory to translational to
clinical research
The Infection of HIV is Rising Rapidly-Developing a vaccine is crutial to tens of
millions of lives-The impact is mass global death.
Obijiofor, Professor at University of Queensland, 11 (Levi, 6/17/11, Nigeria Village
Square, HIV-AIDS: African mothers and babies face extinction,
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/levi-obijiofor/hiv-aids-african-mothers-and-babies-face-
extinction.html, 6/29/14

The statistics on HIV-AIDS are uninviting. Across the world, 30 million people were reported to have
lost their lives through AIDS and 16 million children have been turned into orphans. Still, about 33
million people are known to be living with HIV and for every new day, about 7,000 people are
infected. That's not all the bad news. A report issued by the European Commission in 2009 stated
that one in three people who were infected with HIV were unaware that they were carrying the virus.
This is seen to account for a rapid rise in the rate of infection.
Nevertheless, in the struggle against the deadly virus, the development of a vaccine or cure remains a
priority. Also, the cost of accessing antiretroviral drugs must be further reduced in order for more
patients, particularly those in poorer countries, to access the medication. Healthcare deserves
priority attention. And the battle against HIV-AIDS deserves even a higher consideration for the
reason that a nation with a sick population is a deceased country. Unfortunately, rather than provide
funds to uplift the poor standards of healthcare, African countries are quick to allocate huge sums of
money to arms build-up to be used to defend autocratic leaders' grip on power and to suppress pro-
democracy movements.

Leadership (maybe)
US environmental leadership solves climate changespurs multilateral climate
action.
Burwell, JD @ University of Virginia 10 (David, 4/15/10, Carnegie Endowment For International Peace,
TransportationThe Leading Cause of Global Warming, http://carnegieendowment.org/2010/04/15/transportation-leading-cause-
of-global-warming/2fr2, 7/1/14, KM)

By addressing the way we travel, by helping ourselves, by giving ourselves more transportation choices, by connecting transportation
to land use development, we are not only helping ourselves, but we are providing a model for the rest of the world of how
they can develop in a way that is sustainable, low carbon, and provides more choices for everybody. If the United States
passed a climate bill that priced transportation carbon and linked it to a transportation bill that would reinvest the revenues into a green
transportation system, the United States would be on track to meet its stated obligation of a 17 to 20 percent absolute decrease in
greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. That would give comfort to other countriesparticularly China, India, and
other emerging economiesthat the United States is serious about reducing its transportation carbon and it would contribute to
the likelihood of a global climate agreement.
Environmental Leadership Key to Heg- All Environmental Activity Spills Over to
every part of decisions and actions

Barry, Associate Dean of the College of Natural Resources at Colorado State
University , 06 (Joyce, Environmental Leadership Equals Essential Leadeership: Redefining Who
Leads and How, page 6, your AEG.) Another relevant observation makes all
leadership directly relate to environmental leadership. As communication and science make the
global commons better known to all, it is increasingly clear that all humans share the same
environment (in addition, as Lily Tomlin has said, timesharing the same atoms) and are at the same
time an increasingly influential component of what we call nature (McKibben 1990). No place or
component of the biosphere is completely uninfluenced by human activity. In most places, most of the
time, human activity dominates. All human activity can be seen as environmentally based and
important to the future of the environmental dimension and all leadership decisions and actions
become in some significant measure environmental.



Solvency
Solvency-Steel Cages
Vince, Journalist Specializing in Environment, 09
(Gaia, 8/16/09, The Guardian, "Sunken Steel Cages Could Save Coral Reefs,"
www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/aug/16/coral-reefs-regeneration-maldives-
conservation, 6/25/14, AF).

Scientists are reporting encouragingly rapid coral growth on giant underwater steel cages
structures that they hope will help to regenerate battered reefs and improve protection of some vulnerable
coastlines from rising sea levels. Coral reefs support a quarter of life on Earth and last month David Attenborough warned that
carbon dioxide is already above the levels that will condemn corals to extinction. And while the metal cages, fed with
electric current, are not a solution to the global problem of dramatically contracting reefs, they do appear to be
providing promising results in small, local projects, and in some cases rescuing resorts where coral was
vanishing fast. A team of researchers on Vabbinfaru island in the Maldives submerged a huge steel
cage called the Lotus on the sea floor. The 12-metre structure, which weighs 2 tonnes is connected to long
cable which supplies a low-level electric current. The electricity triggers a chemical reaction, which
leads to calcium carbonate coming out of solution in the water and being deposited on the structure.
Corals seem to find that irresistible, perhaps because they use the same material to grow their protective skeletons,
and the Lotus has been so thoroughly colonised by coral that it is difficult now to make out the steel shape
beneath all the elaborate shapes and colour. The idea was initially developed by an American architect, Wolf Hilbertz, who sold
the concept to various resorts around the world. The Lotus is the largest and most successful of those, and has helped
researchers to test the technique. The El Nino Pacific-warming phenomenon of 1998 killed 98% of the reef
around Vabbinfaru, so the researchers there have been able to compare the growth rates for corals
grafted on to concrete structures on "desert" patches of seafloor, and those stuck on to the Lotus.
Abdul Azeez, who is leading the Vabbinfaru project, said coral growth on the structure is up to five
times as fast as that elsewhere. The electric reef may also make the corals fitter and better able to
withstand warming events, perhaps because the creatures waste less energy on making their skeletons. A smaller
prototype device was in place during the 1998 warming event and more than 80% of its corals
survived, compared to just 2% elsewhere on the reef.
Artificial Reefs Restore Ecosystems- They Provide More Habitats For
Organisms and Take Tourism Pressures off of normal reefs which in turn
increases the Economy
National Marine Sanctuaries, N/A (NOAA, While artificial reefs generally enhance local economies,
they can have both positive and negative effects on ecosystems,
http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/artificialreefs/effects.html, 6/26/14, AEG)
When a structure is intentionally placed on the seafloor as an artificial reef, it can create habitat for a
variety of marine life. For this reason, artificial reefs are often popular destinations for divers,
snorkelers, and fishermen. In areas such as the Florida Keys, heavy visitation, particularly by novice
or uninformed divers and snorkelers, can take a toll on coral reefs. Research suggests that in some
instances, artificial reefs may divert some pressure away from natural reefs while still allowing
visitors to enjoy diverse marine life. Because many of these divers, snorkelers, and anglers charter
through local businesses, artificial reefs can have a positive impact on local economies. In such an
instance, the artificial reef would be considered a win-win for the economy and the environment.
Artificial Reefs Provide an Easy Way to Create More Coral Reefs, Bringing the
Creatures Back Into The Area
US EPA, N/A
(United States Environmental Protection Agency, What Are Artificial Reefs and Where Are They
Located in the Mid-Atlantic?, http://www.epa.gov/reg3esd1/coast/reefs.htm, 6/25/14, AEG)
Reefs provide a home for fish and other ocean wildlife. Once an artificial reef is placed on the
ocean floor, various encrusting organisms such as corals and sponges start covering the
material. Then small animals take up residence, and as the small animals become abundant,
larger animals are attracted. After a time it is hard to tell an artificial reef from a natural reef.
Many different types of materials can serve as artificial reefs. The bodies of cars, trucks,
subway cars, and military tanks have been used, as well as bridge rubble, barges, boats, submarines, planes,
and large cable. In August 2001, New York City subway cars were slid off a barge into the Atlantic Ocean ten miles east of
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The cars, positioned in approximately 80 feet of water, became an artificial reef. Dives by the EPA
Mid-Atlantic Region Scientific Dive Unit have confirmed that the cars are still intact, well covered by growth, and surrounded
by fish such as flounder, tog, and shark. Because of the success of the 2001 program, additional New York City subway cars
have been placed off the coast. For example, in November 2008, more than 40 subway cars were placed in the Atlantic Ocean
approximately 10 miles southeast of Ocean City, Maryland. The cars will serve as artificial reefs, which are critical in
supporting a diversity of species along the Maryland coast. This is the second time in the past six months where partners of the
Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative(including NYC transit) placed subway cars in the Atlantic Ocean to create deep water
artificial reefs. There are plans to create up to a 600 car matrix off of Ocean Citys coast. Members of EPA's Coastal Science
Team were consulted regarding the proper cleaning and removal of parts in the subway cars prior to placement. The national
story was recently the focus of a NBC Nightly News Special report (video).Artificial reefs are
especially important in the marine waters of the mid-Atlantic. Years ago the natural bottom
near shore had crevices in which fish could breed and hide. Today, however, widespread
development has increased runoff from the land. This has resulted in large quantities of silt
and sand being deposited into the water, making the near-shore bottom flat. Artificial reefs
provide a way to bring fish and other ocean creatures back into an area.


