(MUDI 2008) Wind Affirmative Rework - Finished

MUDI 2k8 Wind Updates: Wave 1
Batterman/Quenette/Voss 1/72
WIND
BQV Lab
***TOP SHELF***
MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY DEBATE INSTITUTE 2008 Updated: 7/25/08
Notable Changes .................................................................................................................................................................................................2

New 1AC (Stock Issue Version) ................................................................................................................................................................... 3-18
New 1AC (Faster Version)........................................................................................................................................................................... 19-34
***AFFIRMATIVE MATERIALS***
2AC Add-On: Oil Dependence ................................................................................................................................................................... 35-36
Inherency: No PTC Renewal in Status Quo.....................................................................................................................................................37
Solvency: PTC Key ............................................................................................................................................................................................38
Solvency: Permanency Key..............................................................................................................................................................................39
AT//Wind Tech Outdated ...................................................................................................................................................................................40
AT//Too Expensive ............................................................................................................................................................................................41
AT//Turbines Flawed .........................................................................................................................................................................................42
AT//Birds Turn....................................................................................................................................................................................................43
AT//Bats Turn .....................................................................................................................................................................................................44
***ECONOMY ADVANTAGE***
Uniqueness: Recession Now ...........................................................................................................................................................................46
Outsourcing Extensions ............................................................................................................................................................................. 47-49
Business Confidence Extensions ............................................................................................................................................................. 50-51
Manufacturing Extensions.......................................................................................................................................................................... 52-53
Green Jobs Internal ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 54-55
Natural Gas Internal .................................................................................................................................................................................... 56-57
Economic Decline Bad ......................................................................................................................................................................................58
Economy Good: Heg 2ac ..................................................................................................................................................................................59
***POLLUTION ADVANTAGE***
Wind Solves Global Warming/Climate Change...............................................................................................................................................61
Wind Solves Acid Rain................................................................................................................................................................................ 62-63
Warming Bad: Caution ......................................................................................................................................................................................64
Warming Bad: > Nuclear War ...........................................................................................................................................................................65
Warming Bad: Extinction ..................................................................................................................................................................................66
Warming Bad: Morality .....................................................................................................................................................................................67
Warming Bad: Biodiversity...............................................................................................................................................................................68
Warming Bad: AT//Alternate Causalities .........................................................................................................................................................69
Acid Rain Bad: Amazon Sustainability ...........................................................................................................................................................70
Acid Rain Bad: Coral Reefs ..............................................................................................................................................................................71
Acid Rain Bad: Boreal Forest ...........................................................................................................................................................................72
Marquette University Debate Institute Wind Power Affirmative

Notable Changes to the 1AC (1/1)

Plan text‟s agent was changed from Congress to “United States federal government”—we discussed in lab that
one shouldn‟t specify beyond their solvency evidence
We scrapped the competitiveness and oil dependency advantages, per our lab discussions. If anyone wants to
keep reading those, the ev is still in your original packet. I also included a different “Oil Dependence Bad”
scenario since that DePeso evidence was so bad.
The most important part of the pollution advantage is making intelligent impact comparisons with your
arguments; few teams will want to say “warming good” or “acid rain good”, but they could certainly say that
those advantages are non-unique or slow.
Economically, focus on the specificity of your internal links and don‟t be afraid to read Natural Gas and Green
Jobs in the 2ac. If you win that link, you‟re probably in very good shape.
This 1AC might be too long for some of you—which is fine. We will work in lab on shortening the 1ac for
anyone who wants to do that.

Wind 1AC (1/16)

Contention One is Inherency
First, wind power is developing quickly, but a cut is coming soon. Permanent incentives are
key to save the industry from destruction
Center Daily, May 7th
[2008. ―With Uncertainty Looming Over Federal Incentive, US Wind Industry Installs 1,400MW in First Quarter. Center Daily, 2008. www.
centredaily.com/business/technology/story/577118.html]
With the fate of a key federal incentive in the balance, the U.S. wind energy industry continued new
installations at a breakneck pace in the first quarter of 2008, putting 1,400 megawatts (MW) or approximately $3 billion worth of new generating capacity in
place, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its quarterly market report. Business Wire "These new wind power plants--enough
to serve the equivalent of 400,000 homes--coupled with investment in 17 new manufacturing

facilities over the past year and a quarter show that - with consistent policy support - America's
wind industry can deliver the goods in terms of clean energy and new clean technology jobs,"
commented AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. "But if Congress does not act quickly, this momentum could be
derailed at the worst possible time for the economy, placing 76,000 jobs and over $11.5 billion in
investment at risk," Swisher added. "While 2008 is shaping up to be another great year, we could see a
very different story in 2009 as uncertainty looms over investment in wind power projects and
manufacturing due to continuing delay in extending the production tax credit (PTC)," Swisher added. The PTC is the primary
federal incentive for wind power, and expires at the end of the year along with incentives for other
renewable electricity sources.

Wind 1AC (2/16)

Ergo, we present the following PLAN:
The United States federal government should increase incentives for wind energy by
permanently renewing the Production Tax Credit. We‟ll clarify.

Wind 1AC (3/16)

Contention Two is Harms: Sub-point A is Pollution
First, current energy policy makes ecological collapse inevitable as a result of pollution
Shoock „7
[Corey Stephen. JD Candidate @ Fordham. ―Wind: How a Two-Tiered National Renewable Portfolio Standard, a System Benefits Fund, and Other Programs Will
Reshape American Energy Investment and Reduce Fossil Fuel Externalities‖. Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, 12 Fordham J. Corp. & Fin. L. 1011.
2007, Lexis]
The casus belli for such outside action is the fact that thegovernment's pricing figures neglect to factor in the full costs of
fossil fuel production, including environmental and health costs that are not passed onto
consumers directly in their utility bill. n65 For example, utility companies do not have to account for the
consequences of approximately six billion metric tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions, a total that will
increase to nearly eight billion metric tons per year by 2030, a twenty-five-year increase of about 30%. n66 Nor is a financial charge indexed to other
consequences of fossil fuel burning. Increases in the emission of sulfur, methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone,
volatile organic compounds, and other particulate matter [*1020] wreak havoc on human and natural habitats alike by
causing things like acid rain, urban ozone (caused primarily by nitrous oxide emissions, resulting in respiratory problems in humans), and
global climate change. n67 Among fuels used for electricity generation, coal is by far the largest producer of these emissions, producing far beyond its proportional
market share. n68 While coal-based power is seen to be the least expensive source of electricity on the market today, n69 the market dynamics that favor coal are substantially flawed.
n70 The indirect costs associated with the production of electricity from coal are simply staggering.
n71 During the mining stage land is permanently damaged, air and water sources are
contaminated, ground subsidence causes surface collapses, and workers can be injured or killed.
n72 During processing and utilization, heavy metal and acid is given off, and particulate matter,
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, causing
seemingly immeasurable damage and destruction to public and private property, wildlife, and public health. n73 Every year, the
more than 600 coal-burning plants in the United States n74 emit more than 98,000 pounds of mercury into the air n75 while creating another 81,000 pounds of mercury pollution from fly
mercury, along
ash and scrubber sludge n76, all after 20,000 pounds of mercury is released in pre-burning "cleaning" procedures - totaling 200,000 pounds. n77 That
with arsenic, cadmium, and other heavy metals, seeps out during the coal-burning process and
travels either directly through ground water and airborne particles, or indirectly through the food
chain [*1021] (often through fish), to humans. n78 Mercury, even in small doses, is converted easily through human metabolism into the neurotoxin methylmercury. n79
The result of the contamination is that one out of every six women of childbearing age may have enough of a
concentration of mercury to permanently damage a developing fetus, meaning 630,000 babies a

year born in the United States (out of 4 million) are at risk for severe neurological consequences as a result of
gestational mercury poisoning. n80 Coal also causes nearly 554,000 asthma attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic
bronchitis, and 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks each year. n81 Not surprisingly, proximity to coal-burning
facilities increases the likelihood that a person becomes one of the 23,600 deaths every year
attributed to power plant pollution, n82 each death taking an average of fourteen years off normal life expectancy. n83 All told, the health care
costs caused by plant emissions total an estimated $ 160 billion annually. n84 Other grisly consequences from living near
coal burning include a high rate of stomach cancer, n85 autism in children (for every 1,000 pounds of mercury released in a Texas county, autism rates rose 17%), n86 and
pneumoconiosis in coal miners (also known as "black lung disease"). n87

Wind 1AC (4/16)

AND
Wind power key to resolve industrial pollution—solves global warming and acid rain
AWEA „8
[American Wind Energy Association—Leading US Authority on Wind Power. www.awea.org/faq/wwr_environment.html 2008//MUDI--JV]
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides cause acid rain. Acid rain harms forests and the wildlife they
support. Many lakes in the U.S. Northeast have become biologically dead because of this form of pollution. Acid rain also corrodes buildings and economic infrastructure such as
bridges. Nitrogen oxides (which are released by otherwise clean-burning natural gas) are also a primary component of smog. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a global
warming pollutant --its buildup in the atmosphere contributes to global warming by trapping the sun's rays on the earth as in a greenhouse. The U.S., with 5% of the
world's population, emits 23% of the world's CO . The build-up of global warming pollution is not only causing a gradual
2
rise in average temperatures, but also seems to be increasing fluctuations in weather patterns and
causing more frequent and severe droughts and floods. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned in July, 2003, that
extreme weather events appear to be increasing in number due to climate change. Particulate matter is of growing concern because of its
impacts on health. Its presence in the air along with other pollutants has contributed to make
asthma one of the fastest growing childhood ailments in industrial and developing countries alike,
and it has also recently been linked to lung cancer. Similarly, urban smog has been linked to low
birth weight, premature births, stillbirths and infant deaths. In the United States, the research has documented ill effects on infants
even in cities with modern pollution controls. Toxic heavy metals accumulate in the environment and up the biological
food chain. A number of states have banned or limited the eating of fish from fresh-water lakes because of concerns about mercury, a toxic heavy metal, accumulating in their
tissue. Development of just 10% of the wind potential in the 10 windiest U.S. states would provide
more than enough energy to displace emissions from the nation's coal-fired power plants and
eliminate the nation's major source of acid rain; reduce total U.S. emissions of CO2 by almost a
third; and help contain the spread of asthma and other respiratory diseases aggravated or caused
by air pollution in this country. If wind energy were to provide 20% of the nation's electricity -- a
very realistic and achievable goal with the current technology -- it could displace more than a third
of the emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Wind 1AC (5/16)

AND
We‟ll isolate two impacts. First is acid rain.
Acid rain erodes soil calcium—creates immuno-deficient trees
DeHayes „2
[Don. Dean and Prof of School of Natural Resources @ U of Vermont. ‖Damage from Acid Rain Pollution is Far Worse than Previously Thought‖. Science Daily,
7/18/02. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
acid rain's damage to America's forests may be much more widespread than
A new study revealed that
previously believed. It may actually create[s] conditions in trees similar to compromised immune systems in
humans, establishing a vulnerably with grave potential implications. "As with immune-compromised humans, plants may
appear and function as if they were healthy, until exposed to even a routine stress or disease, then experience
declines far more exaggerated than expected," says Donald DeHayes, Dean and Professor in the School of Natural Resources at The University
of Vermont. DeHayes co-authored a study in the most recent issue of the journal "Ecosystem Health" released in June at an international conference on Ecosystem and Human Health in
Washington, DC, which was attended by about 1000 environmental scientists and policy makers. Up to now, acid rain has been associated with the decline
of forests in certain specific locations. DeHayes and colleagues, UVM senior researcher Gary Hawley and USDA Forest Service scientist and UVM adjunct faculty Paul Schaberg
previously documented the mechanism through which acid rain depletes calcium and weakens high elevation red spruce
trees, making them more vulnerable to winter freezing injury. Their new work shows that this mechanism is also applicable to other tree species, including
balsam fir, white pine, and eastern hemlock. Because calcium is a critical ingredient in the plant's stress response
system, acid rain's depletion of cellular calcium may suppress the capacity of trees to survive
environmental stresses. This connection between calcium deficiency and environmental stress exposure are common components in the declines of several tree
species, including red spruce, sugar maple, and flowering dogwood. Their "immune response" hypothesis provides an overarching explanation of how acid rain ultimately
threatens forests. The findings are especially relevant now because a growing assortment of
human influences -- climate change, pollutants, and new pests and diseases, are burdening our
forests. "If extensive, the decline of individual species would radiate through plant communities," says DeHayes.
"It would alter the competition and survival of populations, perhaps even species, including animals at higher
levels of the forest food chains." DeHayes points out those calcium deficiencies in plants are passed on to herbivores, altering their nutrition. For instance, birds
eating calcium- deficient plant material might have less calcium for egg production. Insects could experience weaker exoskeletons. Mammals could have weaker bones or change in the
quantity or quality of milk production. The problems continue through the ecosystem and into economic system.

Wind 1AC (6/16)

AND
Collapse of forest ecosystems causes extinction through disease
Chivian „1
[Eric. Director of the Center for Health and Global Environment @ Harvard Medical School. ―Species Loss and Ecosystem Destruction—Implications for Human
Health‖. The Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol 164, N. 1. January 2001. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
An ecosystem is the sum of all the species and their actions and interactions with each other and
with the nonliving matter in a particular environment. How ecosystems provide the services that sustain all life on this
planet remains one of the most complex and poorly understood areas of biological science. Ecosystem services include such vital functions as
49,50
regulating the concentration of oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere,
filtering pollutants from drinking water, regulating global temperature and precipitation, forming soil
and keeping it fertile, pollinating plants, and providing food and fuel. One critically important service is the role 49,51
ecosystems play in controlling the emergence and spread of infectious diseases by maintaining equilibria
among predators and prey, and among hosts, vectors and parasites in plants, animals and
humans. This protective function of biodiversity has only recently begun to be appreciated. Examples of human infectious disease that can be affected by upsetting these
52,53,54,55
equilibria include malaria and leishmaniasis through deforestation;56 Lyme disease through changes in the number of acorns and in the populations of black-legged ticks, white-footed
mice and white-tailed deer;57 Argentine hemorrhagic fever through the replacement of natural grasslands with corn monoculture;58 and cholera through increased algal blooms, secondary
in part to warming seas and to fertilizer and sewage discharge

Wind 1AC (7/16)

AND
Second, global warming causes extinction
Li „8
[Ming. Asst Prof of Economics @ University of Utah. ―Climate Change, Limits to Growth, and the Imperative for Socialism‖ Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist
Magazine, Vol 60, No 3., Pg 51-3. July/August 2008, Academic Search Elite//MUDI—BB]
The 2007 assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is virtually certain
that human activities (mainly through the use of fossil fuels and land development) have been responsible for the global warming that has
taken place since the industrial revolution. Under current economic and social trends, the world is on a
path to unprecedented ecological catastrophes.1 As the IPCC report was being released, new evidence emerged
suggesting that climate change is taking place at a much faster pace and the potential consequences are likely to
be far more dreadful than is suggested by the IPCC report. The current evidence suggests that the Arctic
Ocean could become ice free in summertime possibly as soon as 2013, about one century ahead of what is predicted by the IPCC models. With the
complete melting of the Arctic summer sea ice, the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheets may become unavoidable,
threatening to raise the sea level by five meters or more within this century. About half of the world's fifty
largest cities are at risk and hundreds of millions of people will become environmental refugees.2 The world
is C warmer than in pre-industrial times and is within one degree of the highest average global temperature over the
past one million years C per decade and given the greenhouse gases already in the
atmosphere, there will be a further long-term warming C. Moreover, now with the likely loss of Arctic summer sea ice, the Arctic
Ocean will absorb rather than reflect back solar radiation, which may lead to an additional warming C.
Taking into account these developments, the world may be already almost committed to a 2 C warming
relative to pre-industrial times, widely considered to be a critical threshold in climate change.3 A 2 C
warming is likely to result in widespread drought and desertification in Africa, Australia, southern Europe,
and the western United States; major glacial losses in Asia and South America; large-scale polar ice sheet
disintegration; and the extinction of 15–40 percent of plant and animal species C warming, substantial
climate [end page 51] feedbacks, such as dangerous ocean acidification, significant tundra loss and methane
release, and disruption of soil and ocean carbon cycles, will be initiated, taking the course of climate
change beyond human control. According to James Lovelock, one of the world's leading earth system scientists, if the global average temperature
rise approaches 3 C (relative to pre-industrial times) and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) rises above 500 parts per
million (ppm), both the world's oceans and the rainforests will turn into net emitters of greenhouse gases. In that event, the global
average temperature could rise further C, making the greater part of the earth uninhabitable for
human beings, raising the sea level by at least 25 meters, and causing the extinction of 90 percent of species and a possible
reduction of the world population by 80 percent.4 James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's leading climate
scientists, argued that to avoid a devastating rise in sea levels associated with the irreversible ice sheet loss in
Greenland and Antarctica, as well as massive species extinction, the world should aim to limit further
global warming to no more than 1 C F) relative to 2000. According to the existing IPCC models, this implies an atmospheric concentration of CO2 no more than 450
ppm. However, in a recent study, Hansen argued that the IPCC models failed to take into account various potential climate feedbacks. Paleoclimate evidence suggests that "if humanity wishes
to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization has developed and to which life on earth is
adapted," atmospheric concentration of CO2 must be reduced to about 350 ppm. The world's current CO2 concentration is 387 ppm and
growing at a rate of 2 ppm a year.5 It is quite obvious that the very survival of humanity and human civilization is at stake.

Wind 1AC (8/16)

Sub-point B is the Economy
First, PTC renewal is key to the American economy; three internal links
First is outsourcing
Brown and Escobar „7
[Britt and Benjamin. Energy Industry Lawyer and MIT-Trained Chemical Engineer and Patent Lawyer. ―Wind Power: Generating Electricity and Lawsuits‖ 28 Energy L
J 489. 2007, Lexis]
The United States has long been the largest market for technology in the world. Its intellectual
property laws have allowed researchers and investors alike to work under a certain degree of
predictability and certainty. This predictability has created a business environment in which
technological development has excelled. With respect to wind energy technology, however, the United
States has lagged largely because until relatively recently there has been little demand, compared
to other parts of the world. This is starting to change as domestic demand for wind energy
increases. While domestic demand is growing, U.S. companies still need to secure foreign demand for their products
and technology not only to expand their market and profits, but also to hedge against reduced
domestic demand in the future, e.g., in the event Production Tax Credits are not renewed.
AND
Outsourcing torpedoes the economy
Lucas „8
[Richard. Masters in Economics from Perdue. ―Outsourcing US Jobs and How it Hurts the U.S. Economy‖ www.associatedcontent.com 6/14/08//MUDI—JV]
As pioneer companies in the United States and other western nations began experiencing success with outsourcing in terms of the economy and their businesses, other industries and
businesses began to establish operational branches abroad. The core industries that currently utilize outsourcing include phone-based customer service relations, production of material
outsourcing jobs
goods (such as clothing, shoes, and car parts), and accounting (Shao & Smith David, 2007). Despite its popularity as a 21st century business practice,
to foreign countries hurts the U.S. economy, directly and indirectly (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Menial and technological jobs
that are outsourced contribute to unemployment in the U.S., while foreign students who come here
to study for degrees are returning to their home countries, where increasingly attractive
employment packages are offered as incentives. Despite the alleged benefits of outsourcing, this practice also has
negative implications, both for individuals and the U.S. economy. Outsourcing contributes to unemployment in
the U.S (Hay & Fricker, 2004). As Hay and Fricker (2004) reported, in one California county, the estimated costs of just 2000
jobs outsourced to Europe, Asia, and Latin America will result in the county's economic losses in
excess of $949 million annually. Personal losses will be felt as well; of the $949 million, $301 million represents lost wages
(Hay & Fricker, 2004). When labor and manufacturing jobs are outsourced, individuals, families, and
communities suffer economic losses due to limited job replacement (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Most people who
work in these industry sectors are not academically or professionally qualified to work in other
fields, so their job choices are severely limited, especially when the trend in a community is for industry to be outsourced. When there
is massive unemployment, especially within single communities that lose manufacturing jobs, the
entire economy of a region can be threatened, creating other social problems that result in
economic costs (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Such problems may include spiraling personal debt, the loss of one's car or home,
and the inability to pay for a child's education, thus perpetuating the cycle of economic and vocational
poverty. These are indirect but important economic impacts of outsourcing.

Wind 1AC (9/16)

AND
Second is investor confidence
Harris, May 8th
[Megan. UPI Staff Writer. ―US Wind Market’s Mixed Signals‖ UPI. 5/8/08, www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/05/06/]
The wind energy industry is beginning to repower existing turbines for greater efficiency and
expanding to offshore locations in Europe, and despite unstable incentives for wind power in the
United States, strong growth potential and the weak dollar are buoying interest in the U.S. market.
For most firms, the biggest barrier to the U.S. market is the lack of stable incentives. The
Production Tax Credit, which was due to expire at the end of 2007, was renewed in 2006 for one year until the end of 2008. It provides
a 2 cent per kilowatt-hour credit to project developers for the first 10 years of operation but has expired three times since it was first created in 1992. "If it is allowed to
expire, the industry and investors worry that growth will fall off -- although 25 states and the District
of Columbia have their own renewable electricity standards and that could provide somewhat of a
cushion," Aaron Severn, legislative representative for the American Wind Energy Association, told United
Press International at the Hanover Innovation Fair from April 21-25. "That's an experiment we don't want to undertake. Very
dramatic decreases in the amount of installed wind energy occurred in the past when the PTC
expired. Our member companies say that projects would be put on hold and investment would flow into more stable
markets if the PTC is not extended immediately," he said. "Developers want long-term market stability,"
he added, emphasizing the importance of long-term, robust incentives.
AND
Investor Confidence key to the economy
PR Newswire „93
[PR Newswire, Europe. ―Confidence Based on Predictability Essential to Success‖ General City News, Sept 15, 1993. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Predictability is the mother of confidence, and we want government to provide a steady, growing
economic environment in which we can develop our businesses with that confidence," the CBI conference in
Harrogate was told today (Monday) by Clive Thompson, chairman of the SE Region and group chief executive of the Rentokil Group. He added: "We in the CBI are no longer on the
It is insufficient to put the
outside looking in - we're right on the inside. But being on the inside demands we express our views responsibly and completely.
business view in isolation without thought or concern for the requirements of the other parts of the
economy. "We cannot ignore the demands of health, education, social services and transport on
the public purse. Clearly, tax revenue directed towards business means less resources for other important requirements in the economy. Recognition
brings responsibility." He went on to advocate government focusing on creating an environment in which business could create success. We don't want radical
changes of policy and direction much loved by politicians. Peaks and troughs have done more to wipe out the confidence so
necessary for investment in research and development, speculative new projects, and investment
in plant and machinery than any misguided political dogma. "Businessmen invest in their
businesses and take risks in new ventures if they believe they will be working in a business friendly
environment. Confidence is the key, and for those who have to invest in the future, predictability is
the mother of that confidence."

