Advantage Frontline Toolbox

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Advantage Frontline Toolbox
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Table of Contents
***Mexico Economy..............................................................................4
Mexico Economy Advantage Frontline..................................................................5
Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #1 - High now.................................................................6
Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #2 - Resilient................................................................10
***US/Sino War..................................................................................11
US-Sino War Frontline......................................................................................... 12
***US/Russian Relations.....................................................................16
US-Russian Relations Frontline...........................................................................17
***Democracy....................................................................................19
Democracy Advantage Frontline........................................................................20
Democracy Adv - Exts #1 - Unsustainable.........................................................24
Democracy Adv - Exts #2 - Unstable.................................................................25
Democracy Adv - Exts #3 - Promoting Democracy Fails.....................................26
***Arctic Conflict................................................................................28
Arctic Conflict Advantage Frontline....................................................................29
Arctic Adv - Exts #1 - No conflict coming...........................................................32
Arctic Adv - Exts #2 - No Escalation...................................................................34
Arctic Adv - Exts #4 - Ice melting.......................................................................36
***Bioterror.......................................................................................37
Bioterrorism Advantage Frontline.......................................................................38
Bioterror Adv - Exts #1 - No attack - Al Qaeda...................................................39
***Disease.........................................................................................40
Disease Advantage Frontline.............................................................................. 41
Disease Adv - Exts #1 - Vaccines check.............................................................44
Disease Adv - Exts #2 - No extinction................................................................45
Disease Adv - Exts #3 - Diseases inevitable......................................................46
***Biodiversity...................................................................................47
Biodiversity Advantage Frontline........................................................................48
Biodiversity Adv - Exts #1 - No impact...............................................................50
***Amazon Defo.................................................................................51
Amazon Deforestation Advantage Frontline.......................................................52
Amazon Defo Adv Exts - #1 - Brazil...................................................................55
Amazon Defo Adv Exts - #2 - Warming..............................................................56
Amazon Defo Adv Exts #3 - Amazon resilient....................................................57
***Global Warming.............................................................................58
Global Warming Advantage Frontline.................................................................59
Warming Adv - Exts #1 - Not anthropogenic......................................................63
Warming Adv - Exts #2 - Temps not increasing..................................................64
Warming Exts - CO2 Good - Agriculture..............................................................65
***Agriculture....................................................................................66
Agriculture Advantage Frontline.........................................................................67
Agriculture Adv - Exts #1 - Ag production high now...........................................69
Agriculture Adv - Exts #2 - Alternate Causes to Food Security..........................70
Agriculture Adv - Exts #3 - Alt Causes to Food Prices........................................71
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***Mexico Economy
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Mexico Economy Advantage Frontline

First, Mexico economy growing now - auto industry
Klier, 6-13 (Thomas, senior economist in economic research department at Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago, published scholarly journals including Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, MBA from
Frierich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany, PhD in economics from Michigan State
University, Mexicos Growing Role in the North American Auto Industry, June 13, 2013,
http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2013/06/klier_blog.html) Harbeck
Mexicos auto industry has experienced tremendous growth since the mid1980s. Last year, 19% of all light vehicles produced in North America
originated in Mexico (see table 1). That is up sharply from 20 years ago and puts
Mexico ahead of Canada in terms of the number of vehicles produced Table 1:
Distribution of light vehicle production in North AmericaOn May 30, a panel of distinguished experts gathered at an event hosted by the Detroit branch
of the Chicago Fed to discuss factors behind Mexicos growth as a vehicle producer.Most of the presentations are available here.
Also, see a recent Chicago Fed Letter on the same topic.Mexico has a long history of vehicle production; by the late-1930s Ford, GM, and Chrysler were
producing vehicles in the country. Over the years ,
the Mexican auto industry was shaped by

economic development policies put in place by the Mexican government.
Starting in the mid-1960s, a policy of import substitution favored
production of vehicles and parts within Mexico. A number of years later,
the policy focus changed to export promotion, which encouraged Mexican
producers to seek international markets for their products . In 1995, Mexico, the U.S., and
Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). It established a framework and set out a timetable for boosting trade among the
three countries. In
the process, Mexico has become a very attractive export