Lt. Danny Mitchell-Torrence
OTEC 1AC
Plan
The United States federal government should substantially increase its
development of OTEC resources by:
1) Streamlining the regulatory framework for OTEC projects to
permit one-stop shop licensing by the NOAA.
2) Reactivating the dedicated budget line item for Department of
Energy research and development of OTEC.
3) Providing federal cost-sharing to develop prototype OTEC
commercial electric plants.
Inherency
NOAA cancelled its streamlined OTEC licensing program in 98
Danielle Murray, Renewable Energy Program Manager for the City of San
Francisco, et al 2011
Christopher Carr, Partner @ Morrison & Foerster, Environment and Energy Law Group, Jennifer Jeffers
and Alejandra Nunez-Luna, both Associates @ Morrison and Foerster, Golden Gate University
Environmental Law Journal, 5 Golden Gate U. Envtl. L.J. 159, Fall, p. l/n
Meanwhile, in the 1970s, the U.S. government began investing in the development of ocean thermal energy
conversion (OTEC), which utilizes the difference between cooler deep and warmer shallow waters to run a steam turbine. n26 In
1980, Congress passed the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act, n27 which gave the National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) authority over ocean energy. Under the Act, OTEC facilities were not required to
obtain leases or pay royalties to the federal government, a provision intended to encourage commercial development of
the energy source. Despite the streamlined process and a handful of government-sponsored pilot projects,
NOAA still had not received any license applications by 1998, and it [*165] subsequently dismantled the
OTEC licensing program and rescinded the OTEC licensing regulations. n28
Adv. 1 is Warming
Every data method and prediction model indicates fast anthropogenic
warming all natural long-term explanations are flawed the ocean is key to
sustainability and continuation will risk extinction, timeframe is less than 80
years
Geological Society of America (GSA) 2013
(The Geological Society of America, Adopted in October 2006; revised April 2010; March 2013, citing
dozens of peer-reviewed publications, Climate Change: Rationale,
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm, Accessed: 6/25/14) //AMM
Scientific advances in the first decade of the 21st century have greatly reduced previous uncertainties about
the amplitude and causes of recent global warming. Ground-station measurements have shown a warming
trend of ~0.8 C since the mid-1800s, a trend consistent with (1) retreat of northern hemisphere snow and Arctic sea
ice in the last 40 years; (2) greater heat storage in the ocean over the last 50 years; (3) retreat of most mountain
glaciers since 1850; (4) an ongoing rise of global sea level for more than a century; and (5) proxy
reconstructions of temperature change over past centuries from archives including ice cores, tree rings, lake
sediments, boreholes, cave deposits and corals. Both instrumental records and proxy indices from geologic sources show that
global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century and the first
decade of the 21st than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries (National Research
Council, 2006).
Measurements from satellites, which began in 1979, initially did not show a warming trend, but later studies (Mears and Wentz, 2005; Santer et al., 2008)
found that the satellite data had not been fully adjusted for losses of satellite elevation through time, differences in time of arrival over a given location,
and removal of higher-elevation effects on the lower tropospheric signal. With these factors taken into account, the satellite data are now in
basic agreement with ground-station data and confirm a warming trend since 1979. In a related study, Sherwood et al.
(2005) found problems with corrections of tropical daytime radiosonde measurements and largely resolved a previous discrepancy with ground-station
trends. With instrumental discrepancies having been resolved, recent warming of Earths surface is now consistently
supported by a wide range of measurements and proxies and is no longer open to serious challenge.
The geologic record contains unequivocal evidence of former climate change, including periods of greater
warmth with limited polar ice, and colder intervals with more widespread glaciation. These and other changes were
accompanied by major shifts in species and ecosystems. Paleoclimatic research has demonstrated that these major changes in
climate and biota are associated with significant changes in climate forcing such as continental positions and topography,
patterns of ocean circulation, the greenhouse gas composition of the atmosphere, and the distribution and amount of
solar energy at the top of the atmosphere caused by changes in Earth's orbit and the evolution of the sun as a main sequence star. Cyclic changes
in ice volume during glacial periods over the last three million years have been correlated to orbital cycles and changes in
greenhouse gas concentrations, but may also reflect internal responses generated by large ice sheets. This rich history of Earth's climate has
been used as one of several key sources of information for assessing the predictive capabilities of modern climate models. The testing of increasingly
sophisticated climate models by comparison to geologic proxies is continuing, leading to refinement of hypotheses and improved understanding of the
drivers of past and current climate change.
Given the knowledge gained from paleoclimatic studies, several long-term causes of the current warming trend can be
eliminated. Changes in Earths tectonism and its orbit are far too slow to have played a significant role in a
rapidly changing 150-year trend. At the other extreme, large volcanic eruptions have cooled global climate for a
year or two, and El Nio episodes have warmed it for about a year, but neither factor dominates longer-term
trends. Extensive efforts to find any other natural explanation of the recent trend have similarly failed.
As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations, which can be influenced by human activities, and solar fluctuations are the
principal remaining factors that could have changed rapidly enough and lasted long enough to explain the
observed changes in global temperature. Although the 3rd (2001) IPCC report allowed that solar fluctuations might have contributed as
much as 30% of the warming since 1850, subsequent observations of Sun-like stars (Foukal et al., 2004) and new simulations of the
evolution of solar sources of irradiance variations (Wang et al., 2005) have reduced these estimates. The 4th (2007) IPCC report concluded
that changes in solar irradiance, continuously measured by satellites since 1979, account for less than 10% of
the last 150 years of warming. Throughout the era of satellite observation, during periods of strong warming, the data show little
evidence of increased solar influence (Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011; Lean and Rind, 2008).
Greenhouse gases remain as the major explanation for the warming. Observations and climate model assessments of the
natural and anthropogenic factors responsible for this warming conclude that rising anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases
have been an increasingly important contributor since the mid-1800s and the major factor since the mid-1900s (Meehl et al.,
2004). The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is now ~30% higher than peak levels that have been measured in ice
cores spanning 800,000 years of age, and the methane concentration is 2.5 times higher. About half of Earths warming has
occurred through the basic heat-trapping effect of the gases in the absence of any feedback processes. This clear-sky response to climate is known with
high certainty. The other half of the estimated warming results from the net effect of feedbacks in the climate system: a
large positive feedback from water vapor; a smaller positive feedback from snow and ice albedo; a negative
feedback from aerosols, and still uncertain, feedbacks from clouds. The vertical structure of observed changes in
temperature and water vapor in the troposphere is consistent with the anthropogenic greenhouse-gas
fingerprint simulated by climate models (Santer et al., 2008). Considered in isolation, the greenhouse-gas increases during the last
150 years would have caused a warming larger than that actually measured, but negative feedback from aerosols and possibly clouds has offset part of the
warming. In addition, because the oceans take decades to centuries to respond fully to climatic forcing, the climate
system has yet to register the full effect of gas increases in recent decades.
These advances in scientific understanding of recent warming form the basis for projections of future changes. If greenhouse-gas emissions
follow predicted trajectories, by 2100 atmospheric CO2 concentrations will reach two to four times pre-
industrial levels, for a total warming of 2 C to 4.5 C compared to 1850. This range of changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature
would substantially alter the functioning of the planet in many ways. The projected changes involve risk to humans and other
species: (1) continued shrinking of Arctic sea ice with effects on native cultures and ice-dependent biota; (2)
less snow accumulation and earlier melt in mountains, with reductions in spring and summer runoff for agricultural and
municipal water; (3) disappearance of mountain glaciers and their late-summer runoff; (4) increased
evaporation from farmland soils and stress on crops; (5) greater soil erosion due to increases in heavy convective summer
rainfall; (6) longer fire seasons and increases in fire frequency; (7) severe insect outbreaks in vulnerable forests; (8) acidification
of the global ocean; and (9) fundamental changes in the composition, functioning, and biodiversity of many
terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In addition, melting of Greenland and West Antarctic ice (still highly uncertain as to
amount), along with thermal expansion of seawater and melting of mountain glaciers and small ice caps, will cause substantial future sea-
level rise, affecting densely populated coastal regions, inundating farmland and dislocating large
populations. Because large, abrupt climatic changes occurred within spans of just decades during previous ice-sheet fluctuations, the possibility
exists for rapid future changes as ice sheets become vulnerable to large greenhouse-gas increases. Finally,
carbon-climate model simulations indicate that 1020% of the anthropogenic CO2 pulse could stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years, extending
the duration of fossil-fuel warming and its effects on humans and other species. The acidification of the global ocean and its effects on ocean life are
projected to last for tens of thousands of years.
OTEC reduces CO2 emissions and causes a massive shift towards clean
energy
Websdale, senior communications specialist for the Ocean Thermal Energy
Corporation, 2014
[Emma, BSc in conservative biology, Empower the Ocean, March 5, OTEC Can Help Countries Get Serious About Climate
Change, http://empowertheocean.com/otec-climate-change/http://empowertheocean.com/ocean-thermal-energy-
corporation-sustainable/, DOI 6/25/2014, MEL]