Wind 1AC (10/16)

AND
Third is the manufacturing
Sterzinger „6
[George. Exec Director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project. July 06. www.crest.org/articles/static/1/binaries/perspectives_PTC.pdf //MUDI--JV]
Any national energy policy will be both more effective and much more likely to receive broad
support if it treats all regions and states fairly. One of the critiques leveled against past proposals to
make a national commitment and provide federal supports to renewable development has been
that only a handful of states with strong wind or other renewable resources would benefit. One of
the best ways to balance a national program that supports project development is to broaden it and
encourage the development of a manufacturing industry that complements the large-scale
development of new renewable projects. A series of recent analyses undertaken by the Renewable Energy Policy
Project looked at the potential for U.S. industry to increasingly supply the component parts that
make up wind turbines and other commercial renewable technologies. The results are stunning. More than 70,000 firms are active in
these types of industries. A national commitment to develop renewable energy would stimulate the
demand for all of these components. The report also looked at which states would be the most
likely to receive an economic stimulus as a result of a national program to develop renewable
energy. The results were encouraging: 75 percent of the stimulus measured as the creation of new jobs would go
precisely to those states that have suffered the greatest loss of manufacturing jobs over the past
four years. A balanced national commitment would offer a public return for carbonfree generation
and also provide incentives for manufacturers to expand or add new lines in order to provide the
components any major program would require. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 offers several examples that easily could be extended to
manufacturing incentives. The U.S. Treasury could provide ―full faith and credit‖ guarantees for loans used to add or expand manufacturing capability. Clean Energy Bonds also could be
offered for manufacturing.

Wind 1AC (11/16)

AND
Manufacturing key to the economy
Vargo „3
[Franklin. VP for International Economic Affairs @ the National Assc of Manufacturers. ―Prepared Testimony of Franklin Vargo before the House Financial Services
Committee Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology‖ Federal News Service, Oct 1, 2003. Lexis//MUDI—BB]
I would like to begin my statement with a review of why manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy. Since manufacturing only represents about 16
percent of the nation's output, who cares? Isn't the United States a post-manufacturing services economy? Who needs manufacturing? The answer in brief is that the United
States economy would collapse without manufacturing, as would our national security and our role
in the world. That is because manufacturing is really the foundation of our economy, both in terms
of innovation and production and in terms of supporting the rest of the economy. For example, many individuals
point out that only about 3 percent of the U.S. workforce is on the farm, but they manage to feed the nation and export to the rest of the world. But how did this agricultural productivity
come to be? It is because of the tractors and combines and satellite systems and fertilizers and advanced seeds, etc. that came from the genius and productivity of the manufacturing
sector. Similarly, in services -- can you envision an airline without airplanes? Fast food outlets without griddles and freezers? Insurance companies or banks without computers?
Certainly not.The manufacturing industry is truly the innovation industry, without which the rest of the
economy could not prosper. Manufacturing performs over 60 percent of the nation's research and
development. Additionally, it also underlies the technological ability of the United States to maintain
its national security and its global leadership. Manufacturing makes a disproportionately large
contribution to productivity, more than twice the rate of the overall economy, and pays wages that
are about 20 percent higher than in other sectors. But its most fundamental importance lies in the
fact that a healthy manufacturing sector truly underlies the entire U.S. standard of living -because it
is the principal way by which the United States pays its way in the world. Manufacturing accounts
for over 80 percent of all U.S. exports of goods. America's farmers will export somewhat over $50 billion this year, but America's manufacturers
export almost that much event month! Even when services are included, manufacturing accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. exports of goods and services. If the U.S.
manufacturing sector were to become seriously impaired, what combination of farm products
together with architectural, travel, insurance, engineering and other services could make up for the
missing two-thirds of our exports represented by manufactures? The answer is "none." What would
happen instead is the dollar would collapse, falling precipitously -- not to the reasonable level of
1997, but far below it -and with this collapse would come high U.S. inflation, a wrenching economic
downturn and a collapse in the U.S. standard of living and the U.S. leadership role in the world.
That, most basically, is why the United States cannot become a "nation of shopkeepers."

Wind 1AC (12/16)

AND
Economic decline most likely scenario for war
Yulu „3
[Economic Analyst for the People’s Daily (China). ―Economic Recession: The Blasting Fuse of War‖. People’s Daily, 7/25/3 Lexis//MUDI—BB]
If one examines the wars broken out ever since more than a century ago, one will discover an interesting phenomenon,
that is, each fairly big economic recession (or economic crisis) was inevitably followed by the eruption of a war. This is true with World I, World
War II, the Gulf War, as well as the Iraq war. It can be said that economic downturn is the blasting fuse of modern war.
AND
Economic warfare causes extinction
Nyquist „7
[JR. Econ Expert, Often Contributes to NYT. ―The Path of Dissolution‖ Financial Sense, July 2007. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
The world is made up of armed nation states, and some of those states have nuclear and biological weapons that could
easily kill several hundred million people. We don’t like to think that these weapons would ever be used, but it’s safe to say they’ll be used
all the same. Weapons are always used. This is not because of some dark conspiracy to use them. They are used because they exist to be used, and the
occasion for using them – though unwelcome by most of us – nonetheless recurs through time. People always seem ready to hate somebody, to blame somebody, and to unleash
destruction on somebody. The reasons for hatred may be ethnic, religious or ideological. We can see these reasons falling from the lips of al Qaeda spokesmen, from Latin American
Everyone knows that war plans were drawn up in Washington and Moscow long
dictators and Chinese generals.
ago. But war did not come when the two sides were carefully watching one another; mainly on
account of the nuclear ―balance of terror.‖ Such balances, however, do not last forever. In fact, a major
economic disruption might overthrow the ―balance of terror.‖

Wind 1AC (13/16)

Contention Three is Solvency
First, the plan eliminates pollution—the cost-effective nature of wind power will create a
industry-wide movement away from fossil fuels
Zaidi „7
[Kamall. JD Candidate @ U of Tulsa. ―Wind Energy and its Impact on Future Environmental Policy Planning: Powering Renewable Energy in Canada and Abroad‖ 11
Alb. L. Envtl, 2007. Lexis]
The global wind energy industry is growing at a rapid pace. n204From a purely economic perspective, producing wind energy
helps reduce the high costs of electricity consumption. n205 Fossil fuels represent the traditional
means of producing energy, but given the finiteness of this resource, the high levels of pollution it
produces, and the rapid rise in consumption costs from fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas,
the advent of cheaper and more efficient wind energy tools like wind turbines are proving to be an
attractive alternative. n206 While some forms of wind energy are more costly to apply than [*232] conventional means (such as with offshore wind projects), the high
demand for electricity consumption is causing conventional energy costs to rise at a rapid rate. n207 In contrast, wind energy costs are declining due to
the improved technological advancements in producing more efficient wind energy production from
wind turbine engines. n208 Governments, industries, and consumers are beginning to realize the potential benefits associated with renewable energy extraction and
application. n209 From an environmental perspective, the use of wind energy greatly reduces the adverse effects of land
and air pollution, while conserving local habitats by lessening the impact on wildlife. n210 It is thus important to
examine some global approaches in applying wind energy as an important renewable alternative.

Wind 1AC (14/16)

A Wind power PTC solves all economic externalities—creates jobs and ramps up
confidence
De Azua „8
[Christine Real. ―Over 600 Industry Leaders See Potential for New Jobs, Billions in Economic Growth in Wind Power Supply Chain‖ 29 April 08.
www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Supply_Chain_Workshop_29 Apr08.html ]
―The U.S. wind power industry is a bright spot in our economy,‖ said AWEA Executive Director Randall
Swisher. ―Every megawatt of installed wind power creates employment in manufacturing,
construction and operations as well as jobs in advertising, office support, environmental
assessment and other related professions. America’s vast wind resources have barely been
tapped, and we have only just begun to see wind’s potential to generate broad economic growth.‖
Encouraged by the stability of the federal production tax credit (PTC), U.S. wind industry
manufacturing has surged from a very small base in 2005 to more than 100 facilities in 2007. In 2005, the average wind turbine contained less than 30%
American-made components. Today, domestically manufactured content is approaching 50%. (A wind turbine is composed of some 8,000 components, ranging from towers and blades
to gearboxes, generators, castings, ball bearings, and electronic components.) New facilities were opened or announced last year in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina,
New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin. These facilities are expected to create more than 6,000 permanent, well-paying jobs. Many of the fastest-growing wind
―While the wind industry’s strong growth is encouraging,
industry suppliers in the U.S. are slated to attend the workshop this week.
the PTC is in danger of lapsing at the end of this year,‖ said Swisher. ―It is vitally important for Congress
and the President to quickly extend the PTC—the primary U.S. incentive for wind power—as part of a long-
term policy for renewable energy to foster investment in wind installations, manufacturing capacity and thousands of new jobs.‖

Wind 1AC (15/16)

AND
Permanency is key—a PTC will undercut fossil fuel use and supercharge industry
confidence
Shoock „7
2007, Lexis]
The burgeoning renewable energy industry, its investors, n404 and the public n405 need Congress to
implement a comprehensive national energy policy. It must integrate market-focused initiatives
without losing sight of the social reasons for promoting clean energy. This includes programs that (1) aid renewable power
producers, (2) marginalize fossil fuels to the extent possible, and (3) set a permanent standard for ensuring the place of renewable energy in the electricity market. This Note proposes
thatthe federal government can meet these ends. To do so it must enact a scheme that incorporates
elements of existing state and national policies while adding certain unique derivations. The first
step is to ensure that current supply-side incentives will remain into the foreseeable future. Otherwise
disaster waits in the wings. n406 In fact, during a period (January 1, 2004 to October 4, 2004) between an earlier version of the
production tax credit's expiration and subsequent renewal, a deceleration in the increase of new
wind farm development n407 made it clear to industry experts that the tax credits were [*1059] a
necessary ingredient if long-term growth were to be assured. n408 Once the federal tax credit was
renewed, a sharp spike in wind facilities occurred. n409 This legislative volatility has the unintended
consequence of actually raising the price of wind power while the PTC is still in effect. For example, steel supply
shortages stemming from white-hot demand for wind power facilities n410 caused a development bottleneck and a 30% cost increase for the turbines as projects scrambled to meet the
n411 Many of the resulting projects came in over-budget or late, setting
anticipated PTC expiration of December 31, 2007.
off credit problems for many producers. n412 If wind power's tax credit and production incentive, duly
buffered against inflation, are assured long lives, steady, predictable growth will follow. n413 Absent
any other initiative, wind energy is competitive only when placed on a level playing field with fossil
fuels. n414 This requires the continuation of supply-side aid. n415 The degree to which the federal government subsidizes
fossil fuel technology, n416 including the billions [*1060] appropriated to coal, n417 oil, and gas n418 in the same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that extended the PTC
and REPI for renewables for two more years, belies the undeniable fact that the energy market as a whole leans heavily
on legislative aid. n419 Wind power thus is no more beholden to Congress than any other energy source. If the mandate to reduce
dependence on foreign and polluting sources of energy is to be honored, the PTC and REPI must be
extended indefinitely. n420 The sooner they are, the sooner the stability can be ensured for the
industry, thereby assuring a steady supply of inexhaustible energy. n421

Wind 1AC (16/16)

AND
Alternative mechanism counterplans fail—the PTC is the only sustainable internal link to
wind.
Cotter „7
[Chris. JD Candidate. ―Wind Power and the Renewable Portfolio Standard: An Ohio Analysis‖ University of Dayton Law Review, Spring 2007. Lexis]
To encourage the development of wind power and other renewable technologies, both federal and state lawmakers have enacted many policies
and incentives. n210 The federal production tax credit ("PTC") is the "most notable and effective" federal
incentive for renewable energy. n211 The PTC gives wind power developers 18 cents/kWh for their wind farms' entire electricity generation during its first 10
years of operation. n212 The tax credit has gone through several cycles of expiration and renewal. n213 However,
since wind power development has peaked in years when the PTC was scheduled to expire-as
developers rush to finish projects in time to receive the tax benefit-the PTC clearly has had an
influence on the development of wind power. n214
AND
No turns—new developments in wind tech solve the reasons it might be bad
Bankey „8
[Donna. ―Home Wind Turbine Technology‖ www.buzzle.com/article/home-wind-turbine-technology.html, 4/17/08. July 23. 2008//MUDI—DE]
Companies are constantly working on new technology in Wind Turbine. Different types are tested
for durability, performance, and efficiency. Wind turbine companies expand to a global field. Just as wind
turbines are all over the world today. Even though wind is the essential key to the wind turbine’s performance, the newly discovered technology goes
beyond today’s state-of-the-art mega-watt-class wind turbines. To give you an idea at a glance, of how wind turbines are being improved and
inspected. Giving alternate energy information and letting you know the certain changes in the wind turbine as well as the generators and other equipment associated with the wind
turbine. The Air-X Wind Turbine, distributed by Southwest Wind power, uses a new microprocessor based
technology, creating an increased performance for the Wind Turbine. The Air Turbine is the world’s number one selling small turbine. It has improved battery
charging capabilities as well as a reduced "flutter" noise from the machines. This comes from the use of the carbon fiber
composite blades. The development of research on wind turbines has increased since 2001, as more customers are in
the market for alternative energy systems. Newer designs much like the Air-X are also equipped to actually shut down during large
wind gusts to prevent damage to the machine. It takes just an eight mile an hour wind to get a
turbine going. For optimal performance, a twelve mile an hour wind is all that is required for a small home used wind turbine. Researchers are hoping
to have wind farms all over the United States, funded by the government. These wind farms will not only help out the
economy by using a natural resource, but allow companies to expand their technology on the wind turbine even
further. By tracking and observation of the wind turbines improvements on blade turning, weight of the tower, height of the tower, and many other conditions. The higher advanced
wind turbines consist of many parts. Gear boxes, rotation devices, magnetic mechanisms, and other parts that
ensure the quality and performance of the machines. The wind turbine is capable of handling extreme wind conditions and windy
environments. However those closer to the coast require different specs, such as heavier gauged towers and blades. These turbine machines also have more than three blades in most
cases. Enjoy the benefits of utility power and reduce your electric bill every time the wind blows. This utility-connected system with the use of wind turbines has its incentives. Though the
Wind turbine
image of the Windmill has changed tremendously, the Wind Turbine instills the same concept for small homes, and creating electricity by a windmill.
technology improvements are essential for the further development of future wind turbines
manufactured. What types work on homes, and what types work in wind turbine fields. Windmill power can be an alternate source of
energy for our generation, as well as generations to come.
Wind 1AC (1/16)

Contention One is Inherency
First, wind power is developing quickly, but a cut is coming soon. Permanent incentives are
key to save the industry from destruction
Center Daily, May 7th
[2008. ―With Uncertainty Looming Over Federal Incentive, US Wind Industry Installs 1,400MW in First Quarter. Center Daily, 2008. www.
centredaily.com/business/technology/story/577118.html]
With the fate of a key federal incentive in the balance, the U.S. wind energy industry continued new
installations at a breakneck pace in the first quarter of 2008, putting 1,400 megawatts (MW) or approximately $3 billion worth of new generating capacity in
place, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its quarterly market report. Business Wire "These new wind power plants--enough
to serve the equivalent of 400,000 homes--coupled with investment in 17 new manufacturing

facilities over the past year and a quarter show that - with consistent policy support - America's
wind industry can deliver the goods in terms of clean energy and new clean technology jobs,"
commented AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. "But if Congress does not act quickly, this momentum could be
derailed at the worst possible time for the economy, placing 76,000 jobs and over $11.5 billion in
investment at risk," Swisher added. "While 2008 is shaping up to be another great year, we could see a
very different story in 2009 as uncertainty looms over investment in wind power projects and
manufacturing due to continuing delay in extending the production tax credit (PTC)," Swisher added. The PTC is the primary
federal incentive for wind power, and expires at the end of the year along with incentives for other
renewable electricity sources.

Wind 1AC (2/16)

Ergo, we present the following PLAN:
The United States federal government should increase incentives for wind energy by
permanently renewing the Production Tax Credit. We‟ll clarify.

Wind 1AC (3/16)

Advantage One is Pollution
First, current energy policy makes ecological collapse inevitable as a result of pollution
Shoock „7
2007, Lexis]
The casus belli for such outside action is the fact that thegovernment's pricing figures neglect to factor in the full costs of
fossil fuel production, including environmental and health costs that are not passed onto
consumers directly in their utility bill. n65 For example, utility companies do not have to account for the
consequences of approximately six billion metric tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions, a total that will
increase to nearly eight billion metric tons per year by 2030, a twenty-five-year increase of about 30%. n66 Nor is a financial charge indexed to other
consequences of fossil fuel burning. Increases in the emission of sulfur, methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone,
volatile organic compounds, and other particulate matter [*1020] wreak havoc on human and natural habitats alike by
causing things like acid rain, urban ozone (caused primarily by nitrous oxide emissions, resulting in respiratory problems in humans), and
global climate change. n67 Among fuels used for electricity generation, coal is by far the largest producer of these emissions, producing far beyond its proportional
market share. n68 While coal-based power is seen to be the least expensive source of electricity on the market today, n69 the market dynamics that favor coal are substantially flawed.
n70 The indirect costs associated with the production of electricity from coal are simply staggering.
n71 During the mining stage land is permanently damaged, air and water sources are
contaminated, ground subsidence causes surface collapses, and workers can be injured or killed.
n72 During processing and utilization, heavy metal and acid is given off, and particulate matter,
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, causing
seemingly immeasurable damage and destruction to public and private property, wildlife, and public health. n73 Every year, the
more than 600 coal-burning plants in the United States n74 emit more than 98,000 pounds of mercury into the air n75 while creating another 81,000 pounds of mercury pollution from fly
mercury, along
ash and scrubber sludge n76, all after 20,000 pounds of mercury is released in pre-burning "cleaning" procedures - totaling 200,000 pounds. n77 That
with arsenic, cadmium, and other heavy metals, seeps out during the coal-burning process and
travels either directly through ground water and airborne particles, or indirectly through the food
chain [*1021] (often through fish), to humans. n78 Mercury, even in small doses, is converted easily through human metabolism into the neurotoxin methylmercury. n79
The result of the contamination is that one out of every six women of childbearing age may have enough of a
concentration of mercury to permanently damage a developing fetus, meaning 630,000 babies a

year born in the United States (out of 4 million) are at risk for severe neurological consequences as a result of
gestational mercury poisoning. n80 Coal also causes nearly 554,000 asthma attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic
bronchitis, and 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks each year. n81 Not surprisingly, proximity to coal-burning
facilities increases the likelihood that a person becomes one of the 23,600 deaths every year
attributed to power plant pollution, n82 each death taking an average of fourteen years off normal life expectancy. n83 All told, the health care
costs caused by plant emissions total an estimated $ 160 billion annually. n84 Other grisly consequences from living near
coal burning include a high rate of stomach cancer, n85 autism in children (for every 1,000 pounds of mercury released in a Texas county, autism rates rose 17%), n86 and
pneumoconiosis in coal miners (also known as "black lung disease"). n87

Wind 1AC (4/16)

AND
Wind power key to resolve industrial pollution—solves global warming and acid rain
AWEA „8
[American Wind Energy Association—Leading US Authority on Wind Power. www.awea.org/faq/wwr_environment.html 2008//MUDI--JV]
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides cause acid rain. Acid rain harms forests and the wildlife they
support. Many lakes in the U.S. Northeast have become biologically dead because of this form of pollution. Acid rain also corrodes buildings and economic infrastructure such as
bridges. Nitrogen oxides (which are released by otherwise clean-burning natural gas) are also a primary component of smog. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a global
warming pollutant --its buildup in the atmosphere contributes to global warming by trapping the sun's rays on the earth as in a greenhouse. The U.S., with 5% of the
world's population, emits 23% of the world's CO . The build-up of global warming pollution is not only causing a gradual
2
rise in average temperatures, but also seems to be increasing fluctuations in weather patterns and
causing more frequent and severe droughts and floods. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned in July, 2003, that
extreme weather events appear to be increasing in number due to climate change. Particulate matter is of growing concern because of its
impacts on health. Its presence in the air along with other pollutants has contributed to make
asthma one of the fastest growing childhood ailments in industrial and developing countries alike,
and it has also recently been linked to lung cancer. Similarly, urban smog has been linked to low
birth weight, premature births, stillbirths and infant deaths. In the United States, the research has documented ill effects on infants
even in cities with modern pollution controls. Toxic heavy metals accumulate in the environment and up the biological
food chain. A number of states have banned or limited the eating of fish from fresh-water lakes because of concerns about mercury, a toxic heavy metal, accumulating in their
tissue. Development of just 10% of the wind potential in the 10 windiest U.S. states would provide
more than enough energy to displace emissions from the nation's coal-fired power plants and
eliminate the nation's major source of acid rain; reduce total U.S. emissions of CO2 by almost a
third; and help contain the spread of asthma and other respiratory diseases aggravated or caused
by air pollution in this country. If wind energy were to provide 20% of the nation's electricity -- a
very realistic and achievable goal with the current technology -- it could displace more than a third
of the emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Wind 1AC (5/16)

AND
We‟ll isolate two impacts. First is acid rain.
Acid rain erodes soil calcium—creates immuno-deficient trees
DeHayes „2
[Don. Dean and Prof of School of Natural Resources @ U of Vermont. ‖Damage from Acid Rain Pollution is Far Worse than Previously Thought‖. Science Daily,
7/18/02. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
acid rain's damage to America's forests may be much more widespread than
A new study revealed that
previously believed. It may actually create[s] conditions in trees similar to compromised immune systems in
humans, establishing a vulnerably with grave potential implications. "As with immune-compromised humans, plants may
appear and function as if they were healthy, until exposed to even a routine stress or disease, then experience
declines far more exaggerated than expected," says Donald DeHayes, Dean and Professor in the School of Natural Resources at The University
of Vermont. DeHayes co-authored a study in the most recent issue of the journal "Ecosystem Health" released in June at an international conference on Ecosystem and Human Health in
Washington, DC, which was attended by about 1000 environmental scientists and policy makers. Up to now, acid rain has been associated with the decline
of forests in certain specific locations. DeHayes and colleagues, UVM senior researcher Gary Hawley and USDA Forest Service scientist and UVM adjunct faculty Paul Schaberg
previously documented the mechanism through which acid rain depletes calcium and weakens high elevation red spruce
trees, making them more vulnerable to winter freezing injury. Their new work shows that this mechanism is also applicable to other tree species, including
balsam fir, white pine, and eastern hemlock. Because calcium is a critical ingredient in the plant's stress response
system, acid rain's depletion of cellular calcium may suppress the capacity of trees to survive
environmental stresses. This connection between calcium deficiency and environmental stress exposure are common components in the declines of several tree
species, including red spruce, sugar maple, and flowering dogwood. Their "immune response" hypothesis provides an overarching explanation of how acid rain ultimately
threatens forests. The findings are especially relevant now because a growing assortment of
human influences -- climate change, pollutants, and new pests and diseases, are burdening our
forests. "If extensive, the decline of individual species would radiate through plant communities," says DeHayes.
"It would alter the competition and survival of populations, perhaps even species, including animals at higher
levels of the forest food chains." DeHayes points out those calcium deficiencies in plants are passed on to herbivores, altering their nutrition. For instance, birds
eating calcium- deficient plant material might have less calcium for egg production. Insects could experience weaker exoskeletons. Mammals could have weaker bones or change in the
quantity or quality of milk production. The problems continue through the ecosystem and into economic system.