platform for North, Central, and South America (see table 2). In fact, the country has
negotiated more than 40 free trade agreements, more than any other
North American country. In addition, Mexico has benefited from a general improvement in its manufacturing competitiveness
during the past few years. Its productivity-adjusted wages are the lowest among major manufacturing countries, it is an energy rich country, and it has
a history of manufacturing (35% of the countrys GDP is represented by manufacturing).
And, Mexico's economy is resilient - ability to withstand

growing drug violence proves
Thomas White International 12 (January 27, 2012,Mexico: The glow of economic
resilience lightens the shadows of violence, http://www.thomaswhite.com/worldmarkets/mexico-the-glow-of-economic-resilience-lightens-the-shadows-of-violence/ )Wave3seo

But, surprisingly, the Mexican economy has so far remained somewhat impervious
to all that violence. GDP growth last year was relatively healthy and the expected
slowdown during the current year is likely to be a minor dip rather than a steep
fall. Domestic consumer demand has held up, supported by nearly $23 billion in
remittances during 2011 from Mexicans working abroad. Industrial investments
are flowing in from abroad, and last year were estimated by the UN at close to $18
billion. Despite higher consumer prices in recent months, inflation remains under
control and has allowed the central bank to maintain interest rates relatively low.
It is interesting that much of the economys resilience is rooted in the sustained
buoyancy in export shipments, especially of manufactured goods, when consumer
demand in the U.S., the destination for most of Mexicos exports, has not been
particularly robust. This suggests Mexicos improved export competitiveness and,
in fact, Mexico has been steadily increasing its share in the total import basket of
its northern neighbor. The most significant driver of this trend are rising labor
and other costs in China and in neighboring Asian countries that are the principal
suppliers into the U.S. market. Even though the average wages in Mexico are still
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higher than most developing countries in Asia, the competitive edge in that Far
East region has gradually declined when aggregate costs are considered. The close
proximity to the U.S., which allows greater logistical flexibility in response to
short-term demand fluctuations, adds to Mexicos luster in the eyes of large
manufacturers.
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Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #1 - High now

Mexico's economy will continue to grow - Pena Nieto reforms
and trade
The Economist, 2012 (Cheaper than China and with credit and oil about to start flowing, Mexico is
becoming a Brazil-beater, November 24, 2012, http://www.economist.com/news/specialreport/21566782-cheaper-china-and-credit-and-oil-about-start-flowing-mexico-becoming?
fsrc=scn/tw_ec/se_ores_start_your_engines) Harbeck
Once shuttered off by tariffs and trade controls, Mexico has opened up to become a place where the world does
business. The North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which in 1994 eliminated most tariffs between Mexico, the United
States and Canada, was only the beginning: Mexico
now boasts free-trade deals with 44