As these changes in lifestyle and political commitment make clear, countries across the globe are serious about making sustainable changes. One technology that
can benefit nearly all of these locations by helping them reach their clean-energy and emission-reduction
targets is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). By tapping into our most abundant resource, our oceans, OTEC can allow us to meet energy and water demands
sustainably by utilizing temperature differences between warm surface water and cold deep water, all without the use of fossil fuels.
With the thermal resources of the ocean available day and night, and with only relatively small variations from summer to winter, OTEC can produce clean
energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, giving it a great advantage over other important, yet
intermittent, renewable-energy sources.
OTECs ability to help countries reduce their energy-related carbon dioxide emissions is staggering. One 10-
MW OTEC plant alone can provide clean, reliable energy for approximately 10,000 people, replacing the
burning of 50,000 barrels of oil and preventing the release of 80,000 tons of CO2 per year into the
atmosphere. When the plants energy is not in demand, that same 10-MW plant can produce as much as 75
million liters of fresh drinking water on a daily basis via desalination (removing salt and other minerals from seawater). Worldwide,
the surge in proposals, bidding, and deployment of desalination plants reflects an awareness of the climate-proof potential for desalination and its capacity to separate industrial
water demand from public water supplies. Already, countries including the United States, Australia, and China manage water shortages via desalination plants. Meanwhile,
countries such as the United Arab Emirates, India, Chile, and Saudi Arabia recognize the crucial role of desalination and have plans to build plants in the near future.
SDC Plant by using the deep cold water in OTEC plant pipes, energy-intensive central refrigeration methods can be replaced by
Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC), helping countries reach emission-reduction targets. For large buildings and hotels, particularly in
tropical climates, air conditioning (AC) is the single greatest demand on energy and is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions.
Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC), by comparison, has been proven to deliver huge energy savings (up to 90%) and to reduce
cooling-associated emissions significantly.
OTECs services can be delivered worldwide. Its global importance is recognized by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the
United States Department of Energy (DOE), which has listed 68 countries and 29 territories as suitable candidates for OTEC plants. Furthermore, a study performed by Dunbar
identified 98 territories with access to the OTEC thermal resource.
With OTEC plants offering products and services including clean energy, fresh drinking water, and energy-saving air conditioning, the technology is perfectly
positioned to help countries successfully restrict fossil fuel use and move toward clean energy.

Plan models
Barron-Lopez, Writer for The Hill, 2014
[Laura, 6-16-14, The Hill, EPA Chief: Climate rule is about leadership,
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/209487-epa-chief-climate-rule-is-about-leadership, 6-29-14,
JY]
Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy says the administration's recent proposal to cut carbon
pollution from the nation's power plants is about leadership.
"The president knows we have to show domestic leadership," McCarthy said during an interview on HBO's "Real Time with
Bill Maher."
"This is about leadership. This about US being a leader on this issue and we believe it's going to leverage a much
better opportunity for a global solution," she added Friday night.
McCarthy was responding to assertions by opponents of the new rules, who say the U.S. should not act on climate change policies
when other countries such as China and India are continuing to build coal-fired power plants.
McCarthy argued: "But if the US doesn't act what voice do we bring to the table to drive that larger solution."
Heading into the 2015 Paris climate talks the U.S. has been including climate change as a central talking point in most diplomatic
talks.
Leading up to the administration's announcement on the new carbon standards, global leaders were keeping a watchful eye
on the specifics of the rules.
Energy experts said that global leaders are looking to the U.S. to lead on climate policies. Leaders from the
European Union, and India applauded President Obama for taking an aggressive step but said more needs
to be done.


CO2 mitigation solves decline in phytoplankton
Westenskow, correspondent for UPI, 8
[Rosalie, 6/6/8, United Press International, Acidic oceans may tangle food chain,
http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2008/06/06/Acidic_oceans_may_tangle_food_chain/UPI-
84651212763771/print/, accessed 6/25/14, TYBG]
Increased carbon levels in ocean water could have devastating impacts on marine life, scientists testified Thursday at a congressional
hearing. Although most of the concern about carbon emissions has focused on the atmosphere and resulting temperature changes,
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the ocean also could have disturbing outcomes, experts said at the hearing,
which examined legislation that would create a program to study how the ocean responds to increased carbon levels. Ocean surface
waters quickly absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so as carbon concentrations rise in the skies,
they also skyrocket in the watery depths that cover almost 70 percent of the planet. As carbon dioxide increases in
oceans, the acidity of the water also rises, and this change could affect a wide variety of organisms, said Scott
Doney, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a non-profit research institute based in Woods Hole, Mass.
"Greater acidity slows the growth or even dissolves ocean plant and animal shells built from calcium carbonate," Doney told
representatives in the House Committee on Energy and the Environment. "Acidification thus threatens a wide range of
marine organisms, from microscopic plankton and shellfish to massive coral reefs." If small organisms, like
phytoplankton, are knocked out by acidity, the ripples would be far-reaching, said David Adamec, head of ocean
sciences at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "If the amount of phytoplankton is reduced, you reduce
the amount of photosynthesis going on in the ocean," Adamec told United Press International. "Those little guys are
responsible for half of the oxygen you're breathing right now." A hit to microscopic organisms can also
bring down a whole food chain. For instance, several years ago, an El Nino event wiped out the phytoplankton near the
Galapagos Islands. That year, juvenile bird and seal populations almost disappeared. If ocean acidity stunted phytoplankton
populations like the El Nino did that year, a similar result would occur -- but it would last for much longer than
one year, potentially leading to extinction for some species, Adamec said. While it's clear increased acidity makes it
difficult for phytoplankton to thrive, scientists don't know what level of acidity will result in catastrophic damages, said Wayne Esaias,
a NASA oceanographer. "There's no hard and fast number we can use," he told UPI. In fact, although scientists can guess at the
impacts of acidity, no one's sure what will happen in reality. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., pointed to this uncertainty at Thursday's
hearing. "The ocean will be very different with increased levels of carbon dioxide, but I don't know if it will be better or worse,"
Bartlett said. However, even though it's not clear what the changes will be, the risk of doing nothing could be disastrous
for ecosystems, said Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, a non-profit research organization. "The
systems that are adapted to very precise chemical or climatological conditions will disappear and be replaced by species which, on
land, we call weeds," Caldeira said. "What is the level of irreversible environmental risk that you're willing to take?" It's precisely this
uncertainty that the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act attempts to address. The bill creates a federal
committee within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to monitor carbon dioxide levels in ocean waters and
research the impacts of acidification. like Bishop. "We would lose everything," he told UPI.