Wind 1AC (6/16)

AND
Collapse of forest ecosystems causes extinction through disease
Chivian „1
[Eric. Director of the Center for Health and Global Environment @ Harvard Medical School. ―Species Loss and Ecosystem Destruction—Implications for Human
Health‖. The Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol 164, N. 1. January 2001. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
An ecosystem is the sum of all the species and their actions and interactions with each other and
with the nonliving matter in a particular environment. How ecosystems provide the services that sustain all life on this
planet remains one of the most complex and poorly understood areas of biological science. Ecosystem services include such vital functions as
49,50
regulating the concentration of oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere,
filtering pollutants from drinking water, regulating global temperature and precipitation, forming soil
and keeping it fertile, pollinating plants, and providing food and fuel. One critically important service is the role 49,51
ecosystems play in controlling the emergence and spread of infectious diseases by maintaining equilibria
among predators and prey, and among hosts, vectors and parasites in plants, animals and
humans. This protective function of biodiversity has only recently begun to be appreciated. Examples of human infectious disease that can be affected by upsetting these
52,53,54,55
equilibria include malaria and leishmaniasis through deforestation;56 Lyme disease through changes in the number of acorns and in the populations of black-legged ticks, white-footed
mice and white-tailed deer;57 Argentine hemorrhagic fever through the replacement of natural grasslands with corn monoculture;58 and cholera through increased algal blooms, secondary
in part to warming seas and to fertilizer and sewage discharge

Wind 1AC (7/16)

AND
Second, global warming causes extinction
Li „8
[Ming. Asst Prof of Economics @ University of Utah. ―Climate Change, Limits to Growth, and the Imperative for Socialism‖ Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist
Magazine, Vol 60, No 3., Pg 51-3. July/August 2008, Academic Search Elite//MUDI—BB]
The 2007 assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is virtually certain
that human activities (mainly through the use of fossil fuels and land development) have been responsible for the global warming that has
taken place since the industrial revolution. Under current economic and social trends, the world is on a
path to unprecedented ecological catastrophes.1 As the IPCC report was being released, new evidence emerged
suggesting that climate change is taking place at a much faster pace and the potential consequences are likely to
be far more dreadful than is suggested by the IPCC report. The current evidence suggests that the Arctic
Ocean could become ice free in summertime possibly as soon as 2013, about one century ahead of what is predicted by the IPCC models. With the
complete melting of the Arctic summer sea ice, the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheets may become unavoidable,
threatening to raise the sea level by five meters or more within this century. About half of the world's fifty
largest cities are at risk and hundreds of millions of people will become environmental refugees.2 The world
is currently about 0.8 C warmer than in pre-industrial times and is within one degree of the highest average global temperature over the
past one million years. The world is warming at a rate of 0.2 C per decade and given the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere,
there will be a further long-term warming of 0.6 C. Moreover, now with the likely loss of Arctic summer sea ice, the Arctic Ocean will absorb
rather than reflect back solar radiation, which may lead to an additional warming of 0.3 C. Taking into account
these developments, the world may be already almost committed to a 2 C warming relative to pre-
industrial times, widely considered to be a critical threshold in climate change.3 A 2 C warming is likely to
result in widespread drought and desertification in Africa, Australia, southern Europe, and the western
United States; major glacial losses in Asia and South America; large-scale polar ice sheet disintegration;
and the extinction of 15–40 percent of plant and animal species. Worse, with 2 C warming, substantial climate [end page 51]
feedbacks, such as dangerous ocean acidification, significant tundra loss and methane release, and
disruption of soil and ocean carbon cycles, will be initiated, taking the course of climate change beyond
human control. According to James Lovelock, one of the world's leading earth system scientists, if the global average temperature rise approaches
3 C (relative to pre-industrial times) and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) rises above 500 parts per million (ppm), both the world's
oceans and the rainforests will turn into net emitters of greenhouse gases. In that event, the global average
temperature could rise further by up to 6 C, making the greater part of the earth uninhabitable for human beings,
raising the sea level by at least 25 meters, and causing the extinction of 90 percent of species and a possible reduction of the
world population by 80 percent.4 James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's leading climate scientists, argued that to
avoid a devastating rise in sea levels associated with the irreversible ice sheet loss in Greenland and
Antarctica, as well as massive species extinction, the world should aim to limit further global warming to
no more than 1 C (or 1.8 F) relative to 2000. According to the existing IPCC models, this implies an atmospheric concentration of CO2 no more than 450 ppm. However, in a recent study, Hansen
argued that the IPCC models failed to take into account various potential climate feedbacks. Paleoclimate evidence suggests that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet
similar to that on which civilization has developed and to which life on earth is adapted," atmospheric
concentration of CO2 must be reduced to about 350 ppm. The world's current CO2 concentration is 387 ppm and growing at a rate of 2 ppm a year.5 It is quite obvious
that the very survival of humanity and human civilization is at stake.

Wind 1AC (8/16)

Advantage Two is the Economy
First, PTC renewal is key to the American economy; three internal links
First is outsourcing
Brown and Escobar „7
[Britt and Benjamin. Energy Industry Lawyer and MIT-Trained Chemical Engineer and Patent Lawyer. ―Wind Power: Generating Electricity and Lawsuits‖ 28 Energy L
J 489. 2007, Lexis]
The United States has long been the largest market for technology in the world. Its intellectual
property laws have allowed researchers and investors alike to work under a certain degree of
predictability and certainty. This predictability has created a business environment in which
technological development has excelled. With respect to wind energy technology, however, the United
States has lagged largely because until relatively recently there has been little demand, compared
to other parts of the world. This is starting to change as domestic demand for wind energy
increases. While domestic demand is growing, U.S. companies still need to secure foreign demand for their products
and technology not only to expand their market and profits, but also to hedge against reduced
domestic demand in the future, e.g., in the event Production Tax Credits are not renewed.
AND
Outsourcing torpedoes the economy
Lucas „8
[Richard. Masters in Economics from Perdue. ―Outsourcing US Jobs and How it Hurts the U.S. Economy‖ www.associatedcontent.com 6/14/08//MUDI—JV]
As pioneer companies in the United States and other western nations began experiencing success with outsourcing in terms of the economy and their businesses, other industries and
businesses began to establish operational branches abroad. The core industries that currently utilize outsourcing include phone-based customer service relations, production of material
outsourcing jobs
goods (such as clothing, shoes, and car parts), and accounting (Shao & Smith David, 2007). Despite its popularity as a 21st century business practice,
to foreign countries hurts the U.S. economy, directly and indirectly (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Menial and technological jobs
that are outsourced contribute to unemployment in the U.S., while foreign students who come here
to study for degrees are returning to their home countries, where increasingly attractive
employment packages are offered as incentives. Despite the alleged benefits of outsourcing, this practice also has
negative implications, both for individuals and the U.S. economy. Outsourcing contributes to unemployment in
the U.S (Hay & Fricker, 2004). As Hay and Fricker (2004) reported, in one California county, the estimated costs of just 2000
jobs outsourced to Europe, Asia, and Latin America will result in the county's economic losses in
excess of $949 million annually. Personal losses will be felt as well; of the $949 million, $301 million represents lost wages
(Hay & Fricker, 2004). When labor and manufacturing jobs are outsourced, individuals, families, and
communities suffer economic losses due to limited job replacement (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Most people who
work in these industry sectors are not academically or professionally qualified to work in other
fields, so their job choices are severely limited, especially when the trend in a community is for industry to be outsourced. When there
is massive unemployment, especially within single communities that lose manufacturing jobs, the
entire economy of a region can be threatened, creating other social problems that result in
economic costs (Hay & Fricker, 2004). Such problems may include spiraling personal debt, the loss of one's car or home,
and the inability to pay for a child's education, thus perpetuating the cycle of economic and vocational
poverty. These are indirect but important economic impacts of outsourcing.

Wind 1AC (9/16)

AND
Second is investor confidence
Harris, May 8th
[Megan. UPI Staff Writer. ―US Wind Market’s Mixed Signals‖ UPI. 5/8/08, www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/05/06/]
The wind energy industry is beginning to repower existing turbines for greater efficiency and
expanding to offshore locations in Europe, and despite unstable incentives for wind power in the
United States, strong growth potential and the weak dollar are buoying interest in the U.S. market.
For most firms, the biggest barrier to the U.S. market is the lack of stable incentives. The
Production Tax Credit, which was due to expire at the end of 2007, was renewed in 2006 for one year until the end of 2008. It provides
a 2 cent per kilowatt-hour credit to project developers for the first 10 years of operation but has expired three times since it was first created in 1992. "If it is allowed to
expire, the industry and investors worry that growth will fall off -- although 25 states and the District
of Columbia have their own renewable electricity standards and that could provide somewhat of a
cushion," Aaron Severn, legislative representative for the American Wind Energy Association, told United
Press International at the Hanover Innovation Fair from April 21-25. "That's an experiment we don't want to undertake. Very
dramatic decreases in the amount of installed wind energy occurred in the past when the PTC
expired. Our member companies say that projects would be put on hold and investment would flow into more stable
markets if the PTC is not extended immediately," he said. "Developers want long-term market stability,"
he added, emphasizing the importance of long-term, robust incentives.
AND
Investor Confidence key to the economy
PR Newswire „93
[PR Newswire, Europe. ―Confidence Based on Predictability Essential to Success‖ General City News, Sept 15, 1993. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Predictability is the mother of confidence, and we want government to provide a steady, growing
economic environment in which we can develop our businesses with that confidence," the CBI conference in
Harrogate was told today (Monday) by Clive Thompson, chairman of the SE Region and group chief executive of the Rentokil Group. He added: "We in the CBI are no longer on the
It is insufficient to put the
outside looking in - we're right on the inside. But being on the inside demands we express our views responsibly and completely.
business view in isolation without thought or concern for the requirements of the other parts of the
economy. "We cannot ignore the demands of health, education, social services and transport on
the public purse. Clearly, tax revenue directed towards business means less resources for other important requirements in the economy. Recognition
brings responsibility." He went on to advocate government focusing on creating an environment in which business could create success. We don't want radical
changes of policy and direction much loved by politicians. Peaks and troughs have done more to wipe out the confidence so
necessary for investment in research and development, speculative new projects, and investment
in plant and machinery than any misguided political dogma. "Businessmen invest in their
businesses and take risks in new ventures if they believe they will be working in a business friendly
environment. Confidence is the key, and for those who have to invest in the future, predictability is
the mother of that confidence."

Wind 1AC (10/16)

AND
Third is the manufacturing
Sterzinger „6
[George. Exec Director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project. July 06. www.crest.org/articles/static/1/binaries/perspectives_PTC.pdf //MUDI--JV]
Any national energy policy will be both more effective and much more likely to receive broad
support if it treats all regions and states fairly. One of the critiques leveled against past proposals to
make a national commitment and provide federal supports to renewable development has been
that only a handful of states with strong wind or other renewable resources would benefit. One of
the best ways to balance a national program that supports project development is to broaden it and
encourage the development of a manufacturing industry that complements the large-scale
development of new renewable projects. A series of recent analyses undertaken by the Renewable Energy Policy
Project looked at the potential for U.S. industry to increasingly supply the component parts that
make up wind turbines and other commercial renewable technologies. The results are stunning. More than 70,000 firms are active in
these types of industries. A national commitment to develop renewable energy would stimulate the
demand for all of these components. The report also looked at which states would be the most
likely to receive an economic stimulus as a result of a national program to develop renewable
energy. The results were encouraging: 75 percent of the stimulus measured as the creation of new jobs would go
precisely to those states that have suffered the greatest loss of manufacturing jobs over the past
four years. A balanced national commitment would offer a public return for carbonfree generation
and also provide incentives for manufacturers to expand or add new lines in order to provide the
components any major program would require. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 offers several examples that easily could be extended to
manufacturing incentives. The U.S. Treasury could provide ―full faith and credit‖ guarantees for loans used to add or expand manufacturing capability. Clean Energy Bonds also could be
offered for manufacturing.

Wind 1AC (11/16)

AND
Manufacturing key to the economy
Vargo „3
[Franklin. VP for International Economic Affairs @ the National Assc of Manufacturers. ―Prepared Testimony of Franklin Vargo before the House Financial Services
Committee Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology‖ Federal News Service, Oct 1, 2003. Lexis//MUDI—BB]
I would like to begin my statement with a review of why manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy. Since manufacturing only represents about 16
percent of the nation's output, who cares? Isn't the United States a post-manufacturing services economy? Who needs manufacturing? The answer in brief is that the United
States economy would collapse without manufacturing, as would our national security and our role
in the world. That is because manufacturing is really the foundation of our economy, both in terms
of innovation and production and in terms of supporting the rest of the economy. For example, many individuals
point out that only about 3 percent of the U.S. workforce is on the farm, but they manage to feed the nation and export to the rest of the world. But how did this agricultural productivity
come to be? It is because of the tractors and combines and satellite systems and fertilizers and advanced seeds, etc. that came from the genius and productivity of the manufacturing
sector. Similarly, in services -- can you envision an airline without airplanes? Fast food outlets without griddles and freezers? Insurance companies or banks without computers?
Certainly not.The manufacturing industry is truly the innovation industry, without which the rest of the
economy could not prosper. Manufacturing performs over 60 percent of the nation's research and
development. Additionally, it also underlies the technological ability of the United States to maintain
its national security and its global leadership. Manufacturing makes a disproportionately large
contribution to productivity, more than twice the rate of the overall economy, and pays wages that
are about 20 percent higher than in other sectors. But its most fundamental importance lies in the
fact that a healthy manufacturing sector truly underlies the entire U.S. standard of living -because it
is the principal way by which the United States pays its way in the world. Manufacturing accounts
for over 80 percent of all U.S. exports of goods. America's farmers will export somewhat over $50 billion this year, but America's manufacturers
export almost that much event month! Even when services are included, manufacturing accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. exports of goods and services. If the U.S.
manufacturing sector were to become seriously impaired, what combination of farm products
together with architectural, travel, insurance, engineering and other services could make up for the
missing two-thirds of our exports represented by manufactures? The answer is "none." What would
happen instead is the dollar would collapse, falling precipitously -- not to the reasonable level of
1997, but far below it -and with this collapse would come high U.S. inflation, a wrenching economic
downturn and a collapse in the U.S. standard of living and the U.S. leadership role in the world.
That, most basically, is why the United States cannot become a "nation of shopkeepers."

Wind 1AC (12/16)

AND
Economic decline most likely scenario for war
Yulu „3
[Economic Analyst for the People’s Daily (China). ―Economic Recession: The Blasting Fuse of War‖. People’s Daily, 7/25/3 Lexis//MUDI—BB]
If one examines the wars broken out ever since more than a century ago, one will discover an interesting phenomenon,
that is, each fairly big economic recession (or economic crisis) was inevitably followed by the eruption of a war. This is true with World I, World
War II, the Gulf War, as well as the Iraq war. It can be said that economic downturn is the blasting fuse of modern war.
AND
Economic warfare causes extinction
Nyquist „7
[JR. Econ Expert, Often Contributes to NYT. ―The Path of Dissolution‖ Financial Sense, July 2007. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
The world is made up of armed nation states, and some of those states have nuclear and biological weapons that could
easily kill several hundred million people. We don’t like to think that these weapons would ever be used, but it’s safe to say they’ll be used
all the same. Weapons are always used. This is not because of some dark conspiracy to use them. They are used because they exist to be used, and the
occasion for using them – though unwelcome by most of us – nonetheless recurs through time. People always seem ready to hate somebody, to blame somebody, and to unleash
destruction on somebody. The reasons for hatred may be ethnic, religious or ideological. We can see these reasons falling from the lips of al Qaeda spokesmen, from Latin American
Everyone knows that war plans were drawn up in Washington and Moscow long
dictators and Chinese generals.
ago. But war did not come when the two sides were carefully watching one another; mainly on
account of the nuclear ―balance of terror.‖ Such balances, however, do not last forever. In fact, a major
economic disruption might overthrow the ―balance of terror.‖

Wind 1AC (13/16)

Contention Two is Solvency
First, the plan eliminates pollution—the cost-effective nature of wind power will create a
industry-wide movement away from fossil fuels
Zaidi „7
[Kamall. JD Candidate @ U of Tulsa. ―Wind Energy and its Impact on Future Environmental Policy Planning: Powering Renewable Energy in Canada and Abroad‖ 11
Alb. L. Envtl, 2007. Lexis]
The global wind energy industry is growing at a rapid pace. n204From a purely economic perspective, producing wind energy
helps reduce the high costs of electricity consumption. n205 Fossil fuels represent the traditional
means of producing energy, but given the finiteness of this resource, the high levels of pollution it
produces, and the rapid rise in consumption costs from fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas,
the advent of cheaper and more efficient wind energy tools like wind turbines are proving to be an
attractive alternative. n206 While some forms of wind energy are more costly to apply than [*232] conventional means (such as with offshore wind projects), the high
demand for electricity consumption is causing conventional energy costs to rise at a rapid rate. n207 In contrast, wind energy costs are declining due to
the improved technological advancements in producing more efficient wind energy production from
wind turbine engines. n208 Governments, industries, and consumers are beginning to realize the potential benefits associated with renewable energy extraction and
application. n209 From an environmental perspective, the use of wind energy greatly reduces the adverse effects of land
and air pollution, while conserving local habitats by lessening the impact on wildlife. n210 It is thus important to
examine some global approaches in applying wind energy as an important renewable alternative.