Phytoplankton is key to oxygen production and carbon sequestration and is
the basis of the global food chain a collapse of Phytoplankton would mean
global extinction
Alberro, writer for the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, 14
[Heather, 1/24/14, R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, Phytoplankton: Small Organisms with a
Massive Impact, http://rjd.miami.edu/conservation/phytoplankton-small-organisms-with-a-massive-
impact, accessed 6/25/14, TYBG]
Phytoplankton, microscopic marine photosynthetic organisms, have a vastly significant role to play not
only in the marine food web of which theyre part of, but also on a more global scale. Despite their infinitely
small size in comparison to other marine organisms, these tiny creatures occupy an immensely important ecological
niche: they are the foundation of the marine food web, and as primary producers, play key roles in
supporting all other organisms in the marine environment, as well as in the regulation of the Earths climate
through the sequestration of carbon, oxygen production, and other related processes. Phytoplankton account for
roughly half of all global primary productivity; therefore, their significance extends far beyond the marine environment
alone. There is an intriguing sense of irony in the realization that these tiny living beings that often live out their existence unnoticed
and undetected by the rest of the world, have such a far-reaching impact on the lives of virtually all other living organisms on the
planet, particularly on those in the marine environment. The world that we have become accustomed to has been and is continuously
shaped by the workings of these miniscule yet vital plants of the sea.
The name phytoplankton can be divided into two meanings, phyto being the Greek word for plant, and plankton meaning to
wander or drift; thus, phytoplankton are microscopic drifting plants that live in aquatic environments, and are not restricted to the
oceans. However, phytoplankton are not merely one homogenous group of organisms, they represent a rich diversity of shapes, colors,
and varieties, ranging from single-celled photosynthetic bacteria such as cyanobacteria, to plant-like diatoms and armor-plated
cocolithophores[1]. As the aquatic counterparts to plants on land, the terrestrial primary producers, phytoplankton contain a green
pigment known as chlorophyll, which captures sunlight and then, through the photosynthetic process, transforms it into chemical
energy. Sunlight is crucial for phytoplankton productivity, as is the case for terrestrial plants. This photosynthetic ability is
characteristic to all phytoplankton, and it is through this ability that they perform the crucial functions of
absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, processes that are essential for the continuation of life.
Cyanobacteria warrant a closer look, as they are by far the most ubiquitous and ancient group of phytoplankton on our planet, a point
on which Paul Falkowski et al dwell in their article, Phytoplankton and Their Role in Primary, New, and Export Production.
Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae due to their color, are a class of prokaryotic[2] phytoplankton that evolved over 2.8
billion years ago, playing an essential role in shaping the Earths carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen cycles over sweeping expanses of
time[3], and leading to the biogeochemical conditions of the present. In light of the vast numbers of cyanobacteria currently present in
the biosphere, Falkowski et al note, There are approximately ,10-24. cyanobacterial cells in the oceans, a number that exceeds all
the stars in the sky. These organisms are all-important and ever-present, yet remain virtually imperceptible to
all other living beings.
The photosynthetic abilities of phytoplankton play a key role in the regulation of the Earths climate,
largely through their impact on the carbon cycle. Just like terrestrial plants, phytoplankton, through the
photosynthetic process, consume vast quantities of carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide is stored within the
phytoplankton. When phytoplankton are preyed upon by other organisms, some of the carbon makes its
way back to near-surface waters, and some travels to the ocean depths. According to Rebecca Lindsey and Michon
Scotts article, What are Phytoplankton?, this biological carbon pump transfers about 10 gigatonnes of carbon
from the atmosphere to the deep ocean each year. Even small changes in the growth of phytoplankton may
affect atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which would feed back to global surface temperatures.
These miniscule beings, through a series of chemical processes, regulate key global activities in the biosphere such
as the climate system, which affect all other living organisms in marine and terrestrial ecosystems alike.
In The Functioning of Marine Ecosystems, Philippe Curry et al shed light on the significance of phytoplankton in the overall
functioning of the marine food web, and how phytoplankton exert a sort of bottom-up control on the food webs
various components. As primary producers who provide some of the basic elements essential to life, such
as oxygen, phytoplankton essentially regulate food web dynamics, as they form the very basis of its
existence. Phytoplankton, the plants of the sea, form the foundation of the marine food web, supporting successive trophic levels
such as zooplankton[4], organisms that feed on zooplankton such as fish, and then predators that feed on the fish such as seals, sea
lions, sharks, and marine mammals. Therefore, even organisms at the very top of the food web, including apex
predators such as sharks and orcas, ultimately depend on the ecological base that is formed by
phytoplankton. Declines in phytoplankton populations, apart from its effects on the Earths climate, can
result in subsequent dwindling zooplankton populations, which in turn affect secondary and tertiary-level
consumers such as fish and sharks.
Phytoplankton, as photosynthetic primary producers, not only form the ecological foundation of aquatic environments, but also
serve as key drivers of the Earths carbon and oxygen cycles. These vital ecosystem functions are crucial to
life on Earth for all living organisms. It is rather remarkable that such infinitesimal creatures have played, and continue to
play, such principal roles in shaping the Earths biogeochemical composition. Phytoplankton are the source of crucial
processes such as photosynthesis which provide the elements necessary for nearly all other organisms to
survive. As Science Daily illustrates, Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run. A decline of
phytoplankton affects everything up the food chain, including humans. Even the largest being in existence, and to
have ever existed, the blue whale, ultimately relies on a viable population of phytoplankton in order to sustain itself. The very
small in many ways control and support the very large.

Adv. 2 is Heg
Hegemony not locked in yet, and the SQUO poses serious competition
Mead, Bard College Foreign Affairs and Humanities professor, 14
[Walter Russell, Foreign Affairs, May/June, The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist
Powers, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141211/walter-russell-mead/the-return-of-geopolitics,
accessed 7-11-14, AFB]

So far, the year 2014 has been a tumultuous one, as geopolitical rivalries have stormed back to center
stage. Whether it is Russian forces seizing Crimea, China making aggressive claims in its coastal waters, Japan responding with an
increasingly assertive strategy of its own, or Iran trying to use its alliances with Syria and Hezbollah to dominate the Middle East,
old-fashioned power plays are back in international relations.
The United States and the EU, at least, find such trends disturbing. Both would rather move past
geopolitical questions of territory and military power and focus instead on ones of world order and
global governance: trade liberalization, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, the rule of law,
climate change, and so on. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, the most important objective of U.S.
and EU foreign policy has been to shift international relations away from zero-sum issues toward win-win
ones. To be dragged back into old-school contests such as that in Ukraine doesnt just divert time and
energy away from those important questions; it also changes the character of international politics.
As the atmosphere turns dark, the task of promoting and maintaining world order grows more
daunting.
But Westerners should never have expected old-fashioned geopolitics to go away. They did so only
because they fundamentally misread what the collapse of the Soviet Union meant: the ideological
triumph of liberal capitalist democracy over communism, not the obsolescence of hard power. China,
Iran, and Russia never bought into the geopolitical settlement that followed the Cold War, and they
are making increasingly forceful attempts to overturn it. That process will not be peaceful, and whether
or not the revisionists succeed, their efforts have already shaken the balance of power and changed the dynamics of international
politics.
A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
When the Cold War ended, the most vexing geopolitical questions seemed largely settled.
When the Cold War ended, many Americans and Europeans seemed to think that the most vexing
geopolitical questions had largely been settled. With the exception of a handful of relatively minor problems, such as
the woes of the former Yugoslavia and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the biggest issues in world politics, they
assumed, would no longer concern boundaries, military bases, national self-determination, or spheres
of influence.
One cant blame people for hoping. The Wests approach to the realities of the postCold War world has made a great deal
of sense, and it is hard to see how world peace can ever be achieved without replacing geopolitical competition with the construction
of a liberal world order. Still, Westerners often forget that this project rests on the particular geopolitical foundations laid in the early
1990s.
In Europe, the postCold War settlement involved the unification of Germany, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, and the integration of the former
Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic republics into NATO and the EU. In the Middle East, it entailed the dominance of Sunni powers that were allied with
the United States (Saudi Arabia, its Gulf allies, Egypt, and Turkey) and the double containment of Iran and Iraq. In Asia, it meant the uncontested
dominance of the United States, embedded in a series of security relationships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and other allies.
This settlement reflected the power realities of the day, and it was only as stable as the relationships that held it up. Unfortunately, many observers
conflated the temporary geopolitical conditions of the postCold War world with the presumably more final outcome of the ideological struggle between
liberal democracy and Soviet communism. The political scientist Francis Fukuyamas famous formulation that the end of the Cold War meant the end of
history was a statement about ideology. But for many people, the collapse of the Soviet Union didnt just mean that humanitys ideological struggle was
over for good; they thought geopolitics itself had also come to a permanent end.
At first glance, this conclusion looks like an extrapolation of Fukuyamas argument rather than a distortion of it. After all, the idea of the end of history
has rested on the geopolitical consequences of ideological struggles ever since the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel first expressed it
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. For Hegel, it was the Battle of Jena, in 1806, that rang the curtain down on the war of ideas. In Hegels eyes,
Napoleon Bonapartes utter destruction of the Prussian army in that brief campaign represented the triumph of the French Revolution over the best army
that prerevolutionary Europe could produce. This spelled an end to history, Hegel argued, because in the future, only states that adopted the principles
and techniques of revolutionary France would be able to compete and survive.
Adapted to the postCold War world, this argument was taken to mean that in the future, states would have to adopt the principles of liberal capitalism to
keep up. Closed, communist societies, such as the Soviet Union, had shown themselves to be too uncreative and unproductive to compete economically
and militarily with liberal states. Their political regimes were also shaky, since no social form other than liberal democracy provided enough freedom and
dignity for a contemporary society to remain stable.
To fight the West successfully, you would have to become like the West, and if that happened, you would become the kind of wishy-washy, pacifistic
milquetoast society that didnt want to fight about anything at all. The only remaining dangers to world peace would come from rogue states such as
North Korea, and although such countries might have the will to challenge the West, they would be too crippled by their obsolete political and social
structures to rise above the nuisance level (unless they developed nuclear weapons, of course). And thus former communist states, such as Russia, faced a
choice. They could jump on the modernization bandwagon and become liberal, open, and pacifistic, or they could cling bitterly to their guns and their
culture as the world passed them by.
At first, it all seemed to work. With history over, the focus shifted from geopolitics to development
economics and nonproliferation, and the bulk of foreign policy came to center on questions such as
climate change and trade. The conflation of the end of geopolitics and the end of history offered an
especially enticing prospect to the United States: the idea that the country could start putting less
into the international system and taking out more. It could shrink its defense spending, cut the State
Departments appropriations, lower its profile in foreign hotspots -- and the world would just go on
becoming more prosperous and more free.
This vision appealed to both liberals and conservatives in the United States. The administration of President Bill Clinton, for example,
cut both the Defense Departments and the State Departments budgets and was barely able to persuade Congress to keep paying U.S.
dues to the UN. At the same time, policymakers assumed that the international system would become stronger and wider-reaching
while continuing to be conducive to U.S. interests. Republican neo-isolationists, such as former Representative Ron Paul of Texas,
argued that given the absence of serious geopolitical challenges, the United States could dramatically cut both military spending and
foreign aid while continuing to benefit from the global economic system.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush based his foreign policy on the belief that Middle Eastern terrorists constituted a uniquely
dangerous opponent, and he launched what he said would be a long war against them. In some respects, it appeared that the world was
back in the realm of history. But the Bush administrations belief that democracy could be implanted quickly in the Arab Middle East,
starting with Iraq, testified to a deep conviction that the overall tide of events was running in Americas favor.
In very different ways, China, Iran, and Russia are all seeking to revise the status quo.
President Barack Obama built his foreign policy on the conviction that the war on terror was
overblown, that history really was over, and that, as in the Clinton years, the United States most important
priorities involved promoting the liberal world order, not playing classical geopolitics. The
administration articulated an extremely ambitious agenda in support of that order: blocking Irans
drive for nuclear weapons, solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, negotiating a global climate change
treaty, striking Pacific and Atlantic trade deals, signing arms control treaties with Russia, repairing
U.S. relations with the Muslim world, promoting gay rights, restoring trust with European allies, and
ending the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, however, Obama planned to cut defense spending
dramatically and reduced U.S. engagement in key world theaters, such as Europe and the Middle
East.
AN AXIS OF WEEVILS?
All these happy convictions are about to be tested. Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
whether one focuses on the rivalry between the EU and Russia over Ukraine, which led Moscow to
seize Crimea; the intensifying competition between China and Japan in East Asia; or the subsuming
of sectarian conflict into international rivalries and civil wars in the Middle East, the world is looking
less post-historical by the day. In very different ways, with very different objectives, China, Iran, and Russia are all pushing
back against the political settlement of the Cold War.
The relationships among those three revisionist powers are complex. In the long run, Russia fears the rise of China. Tehrans worldview has little in
common with that of either Beijing or Moscow. Iran and Russia are oil-exporting countries and like the price of oil to be high; China is a net consumer
and wants prices low. Political instability in the Middle East can work to Irans and Russias advantage but poses large risks for China. One should not
speak of a strategic alliance among them, and over time, particularly if they succeed in undermining U.S. influence in Eurasia, the tensions among them
are more likely to grow than shrink.
What binds these powers together, however, is their agreement that the status quo must be revised.
Russia wants to reassemble as much of the Soviet Union as it can. China has no intention of
contenting itself with a secondary role in global affairs, nor will it accept the current degree of U.S.
influence in Asia and the territorial status quo there. Iran wishes to replace the current order in the
Middle East -- led by Saudi Arabia and dominated by Sunni Arab states -- with one centered on Tehran.
Leaders in all three countries also agree that U.S. power is the chief obstacle to achieving their
revisionist goals. Their hostility toward Washington and its order is both offensive and defensive: not only do they hope that the
decline of U.S. power will make it easier to reorder their regions, but they also worry that Washington might try to overthrow them
should discord within their countries grow. Yet the revisionists want to avoid direct confrontations with the
United States, except in rare circumstances when the odds are strongly in their favor (as in Russias 2008
invasion of Georgia and its occupation and annexation of Crimea this year). Rather than challenge the status quo head
on, they seek to chip away at the norms and relationships that sustain it.
Since Obama has been president, each of these powers has pursued a distinct strategy in light of its own strengths and weaknesses.
China, which has the greatest capabilities of the three, has paradoxically been the most frustrated. Its efforts to assert itself in its region
have only tightened the links between the United States and its Asian allies and intensified nationalism in Japan. As Beijings
capabilities grow, so will its sense of frustration. Chinas surge in power will be matched by a surge in Japans
resolve, and tensions in Asia will be more likely to spill over into global economics and politics.
Iran, by many measures the weakest of the three states, has had the most successful record. The combination of the United States invasion of Iraq and
then its premature withdrawal has enabled Tehran to cement deep and enduring ties with significant power centers across the Iraqi border, a development
that has changed both the sectarian and the political balance of power in the region. In Syria, Iran, with the help of its longtime ally Hezbollah, has been
able to reverse the military tide and prop up the government of Bashar al-Assad in the face of strong opposition from the U.S. government. This triumph
of realpolitik has added considerably to Irans power and prestige. Across the region, the Arab Spring has weakened Sunni regimes, further tilting the
balance in Irans favor. So has the growing split among Sunni governments over what to do about the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and
adherents.
Russia, meanwhile, has emerged as the middling revisionist: more powerful than Iran but weaker than China, more successful than China at geopolitics
but less successful than Iran. Russia has been moderately effective at driving wedges between Germany and the United States, but Russian President
Vladimir Putins preoccupation with rebuilding the Soviet Union has been hobbled by the sharp limits of his countrys economic power. To build a real
Eurasian bloc, as Putin dreams of doing, Russia would have to underwrite the bills of the former Soviet republics -- something it cannot afford to do.
Nevertheless, Putin, despite his weak hand, has been remarkably successful at frustrating Western projects on former Soviet territory. He has stopped
NATO expansion dead in its tracks. He has dismembered Georgia, brought Armenia into his orbit, tightened his hold on Crimea, and, with his Ukrainian
adventure, dealt the West an unpleasant and humiliating surprise. From the Western point of view, Putin appears to be condemning his country to an
ever-darker future of poverty and marginalization. But Putin doesnt believe that history has ended, and from his perspective, he has solidified his power
at home and reminded hostile foreign powers that the Russian bear still has sharp claws.
Obama now finds himself bogged down in exactly the kinds of geopolitical rivalries he had hoped to
transcend.
THE POWERS THAT BE
The revisionist powers have such varied agendas and capabilities that none can provide the kind of
systematic and global opposition that the Soviet Union did. As a result, Americans have been slow to
realize that these states have undermined the Eurasian geopolitical order in ways that complicate
U.S. and European efforts to construct a post-historical, win-win world.
Still, one can see the effects of this revisionist activity in many places. In East Asia, Chinas increasingly assertive stance has yet to
yield much concrete geopolitical progress, but it has fundamentally altered the political dynamic in the region with the fastest-growing
economies on earth. Asian politics today revolve around national rivalries, conflicting territorial claims, naval buildups, and similar
historical issues. The nationalist revival in Japan, a direct response to Chinas agenda, has set up a process in which rising nationalism
in one country feeds off the same in the other. China and Japan are escalating their rhetoric, increasing their
military budgets, starting bilateral crises with greater frequency, and fixating more and more on
zero-sum competition.