Wind 1AC (14/16)

A Wind power PTC solves all economic externalities—creates jobs and ramps up
confidence
De Azua „8
[Christine Real. ―Over 600 Industry Leaders See Potential for New Jobs, Billions in Economic Growth in Wind Power Supply Chain‖ 29 April 08.
www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Supply_Chain_Workshop_29 Apr08.html ]
―The U.S. wind power industry is a bright spot in our economy,‖ said AWEA Executive Director Randall
Swisher. ―Every megawatt of installed wind power creates employment in manufacturing,
construction and operations as well as jobs in advertising, office support, environmental
assessment and other related professions. America’s vast wind resources have barely been
tapped, and we have only just begun to see wind’s potential to generate broad economic growth.‖
Encouraged by the stability of the federal production tax credit (PTC), U.S. wind industry
manufacturing has surged from a very small base in 2005 to more than 100 facilities in 2007. In 2005, the average wind turbine contained less than 30%
American-made components. Today, domestically manufactured content is approaching 50%. (A wind turbine is composed of some 8,000 components, ranging from towers and blades
to gearboxes, generators, castings, ball bearings, and electronic components.) New facilities were opened or announced last year in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina,
New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin. These facilities are expected to create more than 6,000 permanent, well-paying jobs. Many of the fastest-growing wind
―While the wind industry’s strong growth is encouraging,
industry suppliers in the U.S. are slated to attend the workshop this week.
the PTC is in danger of lapsing at the end of this year,‖ said Swisher. ―It is vitally important for Congress
and the President to quickly extend the PTC—the primary U.S. incentive for wind power—as part of a long-
term policy for renewable energy to foster investment in wind installations, manufacturing capacity and thousands of new jobs.‖

Wind 1AC (15/16)

AND
Permanency is key—a PTC will undercut fossil fuel use and supercharge industry
confidence
Shoock „7
2007, Lexis]
The burgeoning renewable energy industry, its investors, n404 and the public n405 need Congress to
implement a comprehensive national energy policy. It must integrate market-focused initiatives
without losing sight of the social reasons for promoting clean energy. This includes programs that (1) aid renewable power
producers, (2) marginalize fossil fuels to the extent possible, and (3) set a permanent standard for ensuring the place of renewable energy in the electricity market. This Note proposes
thatthe federal government can meet these ends. To do so it must enact a scheme that incorporates
elements of existing state and national policies while adding certain unique derivations. The first
step is to ensure that current supply-side incentives will remain into the foreseeable future. Otherwise
disaster waits in the wings. n406 In fact, during a period (January 1, 2004 to October 4, 2004) between an earlier version of the
production tax credit's expiration and subsequent renewal, a deceleration in the increase of new
wind farm development n407 made it clear to industry experts that the tax credits were [*1059] a
necessary ingredient if long-term growth were to be assured. n408 Once the federal tax credit was
renewed, a sharp spike in wind facilities occurred. n409 This legislative volatility has the unintended
consequence of actually raising the price of wind power while the PTC is still in effect. For example, steel supply
shortages stemming from white-hot demand for wind power facilities n410 caused a development bottleneck and a 30% cost increase for the turbines as projects scrambled to meet the
n411 Many of the resulting projects came in over-budget or late, setting
anticipated PTC expiration of December 31, 2007.
off credit problems for many producers. n412 If wind power's tax credit and production incentive, duly
buffered against inflation, are assured long lives, steady, predictable growth will follow. n413 Absent
any other initiative, wind energy is competitive only when placed on a level playing field with fossil
fuels. n414 This requires the continuation of supply-side aid. n415 The degree to which the federal government subsidizes
fossil fuel technology, n416 including the billions [*1060] appropriated to coal, n417 oil, and gas n418 in the same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that extended the PTC
and REPI for renewables for two more years, belies the undeniable fact that the energy market as a whole leans heavily
on legislative aid. n419 Wind power thus is no more beholden to Congress than any other energy source. If the mandate to reduce
dependence on foreign and polluting sources of energy is to be honored, the PTC and REPI must be
extended indefinitely. n420 The sooner they are, the sooner the stability can be ensured for the
industry, thereby assuring a steady supply of inexhaustible energy. n421

Wind 1AC (16/16)

AND
Alternative mechanism counterplans fail—the PTC is the only sustainable internal link to
wind.
Cotter „7
[Chris. JD Candidate. ―Wind Power and the Renewable Portfolio Standard: An Ohio Analysis‖ University of Dayton Law Review, Spring 2007. Lexis]
To encourage the development of wind power and other renewable technologies, both federal and state lawmakers have enacted many policies
and incentives. n210 The federal production tax credit ("PTC") is the "most notable and effective" federal
incentive for renewable energy. n211 The PTC gives wind power developers 18 cents/kWh for their wind farms' entire electricity generation during its first 10
years of operation. n212 The tax credit has gone through several cycles of expiration and renewal. n213 However,
since wind power development has peaked in years when the PTC was scheduled to expire-as
developers rush to finish projects in time to receive the tax benefit-the PTC clearly has had an
influence on the development of wind power. n214
AND
No turns—new developments in wind tech solve the reasons it might be bad
Bankey „8
[Donna. ―Home Wind Turbine Technology‖ www.buzzle.com/article/home-wind-turbine-technology.html, 4/17/08. July 23. 2008//MUDI—DE]
Companies are constantly working on new technology in Wind Turbine. Different types are tested
for durability, performance, and efficiency. Wind turbine companies expand to a global field. Just as wind
turbines are all over the world today. Even though wind is the essential key to the wind turbine’s performance, the newly discovered technology goes
beyond today’s state-of-the-art mega-watt-class wind turbines. To give you an idea at a glance, of how wind turbines are being improved and
inspected. Giving alternate energy information and letting you know the certain changes in the wind turbine as well as the generators and other equipment associated with the wind
turbine. The Air-X Wind Turbine, distributed by Southwest Wind power, uses a new microprocessor based
technology, creating an increased performance for the Wind Turbine. The Air Turbine is the world’s number one selling small turbine. It has improved battery
charging capabilities as well as a reduced "flutter" noise from the machines. This comes from the use of the carbon fiber
composite blades. The development of research on wind turbines has increased since 2001, as more customers are in
the market for alternative energy systems. Newer designs much like the Air-X are also equipped to actually shut down during large
wind gusts to prevent damage to the machine. It takes just an eight mile an hour wind to get a
turbine going. For optimal performance, a twelve mile an hour wind is all that is required for a small home used wind turbine. Researchers are hoping
to have wind farms all over the United States, funded by the government. These wind farms will not only help out the
economy by using a natural resource, but allow companies to expand their technology on the wind turbine even
further. By tracking and observation of the wind turbines improvements on blade turning, weight of the tower, height of the tower, and many other conditions. The higher advanced
wind turbines consist of many parts. Gear boxes, rotation devices, magnetic mechanisms, and other parts that
ensure the quality and performance of the machines. The wind turbine is capable of handling extreme wind conditions and windy
environments. However those closer to the coast require different specs, such as heavier gauged towers and blades. These turbine machines also have more than three blades in most
cases. Enjoy the benefits of utility power and reduce your electric bill every time the wind blows. This utility-connected system with the use of wind turbines has its incentives. Though the
Wind turbine
image of the Windmill has changed tremendously, the Wind Turbine instills the same concept for small homes, and creating electricity by a windmill.
technology improvements are essential for the further development of future wind turbines
manufactured. What types work on homes, and what types work in wind turbine fields. Windmill power can be an alternate source of
energy for our generation, as well as generations to come.
Oil Dependency Add-On (1/1)

A. Wind eliminates oil dependence
Runge and Tiffany „7
[C. and Doug. Prof of Econ @ U of Minnesota and Research Fellow @ U of Minnesota. ―Re-Examining the PTC for Wind Power: An Assessment of Policy
Options: An Assessment of Policy Options‖ Lexis]
Although wind is regarded by many as a minor energy source, it
has provided power to people for thousands of years by filling sails, and
was captured for power mills and waterworks many centuries ago, essentially by combining the idea of a sail with a
rotating turbine. Faced with growing costs for hydrocarbon-based fuels and legal and waste-disposal problems for nuclear fuels, wind appears increasingly attractive. With
total U.S. energy consumption projected to increase faster than production through 2025, leading to increases in net energy imports from 27 percent of total consumption in 2003 to
38 percent in 2025, the importance of domestic renewables, including wind, will grow.2 Apart
from a growing dependence on foreign energy, CO2
emissions by the United States are projected to increase from 5,789 million metric tons (mmt) in 2003 to 8,062 mmt in 2025, an average annual
increase of 1.5 percent.3 Wind power produces little or no CO2 or other emissions, representing a clean alternative to fossil
fuels. Wind energy is therefore a potentially significant investment in both energy security and reduced dependence on
imported fuels, as well as a response to the environmental damages and climate disruptions increasingly linked to fossil
fuel consumption. In addition, wind energy can help promote rural development and employment. In states like North Dakota, for example (which ranks 1st in development
potential but 13th in statelevel production), each 1,000 megawatts of wind capacity is estimated to generate $1 billion in capital investment, $5.3 million in annual property taxes,
and nearly 400 indirect and secondary jobs.4
B. Oil dependence makes Iranian prolif inevitable
Victor et al „6
[David. John Deutch. James Schlesinger. Program Directors: Independent Report on Oil Dependency. National
Security Consequences of Oil
Dependency, Pg 24]
First, the control over enormous oil revenues gives exporting coun-tries the flexibility to adopt policies that oppose U.S.
interests and values. Iran proceeds with a program that appears to be headed toward acquiring a nuclear weapons
capability. Russia is able to ignore Western attitudes as it has moved to authoritarian policies in part because huge revenues from oi
land gas exports are available to finance that style of government. Venezuela has the resources from its oil exports to invite realignment in Latin American political relationships and
to fund changes such as Argentina’s exit from its International Monetary Fund (IMF) standby agreement and Bolivia’s recent decision to nationalize its oil and gas resources.
Because of their oil wealth,these and other producer countries are free to ignore U.S. policies and to pursue interests
inimical to our national security.
C. Extinction
Crytzer „7
[Kurt. Lt Colonel in the Army. ―Mahdi and the Iranian Nuclear Threat‖ 30 March 2007. Stinet//MUDI—JV]
The potential worst case scenario is that Iran continues to develop nuclear capabilities with little oversight or regard for the judgments passed by
the United Nations and develops a robust nuclear weapons program. Once weapons are developed, Iranians will increase their political
influence and also export technologies to allied countries such as Syria in the Middle East, Sudan in Africa, proxies such
as Hezbollah and possibly other non-aligned nations who are not on good terms with the United States. As quantities of enriched
uranium and plutonium increase, the Iranians could also supply materials necessary for nuclear weapons production to terrorist
organizations, with the goal of striking Israel, the United States or other western countries. Authors Peter Zimmerman and Jeffery Lewis
have written an article entitled ―The Bomb in the Backyard‖, which describes how feasible it would be for a well funded terrorist organization and a few devout experts to construct
and detonate a nuclear device within the United States. The authors put together step by step procedures, which while difficult, are surely not impossible. 84 This
nightmare
scenario continues with ultra-conservative Iranian leadership believing in the ability to influence the timing of the long
awaited Hidden Imam. The desire for the return of Mahdi could then outweigh the risks of mutually assured destruction
(MAD) through retaliatory nuclear strikes, and lead to reckless actions in order to realize the dream of worldwide Islamic
domination. The Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons might also lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons by
threatened Arab countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, further escalating a dangerous nuclear arms race and leading to the
increasing destabilization of the region. With the spread of nuclear weapons, the prospect of catastrophic nuclear events in multiple
U.S., European, or Israeli cities increases. Given such an event, the western nations would retaliate with nuclear
weapons and the world would become embroiled in the Third World War.

Oil Dependency Add-On: Uniqueness (1/1)

Oil peak is coming. A world absent the plan ensures resource wars during the transition period.
Mouawad „8
[Jad. Energy Expert and Staff Writer for the New York Times. ―If you think the Oil Situation is Bad, the Worst is yet to Come‖ The Age (AU). 26 April 2008. Lexis]
OIL prices nearly broke through $US120 a barrel this week, setting another record for the world's most indispensable energy commodity. What was
striking was what did not happen: there was no shortage of oil, no sudden embargo, no exporter turning off its spigot. Some
attacks on oil pipelines in Nigeria was all it took. The weak US dollar, worries about terrorism and speculation on
commodity markets certainly played a role. But, of course, so did demand. Producers are struggling to pump as much as they can to quench the thirst not
only of the developed world, but fast-growing developing nations such as China and India, the two most populous countries. To many experts, the steadily rising
price underscored longer-term fears about a system that has supplied cheap oil for more than a century. "This is the market
signalling there is a problem, that there is a growing difficulty to meet demand with new supplies," said UBS global oil economist
Jan Stuart. Today's tensions are only likely to worsen in coming years. Consider a few numbers. The planet's population is expected
to grow by 50% to 9 billion by the middle of the century. The number of cars and trucks is projected to double in 30 years —
to more than 2 billion — as developing nations rapidly modernise. And twice as many passenger planes, more than 36,000, will in all likelihood be flying in 20 years. All of that will
require a lot more oil — enough that global oil consumption will jump by 35% by 2030, according to the International Energy
Agency, a leading global energy forecaster for the US and other developed nations. Producers will have to find and pump an additional 11 billion barrels every year.
And that's only 22 years away, a heartbeat for the petroleum industry, where the pace of finding and tapping supplies is
measured in decades. The pursuit of oil will be just part of the energy challenge. The world's energy demand — including oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear
power, as well as renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydro power — is set to rise by 65% over the next two decades,
according to the IEA. But petroleum, the dominant fuel of the 20th century, will remain the top energy source. It accounts for more than a third of energy needs,
ahead of coal and natural gas. Refined into petrol, kerosene or diesel fuel, oil has no viable substitute as a transport fuel, and that is not likely to change much in the next 30 years. The
problem is that no one can say for sure where all this oil is going to come from. That might not sound like such a bad thing for those concerned about
carbon emissions and climate change. High prices might force people to conserve and encourage development of alternatives. But the
energy crunch might also result in a global scramble for resources, energy wars, and much higher energy prices. Some oil
executives are sounding the alarm bell. At a recent energy conference, John Hess, chief executive of international oil company Hess Corp, warned
that an oil crisis was looming if the world did not deal with runaway demand and strained supplies. Royal Dutch Shell chief
executive Jeroen van der Veer said recently, with some understatement, that "the energy outlook does not look rosy". The world's oil
supplies are already stretched. Countries outside the OPEC cartel — which have been the main source of discoveries and production since the 1970s — have
said they expect little to no growth in production this year. The North Sea and Alaska are slowly running out, and producers
there are struggling to keep production from falling. Russia's phenomenal oil surge is coming to an end. A top executive of Lukoil, the
country's second-largest oil group, said last week that Russia's production was unlikely to increase much. Nigeria is battling a violent militancy. And Mexico, the
third most important supplier of crude to the US, has been stuck in a crippling political debate over keeping out foreign
investors while witnessing a dramatic production drop that some analysts say may be irreversible. What about OPEC? The 13
members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries account for three-quarters of the world's proven oil reserves. But for various reasons, most of those countries are
making it harder, if not impossible, for foreign oil companies to invest within their borders. With energy prices rising, OPEC producers are reaping
record revenue, which has reduced the incentive to dip into their supplies by boosting production. At the same time, major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP
and Chevron are finding it harder to compete worldwide, as national oil companies erode their once-dominant positions. Fourteen of the top 20 oil companies
are state-owned giants, such as Saudi Aramco and Russia's Gazprom. That leaves Western oil companies in control of less than 10% of oil and gas reserves. Facing higher
costs, these companies are also having greater difficulty finding new oil deposits. Despite spending more than $US100 billion on exploration last
year, the five largest international oil companies found less oil last year than they pumped.

Inherency: No PTC (1/1)

( ) Empirically, the PTC has never been made permanent
Maloney „6
[Peter. Econ Analyst for the NYT. ―Business Special: Wind‖ The New York Times, 5/17/06. Lexis]
Since it first expired in 1999, the
credit has never been extended for more than two years at a time. As a result of repeated expirations
and extensions, wind power has gone through a boom-bust cycle. In the boom years of 2001 and 2003, new wind power installations had a production
capacity of more than 1,600 megawatts. In 2002 and 2004, that figure was well under 500 megawatts. The tax credit is set to expire at the end of 2007. Most developers and
industry experts accept this cycle. They have little hope that the credit will become permanent, but neither do they expect Congress to
cancel it.
( ) PTC is dead—congressional consensus. Also, now is key.

Choate, July 19th
[Trish. Staff Writer. ―Uncertainty Over Tax Credits Slows Wind Development‖ Times Record News (TX), 7/19/08. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
A federal clock is ticking on an ambitious plan to build transmission lines to funnel wind energy from West Texas to metropolitan areas. The project is expected to set off a chain reaction
the wind energy industry revolves around a production tax credit expiring Dec. 31 . After more than one
of new jobs and investment, but
false start, there is no guarantee Congress will extend it. Expansion will halt, some warn, if lawmakers don’t take action this
summer because getting a turbine into the ground is something like a six-month proposition. ―We don’t want lines to just be standing out there,‖ Sweetwater, Texas, Mayor Greg
Wortham, also director of the West Texas Energy Consortium, said. Until a turbine produces juice — no credit. A wind facility with utility-scale turbines rates a production tax credit of 2
cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced — if the facility is in service after Dec. 31, 1992, and before Jan. 1, 2009, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The
credit lapsed in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Those droughts resulted in a drop off of 70 percent to 90 percent in investment , Jaime
Steve, legislation director for AWEA, said. This time around, 76,000 jobs and about $12 billion in investment hinge on swift action from
Congress, he said. Hesitation in extending the credit endangers jobs in manufacturing, production and ports across Texas, Wortham
said. Lawmakers’ on-again and off-again approval of the credits affects expansion in other ways. ―We’re losing manufacturing opportunities, particularly from Europeans who want a
consistent policy,‖ Wortham said. The state has done its part, he said. The PUC is set to move forward with a $4.93 billion investment in a new network to transmit 18,456 megawatts of
wind energy from West Texas and the Panhandle, a PUC news release said. That shakes out to about $4 a month per residential customer after lines are built and in service in four to
five years. The project will rocket Texas past Germany, making the Lone Star State the biggest wind energy producing ―nation,‖ Wortham said. But industry
development
could snag on Congress and the tax credits. ―I don’t know how many times they’ve been voted down this year,‖ Wortham said.
After a few years of sustained existence, he thinks the credit is in danger of slipping past the deadline without renewal again.
―There’s just been this stalemate,‖ Wortham said.

Solvency: PTC Key (1/1)

( ) PTC key to sustainable wind power—empirical evidence that industry trends operate on a perception of
stability.
Maloney „6
Wind power is booming — not necessarily because of the environmental benefits, but because of the cash they spin off. Wind power provides a
risk-adjusted core return on capital, favorable accounting treatment for earnings and it is "good public policy," said Michael
O'Sullivan, senior vice president for development at FPL Energy. Mr. O'Sullivan emphasizes that earnings from wind power turn into profits quickly in the
first years of operation because of tax breaks. Earnings from wind farms are sheltered by the Production Tax Credit. But
when it expired in December 2003, the business of building wind farms came to a screeching halt all over. Work on the Weatherford
project did not resume until Congress acted nine months later to extend the credit.
( ) PTC is key to ramp up wind investment
Porretto „8
[John. Staff Writer: The Desert news. ―PTC Critical to Wind‖ The Desert News, June 3, 08. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Renewal of federal tax credits expiring at the end of the year is critical to U.S. investment in the wind-energy industry,
executives and officials said Monday. Congress is debating whether to renew, and how to pay for, production tax credits that help
subsidize the growing industry. The existing subsidy of 2 cents per kilowatt hour for wind developers is set to expire in
December, and the uncertainty has prompted some to delay investments beyond 2008, industry executives say. The tax credits were a hot
topic at Windpower 2008, a four-day gathering of more than 10,000 policymakers and energy professionals that began Sunday. Vic Abate, vice president for renewables at GE Energy,
an arm of General Electric Co., said failure to renew the tax credit will almost certainly slow GE's business of supplying turbines to wind farms. "We're
already starting to
see some customers ask, 'If this (credit) doesn't happen, can we put these in Canada or South America?'" Abate said. The
credits expired in 1999, 2001 and 2003, and wind-power installation fell significantly in each of the following years,
advocates of the tax credits note.
( ) The PTC is vital to enhance the perception of industry stability
Triple Pundit, June 18th
[18 June 08. http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/wind-energy-ptc-more-than-pays-003254.php. ]
The uncertainty surrounding the renewable energy PTC is holding back resource and industry development at a time when
inflation and economic weakness, credit problems, a weak dollar, massive government debt and a stratospheric rise in oil
and natural gas prices is hurting the economy. Panel participants noted that the renewable energy production tax credit has expired
three times in the past nine years. Every year, the uncertainty of renewal resulted in an estimated 76-90% drop in installed
capacity from the previous year. Due to legislative uncertainty, lenders are forced to omit the financially beneficial effects of
the PTC from their project finance calculations, one GEEFS panel member noted during the report’s launch. Lenders are less willing to lend, and
they require more equity, which raises project financing costs, squeezes out the smaller players. ―The bigger guys can pick up the slack to
some degree, but they have to rely on more expensive equity,‖ he pointed out. Primarily a tax-equity financier, ―we don’t get paid for taking that risk [that the PTC will be renewed].‖
( ) Climate change in the squo—wind power key to avoid continual warming
GWEC, 2006 (Global Wind Energy Outlook, Greenpeace, accessed July 24, 2008).
The impetus behind wind power expansion has come increasingly from the urgent need to combat global climate change.
This is now accepted to be the greatest environmental threat facing the world. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change projects that average temperatures around the world will increase by up to 5.8°C over the coming century.
This is predicted to result in a wide range of climate shifts, including melting of the polar ice caps, flooding of low-lying land,
storms, droughts and violent changes in weather patterns. Responsibility for climate change lies with the excessive build-up
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a trend encouraged by the world’s growing industrialisation. Within energy use, the
main culprit is fossil fuels, whose combustion produces carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases. A shift in the
way the world produces and consumes energy is therefore essential. Alongside more efficient use of energy, renewable
sources of energy offer the potential for deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. The main international driver for combating climate change has
been the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This set national targets for OECD member states to cut their CO₂ emissions by an average of 5.2% from their 1990 levels by 2012. Combating climate
change is only a secondary driver for wind energy in the developing world, however. More immediate concern comes from the direct environmental effects of burning fossil fuels,
Other environmental effects
particularly air pollution. This is a major issue in countries like India and China, which use large quantities of coal for power generation.
resulting from the range of fuels currently used to generate electricity include the landscape degradation and dangers of
fossil fuel exploration and mining, the pollution caused by accidental oil spills and the health risks associated with radiation
produced by the routine operation and waste management of the nuclear fuel cycle. Exploiting renewable sources of
energy, including wind power, avoids these risks and hazards.

Solvency: Permanency Key (1/1)

( ) Temporary PTC doesn‟t solve industry confidence, which is key to access wind power‟s economic benefits
Neff „7
[Todd. Economic Analyst @ Linedln (Financial Firm). ―Energy Answer is Blowing in the Wind Science‖ Daily Camera, 22 April 2007]
Without production tax credits, the wind business tanks. Wind installations plunged 76 percent, to 400 megawatts, in 2004,
when the temporary tax credit expired; with the credit back in place in 2005, more than 2,400 megawatts went up, according to
the Union of Concerned Scientists, which strongly backs making the production tax credit permanent. Without federal research money, the pace of innovation
will slow, DeMayo said. He calculates what he thinks wind needs top-down. He said if getting 20 percent of U.S. electricity from wind by 2025 costs $500 billion, a 1
percent investment in R&D — low for tech-industry standards — amounts to $200 million a year. Industry pays half; the public, benefiting from reduced pollution, pays the other $100
million through federal research, he proposed. It's about the same as the wind association's number. "To say the research job is done is absurd," DeMayo said. "It's
like going back to 1940 and saying the automobile fleet looks great compared to 1910, when Henry Ford was making Model Ts."
( ) Permanency is key—avoids economic unpredictability

Singh „1
[Virinder. Research Director @ the Renewable Energy Policy Project. July 11, 2001. www.senate.gov/~finance/071101vstest.pdf//MUDI--JV ]
One significant lesson from the history of renewable energy development is that sharp, policydriven spikes in investment
and business activity are not good for the industry. The most well known example is the case of tax credit for solar water heaters in the 1980s. In this case, a
heavy dose of public incentives over a short period of time encouraged rapid, even hasty business development. Ephemeral tax credits did not lead to the earnest expansion of capital
and overall industry capability. Instead, when the tax credits ended, so did most of the domestic industry. Policies
that encourage only short spurts in sales are
not nearly as useful as policies that provide a more predictable investment environment that is not buffeted by volatility. In a
current example, in the U.S. approximately 2,000 MW of wind power is coming on-line nationwide. That means about $2 billion of investments in wind power. As in Texas, the timing of
the PTC is the prime reason for the timing of this investment, though not necessarily the top driver for the investment itself. Based on our discussions with the wind industry and utilities,
the surge is so great that wind developers are stretched to their limit. They cannot take on much more business this year, even though opportunities continue to present themselves. In an
ideal scenario, the PTC would last past 2001, stimulating an orderly increase of projects that is in accordance with the size of the wind industry today. The
problem with short
eligibility periods is that, without longevity, it does not encourage the kinds of capital investment in wind-related businesses
that are essential for long-term progress. Instead, short-term measures force the existing resources of the wind industry to do a
lot in one year, with the possibility of a sharp contraction from which it must recover in the future. It appears that if the PTC
is to contribute to the steady growth on the U.S. renewable energy industry, it must avoid cycles of boom and bust, or at
least contribute to smoother cycles so that the nation does not squander the market and technical advances it has pursued
for decades, the fruits of which are just now starting to be realized.

AT//Wind Tech Outdated (1/1)

( ) Wind is advanced enough to curb fossil fuel use
GWEC „6
[Global Wind Energy Concern. Greenpeace. 2006]
Wind energy is the most attractive solution to the world’s energy challenges. It is clean and fuel-free. Moreover, wind is
indigenous and enough wind blows across the globe to cope with the ever increasing electricity demand. This report demonstrates
that wind technology is not a dream for the future – it is real, it is mature and it can be deployed on a large scale. Thanks to
twenty years of technological progress, wind turbines have come a long way and a wind farm today acts much more like a
conventional power station. Moreover, wind power generation is increasingly competitive with conventional fossil fuel
sources and already today is on a par with new coal or gas fired power stations.
New technologies make wind economically competitive

As the global market has grown, wind power has seen a dramatic fall in cost. A modern wind turbine annually produces 180
times more electricity and at less than half the cost per unit (kWh) than its equivalent twenty years ago. At good locations
wind can compete with the cost of both coal and gas-fired power. The cost of wind power generation falls as the average
wind speed rises. Analysis by industry magazine Windpower Monthly (Jan 2006) shows that at a site with an average wind
speed of more than 7 metres per second, and a capital cost per installed kilowatt of approximately € 1,000, wind is already cheaper than gas, coal
and nuclear. The competitiveness of wind power has been further enhanced by the recent rise in the price of fossil fuels, in
particular the gas used to fuel power stations. In the United States, this has made wind generated electricity an increasingly
attractive option for power utilities faced with rising costs. Against the volatility of conventional electricity costs, wind offers
an energy source which has no fuel element and is unaffected by world trade issues. Direct cost comparisons between wind
power and other generation technologies are misleading, however, because they do not account for the ―external costs‖ to
society and the environment derived from burning fossil fuels or from nuclear generation. These external costs, including the
effects of air pollution and radiation emissions, are not included in electricity prices. The pan-European study, known as the ―ExternE‖ project,
conducted across all 15 original EU member states, has assessed these costs for a range of fuels. Its latest results, published in 2002, showed wind power as having the lowest range of
these hidden costs - 0.15 to 0.25 € cents/kWh – compared to 2 to 15 € cents/kWh for coal. The study concluded that the
cost of electricity from coal or oil would
double, and that from gas increase by 30%, if their external costs associated with the environment and health were taken
into account. The polluting effect of fossil fuels has now been reflected through carbon reduction measures such as the
European Union’s emissions trading scheme, which sets a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide which can be emitted by all
major industrial enterprises.

AT//Wind is Too Expensive (1/1)

( ) Wind energy is cost effective and creates jobs
As the global market has grown, wind power has seen a dramatic fall in cost. A modern wind turbine annually produces 180
times more electricity at less than half the cost per unit (kWh) than its equivalent twenty years ago. At good locations wind
can compete with the cost of both coal and gas-fired power. The competitiveness of wind power has been further enhanced
by the recent rise in the price of fossil fuels. If the ―external costs‖ associated with the pollution and health effects resulting
from fossil fuel and nuclear generation were fully taken into account, wind power would work out even cheaper. Wind
energy also provides economic benefit through the employment which the industry generates. In the developing world, off-grid wind power
opens up economic opportunities to dispersed communities.
( ) Wind is efficient and stimulates economic growth

Since the 1980s, when the first commercial wind turbines were deployed, their capacity, efficiency and visual design have
all improved dramatically. A modern wind turbine annually produces 180 times more electricity at less than half the cost per
unit (kWh) than its equivalent twenty years ago. The largest turbines being manufactured now are of more than 5 MW
capacity, with rotor diameters of over 100 metres. Modern turbines are modular and quick to install, whilst wind farms vary
in size from a few megawatts up to several hundred. Wind energy has become big business. The major wind turbine
manufacturers are commissioning multi-million dollar factories around the world in order to satisfy demand.

AT//Turbines Flawed (1/1)

( ) Nope—objections are minimal and benefits outweigh
Objections to wind turbines are minimal and don‟t offset benefits
The construction and operation of wind power, often in areas of open countryside, raises issues of visual impact, noise and
the effect on local wildlife. These issues are usually addressed through an environmental impact assessment. Visual impact: Wind turbines are tall
structures likely to be visible over a relatively wide area. While some people express concern about the effect wind turbines
have on the landscape, others see them as elegant and graceful, symbols of a less polluted future. Birds: Can be affected
by wind energy development through loss of habitat, disturbance to their breeding areas and by death or injury caused by
the rotating turbine blades. Studies from Europe and the United States have shown, however, that the average rate of
collision has been no more than two birds per turbine per year. These figures should be set against the millions of birds
killed each year by power lines, pesticides and road vehicles. Noise: Compared to road traffic, trains, construction activities
and other sources of industrial noise, the sound generated by wind turbines in operation is comparatively low. Better design
and better insulation have made more recent wind turbine models much quieter. The approach of regulatory authorities has
been to ensure that the turbines are positioned far enough away from nearby homes to avoid unacceptable disturbance.
( ) Noise complaints can be avoided; new turbines are quieter than ever
Generally speaking, the sound output of wind turbines can be subdivided into mechanical and aerodynamic noise. The
components emitting the highest sound level are the generator, the yaw drive which turns the nacelle of the turbine to face
the wind, the gearbox and the blades. Some of the sound generated by these components is regular and some of it
irregular, but all of it (except, that generated by the yaw mechanism) is present only while the turbine is actually operating.
Even then, compared to road traffic, trains, construction activities and many other sources of industrial noise, the sound
generated by wind turbines in operation is comparatively low (see table). Better design and better insulation have made
more recent wind turbine models much quieter than their predecessors. The approach of regulatory authorities to the issue
of noise and wind farms has generally been to firstly calculate the ambient (existing) sound level at any nearby houses and
then to ensure that the turbines are positioned far enough away to avoid unacceptable disturbance.
( ) Ugliness is irrelevant—complaints are low and solvency outweighs.

Wind turbines are tall structures which ideally need to operate in an exposed site where they can make best use of the
prevailing wind. This means they are likely to be visible over a relatively wide area. Whether this has a detrimental effect is a
highly subjective issue. Being visible is not the same as being intrusive. While some people express concern about the
effect wind turbines have on the beauty of our landscape, others see them as elegant and graceful, or symbols of a better,
less polluted future. The landscape is largely human-made and has evolved over time. Changes to the visual appearance
of the countryside, such as lines of electricity pylons, which were once considered intrusions, are now largely accepted as
part of the view. In comparison to other energy developments, such as nuclear, coal and gas power stations, or open cast
coal mining, wind farms have relatively little visual impact. Nevertheless, most countries with a wind power industry have
established rules which exclude certain areas, such as national parks or nature reserves, from development. Others have
identified priority areas where wind power is specifically encouraged. Some wind turbines are located in industrial areas or
close to other infrastructure developments, such as motorways, where they may be considered less intrusive. Large wind
farms of 100 or more turbines can also be located in the sea. It is also worth emphasising that wind turbines are not
permanent structures. Once removed, the landscape can quickly return to its previous condition.

AT//Plan Kills Birds

( ) Impact to birds is minor; climate change is more threatening
Birds can be affected by wind energy development through loss of habitat, disturbance to their breeding and foraging areas
and by death or injury caused by the rotating turbine blades. Compared to other causes of mortality among birds, however
(see table), the effect of wind power is relatively minor. One estimate from the United States is that commercial wind
turbines cause the direct deaths of only 0.01 - 0.02% of all of the birds killed annually by collisions with man-made
structures and activities. Well publicised reports of bird deaths, especially birds of prey, at sites including the Altamont Pass
near San Francisco and Tarifa in southern Spain, are not indicative of the day to day experience at the thousands of wind
energy developments now operating around the world. As a general rule, birds notice that new structures have arrived in
their area, learn to avoid them, especially the turning blades, and are able to continue feeding and breeding in the location.
Problems are most likely to occur when the site is either on a migration route, with large flocks of birds passing through the
area, or is particularly attractive as a feeding or breeding ground. This can be avoided by careful siting procedures. Modern
wind turbines, with their slower turning blades, have also proved less problematic than earlier models. A 2001 study by
ecological consultants WEST for the National Wind Coordinating Committee estimated that 33,000 birds were killed that
year in the United States by the 15,000 turbines then in operation – just over two birds per turbine. The majority of the
fatalities had occurred in California, where older, faster rotating machines were still in operation; these are steadily being
replaced by more modern, slower rotating turbines. In Europe, a 2003 study in the Spanish province of Navarra - where 692 turbines were then operating in 18
wind farms - found that the annual mortality rate of medium and large birds was just 0.13 per turbine. In Germany, records of bird deaths from the National Environmental office
Brandenburg showed a total of 278 casualties at wind farms over the period 1989 to 2004. Only ten of the birds were species protected by European Union legislation. By the end of the
period Germany had over 16,500 wind turbines in operation1. The UK’s leading bird protection body, the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds, says that the most significant long-term threat to birds comes from climate change. Changes in the climate will in turn
change the pattern of indigenous plant species and their attendant insect life, making once attractive areas uninhabitable by
birds. According to the RSPB, ―recent scientific research indicates that, as early as the middle of this century, climate
change could commit one third or more of land-based plants and animals to extinction, including some species of British
birds.‖ Compared to this threat, ―the available evidence suggests that appropriately positioned wind farms do not pose a
significant hazard for birds,‖ it concludes. Collaborative work between the wind power industry and wildlife groups has also
been aimed at limiting bird casualties. In the Altamont Pass, for example, operators have agreed to turn off their turbines
during busy migratory periods. In the UK, the solution adopted at the Beinn an Tuirc wind farm in Scotland was to create a completely new habitat for the Golden Eagles
which hunted there, providing a fresh source of their favourite prey, the grouse. As a result of a single oil shipping accident, the Exxon Valdez oil spill
in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, more than 500,000 migratory birds were killed, about 1,000 times the estimated annual
total in California’s wind power plants. A study at a coal-fired power plant in Florida, which had four smokestacks, recorded
an estimated 3,000 bird deaths in a single evening during the autumn migration period.

AT//Plan Kills Bats (1/1)

( ) Bats are not harmed; new research will help protect them even more
Like birds, bats are endangered by many human activities, from pesticide poisoning to collision with structures to loss of
habitat. Despite publicity given to bat deaths around wind farms, mainly in the United States, studies have shown that wind
turbines do not pose a significant threat to bat populations. A review of available evidence by ecological consultants WEST
concluded that ―bat collision mortality during the breeding season is virtually non-existent, despite the fact that relatively
large numbers of bat species have been documented in close proximity to wind plants. These data suggest that wind plants
do not currently impact resident breeding populations where they have been studied in the US.‖ The overall average fatality
rate for US wind projects is 3.4 bats per turbine per year, according to a 2004 report by WEST. No nationally endangered or threatened
bat species have been found. Monitoring of wind farms in the US indicates that most deaths involve bats that are migrating
in late summer and autumn. One theory is that migrant bats, which are not searching for insects or feeding, turn off their
―echolocation‖ navigation system in order to conserve energy. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has now
joined forces with Bat Conservation International, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory to look at why these collisions occur and how they can be prevented.

***ECONOMY ADVANTAGE***

Economy Uniqueness: Economy Low (1/1)

( ) Economy low—key economic indicators and Bernanke projection
Weisman, July 16th
[Steven. New York Times Chief Financial Analyst. ―Economy Will Stay Sluggish, Bernanke Tells Congress‖. The New York Times, 7/16/08//MUDI—JV]
Warning of the risks of a further slowdown and higher inflation, Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, offered a gloomy
assessment of the economy on Tuesday as President Bush, speaking a few blocks away, urged Americans to have faith in the country’s financial foundation. In testimony
before the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Bernanke avoided the word ―recession‖ in characterizing the current economy, noting instead that consumer spending and
exports were keeping growth ―at a sluggish pace‖ while the housing sector ―continues to weaken.‖ He added that spending for personal
goods had ―advanced at a modest pace so far this year, generally holding up somewhat better than might have been expected given the array of forces weighing on household finances
and attitudes.‖ While the risks to the overall economy were still ―skewed to the downside,‖ he said, inflation ―seems likely to move temporarily higher in the
near term.‖ Even as Mr. Bernanke fielded questions from senators, a different view of the economy emanated from the White House. President Bush, speaking at a White House news
conference that coincided with the Fed chair’s testimony, urged Americans to ―take a deep breath.‖ The president said that the economy and the pillars on which it rests were ―basically
sound.‖ And he dismissed questions about reports that wholesale prices rose 1.8 percent in June, the fastest 12-month inflation rate in more than a quarter century. ―Growth is slower
than we would like, but it’s growth nonetheless,‖ he said. Mr. Bernanke’s mixed assessment of the economy appeared to signal that the Fed would
not be lowering interest rates further in spite of the economic sluggishness, as it did earlier this year, out of concern that lower rates would spur more inflation. In June, the
Fed declined to lower rates and instead suggested it might raise rates later in the year. In his testimony, he was especially pessimistic about any easing of
energy prices, dismissing suggestions that they were being driven by speculation in futures markets. Instead, he said high energy costs reflected the markets’ recognition that
demand was outstripping supplies. ―Over the past several years, the world economy has expanded at its fastest pace in decades,
leading to substantial increases in the demand for oil,‖ Mr. Bernanke said. ―On the supply side, despite sharp increases in prices, the
production of oil has risen only slightly in the past few years.‖ President Bush’s remarks, and Mr. Bernanke’s testimony, came at an unusually
turbulent time in financial markets, since it followed on the heels of the Fed’s announcement that it would temporarily open its discount
window to the two troubled mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The actions to stabilize Fannie and Freddie occurred over the weekend as the Treasury
secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., also called for Congress to approve emergency legislation giving the federal government power to inject billions of federal funds through investments and
loans. The actions announced Sunday echoed similar actions in mid-March, when the Fed moved to avert a financial collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns by offering an
emergency loan to facilitate its sale to JPMorgan Chase. At the same time, the Fed set up emergency lending facilities for major investment banks hit by the credit crunch. ―These steps
to address liquidity pressures coupled with monetary easing seem to have been helpful in mitigating some market strains,‖ Mr. Bernanke said. But despite the ―positive effects‖ of the
Fed’s actions, he said that the
problems of unstable markets continued because of ―declining house prices, a softening labor market
and rising prices of oil, food and some other commodities.‖
( ) Economy sluggish—most recent reports and energy prices

Xinhua, July 24
[Primary Source for News (China). ―Fed sees Slower US Economic Growth‖ Xinhua News, 7/24/08. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
U.S. economic activity slowed somewhat in June and early July, as consumers were squeezed by soaring costs for energy and
food, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. "Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts suggest that the pace of economic activity slowed somewhat
since the last report," said the Fed in a nationwide survey, which is based on economic information supplied by the Fed's 12 regional banks and collected on or before July 14,
2008. Five eastern districts noted a weakening or softening in their overall economies, while Chicago characterized its economy as sluggish and Kansas City noted a moderation in
growth, it said. St. Louis said activity was "stable" and San Francisco reported "little or no growth," said the report, adding the two other districts, Cleveland and Minneapolis, reported
slight increases in economic activity, while Dallas described growth as steady and moderate. It said that consumer
spending, which accounts for two-thirds of
overall economic activity, was reported as sluggish or slowing in nearly all districts, although tax rebate checks boosted sales for some items. "All
districts characterized overall price pressures as elevated or increasing ," the report said. "Input prices continued to rise,
particularly for fuel, other petroleum-based materials, metals, food and chemicals."

Wind K Outsourcing (1/1)

( ) Inconsistent tax incentives force wind companies out of the US—plan solves the outsourcing trend
NYT „7
[―Europe Encouraging Clean Energy Industry‖ ―The New York Times, Jan 23, 2007. Lexis]
The cloudy Welsh coast may seem an odd choice for making solar panels, especially for a bigwig like Robert M. Hertzberg, a Californian who has hobnobbed with Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger. But a commitment by European governments to helping out ''clean energy'' entrepreneurs is creating a more
welcoming environment than America, where erratic support, a lackluster market for taking companies public, along with
more onerous financial rules, have given pause to some start-ups and investors. ''California does have this great image,'' said Mr.
Hertzberg, a former speaker of the California State Assembly and the co-founder of an investment firm, Renewable Capital. ''But Europe still is
much greener than anywhere in the United States, by several orders of magnitude .'' Besides, said Mr. Hertzberg, his thin and flexible solar
panels even work in overcast conditions. ''Hey, don't you get it? It works in the rain!'' he likes to tell the Welsh. Europe is experiencing a new wave of interest in
ventures that develop energy from less polluting or renewable sources, like sun and wind, as well as from tides, agriculture and geothermal heat. It
is not clear, though, if the interest will turn into a passing fad or a bubble, like the rush into Internet stocks during the late 1990s. The United States has not signed on
to the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord aimed at stabilizing emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even so, North American industry has set the investment
pace, pouring $3.5 billion of private equity and venture capital money into start-up clean-energy developers in 2006, according to New Energy Finance, a research firm based in London.
Europe has signed the Kyoto Protocol, but private equity and venture capital investment into clean energy has been smaller there than in the United States over the
last two years. Together, Europe, the Middle East and Africa have raised only about one-third as much as the United States for new clean energy ventures, according to New Energy
Finance. But Ken Bruder, the executive director of New Energy Finance, warned that those numbers were an unreliable guide to the overall development over
the sector. He said that ready access to green-minded consumers and long-term government support would do more to create fertile territory for generating profits. ''Setting up power
lines to reach wind and solar farms is a major task and not accomplished overnight,'' Mr. Bruder said. ''Europe
may be doing a better job than America in
setting up these new infrastructures.'' Another incentive in Europe for clean energy companies is lighter regulation over publicly listed companies. More than
half of the world's 22 most valuable publicly traded wind and solar companies are based in Europe, according to the Jefferies Group, an
investment bank based in New York. Among the most prominent firms to have emerged in Europe is Vestas, a Danish company supplying turbines that generate 35 percent of the
electricity worldwide that comes from wind power. But Vestas lost 192 million euros in 2005, or $252 million at current exchange rates, on 3.6 billion euros in sales, partly because of
Rebates on wind power have lapsed several times in the United States, creating what Soren Madsen, a
weak results in North America.
Vestas sales executive, called ''wild swings in demand.''
( ) PTC is key to send a signal of long-term dedication—plan supercharges US wind-sector competitiveness.

Wiest „7
[Jason. Economic Pundit, the Arkansas News Bureau. ―US Wind Industry Growing, Equipment Supply Stretched Thin‖ Arkansas News Bureau. www.climateark.org
4/1/07]
Wind turbine manufacturers have recently opened facilities in Iowa, Minnesota and Pennsylvania . Vestas, a Danish company, announced
plans last month to open a $60 million windmill blade factory in Colorado. Wind provides 20 percent of Denmark's electricity, and President Bush has said it could do the same in the
U.S.Manufacturers have not only been attracted to the U.S. market, they have been overwhelmed by it. The U.S. market has
quickly become the largest in the world for new wind installations. "We've just had one record-breaking year after another,"
said Christine Real de Azua, spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. Wind was the second largest source of new power
generation in the U.S. in both 2005 and 2006, behind natural gas. By August 2006, American wind energy produced enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than 2.5 million
homes, Real de Azua said. "As a result of all of that, obviously there's
a lot of job creation, not just for building wind farms, but for manufacturing
and along the entire supply chain," she said. States in the running for manufacturing facilities do not necessarily have to be
windy, she said. Wind energy manufacturers are attracted to the same things as other types of manufacturers - transportation, cheap labor, incentives and a capable work force, she
said. Factories in the specialized wind industry are attracted to low-cost power, access to intestate highways and markets, an "excellent" sewer treatment system and "abundant" clean
water, according to Wadley Donovan Group, a central Texas economic development corporation. A site at the Little Rock Port Authority site could fit the bill, executive director Paul
Latture said. "We've got water transportation, rail transportation, fully developed industrial sites, no waiting," Latture said. "We're ready to build on." A plant site in Arkansas, which has
little for wind energy resources, would be centrally located for some planned wind farms. A project in Mount Storm, W. Va. plans 200 turbines, which would make it one of the largest
wind farms in the region. A plan to build 130 wind mills off the coast of Massachusetts won state approval Friday, clearing the way for the nation's first offshore wind farm, the
More wind energy projects and manufacturing would be planned if a
Associated Press reported. Texas has more wind turbines than any other state.
federal tax incentive is extended for the long-term, Real de Azua said. Current growth in the industry was made possible by a
federal incentive in the Energy Policy Act, according to the AWEA. The production tax credit provides a 1.5-cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit for the first 10 years of a
renewable energy facility's operation. In the past, the credit has been on-again, off-again, repeatedly set to expire but extended by
Congress. In 2005, the credit was extended through 2007, then again through 2008. "So there's a window of stability that has really opened up all of
this investment," she said. "A longer term extension would really unleash even more." Because of the stability through
2008, "for the first time last year you had manufacturing companies opening facilities in the U.S. after over a decade when
that type of investment hadn't been happening," she said. Projects are being lined up for 2008, she said, but not as much
beyond that. "If we get the federal incentives in place for the long term, that will send a clear signal that the market is here
to stay and companies will start investing and continue," she said.
Outsourcing Hurts Economy (1/1)

( ) Outsourcing derails economic growth—IT sector proves
Hyman „3
Runaway outsourcing might be taking a bigger bite out of the U.S. economy than previously thought , Integnology, a Santa Clara, Calif.-
based engineering firm, said Wednesday. As increasing numbers of companies seek out more affordable IT services overseas in places like India, Russia, and parts of Asia, many
industry watchers are saying that outsourcing options in the U.S. are being overlooked and many companies are beginning to feel the
fallout. According to Integnology, which provides product design and IT outsourcing services, workers at risk from this industry-wide migration are not
only U.S. IT personnel, but highly trained professionals involved in the gambit of high-tech outsourcing services, including
human resources and call center operations. "Why is so much offshore outsourcing taking place or being planned when onshore makes just as much sense in many
instances after total project costs are considered?" said Basheer Janjua, CEO of Integnology Corporation. According to Janjua and his staff, many companies don't even
bother looking close to home for cost-efficient alternatives. The result, says Janjua, has a negative impact on the U.S. economy
and has taken away the livelihoods of scores of U.S. tech workers. "Outsourcing is an irreversible trend," said John Lucas of Integnology.
"We're not trying to stop it, we're just looking for a little more of a balance when companies are looking at their outsourcing
options." Recent research from Forrester Research indicates that the percentage of offshore outsourcing for U.S. IT budgets took a leap from 12 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in
2003. META Group, Inc. predicted last month that offshore outsourcing overall would grow more than 20 percent annually. And while no direct correlation can be made between the
growing trend toward outsourcing and industry job loss, the
American Electronics Association released a report this week which found that
more than half a million U.S. citizens lost their high-tech jobs between January 2001 and December 2002. "The dramatic
shift to outsourcing technology jobs overseas is being felt throughout the economy, while thousands upon thousands of highly
qualified U.S. engineers are going wanting even when they're cost competitive in today's market," said Bruce Bernstein, president of the
New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA).