Investment in OTEC is critical to US leadership and international OTEC
developmentthis puts the rise in competing hegemony to a halt
Moore 2006(Bill, citing Dr. Hans Krock, founder of OCEES, April 12, "OTEC Resurfaces",
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1008)

While onshore installations like the one in Hawaii have their place in providing island communities
with power, water, air conditioning and aquaculture, OCEES believes the real potential is offshore.
The limiting factor for onshore is the size and length of the pipe needed to reach deep, cold water. Offshore production requires
relatively short pipes that can be much larger in diameter that drop straight down below the platform. Krock said he is confident that
we can now built 100 megawatt plants and he can foresee the day when 500 megawatt and 1000 megawatt (1 gigawatt) plants will be
possible. Because the resource is far out into the ocean, far away from any national political entity, it isn't under the jurisdiction of any
particular nation. "So countries such as Switzerland or others could go out there and be completely self-sufficient in energy by having
their own energy supply in the tropical zone on the high seas far outside anybodys two hundred mile economic zone." Global
Warming's Benefit Krock explained that the solar energy stored in the world's oceans is what drives the planet's weather and that a
single category five hurricane generates more energy in a day than all mankind uses in a year. This may be the only benefit of global
warming, providing even more warm water from which to produce power. "The ocean has increased in temperature by about point six
degrees. That extra amount of heat that is in the ocean that has been stored in there over, say, the last forty years; that amount of heat,
that amount of energy is enough to run all of humankind's energy requirements for the next five hundred years... just the extra." I
asked Dr. Krock about two potential drawbacks to OTEC: environmental disruption and susceptibility to storm damage. He explained
that his team has carefully looked at the first issue, environmental disruption, and determined that there would be none despite
bringing up hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day to run the facility, because the water could be shunted back down to a level
in the ocean where it would be neutrally buoyant. As to the question of tropical storms like typhoons or hurricanes and the risk they
might pose for offshore OTEC platforms, he explained that these storms form outside of a tropical zone which extends approximately
4-5 degrees above and below the equator. Platforms operating within this narrower belt won't have to worry about these powerful
storms and the damage they might cause, though he does plan to engineer for such contingencies. Unlike the illustration above that
uses propellers to drive the plant, Krock's concept for moving the "grazing" OTEC mini-islands would rely on two
intriguing systems: thrust vectoring and ocean current "sails". An OTEC plant generates a great deal of thrust
from the uptake and expulsion of seawater, which can be directed to gradually move the platform in a desired direction. The 1000-feet
stand pipe below the plant is like an inverted mast on a sailing ship. Sensors can detect the direction of the current at various depths,
allowing the deployment of underwater "sails" that could also be used to passively steer the plant. "There is nothing better than
working with nature," Krock commented. "This is simply a model on a human scale of the world's hydrological cycle." When
compared to other renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass, he calls the heat energy stored in the ocean as the "elephant in
the room". Krock envisions a plant made of floating concrete that is five square acres in size and could include fish processing
facilities, ocean mineral mining and refining and the aforementioned rocket launch pad. An earlier Lockheed design was circular,
measured some 100 meters in diameter and would generate 500 megawatts of electric power. "This is a transformation of endeavors
from land to the ocean. The world is 70 percent oceans, 30 percent [land]... which we have used up to a large extent. The only major
resource we have left is the ocean. This is a mechanism to utilize the ocean." "We do not have the luxury of waiting far into the future
because I am sure you have read peak oil is coming... Unless we do this now, a transformation of this magnitude takes time. We have
to allocate at least 50 years to do this, but that means we have to start now, because in fifty years we won't have the luxury of having
another energy source to let us do the construction for these things. "The United States is the best placed of any
country in the world to do this," he contends. "The United States is the only country in the world of
any size whose budget for its navy is bigger than the budget for its army." It's his contention that this
will enable America to assume a leadership position in OTEC technology, allowing it to deploy plants
in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific, but he offers a warming. "If we are stupid enough not to take
advantage of this, well then this will be China's century and not the American century." Krock is
currently negotiating with the U.S. Navy to deploy first working OTEC plant offshore of a British-
controlled island in the Indian Ocean -- most likely Diego Garcia though he wouldn't confirm this for
security purposes.
Manufacturing is the only field that gridlocks the heg ladder
Boushey, Center for American Progress Action Fund Senior Economist, 12
[Heather, 7/19/12, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Testimony before the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Ways and Mason on Tax Reform and the U.S. Manufacturing Sector,
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/general/report/2012/07/19/11949/tax-reform-and-the-u-s-
manufacturing-sector/, page 4-5, ES]

Having a strong manufacturing industry in the United States should be at the top of our national economic
agenda. Without a vibrant and innovative manufacturing base, we will not be a global leader for long. Moreover, as
more of our energy future will rely on high-tech manufacturing, our economic competitiveness will be even
more closely aligned with our ability to be an innovator and producer of manufactured goods.
Further, this is an urgent national issue and one of those cases where success begets success. Economists have begun to
study and show that the industrial commons matters for innovation and the extent to which we allow manufacturing
processes to continue to go overseas, we only make it that much harder to regain our place as a global
leader.11 As my colleagues Michael Ettlinger and Kate Gordon have put it, the cross-fertilization and engagement of a
community of experts in industry, academia, and government is vital to our nations economic
competitiveness.12
Manufacturing is not only a key part of our economy, but moving forward it will remain critical to our
nations economic vitality.
The U.S. manufacturing sector is still a force internationally and an important part of our economy, despite employment losses
and the relative rise in manufacturing in other countries over the past few decades.13 Last year, manufacturing contributed over
$1.8 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product, or about 12 percent of the economy.14 Two years ago, manufacturing
accounted for 60 percent of all U.S. exports.15 In 2008, the United States ranked first in the world in manufacturing value added, and
it was the third largest exporter of manufactured goods to the world, behind only China and Germany and ahead of Japan and
France.16 Between 1979 and 2010 manufacturing output per hour of labor in the United States increased by an average of 4 percent
annually, and the United States has one of the worlds most productive workforces.17 Moreover, in 2009 there were 11.8 million
direct jobs in manufacturing and 6.8 million additional jobs in related sectors.18 Put another way, one in six U.S. private-sector
jobs is directly linked to manufacturing.19
Yet the industry suffered declines in the 2000s. The U.S. share of worldwide manufacturing value added dropped
from 26 percent in 1998 to less than 20 percent in 2007, and we have gone from being a net exporter of
manufactured goods in the 1960s to a net importer.20 Manufacturing as a share of U.S. GDP has declined from more
than 15 percent in 1998 to 11 percent in 2009.21 And jobs in U.S. manufacturing declined from 17.6 million in January
1998 to 11.5 million in January 2010.22 And although the manufacturing sector has gained jobs in every month since then, for a
total of 504,000 jobs as of June 2012, its share of total employment is down from 16.8 percent in 1998 to 10.8 percent today.23
These trends matter because the United States needs a strong manufacturing sector. Manufacturing provides good, middle-
class jobs; propels U.S. leadership in technology and innovation, which is critical to our economic
growth and vitality; and is important to balancing the trade deficit, as well as important for our nations long-
term national security. The manufacturing sector has historically been a source of solid, middle-class jobs and it continues to be
so today. The average manufacturing worker earns a weekly wage that is 8.4 percent higher than non-manufacturing workers, taking
into account worker and job characteristics that influence wages, including unionization.24 Economist Susan Helper and her
colleagues conclude that the economic evidence points to the fact that the main reason why manufacturing wages and benefits are
higher than those outside of manufacturing is that manufacturers need to pay higher wages to ensure that their workers are
appropriately skilled and motivated. 25 U.S.-based manufacturing underpins a broad range of jobs in other
industries, including higher skill service jobs such as accountants, bankers, and lawyers, as well as a broad range
of other jobs such as basic research and technology development, product and process engineering and design, operations and
maintenance, transportation, testing, and lab work.26 Compared to jobs in other economic sectors, manufacturing jobs have the
highest multiplier effect, that is, the largest effect on the overall economy for each job created, relative to jobs in
other industries. To put this in perspective, each job in motor vehicle manufacturing creates 8.6 indirect jobs, each job
in computer manufacturing creates 5.6 indirect jobs, and each job in steel product manufacturing creates 10.3 indirect jobs.27
Manufacturing is also important because it fuels the United States leadership in technology and innovation, which
are critical to maintain for our future economic competitiveness.28 Manufacturing firms are more likely to
innovate than firms in other industries: Research from the National Science Foundation finds that 22 percent of
manufacturing companies are active innovators compared to only 8 percent of nonmanufacturing companies.29 This number is even
higher for specific sectors within manufacturing. For example, in computer and electronic products manufacturing, 45 percent of
companies are product innovators and 33 percent are process innovators.30 Manufacturing firms also perform the vast majority of
private research and development: Despite comprising just 12 percent of the nations GDP in
2007, manufacturing companies contributed 70 percent of private research and development spending.31
In addition to what manufacturers spend on innovation, there is increasingly strong empirical evidence showing a tight link between
innovation and manufacturingproduction. Economic research now shows that the United States will not likely be able to
keep the highly skilled technical jobs if the production jobs go overseas. Harvard Business School professors Gary
Pisano and Willy Shih have written about the decline of the industrial commons in the United States: the collective R&D,
engineering, and manufacturing capabilities that mutually reinforce each other to sustain innovation.32 For many types of
manufacturing, geographic proximity is key to having a strong commons, and they point to evidence showing that there are few
hightech industries where the feedback loop from the manufacturing process is not a factor in developing new products.33 As they put
it, product and process innovation are intertwined. Pisano and Shih point to the example of rechargeable batteries as a product where
innovation followed manufacturing. Rechargeable battery manufacturing left the United States many years ago, leading to the
migration of the batteries commons to Asia. Now new technology (batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles) are being designed in
Asia where the commons are located. Id draw your attention to a January New York Times article on Chinas increasing investment
in research and development, which asked, Our global competitiveness is based on being the origin of the newest, best ideas. How
will we fare if those ideas originate somewhere else?34