AT//Outsourcing  Economic Growth (1/1)

( ) Outsourcing torpedoes economic growth—collapses all factors that foster prosperity
Roberts „5
[Paul. Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Reagan Admin) ―Outsourcing the American Economy: A Threat Greater than Terrorism‖ www.counterpunch.org
April 2005. //MUDI—JV]
In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable
to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture,
advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services. The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream,
the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and
social security systems. The loss of these jobs "is fool's gold for companies." Corporate America's short-term mentality, stemming
from bonuses tied to quarterly results, is causing US companies to lose not only their best employees-their human capital-but also the
consumers who buy their products. Employees displaced by foreigners and left unemployed or in lower paid work have a
reduced presence in the consumer market. They provide fewer retirement savings for new investment . Nothink economists
assume that new, better jobs are on the way for displaced Americans, but no economists can identify these jobs. The authors
point out that "the track record for the re-employment of displaced US workers is abysmal: "The Department of Labor reports that more than
one in three workers who are displaced remains unemployed, and many of those who are lucky enough to find jobs take
major pay cuts. Many former manufacturing workers who were displaced a decade ago because of manufacturing that went
offshore took training courses and found jobs in the information technology sector. They are now facing the unenviable
situation of having their second career disappear overseas." American economists are so inattentive to outsourcing's perils that they fail to realize that the
same incentive that leads to the outsourcing of one tradable good or service holds for all tradable goods and services. In the 21st century the US economy has only been
able to create jobs in nontradable domestic services-the hallmark of a third world labor force. Prior to the advent of offshore
outsourcing, US employees were shielded against low wage foreign labor. Americans worked with more capital and better
technology, and their higher productivity protected their higher wages. Outsourcing forces Americans to "compete head-to-
head with foreign workers" by "undermining US workers' primary competitive advantage over foreign workers: their physical
presence in the US" and "by providing those overseas workers with the same technologies ." The result is a lose-lose
situation for American employees, American businesses, and the American government. Outsourcing has brought about
record unemployment in engineering fields and a major drop in university enrollments in technical and scientific disciplines.
Even many of the remaining jobs are being filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas. American employees are
discharged after being forced to train their foreign replacements. US corporations justify their offshore operations as essential to gain a foothold in emerging Asian markets.

Plan K Business Confidence (1/1)

These are the Same Cards as the “PTC Key to Solve” Cards—They Serve the Same Purpose
( ) PTC key to sustainable wind power—empirical evidence that industry trends operate on a perception of
stability.
Maloney „6
Wind power is booming — not necessarily because of the environmental benefits, but because of the cash they spin off. Wind power provides a
risk-adjusted core return on capital, favorable accounting treatment for earnings and it is "good public policy," said Michael
O'Sullivan, senior vice president for development at FPL Energy. Mr. O'Sullivan emphasizes that earnings from wind power turn into profits quickly in the
first years of operation because of tax breaks. Earnings from wind farms are sheltered by the Production Tax Credit. But
when it expired in December 2003, the business of building wind farms came to a screeching halt all over. Work on the Weatherford
project did not resume until Congress acted nine months later to extend the credit.
( ) PTC is key to ramp up wind investment

Porretto „8
[John. Staff Writer: The Desert news. ―PTC Critical to Wind‖ The Desert News, June 3, 08. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Renewal of federal tax credits expiring at the end of the year is critical to U.S. investment in the wind-energy industry,
executives and officials said Monday. Congress is debating whether to renew, and how to pay for, production tax credits that help
subsidize the growing industry. The existing subsidy of 2 cents per kilowatt hour for wind developers is set to expire in
December, and the uncertainty has prompted some to delay investments beyond 2008, industry executives say. The tax credits were a hot
topic at Windpower 2008, a four-day gathering of more than 10,000 policymakers and energy professionals that began Sunday. Vic Abate, vice president for renewables at GE Energy,
an arm of General Electric Co., said failure to renew the tax credit will almost certainly slow GE's business of supplying turbines to wind farms. "We're
already starting to
see some customers ask, 'If this (credit) doesn't happen, can we put these in Canada or South America?'" Abate said. The
credits expired in 1999, 2001 and 2003, and wind-power installation fell significantly in each of the following years,
advocates of the tax credits note.
( ) The PTC is vital to enhance the perception of industry stability

The uncertainty surrounding the renewable energy PTC is holding back resource and industry development at a time when
inflation and economic weakness, credit problems, a weak dollar, massive government debt and a stratospheric rise in oil
and natural gas prices is hurting the economy. Panel participants noted that the renewable energy production tax credit has expired
three times in the past nine years. Every year, the uncertainty of renewal resulted in an estimated 76-90% drop in installed
capacity from the previous year. Due to legislative uncertainty, lenders are forced to omit the financially beneficial effects of
the PTC from their project finance calculations, one GEEFS panel member noted during the report’s launch. Lenders are less willing to lend, and
they require more equity, which raises project financing costs, squeezes out the smaller players. ―The bigger guys can pick up the slack to
some degree, but they have to rely on more expensive equity,‖ he pointed out. Primarily a tax-equity financier, ―we don’t get paid for taking that risk [that the PTC will be renewed].‖

Business Confidence K Economy (1/1)

( ) Business Confidence key to the economy—resolves all other factors
CT „3
[Chicago Tribune. ―Business Affects the Economy‖ 5/28/03. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Consumers can be confident all they want, but they can't turn the economy by themselves. Business spending has
always been the missing factor. Without it, the economy remains slow. Sure, factory orders rose in March, but so did unemployment claims. That
meant that the uptick in spending wasn't strong enough for companies to commit to hiring new workers. But if back orders are building, this could change. Companies that can't fill
orders start hiring new people. And when those hires start, economic vigor begins, too. Consumer confidence is one thing. If business confidence
returns, then this economy just might turn around.

Plan K Manufacturing (1/1)

( ) Wind power supercharges manufacturing—turbines and jobs
Toran „8
[Tom. Director of The Agro ecology and Sustainable Agriculture Program. ―Wind Power’s Potential Boom for Manufacturing‖. ASAP Update, June 2008.
http://asap.sustainability.uiuc.edu/members/johnemarlin/doran-wind-power/ //MUDI—JV]
Wind farm proponents often refer to the permanent and temporary jobs the development would create, but there also could
be an economic sleeping giant in the form of untapped U.S. manufacturing opportunities. The Renewable Energy Policy
Project conducted studies into the supply chain issues, locations for wind turbine manufacturers in the U.S., and how
existing manufacturing can help address the supply shortage of wind turbines . George Sterzinger, REPP executive director, described the group’s
findings during his opening address of the Advancing Wind Power in Illinois Conference. The report first identified 90 companies in 25 states already active in manufacturing wind turbine
components. However, the report noted, a large national investment in wind would likely spread beyond those active companies . The second
step of the report identified the number of companies with technical potential to enter the wind turbine market. Of the manufacturing firms with the technical potential, many were
The study also projected the potential economic
concentrated in the most populous states and states that have suffered the most from loss in manufacturing jobs.
boost by calculating the impact of a national energy policy toward climate stabilization . It was determined, based on a study from Princeton
University, that 18,500 megawatts of new renewable each year would be necessary to stabilized U.S. emissions. "That’s a lift. It is even a heavy lift, but it is not an impossible lift,"
Sterzinger said. "To give you an idea of the magnitude, the installed capacity of wind in the United States right now is about 16,000 megawatts. So you have to do more than that each
year — wind, photovoltaic, geothermal, biomass. It is very doable." This goal would translate into about a $400 billion order for new goods and
equipment, he added. Economic impacts per state are featured on the REPP Web site. The study also provides specifics on how many manufacturers are potentially available in
each state to provide products. " We feel like we’ve gotten off to a good start. That’s something that I think honestly builds appetite," Sterzinger said. "If we’re going to go from
zero to even 35 miles an hour on climate stabilization efforts, there is going to be a huge demand for these projects, there’s
going to be a huge demand for these parts, and right now there’s not anybody really thinking about where those parts are
going to come from, who is going to supply them, and so forth ." There are about 47 firms in Illinois that the study determined had the potential for supplying
renewable energy products. "Some of them are not going to be eligible. Some may not be interested," Sterzinger said. "Some may be interested, but then the question is what do you do
next, and that’s what I’d like to really have you concentrate on, because if you don’t do anything, the jobs won’t just show up."
( ) Wind creates industry growth and provides needed jobs; leads to dramatic economic development
Wind energy also provides economic benefit through the employment which the industry generates. Manufacturing wind
turbines and their components offers major job opportunities, often building on existing engineering skills and raw materials.
In rural areas, wind energy can bring investment and jobs to isolated communities; hosting wind farms provides farmers with
a steady income whilst they continue to graze or crop their land. Employment levels vary from country to country, but the German Wind Energy
Association (BWE) estimates the number of jobs created in Germany by the end of 2005 at 64,000. The Global Wind Energy Council estimates total worldwide employment at more than
150,000. A
recent study in the US by the government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded that investment in
wind power had a greater economic impact on the rural regions where it was developed - through new jobs, income and
taxes - than a fossil fuel power station. In the developing world, wind power is attractive as a means of providing a cheap
and flexible electricity supply to dispersed communities, often through off-grid stand-alone systems. Its effect on economic
development can be dramatic. Supplying enough power for just basic lighting and a television or computer can make a
substantial difference to domestic life, educational opportunities and the viability of small businesses.
( ) As Jobs Decrease for Fossil fuels, Jobs in Renewable Energy are Increasing
Worldwatch Institute 08 [Jobs in Renewable Energy Expanding http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5821]
Renewables tend to be a more labor-intensive energy source than the still-dominant fossil fuels, which rely heavily on
expensive pieces of production equipment. A transition toward renewables thus promises job gains. Even in the absence of
such a transition, growing automation and corporate consolidation are already translating into steadily fewer jobs in the oil,
natural gas, and coal industries-sometimes even in the face of expanding production. Many hundreds of thousands of coal
mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa in the last decade
or two.4 In the United States, coal output rose by almost one third during the past two decades, yet employment has been
cut in half.

Manufacturing K Economy (1/1)

( ) Manufacturing key to all other economic externalities
NAM „3
[National Assc of Manufacturers. ―Securing America’s Future: The Case for a Strong Manufacturing Base‖ www.nam.org, June 2003//MUDI—JV]
U.S. manufacturing is the heart of a significant process that generates economic growth and has produced the highest living
standards in history. But today this complex process faces serious domestic and international challenges which, if not
overcome, will lead to reduced economic growth and ultimately a decline in living standards for future generations of
Americans. Manufacturing’s innovation process is the key to past, present and future prosperity and higher living standards.
The intricate process starts with an idea for a new product or process, prompting investments in research and development.
R&D successes lead to investments in capital equipment and workers, and to ―spillovers‖ that benefit manufacturing and
other economic sectors. This process not only generates new products and processes, but also leads to well-paying jobs,
increased productivity, and competitive pricing. Yet while this process produces wealth and higher living standards, most of it is hidden from view and poorly
understood.

Wind K Economy: Green Collar Jobs Internal (1/1)

AND Here‟s our green collar link
First, Plan is key to green manufacturing—turbines

Wiser et al 7
[Ryan, Galen, and Mark. Nov 2007, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Eetd.lbl.gov/EA/evis/reports/63583.pdf//MUDI—JV]
As the wind power business becomes more global in scope, turbines and components will be increasingly manufactured in
areas where labor and materials are relatively inexpensive. Given transportation costs, however, some degree of local manufacturing will remain. In part
because of the uncertain availability of the federal PTC, however, U.S.-based manufacturing of wind turbines and
components remains somewhat limited. This is true despite recent progress in increasing local manufacturing of certain
components by both domestic and international firms.
AND
Green jobs key to the economy
Greenhouse „8
[Steven. Economic Analyst for the IHT. ―Green Collars Becoming a Force in US Economy‖ IHT, March 26, 2008. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Everyone knows what blue-collar and white-collar jobs are, but now a job of another hue - green - has entered the lexicon. U.S.
presidential candidates talk about the promise of green-collar jobs - an economy with millions of workers installing solar panels,
weatherizing homes, brewing biofuels, building hybrid cars and erecting giant wind turbines. Labor unions view these new
jobs as replacements for positions lost to overseas manufacturing and outsourcing. Urban groups view training in green jobs
as a route out of poverty. And environmentalists say they are crucial to combating climate change . No doubt the number of green-collar
jobs is growing as homeowners, business and industry shift toward conservation and renewable energy. And the numbers are expected to increase greatly in the next few decades,
because state governments have mandated that even more energy come from alternative sources. But some skeptics argue that the phrase "green jobs" is little more than a trendy term
for politicians and others to bandy about. Some say they are not sure that these jobs will have the staying power to help solve the problems of the U.S. job market, and others note that
green jobs often pay less than the old manufacturing jobs they are replacing. Such is the novelty of the concept that no one is certain how many such green jobs there are, and even
advocates do not always agree on what makes a job green. "A green-collar job is in essence a blue-collar job that has been upgraded to address
the environmental challenges of our country," said Lucy Blake, chief executive of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, labor unions and
politicians seeking to transform the economy into one based on renewable energy. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, said, "A green
job has to do something useful for people, and it has to be helpful to, or at least not damaging to, the environment." It can be difficult to parse
the difference between green- and blue-collar jobs. Dave Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership between the United Steelworkers union and the Sierra Club,
pointed to workers who mine iron ore in Minnesota and ship it to steel mills in Indiana. " Ten
years ago, that steel was used for making low-efficiency
automobiles, so those jobs were part of the dirty economy," Foster said. "But now that steel is being used to build wind turbines. So now you can call them
green jobs." But to Andrew Hannah, chief executive of Plextronics, a start-up in Pittsburgh, green-collar jobs often have little relation to their blue-collar counterparts. His company
produces high-tech polymer inks that are used to make electronic circuitry for solar panels. Of the company's 51 employees, 20 have doctorates in fields like physics, chemistry and
material science. It is hard to gauge the number of green-collar jobs in the United States. Welders at a wind-turbine factory are viewed as having green jobs, but what about the
accountants or janitors? In the most-often-cited estimate, a report commissioned by the American Solar Energy Society said the United States had 8.5 million jobs in
renewable-energy or energy-efficient industries. Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance, predicted that the United States could generate
three million to five million more green jobs over the next 10 years. Green jobs are especially good "because they cannot be
easily outsourced, say, to Asia," said Van Jones, president of Green for All, a group based in Oakland, California, whose goal is promoting renewable energy and lifting workers
out of poverty. "If we are going to weatherize buildings, they have to be weatherized here ," he said. Many advocates of green
employment say the jobs should be good for the workers as well as the environment . Two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, more than 800
people attended a national green-jobs conference, where much of the talk was about ensuring that green jobs provided
living wages. Many speakers anticipated that the jobs would do so because they often required special skills, like the technical
ability to maintain a giant wind turbine (and the physical ability to climb a 20-story ladder to work on it). "These jobs will be better for the workers' future, for
their job security," said Blake, the chief executive of the Apollo Alliance. "These green technologies are making products that the world wants, like energy-efficient buildings and
light fixtures.

More Evidence: Plan  Green Jobs (1/1)

( ) Plan results in a massive influx in green jobs—Green Jobs Act
Solis 2007 [ Hilda L. 06/2007 congresswoman 32nd District of California, House Committee passes Solis’ Green Jobs Act
http://solis.house.gov/list/press/ca32_solis/wida6/greenjobscomm.shtml]
The Green Jobs Act would help identify and track the new jobs and skills needed to grow the renewable energy and energy
efficiency industries. The Green Jobs Act authorizes up to $125 million in funding to establish national and state job training
programs, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, to help address job shortages that are impairing growth in green industries, such as
energy efficient buildings and construction, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, and biofuels development. By helping to create good-paying jobs in
industries that are likely to continue to grow for years, this bill would take a good step towards making the American economy more competitive ,"
said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the committee. " New job training programs would create jobs that put workers on a path to
financial self-sufficiency. Funding for these programs could be used to pay for the occupational training itself, as well for support services for workers while they are in the
training, like child care. Priority for these training programs would be given to veterans, displaced workers, and at-risk young people.

Wind K Economy: Natural Gas Internal (1/1)

AND Here‟s our Natural Gas Link
First, plan key to solve the natural gas shortage—stabilizes resources
Nebraska Energy Quarterly „3
[October 2003. www.neo.ne.gov//MUDI--JV]
In areas of the country where wind farms generate electricity, they are directly helping to conserve natural gas supplies. And
unlike natural gas prices, which are subject to market fluctuations, wind energy costs are predictable over time. Once a plant is
built, the cost of producing electricity is stable and the fuel source is free. This means that wind energy works well in tandem with natural gas
production. For example, smart investors know that they should diversify their investment portfolios and balance potentially high-
risk stocks with more-conservative bonds and mutual funds. Utilities devise a similar strategy to mitigate natural gas price
fluctuations and risks — they plan ways to use other energy sources when natural gas prices soar. The fixed cost of wind
energy helps mitigate the rapidly fluctuating cost of natural gas in a utility's ―portfolio.‖
AND
Natural gas key to the economy—multiple reasons
Fee „3
[Managing Director of FC Fee International (Energy Management Firm). ―Russia and Iranian Gas and Future US Energy Security.‖ The Middle East Economic
Survey, Vol XLVI, No 37. 9-15-03//MUDI—JV]
Natural gas will be essential to the future energy supply, economic strength, and continued projection of global power of the
US In the next 50 years, the US economy will not be able to exist without it. It is the cleaner burning of the hydrocarbon
family of fuels and has, even today, become critically important to the US energy supply-demand equation recently
emphasized by the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan, the monetary keeper of the US economy. Currently, North
American producing gasfields are mature and experiencing serious rates of decline. Drilling has been unable to keep up with growing demand,
and consequently gas prices are rising rapidly as reserves are depleted. At current proven reserves levels, the US will exhaust all of its natural gas reserves in 9.6 years, Canada in 9.3.
Yet, as a cleaner burning fuel than petroleum, natural gas will be in increasing demand as US power plants convert from coal or oil to gas-fired in an environmental effort to help reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases. Given depleting domestic and Canadian gas reserves,
much of the US’s future energy requirement will be gas imported
from abroad. A strategic priority for US energy security planning must be to access reliable, plentiful, diversified,
competitively-priced, external natural gas reserves. Pipeline gas is generally not a viable option for gas imports to the US
given the distances involved from other continents. Hence, US foreign gas imports will primarily take the form of LNG. Given
the nature of the international gas supply market, and the medium and long-term planning required by both consuming and exporting governments, and
private commercial firms, the supply-demand markets, timing, pricing, budgetary and cost factors, infrastructure-building must all be
addressed now if the US is to carefully consider its options to meet obvious and unarguable future needs for natural gas.

More Evidence: Natural Gas K Economy (1/1)

( ) More ev--Natural gas shortages derail the economy
Gold et al „3
[Russell Gold, Rebecca Smith, Robert Matthews, Jon Kamp—Economic Analysts for the Wall Street Journal. ―Effects of Natural Gas Rip Through US Economy‖.
Dow Jones Newswire, Feb 25, 03. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Once thought plentiful, the
U.S. is now facing a shortage of natural gas that could last for years, and the impact is just beginning to ripple
through the already ailing economy, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported. Cold weather and tight supplies this week caused natural-gas futures
prices to soar 65% in one day. This triggered sharp jumps in spot-market electricity prices in some areas of the country where natural gas fuels
power plants. Small- business and residential natural-gas customers may see higher bills soon if state regulators approve an increase in rates, but
rising prices on the spot market are already taking a toll on some industrial users. Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. is reducing or halting operations at three plants in Ohio because of
spiking natural-gas prices. The company said it usually pays between $4 and $7 per million cubic feet, but spot prices have climbed as high as $28 per million cubic feet. Steel Dynamics
Inc., a Fort Wayne, Ind., steelmaker now runs its electric arc furnaces at night and on weekends when electricity prices are lower. Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich., a big user of both
electricity and gas-feed stocks, has begun raising prices on products because of higher energy costs. On Monday, the composite price of March natural gas on the New York Mercantile
Exchange jumped 65% to $10.90 per million British thermal units from $6.60 Friday. Thursday, natural gas for April, the new month-ahead contract, declined 9.5 cents on the Nymex to
$7.485. Cold weather ate through reserves in storage this week and raised the possibility of real shortages. Although prices are expected to moderate somewhat in coming weeks,
industry observers say the U.S. is entering a prolonged period of higher natural-gas prices, and the days of $3 natural gas, which lasted from the mid-1980s until about 2000, may be
gone.At the heart of the problem: Demand for natural gas has been growing heavily for several years as gas-fired power
plants are built, consuming a total 30% more fuel since 1996, and as more Americans move into new homes warmed by
natural gas. Meanwhile, domestic-production growth has been anemic. In 2002, U.S. production of natural gas fell 5.5% from a year earlier to 48 billion cubic feet a day, according
to Lehman Brothers. Production is expected to continue falling at least through 2005.

Economic Decline Bad: War (1/1)

( ) Causes WMD warfare
Bearden 2k
[Tom, Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army June 24, ttp://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3aaf97f22e23.htm]
Bluntly, we foresee these factors- and others not covered-converging to a catastrophic collapse of the world economy in about eight years. As
the collapse of the Western
economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to
dramatically curtail orders.History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the
stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea launches
nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate
China-whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States-attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such
scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under
such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch
on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without
effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try
to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange
occurs. Todaey, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself. The resulting great Armageddon will
destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
( ) Economic decline causes war—WWII proves

Bailey „90
[Norm. Consulting Economist @ the World Policy Institute. ―The World Economy in the 90’s‖ The World and I, January 90. Paradigm//MUDI—KL]
The thirties after all began three months after the inception of the Great Depression and ended four months after the start of
World War II. This is not a coincidence. Tens of millions were killed and maimed in the Second World War. If another
historical credit liquidation cycle is allowed to take place in the usual chaotic fashion the chances of another global armed
conflict will be greatly increased - this time not only would hundreds of millions (rather than tens of millions) be killed or wounded but the
very hopes and the future of mankind, as such, might well be destroyed in the process.

Economy Good: Hegemony 2AC (1/1)

( ) Economic growth key hegemony—most consistent form of power projection
Hungtington 93
[Sam. Prof of Govt @ Harvard. ―Why International Primacy Matters‖ International Security Vol 17 No 4. Spring 93//MUDI—KL]
―Economics,‖ as Daniel Bell has said, ―is the continuation of war by other means.‖ Economic primacy matters because economic power is both
the most fundamental and the most fungible form of power. For the United States, the loss of economic primacy to Japan could be
highly damaging, as would have been the loss of political-military primacy to the Soviet Union. This loss to Japan would, first, make U.S. influence in world affairs
subordinate to that of Japan and, second, reduce long-term U.S. economic welfare, as Japan used its power, as its leaders and policies have said that it would, to accumulate high-
technology, high-value-added industries in Japan, and to reduce the United States to the status of a ―giant Denmark. ‖ The American public, in the phrase
that provoked Robert Jervis, very justifiably ―is obsessed with Japan for the same reasons that it was once obsessed with the Soviet Union. It sees that country as a major threat to its
primacy in a crucial arena of power.‖ Does Professor Jervis really believe that Americans are wrong for not wanting to live in a world where the major decisions affecting them
economically are made in Tokyo? Does he really think that those decisions would be the same as decisions made in Washington, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, and Los
Angeles?
AND
Impact‟s extinction
Ferguson „4
[Niall, Professor of Finance and History at NYU, ―A World Without Power‖, Foreign Policy, July/August 2004//REAL TEAM]
Power, in other words, is not a natural monopoly; the struggle for mastery is both perennial and universal. The ―unipolarity‖
identified by some commentators following the Soviet collapse cannot last much longer, for the simple reason that history
hates a hyperpower. Sooner or later, challengers will emerge, and back we must go to a multipolar, multipower world . But what
if these esteemed theorists are all wrong? What if the world is actually heading for a period when there is no hegemon? What if, instead of a balance of power, there is an absence of
power? Such a situation is not unknown in history. Although
the chroniclers of the past have long been preoccupied with the achievements
of great powers—whether civilizations, empires, or nation-states—they have not wholly overlooked eras when power
receded. Unfortunately, the world’s experience with power vacuums (eras of ―apolarity,‖ if you will) is hardly encouraging.
Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a
world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new
Dark Age—an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world’s forgotten
regions; of economic stagnation and civilization’s retreat into a few fortified enclaves.

***Pollution***

Wind Solves Warming (1/1)

( ) Wind solves—zero emission energy
Climate Progress „8
[May 17 08. http://climateprogress.org/2008/05/17/wind-power-a-core-climate-solution/]
Wind power is a key climate solution. It is one of the few zero-carbon supply options that can plausibly provide more than
one of the 14 or so ―wedges‖ we need to stabilize below 450 ppm of CO2 (see ―Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 2: The Solution―). I plan to go
through all of the major solutions this year on the blog. The stunning new Bush administration report, 20% Wind Energy by 2030 (discussed here), convinced me it was time to write a
long piece, which has just been published in Salon. The article–‖Winds of change: The U.S. can greatly boost clean wind power for 2 cents a day. Now all we need is a president who
won’t blow the chance.―– explains the more than 2,000-year history of wind power, how conservatives cost America the chance to be the world wind leader, and why the global industry is
so successful in spite of our government’s relative apathy: From 2000 to 2007, the industry increased fivefold in size. Last year, $36 billion in wind
investments were made around the world, with $9 billion invested in U.S.-based projects. In 10 years, it is expected to nearly quadruple in size. Yes, I know, most of the media attention
goes to a few high-visibility debates about putting wind in places like the waters off Cape Cod. But most installations are a welcome source of revenue to farmers and landowners. In fact,
because the new wind turbines are tall, and don’t interfere significantly with grazing or farming, they have become popular in
the central U.S., where the wind resource is best in the country. Some ranchers make half a million dollars a year by leasing
only a fraction of their land for turbines.
( ) Wind power has the net effect of taking 2 million cars off the road
Then, of course, there are the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that result from wind power farms, which will carry
on as long as they are operational. Each year, wind power farms mean avoiding the production of some 10 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to taking 1.8 million cars off the road, GE estimates.
( ) Wind key to fight warming—comparative evidence

Kennebec Journal „8
[12 June 08. ―Wind Power Needed to Fight Warming‖ Kennebec Journal. Kennebecjournal.maineoday.com //MUDI—JV]
In the best of all possible worlds, this country would conserve its way out of our addiction to burning fossil fuels, which is the
largest human contribution to global warming. We would discourage consumption and heavily subsidize the development of
alternative, non-polluting energy sources. We'd have a president who set an example for all of us, who wore sweaters instead of turning up the heat and whose
motorcade consisted entirely of hybrid cars and not gas guzzling SUVs. Yet we must act long before that dream becomes a reality. Wind power must be a significant
element in our fight to counter the effects of global warming. We cannot and should not fight every development, in a war of
attrition that will ultimately discourage the use of this important alternative energy source. We understand the feelings of
those who lament the loss of a beautiful view, the potential damage to wildlife species and the industrialization of a largely
untouched landscape. But not developing wind power carries an even higher price, a price we should not be forced to pay
while we argue over the one place in this state where we might be willing to place a turbine.
( ) Plan solves warming—experts conclude

Levy „3
[Dawn. Environmental Researcher @ Stanford University. ―Harnessing the Wind‖ Stanford News Service. 21 May 2003, Lexis//MUDI—JV]
In the first study to clock winds at the hub height of newer turbines (262 feet versus 164 feet for older turbines), Stanford researchers found
that 24 percent of U.S. wind monitoring sites experience gusts fast enough to generate power as cheaply as coal or natural
gas plants. Co-authors Cristina L. Archer and Mark Z. Jacobson report their findings in the May 13 online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres). Since the
wind isn't always blowing, its reliability has been a barrier to its exploitation as an energy source. But wind's intermittence would no longer be a problem if
wind farms were networked to reduce the effect of unproductive days at individual sites, the researchers say. Linking at least eight wind farms
virtually eliminates the chance of a windless hour during the year. "If we want to address global warming, urban air pollution, acid deposition,
health and mortality problems, and the resulting public health costs associated with fossil fuel sources, we need to reduce
substantially the burning of fossil fuels," says Jacobson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Global warming, which is already occurring
according to the short- and long-term climate record, cannot be reversed during our lifetimes unless large reductions in carbon emissions occur immediately. The large
expansion of wind energy is the most practical method at this time of addressing this issue." Finding that one-quarter of the nation is suitable
for wind power production is extremely important, says Archer, who is Jacobson's graduate student. "It's like finding that 24 percent of the nation has a free,
safe and pollution-free oil that is just waiting to be extracted for use. If wind power is used to generate hydrogen for fuel-cell
vehicles, this country could reduce its dependence on foreign oil."

Wind Solves Acid Rain (1/1)

( ) Wind solves the environmental factors that produce acid rain—reduces fossil fuel use
Caplan „4
[Carolyn. Environmental Attny in Boston Area. ―Costal Wind Energy Generation: Conflict and Capacitie‖ 31 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 177 2004, Lexis//MUDI—JV]
wind power would help the United States diversify its portfolio of energy resources, providing a more
Wind advocates believe that
stable alternative to often volatile fossil fuel prices. n148 Wind power can [*202] provide a local fuel source, decreasing reliance
on large centralized plants connected to the high voltage transmission lines that bring power to consumers over long
distances. n149 Moreover, by reducing pollution that results from burning fossil fuels, wind power can help to improve
environmental conditions and public health. n150 Transitioning to renewable energy resources such as wind power can also limit development
pressure on unique areas such as the [ANWR] Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. n151 Several prominent advocacy organizations have voiced their support for Cape
Wind, although most have stopped short of endorsing the project, reserving final judgment until the [*203] permitting process is complete. In November 2003, a letter from the
Conservation Law Foundation and the Union of Concerned Scientists, along with other environmental and public health groups, petitioned federal lawmakers not to delay the review of
offshore wind farm proposals. n152 These organizations believe that Wind
is a critical renewable energy resource for New England where air pollution,
primarily from coal-fired power plants, causes thousands of premature deaths every year. Substantial reductions in
emissions of greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter from the regional power system must
be achieved soon to halt global warming and protect New England's air and water. n153
( ) Plan derails acid rain—clean energy is key

World Watch „6
―Wind Power Fastest Growing Source Ready to Displace Coal, Slow Climate Change‖ www.worldwatch.org, 1 June 06//MUDI—JV]
wind power produces no health- damaging air pollution or acid rain. Nor does it produce
Unlike coal, the leading source of electricity today,
carbon dioxide--the main greenhouse gas now undermining the stability of the world's atmosphere. As governments strengthen their
efforts to slow the pace of climate change, they may follow the lead of Denmark and Germany in turning to wind power. Although it now generates less than 1
percent of the world's electricity, the steady technological advance of wind power suggests that it could become an
important energy source for many nations within the next decade , noted the article's author, Christopher Flavin, Vice President of the Washington-based
research institute.
( ) Plan eliminates two-thirds of American coal use—short-circuits acid rain

Schwartz „1
[Mark. Science/Research Assistant @ Stanford University. ―Why burn Coal when Wind is Cheap and Plentiful?‖ www.scienceblog.com //MUDI—JV]
"Much of the recent U.S. energy debate has focused on increasing coal use," they note. "Since the 1980s, though, the direct cost of energy from large wind turbines
has dropped to 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with that from new pulverized-coal power plants. Given that health and environmental costs of coal are
another 2 to 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, wind energy is unequivocally less expensive than is coal energy." The authors point to the indirect
costs of coal-generated power plants, including the production of smog that causes asthma and other respiratory illnesses;
carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming; and acid rain that destroys lakes and forests. Jacobson and Masters
also cite statistics from the Centers for Disease Control showing that coal dust kills some 2,000 U.S. mineworkers annually and has cost taxpayers
approximately $35 billion in monetary and medical benefits to former miners since 1973. "Shifting from coal to wind would
address health, environmental and energy problems," note the authors. Wind is a clean source of energy, they add, and should be
promoted and funded by federal and state governments. A typical 1,500-kilowatt turbine costs about $1.5 million to install
and roughly $18,000 to $30,000 a year to maintain – a bargain in the long haul, according to Jacobson and Masters. "The U.S. could
displace 10 percent of coal energy at no net federal cost by spending three to four percent of one year's budget on 36,000
to 40,000 large wind turbines and selling the electricity over 20 years, recouping all costs," they argue. The authors calculate that, by
building approximately 250,000 new turbines, America could eliminate almost two-thirds of its coal-generated electricity, thereby reducing its 1999
greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels – a goal originally proposed by the Clinton administration under the controversial 1997 U.N. Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Acid Rain Link Booster (1/1)

( ) Your alternate causality arguments are bunk—coal use is responsible for 97% of all acid rain
Birdsong 99
[Jonathan. Congressional Research Assistant. Air Pollution in Our Parks: A Case Study. www.iwia.org, 1999//MUDI—JV]
Electric coal-burning
power plants constitute our country’s largest single source of air pollution. These plants are responsible
for 64 percent of the sulfur dioxide (SO2), 26 percent of the nitrogen oxide (NOx) and 33 percent of the mercury (Hg) pollution emitted nationally.
This pollution causes acid rain, reduced visibility, ozone smog, and polluted waters, all of which have major impacts on our
national parks and wilderness areas. This pollution is also a serious health concern. On days with high ozone levels, visitors to our national
park’s experience reduced lung function and may endure respiratory problems such as asthma. Coal-burning power plants that were either built or under construction at the time of the
1977 Clean Air Act amendments were granted an exemption, or ―grandfathered,‖ from meeting future Clean Air Act emission standards. These grandfathered plants were expected to
retire at the end of their 30-year projected lives. Yet they continue to operate
today, releasing four to 10 times more pollution than modern plants.
These grandfathered plants constitute 52 percent of our country’s energy generation, yet they produce 97 percent of the
acid rain- and haze-causing sulfur dioxide, 85 percent of the ozone smog-causing nitrogen oxide, and 99 percent of the
toxic mercury pollution from the utility sector.

Warming Bad: Err Caution (1/1)

( ) Even if science is uncertain, the irreversible nature of warming means we can‟t take risks
Sunstein „7
[Cass. Prof of Poli Sci @ UC Law. ―Worst Case Scenarios‖ Harvard University Press, 2007]
Most worst-case scenarios appear to have an element of irreversibility. Once a species is lost, it is lost forever. The special concern for endangered species stems from the permanence
of their loss (outside of Jurassic Park). One of the most serious fears associated with genetically modified organisms is that they might lead to irreversible ecological harm. Because some
greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for centuries, the problem of climate change may be irreversible, at least for all
practical purposes. Transgenic crops can impose irreversible losses too, because they can make pests more resistant to pesticides. If we invest significant wealth in one source
of energy and neglect others, we may be effectively stuck forever, or at least for a long time. One objection to capital punishment is that errors cannot be reversed. In ordinary life, our
judgments about worst-case scenarios have everything to do with irreversibility. Of course an action may be hard but not impossible to undo, and
so there may be a continuum of cases, with different degrees of difficulty in reversing. A marriage can be reversed, but divorce is rarely easy; having a child is very close to irreversible;
moving from New York to Paris is reversible, but moving back may be difficult. People often take steps to avoid courses of action that are burdensome rather than literally impossible to
reverse. Inthis light, we might identify an Irreversible Harm Precautionary Principle, applicable to a subset of risks .' As a rough first
approximation, the principle says this: Special
steps should be taken to avoid irreversible harms, through precautions that go well beyond
those that would be taken if irreversibility were not a problem. The general attitude here is "act, then learn," as opposed to
the tempting alternative of "wait and learn." In the case of climate change, some people believe that research should be our
first line of defense. In their view, we should refuse to commit substantial resources to the problem until evidence of serious
harm is unmistakably clear.' But even assuming that the evidence is not so clear, research without action allows
greenhouse gas emissions to continue, which might produce risks that are irreversible , or at best difficult and expensive to reverse. For this
reason, the best course of action might well be to take precautions now as a way of preserving flexibility for future generations.
In the environmental context in general, this principle suggests that regulators should proceed with far more aggressive
measures than would otherwise seem justified.
( ) Impact of warming is so great that we must assume it‟s real, even if science is unclear
Dahan „8
[Dahan Nissim. Israeli Minister of Health. ―Global Warming: The Beginning of the End, or perhaps a New Beginning?‖
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Dahan 28 June 08]
There is as we speak, a growing awareness about Global Warming, and a growing controversy about the dangers it poses, and the possible solutions which could address those
dangers. Some believe that Global Warming is the end of life as we know it, and others dismiss it as environmental quackery. To my mind, however, there
is enough scientific
evidence of the threat of Global Warming, such that the risk of not doing anything about it, is far greater than the risk of
doing something, and later finding out that is wasn’t really necessary to do so. In other words, the risk posed by Global Warming is so great, that it is
worth doing something about it, even if we’re not exactly sure that the problem really exists. I don’t want to bother you with all the scientific
data. Al Gore and his colleagues can certainly do a better job of that. That being said, I watched a show on TV a couple of days ago on the National Geographic channel. The
scientists there pointed out that the polar ice caps used to be the size of the U.S. until recently, and are now about 2/3 of the
size they once were. If they continue to melt at present rates, they could disappear by the year 2050, which is right around
the corner, and the sea level could rise by as much as 20 feet, which would flood approximately 60% of humanity.Global
Warming is not just an environmental issue. It is an issue with ideological dimensions. It is a problem that brings into sharp focus what is important in
life, and what we, as a species, will choose as our collective destiny. Yes, we are now charged with the onerous task of choosing our own destiny.
Some 150 years ago, relatively a bleep in the history of man, we decided, as part and parcel of the Industrial Revolution, to run our economies on fossil fuels. Could that decision have
been a wrong turn taken by man as he made his way through the annals of history; a mistaken direction? And is it time now to retrace our steps and to find the right path once again? And
is it just possible that Global Warming will force us, once and for all, to decide what is important in life, and to organize ourselves around principles which make more sense, which will
bring more justice, and which will sustain us on this good earth? If it is indeed true, as is quickly becoming apparent, that Global
Warming, if left unchecked, will
bring us storms and floods on the scale of those described in the story of Noah, then we have no choice but to rethink our
priorities, to use our God-given Common Sense, and to reorganize ourselves ideologically, economically, and environmentally, in a more sensible and sustainable manner.

Warming Bad: > Nuclear War (1/1)

( ) Warming outweighs the risk of a nuclear war—nuclear war doesn‟t cause extinction and warming makes the
planet uninhabitable
New York End Times „6
[The. From the NYET Website: ―NYET monitors world trends and events as they pertain to war and extinction. We use a proprietary methodology to quantify
movements between the extremes of war and peace, harmony and extinction‖ www.newyorkendtimes.com/extinctionscale.asp, 2006]
We rate Global Climate Change as a greater threat for human extinction in this century. Most scientists forecast disruptions and dislocations, if
current trends persist. The extinction danger is more likely if we alter an environmental process that causes harmful effects and
leads to conditions that make the planet uninhabitable to humans. Considering that there is so much that is unknown about
global systems, we consider climate change to be the greatest danger to human extinction . However, there is no evidence of imminent
danger. Nuclear war at some point in this century might happen. It is unlikely to cause human extinction though . While several
countries have nuclear weapons, there are few with the firepower to annihilate the world . For those nations it would be suicidal to exercise that
option. The pattern is that the more destructive technology a nation has, the more it tends towards rational behavior .
Sophisticated precision weapons then become better tactical options. The bigger danger comes from nuclear weapons in
the hands of terrorists with the help of a rogue state, such as North Korea. The size of such an explosion would not be
sufficient to threaten humanity as a whole. Instead it could trigger a major war or even world war. Under this scenario human
extinction would only be possible if other threats were present, such as disease and climate change. We monitor war separately. However we
also need to incorporate the dangers here .

Warming Bad: Extinction (1/1)

( ) Warming causes extinction and is key to all other impacts
Brown „8
[Lester. Director of the Global Institute of Environment . ―Mobilizing to Save Civilization‖ 2006]
In 2004, Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow at Princeton University published an article in Science that showed how annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels
could be held at 7 billion tons instead of rising to 14 billion tons over the next 50 years, as would occur with business as
usual. The goal of Pacala, an ecologist, and Socolow, an engineer, was to prevent atmospheric CO2 concentrations, then near 375 ppm, from rising above 500 ppm. I They described
IS ways, all using proven technologies, that by 20S4 could each cut carbon emissions by 1 billion tons per year. Any seven of these options could be used together to prevent an increase
in carbon emissions through 2054. Pacala and Socolow further theorize that advancing technology would allow for annual carbon emissions to be cut to 2 billion tons by 2104, a level that
can be absorbed by natural carbon sinks in land and oceans. The Pacala/Socolow conceptualization has been extraordinarily useful in helping to think about how to cut carbon emissions.
During the three years since the article was written, the urgency of acting quickly and on a much larger scale has become obvious. We also need now to go beyond the conceptual
Researchers such as James
approach that treats all potential methods of reducing carbon emissions equally and concentrate on those that are most promising.
Hansen, a leading climate scientist at NASA, believe that global warming is accelerating and may be approaching a tipping
point, a point at which climate change acquires a momentum that makes it irreversible. They think we may have a decade to turn
the situation around before this threshold is crossed. I agree.?3 We often hear descriptions of what we need to do in the
decades ahead or by 2050 to avoid "dangerous climate change," but we are already facing this . Two thirds of the glaciers that feed the
Yellow and Yangtze rivers of China will disappear by 2060 if even the current 7 percent annual rate of melting continues. Glaciologists report that the Gangotri glacier, which supplies 70
What could threaten world food security
percent of the ice melt that feeds the Ganges River during the dry season, could disappear entirely in a matter of decades.74
more than the melting of the glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia during the dry season, the rivers that irrigate the region's rice and wheat fields?
In a region with half the world's people, this potential loss of water during the dry season could lead not just to hunger but to starvation on an unimaginable scale. Asian food security
would take a second hit because its rice-growing river deltas and floodplains would be under water. The World Bank tells us that a sea level rise of only 1 meter would inundate half of the
riceland in Bangladesh. While a 1-meter rise in sea level will not happen overnight, what is worrisome is that if ice melting continues at today's rates, at some
point such a rise in sea level will no longer be preventable. The melting that would cause this is not just what may happen if the earth's temperature rises
further; this is something that is starting to happen right now with the current temperature. As summer neared an end in 2007, reports from Greenland indicated that the flow of glaciers
into the sea had accelerated beyond anything glaciologists had thought possible. Huge chunks of ice weighing several billion tons each were breaking off and sliding into the sea, causing
minor earthquakes as they did so.!6 With melt-water lubricating the surface between the glaciers and the rocks on which they rested, ice
flows were accelerating,
flowing into the ocean at a pace of 2 meters an hour. This accelerated flow, along with the earthquakes, shows the potential for the
entire ice sheet to break up and collapse?? Beyond what is already happening, the world faces a risk that some of the feedback mechanisms will
begin to kick in, further accelerating the warming process. Scientists who once thought that the Arctic Ocean could be free of ice during
the summer by 2100 now see it occurring by 2030. Even this could turn out to be a conservative estimate.78 This is of particular
concern to scientists because of the albedo effect, where the replacement of highly reflective sea ice with darker open water greatly increases heat absorbed from sunlight. This, of
course, has the potential to further accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. A second feedback loop of concern is the melting of permafrost.
This would release billions of tons of carbon, some as methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming effect per ton 25 times that of carbon dioxide.79
The risk facing humanity is that climate change could spiral out of control and it will no longer be possible to arrest trends such as ice
melting and rising sea level. At this point, the future of civilization would be at risk. This combination of melting glaciers,
rising seas, and their effects on food security and low-lying coastal cities could overwhelm the capacity of governments to
cope. Today it is largely weak states that begin to deteriorate under the pressures of mounting environmental stresses. But
the changes just described could overwhelm even the strongest of states. Civilization itself could begin to unravel under these
extreme stresses.