Hegemony solves the economy, free trade, great power, terror, nuclear,
regional, and smaller wars. Collapse triggers the impacts
Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate, 11
(Robert, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic
Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, 7-17-07, End of Dreams, Return of History, Hoover Institution,
No. 144, August/September, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136, Accessed
6/27/12, THW)

Others have. For decades realist analysts have called for a strategy of offshore balancing. Instead of the United
States providing security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East
and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then
intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher Layne has long
proposed passing the mantle of regional stabilizer to a consortium of Russia, China, Iran, and India. In
East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others manage
their own problems, without U.S. involvementagain, until the balance broke down and war erupted, at
which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if necessary, intervene with
its own forces to restore peace and stability.
Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the
only genuine alternative to the one the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit,
Layne and others who support the concept of offshore balancing have eschewed halfway measures and airy
assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either
the United States is actively involved in providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western
Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are
frank in calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II,
perpetuated through the Cold War, and continued by four successive post-Cold War administrations.
At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy.
The idea of relying on Russia, China, and Iran to jointly stabilize the Middle East and Persian Gulf will
not strike many as an attractive proposition. Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to
have a stabilizing effect on that region. The prospects of a war on the Korean Peninsula would increase.
Japan and other nations in the region would face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking
unilateral steps for self-defense, which in Japans case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable
nuclear arsenal.
Layne and other offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John Mearsheimer, point to two notable occasions when the United States
allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years against Iran in the hope
that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in the 1920s and 1930s, when the United States
allowed the great European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease
program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out. Whether this was really American strategy in that era is open for debate
most would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered strategic judgment but as an
end in itself. Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first decades of the 20th century, however, would
we really call that strategy a success? The United States wound up intervening with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in
Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful wars in human history.
It was with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar years had been
mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy that
the United States has pursued ever since. Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman
and Dean Acheson, American leaders determined that the safest course was to build situations of strength
(Achesons phrase) in strategic locations around the world, to build a preponderance of power, and to create an
international system with American power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in
Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air bases to enable the rapid projection of force to strategically important parts
of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the offshore balancing
strategy, and they did so because they believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again. They
believed their new global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and
less expensive in the long run. Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the
proper course in many areas of foreign policy, have all agreed on this core strategic approach.
From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious and too expensive. At the dawn of the Cold War, Walter
Lippmann railed against Trumans containment strategy as suffering from an unsustainable gap between ends and means that would
bankrupt the United States and exhaust its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of
imperial overstretch, arguing that American decline was inevitable if the trends in national indebtedness, low productivity
increases, [etc.] were allowed to continue at the same time as massive American commitments of men, money and materials are
made in different parts of the globe. Today, we are once again being told that this global strategy needs to give
way to a more restrained and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face in coming
years is not caused by the present, largely successful global strategy.
Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy that is taken for granted. The enormous benefits that this
strategy has provided, including the financial benefits, somehow never appear on the ledger. They should.
We might begin by asking about the global security order that the United States has sustained since Word
War IIthe prevention of major war, the support of an open trading system, and promotion of the liberal
principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order worth? What would be the cost of
its collapse or transformation into another type of order?
Whatever the nature of the current economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global
prosperity than any time in human history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-
backward nations have become economic dynamos. And the American economy, though suffering ups and
downs throughout this period, has on the whole benefited immensely from this international order. One price
of this success has been maintaining a sufficient military capacity to provide the essential security underpinnings of this order. But has
the price not been worth it? In the first half of the 20th century, the United States found itself engaged in two
world wars. In the second half, this global American strategy helped produce a peaceful end to the great-
power struggle of the Cold War and then 20 more years of great-power peace. Looked at coldly, simply in terms of
dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs.
The danger, as always, is that we dont even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided. Many assume that the
world has simply become more peaceful, that great-power conflict has become impossible, that nations
have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is what counts. This belief in progress
and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions of international order is always alluring to Americans and Europeans and other
children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the first years after
World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people spoke of the end of history. It is
always tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained with its power
can exist in the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden assumption of
those who call for a change in American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its role and yet all
the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in. This is a great if recurring illusion, the idea that
you can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not fall over.

Nowadays, unfettered warfare means global interference and extinction
Sokolski, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center director, 9
(Henry, 6/1/9, Policy Review, Avoiding a Nuclear Crowd, No. 155,
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5534, accessed 7/7/13,
AR)

Finally, several new nuclear weapons contenders are also likely to emerge in the next two to three decades.
Among these might be Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Algeria, Brazil (which is developing a
nuclear submarine and the uranium to fuel it), Argentina, and possibly Saudi Arabia (courtesy of weapons leased to
it by Pakistan or China), Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. All of these states have either voiced a desire to acquire nuclear
weapons or tried to do so previously and have one or more of the following: A nuclear power program, a large research , or plans to
build a large power reactor by 2030.
With a large reactor program inevitably comes a large number of foreign nuclear experts (who are
exceedingly difficult to track and identify) and extensive training, which is certain to include nuclear fuel
making.19 Thus, it will be much more difficult to know when and if a state is acquiring nuclear weapons
(covertly or overtly) and far more dangerous nuclear technology and materials will be available to terrorists
than would otherwise. Bottom line: As more states bring large reactors on line more will become nuclear-
weapons-ready i.e., they could come within months of acquiring nuclear weapons if they chose to do
so.20 As for nuclear safeguards keeping apace, neither the iaeas nuclear inspection system (even under the most
optimal conditions) nor technical trends in nuclear fuel making (e.g., silex laser enrichment, centrifuges, new South African
aps enrichment techniques, filtering technology, and crude radiochemistry plants, which are making successful, small, affordable,
covert fuel manufacturing even more likely)21 afford much cause for optimism.
This brave new nuclear world will stir existing security alliance relations more than it will settle them: In
the case of states such as Japan, South Korea, and Turkey, it could prompt key allies to go ballistic or
nuclear on their own.
Nuclear 1914
At a minimum, such developments will be a departure from whatever stability existed during the Cold War.
After World War II, there was a clear subordination of nations to one or another of the two superpowers strong alliance systems
the U.S.-led free world and the Russian-Chinese led Communist Bloc. The net effect was relative peace with only small, nonindustrial
wars. This alliance tension and system, however, no longer exist. Instead, we now have one superpower, the United States, that is
capable of overthrowing small nations unilaterally with conventional arms alone, associated with a relatively weak alliance system (
nato) that includes two European nuclear powers (France and the uk). nato is increasingly integrating its nuclear targeting policies.
The U.S. also has retained its security allies in Asia (Japan, Australia, and South Korea) but has seen the emergence of an increasing
number of nuclear or nuclear-weapon-armed or -ready states.
So far, the U.S. has tried to cope with independent nuclear powers by making them strategic partners (e.g., India and Russia), nato
nuclear allies (France and the uk), non-nato allies (e.g., Israel and Pakistan), and strategic stakeholders (China); or by fudging if a
nation actually has attained full nuclear status (e.g., Iran or North Korea, which, we insist, will either not get nuclear weapons or will
give them up). In this world, every nuclear power center (our European nuclear nato allies), the U.S., Russia, China, Israel, India, and
Pakistan could have significant diplomatic security relations or ties with one another but none of these ties is viewed by Washington
(and, one hopes, by no one else) as being as important as the ties between Washington and each of these nuclear-armed entities (see
Figure 3).
There are limits, however, to what this approach can accomplish. Such a weak alliance system, with its expanding set of
loose affiliations, risks becoming analogous to the international system that failed to contain offensive
actions prior to World War I. Unlike 1914, there is no power today that can rival the projection of U.S.
conventional forces anywhere on the globe. But in a world with an increasing number of nuclear-armed or
nuclear-ready states, this may not matter as much as we think. In such a world, the actions of just one or
two states or groups that might threaten to disrupt or overthrow a nuclear weapons state could check U.S.
influence or ignite a war Washington could have difficulty containing. No amount of military science or
tactics could assure that the U.S. could disarm or neutralize such threatening or unstable nuclear states.22
Nor could diplomats or our intelligence services be relied upon to keep up to date on what each of these governments would be likely
to do in such a crisis (see graphic below):
Combine these proliferation trends with the others noted above and one could easily create the perfect nuclear
storm: Small differences between nuclear competitors that would put all actors on edge; an overhang of
nuclear materials that could be called upon to break out or significantly ramp up existing nuclear
deployments; and a variety of potential new nuclear actors developing weapons options in the wings.
In such a setting, the military and nuclear rivalries between states could easily be much more intense than
before. Certainly each nuclear states military would place an even higher premium than before on being
able to weaponize its military and civilian surpluses quickly, to deploy forces that are survivable, and to have
forces that can get to their targets and destroy them with high levels of probability. The advanced military
states will also be even more inclined to develop and deploy enhanced air and missile defenses and long-
range, precision guidance munitions, and to develop a variety of preventative and preemptive war options.
Certainly, in such a world, relations between states could become far less stable. Relatively small
developments e.g., Russian support for sympathetic near-abroad provinces; Pakistani-inspired terrorist
strikes in India, such as those experienced recently in Mumbai; new Indian flanking activities in Iran near Pakistan; Chinese
weapons developments or moves regarding Taiwan; state-sponsored assassination attempts of key figures
in the Middle East or South West Asia, etc. could easily prompt nuclear weapons deployments with
strategic consequences (arms races, strategic miscues, and even nuclear war). As Herman Kahn once noted, in
such a world every quarrel or difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from
what is possible today.23 In short, we may soon see a future that neither the proponents of nuclear abolition, nor their critics,
would ever want.
None of this, however, is inevitable.

Solvency
Regulatory uncertainty is the largest obstacle to OTEC - creating a one-stop
shop for OTEC licensing is essential to ocean energy development.
Todd Griset, J.D. and Masters in Environmental Studies @ UPenn, currently
practices law with Preti Flahertys Energy and Telecommunications Group,
2011
Ocean and Coastal Law Journal, 16 Ocean & Coastal L.J. 395
HARNESSING THE OCEAN'S POWER: OPPORTUNITIES IN RENEWABLE OCEAN ENERGY
RESOURCES p. l/n
Furthermore, clarification and simplification of the patchwork of regulatory regimes governing renewable
ocean energy projects will bring about additional reductions in the cost of energy from the sea. As a general
principle, uncertainty or inconsistency of regulation tends to deter development and
investment.
n227
Unknown or shifting regulatory regimes add risk to the development of any given
project.
n228
Indeed, in the context of ocean energy, regulatory uncertainty has been called "the most
significant non-technical obstacle to deployment of this new technology."
n229
Consistent government
commitment and the simplification of licensing and permitting procedures, rank among
the [*433] hallmarks of a well-planned system for developing ocean renewable energy.
n230

Arguably, such a system has not yet been fully realized. Some observers believe that the MOU between
MMS and FERC has "resolved the uncertainty" over the jurisdictional question, and by extension, over the
question of which set of regulations a developer of a project on the OCS must follow.
n231
On the other hand,
the dual process created by the MOU under which MMS/BOEMRE must first approve a site and issue a
lease, after which FERC may issue a license or exemption, may lead to delays in the development of
hydrokinetic energy resources on the OCS.
n232
Nevertheless, the agencies have committed themselves to
cooperate and have issued guidance suggesting that where possible, the agencies will combine their
National Environmental Policy Act processes.
n233

At the same time, technologies such as OTEC remain under the jurisdiction of NOAA. As noted above, a host of
other federal agencies retain authority to regulate various aspects of renewable ocean energy projects. The
nation's regulatory program for ocean energy projects thus lacks a single "one-stop shop" approach for
project licensure, site leasing, and other required permitting. Project developers must not only obtain
permits from a variety of federal and state entities, but moreover face uncertainty as to which permits may
be required. The net impact of this regulatory patchwork is to place a chilling effect on the comprehensive
development of the nation's renewable ocean energy resources.
Moreover, few renewable ocean energy projects have been fully permitted. Indeed, the Cape Wind project
represents the first commercial-scale offshore wind project to complete its permitting and licensing
path.
n234
Although each future project's details and regulatory [*434] path may be unique, the success of
the first United States offshore wind project to go through the public regulatory process provides
subsequent developers with valuable insight into challenges, procedures, and provides an understanding of
how to apportion permitting and development costs with greater certainty.
n235
However, because that path
took nine years to navigate, and because many of the regulatory shifts described herein occurred during that
time, project developers today will face a different regulatory structure than that faced by Cape Wind.
Moreover, depending on the technology involved, site-specific issues, and the regulatory environment of
each state, each project must in essence forge its own path forward toward complete regulatory approval.
Congressional action could further streamline the regulatory framework applicable to renewable ocean
energy projects. Providing a stable structure for the development of the oceans' renewable energy potential
would reduce the capital cost required to develop a given project. By providing a clear and consistent legal
path for project developers to follow, such legislation would enable the best ocean energy projects to
become more cost-competitive. This in turn could provide benefits along the lines of those cited by the Massachusetts
Department of Public Utilities in approving the Cape Wind power purchase agreement: economic development, a diversified energy
policy, greater energy independence, and reduced carbon emissions. The states' role in such a regulatory framework should be
respected. While renewable power benefits the region, the nation, and the world at large, most of the negative impacts of a given
project are felt locally. Establishing a clear regulatory framework including appropriate federal agencies as well as state
authority could empower greater development of ocean energy resources without sacrificing values such
as navigational rights, fisheries and wildlife, aesthetic considerations, and states' rights.
Our oceans hold vast promise. The opportunity to transform that potential into usable energy is significant.
Whether developing that potential into commercial-scale energy production is a reasonable choice remains to be seen. If renewable
ocean energy resources are to be developed, promoting regulatory certainty would do much to promote
their cost-effective development.

US key markets and export potential
Cohen, Senior Program Officer, Energy Engineering Board at National
Academy of Sciences, 93
ROBERT, 7-22, BUDGET OVERSIGHT IN OCEAN ENERGY, Fax to ECRETARY HAZEL R.
O'LEARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, http://indra.com/~rcohotec/revitalizing.html, accessed 7-
7-14, Jacob
In my opinion, a revitalized ocean energy program is desirable from all of the standpoints you advocate: the
need for a "greening" of DOE's R&D program the need for a diversity of energy sources the need to
mitigate adverse global climate change
In particular, the United States should not overlook the development of ocean thermal energy conversion
(OTEC) technology, which is one of only several candidates for ultimately becoming a major global energy
source. Meanwhile, there are promising near-term OTEC markets in many developing countries where oil is
being used to generate electricity and where OTEC can become an economic substitute. Further, U.S.
development of OTEC technology will provide us an export technology to help satisfy the demand abroad.
There are similar near-term markets in U.S. island locations. From the standpoint of mitigating adverse
global climate change, note that closed-cycle OTEC plants can be operated using ammonia as a working
fluid and without liberation of carbon dioxide.

You might also like