Warming Bad: Morality (1/1)

( ) Ethical obligation to prevent warming—must preserve the planet for future generations
Ceruti „7
[Furio. Prof of Political Philosophy @ U of Florence (Italy) Global Challenges for Leviathan: A Political Philosophy of Nuclear Weapons and Global Warming. 2007,
Pg 112-3]
In ethical terms the inertia phenomenon burdens on us a still greater responsibility towards future generations (granted we
recognize any such responsibility, a fundamental problem which shall be discussed later in this book). If we live in an environment threatened by possibly
irreversible inertial processes, we are responsible for not worsening the life conditions of those who will later dwell on a
planet that will be more endangered than it is for us, because the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their
inertial impact will be in any case greater than it is in our time. Hence arises to us an obligation to decrease emissions as far
as it is compatible with the preservation not of our "life style," but of acceptable standards of civilization and consumption,
which entails economic growth, but not growth of any kind and at any cost. Further enhancement of our knowledge about climate change and
especially the role of inertia may justify strengthening or abating the precautionary measures the present stand of knowledge leads us to take. The "precautionary principle" is a wide and
(because of its costs) problematic ethical matter, which shall not be examined in this book. For our inquiry suffice it to say that precaution in matters of global
challenges
establishes an obligation to act for the care of future generations with measures whose volume may seem to be
disproportionate to the present degree of certainty about the threat level. In other words, if our doing nothing or little can
endanger their elementary life conditions, we are justified by the dimension of what might be at stake if we take those
measures. Even if there is no certainty, the simple likelihood of a very large human suffering is reason enough to be
cautious, as we have seen in the risk chapter (one) of this book. The need to learn more and not draw wholesome and hurried conclusions is one thing, cheap skepticism on present
knowledge versus reasonable preoccupation with it is another."

Warming Bad: Biodiversity Module (1/1)

A. Warming collapses biodiversity
Butler „7
[Rhett. Economist. ―Impact of Global Warming on Extinction Debated‖ www.mongabay.com/about.htm, 3/26/07]
"Using a variety of climate scenarios, assumptions and methods of analysis, we estimated that somewhere between 5% and 50%
of the species we analyzed are
at risk of extinction, with the central range of estimates falling between 15% and 37%. This is on the basis of warming projected until 2050, so
the year 2100 risks of extinction from climate change are likely to lie in the upper half of this range (or above)," he explained. "Our estimates of potential extinction were preliminary
values intended to define the order of magnitude of the problem. We found that the extinction
risks from climate change are probably similar to
those from habitat loss, and conceivably even greater in some regions." Dr. Thomas cautions that not all the species "committed to extinction"
will disappear by 2050 due to the inherent lag time of extinction."When the climate becomes unsuitable for the long-term survival of a species, it does not mean that it will die out
immediately. For species with long-lived individuals, in particular, it may be many decades or even centuries before the last individuals die out. So, these are the numbers of
species that may be declining towards extinction from 2050 onwards, not the numbers that will have died out by that date."How does climate change affect biodiversity? Climate
change can affect species in myriad ways including the expansion, contraction, and "migration" of habitat; increased
incidence of disease and invasive species; changes in temperature, precipitation, and other environmental conditions;
shifts in food availability; and failure of ecological relationships with other species -- for example the loss of critical pollinators or mutualistic
nutrient fixers. In the past some species may have escaped extinction by "migrating " north or southward in response to climate change. Today
humans have made it a lot tougher by fragmenting, converting, and destroying habitats and potential migration corridors.Peter
Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and a renowned expert on biodiversity, says that climate change will also make
conservation efforts more difficult."As the climate changes, protected areas will not be able to shift due to surrounding
urban areas and agricultural zones," he told mongabay.com via telephone. "This makes them all the more susceptible to the impact of
climate change, whether it is rising sea levels, a dip in precipitation levels, or warmer temperatures."
B. Impact‟s extinction
FAO Report „8
[Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States. ―Biodiversity is Vital for Human Survival and Livelihoods‖ www.fao.org 2008]
BIODIVERSITY is vital for human survival and livelihoods and we need to conserve it for future generations. At the same
time, the unacceptable scale of hunger and rural poverty in our small planet calls for urgent remedial action. This was underlined by FAO deputy director
general James G. Butler. He was addressing the opening session of the thirteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the
Convention on Biological Diversity (February 18-22. ) Ultimately, at the global level, this event – which involves FAO, the Convention on Biological Diversity and their
partners – is aimed at meeting the challenges of sustainable agricultural production to ensure food security for all peoples,
―especially the rural poor – often the managers and custodians of our biodiversity,‖ as Mr Butler put it. The Rome meeting focuses on the implementation of the programmes of
work on agricultural biodiversity and forest biodiversity; the application of sustainable use principles and guidelines to agricultural biodiversity; the linkages between agricultural
biodiversity and climate change; marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems biodiversity; invasive alien species; and other scientific and technical issues. ―Mainstreaming
biodiversity into the food and agriculture, livestock fisheries and forestry sectors will be critical to provide humankind
with opportunities for increasing food availability and stability, while maintaining a healthy natural capital for future generations,‖ Mr Butler said.

Warming Bad: AT//Alternate Causalities (1/1)

( ) Warming outweighs and is key to all other environmental factors
Hansen „8
[James. Prof of Earth & Environmental Science @ Columbia. State of the Wild, April 2008. www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/StateofWild.pdf ]
Climate change is emerging while the wild is stressed by other pressures— habitat loss, overhunting, pollution, and invasive species—and it will
magnify these stresses. Species will respond to warming at differing paces, affecting many others through the web of ecological interactions. Phenological events,
which are timed events in the life cycle that are usually tied to seasons, may be disrupted. Examples of phenological events include when leaves and flowers emerge and when
animals depart for migration, breed, or hibernate. If species depend on each other during those times —for pollination or food— the pace at which
they respond to warmer weather or precipitation changes may cause unraveling , cascading effects within ecosystems. Animals
and plants respond to climate changes by expanding, contracting, or shifting their ranges. Isotherms, lines of a specific average temperature, are moving
poleward by approximately thirty-five miles (56 km) per decade, meaning many species ranges may in turn shift at that pace.4 Some already are: the red fox is moving into Arctic fox
territory, and ecologists have observed that 943 species across all taxa and ecosystems have exhibited measurable changes in their phenologies and/or distribution over the past several
decades.5 However, their potential routes and habitat will be limited by geographic or human-made obstacles, and other species’
territories. Continued business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions threaten many ecosystems, which together form the fabric of life on
Earth and provide a wide range of services to humanity. Some species face extinction. The following examples represent a handful. Of
particular concern are polar species, because they are being pushed off the planet. In Antarctica, Adelie and emperor penguins are in decline, as
shrinking sea ice has reduced the abundance of krill, their food source.6 Arctic polar bears already contend with melting sea ice, from which they hunt seals in colder months.
As sea ice recedes earlier each year, populations of polar bears in Canada have declined by about 20 percent, with the weight of females and the number of
surviving cubs decreasing a similar amount. As of this writing, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is still considering protecting polar bears, but only after it was taken to court for failure to
act on the mounting evidence that polar bears will suffer greatly due to global warming. 7 Life in many biologically diverse alpine regions is similarly in danger of
being pushed off the planet. When a given temperature range moves up a mountain, the area with those climatic conditions becomes smaller and rockier, and the air
thinner, resulting in a struggle for survival for some alpine species. In the Southwest US, the endemic Mount Graham red squirrel survives on a single Arizona mountain,
an ―island in the sky,‖ an isolated green spot in the desert. The squirrels, protected as an endangered species, had rebounded to a population of over 500, but their numbers have
since declined to between 100 and 200 animals.8 Loss of the red squirrel will alter the forest because its middens are a source of food and
habitat for chipmunks, voles, and mice. A new stress on Graham red squirrels is climatic: increased heat, drought, and fires. Heat-stressed forests are
vulnerable to prolonged beetle infestation and catastrophic fires. Rainfall still occurs, but it is erratic and heavy, and dry periods are
more intense. The resulting forest fires burn hotter, and the lower reaches of the forest cannot recover. In the marine world, loggerhead turtles are also suffering.
These great creatures return to beaches every two to three years to bury a clutch of eggs. Hatchlings emerge after two months and head precariously to
the sea to face a myriad of predators. Years of conservation efforts to protect loggerhead turtles on their largest nesting area in the US, stretching over 20 miles of Florida coastline,
seemed to be stabilizing the South Florida subpopulation. 9 Now climate change places a new stress on these turtles. Florida beaches are increasingly lined with sea walls to protect
against rising seas and storms. Sandy beaches seaward of the walls are limited and may be lost if the sea level rises substantially. Some creatures seem more adaptable to
climate change. The armadillo, a prehistoric critter that has been around for over 50 million years, is likely to extend its range northward in the US. But the underlying cause of
the climatic threat to the Graham red squirrel and other species—from grizzlies, whose springtime food sources may shift, to the isolated snow vole in the mountains of
southern Spain—is ―business-as-usual‖ use of fossil fuels. Predicted warming of several degrees Celsius would surely cause mass
extinctions. Prior major warmings in Earth’s history, the most recent occurring 55 million years ago with the release of large amounts of Arctic
methane hydrates,10 resulted in the extinction of half or more of the species then on the planet. Might the Graham red squirrel and snow
vole be ―saved‖ if we transplant them to higher mountains? They would have to compete for new niches— and there is a tangled web of interactions that has evolved among species and
ecosystems. What is the prospect that we could understand, let alone reproduce, these complex interactions that create ecological stability? ―Assisted migration‖ is thus an uncertain
prospect. 11 The
best chance for all species is a conscious choice by humans to pursue an alternative energy scenario to
stabilize the climate.

Acid Rain Bad: Amazon Sustainability (1/1)

Acid rain destroys the Amazon
Margolis 91
[Marc. Environmental Reporter for Newsweek. ―Forging Controversy: Polluting the Amazon with Factories Old and New‖ Newsweek, Oct 91. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
Some conservationists have called for coal to substitute charcoal. It seems a curious demand. In
the last decade, industrial nations have cut back on crude
steel production, due largely to decreased domestic consumption and plant modernization-but also to environmental concerns. Charcoal burning does
produce its own cocktail of pollutants (tar and toxic gases), but they are more easily, and far more cheaply, controlled than the
emissions from the monstrous sulphur-belching coal plants. There is no telling what havoc acid rain and clouds of
particulate matter would wreak on the Amazon tropical rain forest.
Takacs 96
[David. Prof of Environmental Humanities @ Cal State. The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise. 1996, Pg 200-201.]
So biodiversity keeps the world running. It has value and of itself, as well as for us. Raven, Erwin, and Wilson oblige us to think about the value of biodiversity for our
own lives. The Ehrlichs’ rivet-popper trope makes this same point; by eliminating rivets, we play Russian roulette with global ecology and human futures: ―It
is likely that
destruction of the rich complex of species in the Amazon basin could trigger rapid changes in global climate patterns.
Agriculture remains heavily dependent on stable climate, and human beings remain heavily dependent on food. By the end of the
century the extinction of perhaps a million species in the Amazon basin could have entrained famines in which a billion human
beings perished. And if our species is very unlucky, the famines could lead to a thermonuclear war, which could extinguish civilization .‖
13 Elsewhere Ehrlich uses different particulars with no less drama:
What then will happen if the current decimation of organic diversity continues? Crop yields will be more difficult to maintain in the face of climatic change, soil erosion, loss of dependable
water supplies, decline of pollinators, and ever more serious assaults by pests. Conversion of productive land to wasteland will accelerate; deserts will continue their seemingly inexorable
expansion. Air pollution will increase, and local climates will become harsher. Humanity will have to forgo many of the direct economic benefits it might have withdrawn from Earth's well-
stocked genetic library. It might, for example, miss out on a cure for cancer; but that will make little difference. As ecosystem services falter, mortality from respiratory and epidemic
disease, natural disasters, and especially famine will lower life expectancies to the point where cancer (largely a disease of the elderly) will be unimportant. Humanity
will bring
upon itself consequences depressingly similar to those expected from a nuclear winter. Barring a nuclear conflict, it appears that civilization will
disappear some time before the end of the next century - not with a bang but a whimper.

Acid Rain Bad: Coral Reefs (1/1)

Acid rain destroys coral reefs
Daily Mail 96
[London Newspaper. ―Pollution Turning the Seas into Acid‖ 1996. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
THE world's oceans are becoming more acidic because of the carbon dioxide they absorb, a climate expert said yesterday. The change is
threatening sea life and the planet's fragile food chain. Professor Stefan Rahmstorf warned of global problems similar to the acid rain phenomenon of the
1970s and 80s. He said fish stocks and coral reefs could be badly hit. Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide one of the
heattrapping gases blamed for global warming. Professor Rahmstorf and eight other scientists produced their report The Future Oceans: Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour for the
German Advisory Council on Global Change. They outlined it yesterday in Kenya, where delegates from more than 100 countries are attending a UN conference on climate change.
Marine biologist David Santillo, who works for Greenpeace in Exeter, said the results had shocked other scientists. 'The knock-on effect is that some of the marine
resources we rely on may not be available in future,' he added.
AND
Reefs prevent extinction
IPS „6
[The Inter-Press Service. http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=55070&keybold=coral%20reef%20dying%20Pacific, 2006]
Vast swaths of coral reefs in the Caribbean sea and South Pacific Ocean are dying, while the recently-discovered cold-water corals in northern waters will not survive
the century -- all due to climate change. The loss of reefs will have a catastrophic impact on all marine life. One-third of the coral
at official monitoring sites in the area of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have recently perished in what scientists call an
"unprecedented" die-off. Extremely high sea temperatures in the summer and fall of 2005 that spawned a record hurricane season have also caused extensive coral
bleaching extending from the Florida Keys to Tobago and Barbados in the south and Panama and Costa Rica, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Coral Reef Watch. High sea temperatures are also killing parts of Australia's 2,000-kilometre-long Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living reef formation. As summer ends in the
Southern Hemisphere, researchers are now investigating the extent of the coral bleaching. Up to 98 percent of the coral in one area
has been affected, reported the Australian Institute of Marine Science last week. "The Great Barrier Reef has been living on this planet for 18 million years and we've
undermined its existence within our lifetimes," says Brian Huse, executive director of the Coral Reef Alliance, a
U.S.-based NGO dedicated to protecting the
health of coral reefs. "Twenty percent of Earth's reefs have been lost and 50 percent face moderate to severe threats," Huse
told IPS. The economic value of reefs globally is estimated at 375 billion dollars, he says. Coral reefs are uncommon, found in less than one percent of
the world's oceans. However, they are considered the tropical rainforests of the oceans because they provide home and
habitat to 25 to 33 percent of all marine life. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) considers coral reefs one of the life-
support systems essential for human survival. Reefs are made up of tiny animals called polyps, which create cup-like
limestone skeletons around themselves using calcium from seawater. Reefs form as generation after generation of coral
polyps live, build and die, creating habitat for themselves and many other plants and animals. Coral gets its beautiful colors from algae that
cover the polyps. The algae produce oxygen and sugars for the coral polyps to eat while the polyps produce carbon dioxide and nitrogen, which enhances algae growth. If coral polyps
are stressed by too-warm sea temperatures or pollution, they lose their algae coating and turn white. Bleached corals can recover if the stress is temporary -- lasting weeks instead of
months. In 2002, extensive bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef led to a five percent permanent mortality rate. Reefs in the Indian Ocean and other parts of the Pacific have been hit even
harder by warm ocean temperatures over the past few years. Reefs face a number of other threats from trawling, blast fishing (the use of dynamite to catch fish),
pollution, unsustainable tourism and disease, says Huse. Climate change is the most daunting threat of all, in large part because few people realise the impacts their carbon dioxide
emissions are having on the oceans, he says. Every day, the average person on the planet burns enough fossil fuel to emit 24 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, out of
which about nine pounds is then taken up by the ocean. As this CO2 combines with seawater, it forms an acid in a process known as ocean acidification. There is no debate about the
fact that the oceans are becoming more and more acidic due to climate change, says Scott Doney, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the U.S. "What isn't
known is how marine life will react," Doney said in an interview. Coral reefs in tropical areas appear to withstand current and future acidification, but new research shows that the recently
discovered cold-water corals are highly sensitive, he says. Cold-water corals are found at depths of 2,000 to 3,000 metres in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean and to a lesser
extent in the North Pacific. Only discovered about 20 years ago, these corals appear to be quite extensive and full of unusual marine life but their full extent has not been documented.
And although nearly all of the known reef sites have been damaged by bottom trawl fishing, ocean acidification may be their worst threat. Like warm-water corals, polyps in cold-water
corals take calcium from sea water to make their limestone skeletons. However, there is much less calcium (actually aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate) available at depth and more
acidic sea water dramatically reduces what is available. Corals thus form weaker, thinner skeletons or are unable to form them at all. The calcium levels have already declined in many
parts of the world's oceans and by 2100, 70 percent will no longer be able to support cold corals, says John Guinotte, marine scientist at the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in
Washington State. "Corals have no experience with these conditions and are unlikely to adapt in time," Guinotte told IPS. While Guinotte only
looked at impacts on corals, Doney has learned that many other important marine species like types of phytoplankton and small snails that make shells are similarly affected. "Before
2100, these species won't be able to form the shells they need to live," he said. Such highly abundant species are an important part of the marine food chain and impacts on the ocean
ecology could be devastating. "There could be a big hit but we don't what it will be yet," said Guinotte. "What we do know is that by the year 2050, the oceans will be very different than
they are now."

Acid Rain Bad: Boreal Forest (1/1)

Acid rain destroys Boreal
Kennedy „5
[Bob. ―The Power of the Law‖ Penn State Law Review, Spring 05. Lexis//MUDI—JV]
We are living today in a science fiction nightmare where my children and the children of millions of other Americans who have asthmatic kids are
being brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe because somebody gave money to a politician. This is a world where
my children and the children of most Americans can now no longer engage in the seminal primal activity of [*265] American youth, which is to go fishing with their father or mother and to
come home and eat the fish because somebody gave money to a politician. I live about three hours south of the Adirondack Mountains which are located in the oldest protected
wilderness area on the face of the earth. The area has been protected as forever wild since 1888. I take my kids fishing, hiking and hunting up there. Wehad a right - the
American people - to believe that generations of our citizens would be able to enjoy those pristine lakes and boreal forests
unspoiled. But today, one fifth of the lakes in the Adirondacks are sterilized from acid rain. This President has put the brakes
on the statutory requirement that demands that those 1100 power plants clean up their operations to limit the pollution that
causes acid rain. As a direct result of that policy, the EPA announced this year that the level of sulfur dioxide for the first time since the passage of the Clean Air Act has actually
gone up in America's air. In fact is has gone up enormously - a full 4% in one year - because of the President's policy.
Boreal key to biodiversity

NRCC „4
[National Resource Conservation Council. Nation’s most effective environmental action group. Articles written by 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts. Dec.
http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/boreal/intro.asp]
Like the Amazon, the boreal forest is of critical importance to all living things. Its trees and peatlands comprise one of the
world's largest "carbon reservoirs"; carbon stored in this way is carbon not released into the atmosphere , where it would trap
heat and accelerate global warming. Its wetlands filter millions of gallons of water each day. And as a vast and intact forest
ecosystem, it still supports a natural food web, complete with large carnivores like bears, wolves and lynx along with
thousands of other species of plants, mammals, birds and insects. The boreal forest is also home to hundreds of First Nations communities, many of
which rely on fishing, hunting and trapping for their livelihoods.
FAO Report „8
[Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States. ―Biodiversity is Vital for Human Survival and Livelihoods‖ www.fao.org 2008]BIODIVERSITY is vital
for human survival and livelihoods and we need to conserve it for future generations. At the same time, the unacceptable scale of hunger and
rural poverty in our small planet calls for urgent remedial action. This was underlined by FAO deputy director general James G. Butler. He was addressing
the opening session of the thirteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity (February 18-22. )
Ultimately, at
the global level, this event – which involves FAO, the Convention on Biological Diversity and their partners – is aimed at meeting the
challenges of sustainable agricultural production to ensure food security for all peoples, ―especially the rural poor – often the managers and
custodians of our biodiversity,‖ as Mr Butler put it. The Rome meeting focuses on the implementation of the programmes of work on agricultural biodiversity and forest biodiversity; the
application of sustainable use principles and guidelines to agricultural biodiversity; the linkages between agricultural biodiversity and climate change; marine, coastal and inland water
ecosystems biodiversity; invasive alien species; and other scientific and technical issues. ―Mainstreaming
biodiversity into the food and agriculture,
livestock fisheries and forestry sectors will be critical to provide humankind with opportunities for increasing food availability
and stability, while maintaining a healthy natural capital for future generations,‖ Mr Butler said.

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