countries, more than any other nation. In northern and central Mexico German companies turn out electrical components for Europe,
Canadian firms assemble aircraft parts and factory after factory makes televisions, fridge-freezers and much else. Each year Mexico exports
manufactured goods to about the same value as the rest of Latin America
put together. Trade makes up a bigger chunk of its GDP than of any other
large countrys. Normally that would be a good thing, but after the 2007-08 financial crisis it meant that Mexico got a
terrible walloping. Thanks to its wide-open economy and high exposure to the United States it suffered the steepest recession on the
American mainland: in 2009 its economy shrank by 6%. The country had already had a rocky decade. When China joined the World
Trade Organisation in 2001, it started undercutting Mexicos export industry. In the ten years to 2010 Mexicos economy grew by an
average of just 1.6% a year, less than half the rate of Brazil, which flourished in part by exporting commodities to China. But
now changes are under way, in Mexicos factories, its financial sector and
even its oil and gas fields, that augur well for a very different decade . Latin
Americas perennial underachiever grew faster than Brazil last year and will repeat the trick this year, with a rate of about 4% against less than 2% in Brazil. Mr Pea is aiming to
get annual growth up to 6% before his six-year presidency is over. By the
end of this decade Mexico will probably be among the worlds ten biggest
economies; a few bullish forecasters think it might even become the
largest in Latin America. How did Mexico achieve such a turnround ? Chinas
cut-price export machine sucked billions of dollars of business out of Mexico. But now Asian wages and transport
costs are rising and companies are going west. The China factor is changing big-time, says Jim ONeill, the
Goldman Sachs economist who in 2001 coined the BRICs acronymBrazil, Russia, India and Chinamuch to
Mexicos irritation. China is no longer as cheap as it used to be. According to HSBC, a bank, in 2000 it cost just
$0.32 an hour to employ a Chinese manufacturing worker, against $1.51 for a Mexican one. By last year Chinese
wages had quintupled to $1.63, whereas Mexican ones had risen only to $2.10 (see chart 1). The minimum wage in
Shanghai and Qingdao is now higher than in Mexico City and Monterrey, not least because of the rocketing
renminbi. Right next door Hauling
goods from Asia to America is costlier too. The

price of oil has trebled since the start of the century, making it more
attractive to manufacture close to markets. A container can take three
months to travel from China to the United States, whereas products
trucked in from Mexico can take just a couple of days. AlixPartners, a consultancy, said last year that the joint
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Mexico the worlds cheapest place to manufacture

goods destined for the United States, undercutting China as well as
countries such as India and Vietnam. Companies have noticed. When you wipe away the PR and look
effect of pay, logistics and currency fluctuations had made
at the real numbers, Mexico is startlingly good, says Louise Goeser, the regional head of Siemens, a German
multinational. Siemens employs 6,000 people at 13 factories and three research centres around Mexico. From its recently enlarged
facility in Quertaro, in central Mexico, surge-arrestors and transformers trundle up to warehouses in the central United States in
two days. Ms Goeser says that Mexican workers are well qualified as well as cheap: more engineers graduate in Mexico each
year than in Germany, she points out. In Aguascalientes, not far away, Nissan is building a $2 billion factory. Together with an
existing facility it will turn out a car nearly every 30 seconds. About 80% of the parts in each car are made in Mexico. By using local
suppliers, the company is armoured against currency fluctuations, says Jos Luis Valls, head of Nissan Mexico. If you are
localised, you can navigate through floods and storms. If you depend on imports of components, you are very fragile. In nearby
Guanajuato Mazda and Honda are building factories; Audi is constructing a $1.3 billion plant in Puebla. This year Mexico will turn
out roughly 3m vehicles, making it the worlds fourth-biggest auto exporter. When the new factories are up and running, capacity
will be 4m. According to projections by HSBC, in six years time the United States will be more dependent on imports from Mexico
than from any other country (see chart 2). Soon Hecho en Mxico will become more familiar to Americans than Made in China.
On the opposite side of Cuernavaca from Nissans gigantic factory, Antonio Snchez plays a smaller role in Mexicos motor business.
At his carwash customers queue to pay 46 pesos ($3.60) for their cars to gleam in the ever-present sun. Mr Snchez seems to have
enough business to open another branch, but credit is scarce and expensive. He explains that banks tend to charge interest rates of
25% or more and demand collateral worth three times the value of the loan. Its complicated, expensive and the risk is too much,
he says. Mexican businesses have been fighting with one hand tied behind their backs, thanks to a chronic credit drought. Lending
is equivalent to 26% of GDP, compared with 61% in Brazil and 71% in Chile. The drought started with the tequila crisis of 1994,
when a currency devaluation triggered the collapse of the countrys loosely regulated banking system. Banks spent the best part of a
decade dealing with their dodgy legacy assets and were nervous about making new loans. But things are looking up. Inflation, now
running at 4.6%, has been well under control for ten years. The conservatively run Mexican subsidiaries of foreign banks such as
BBVA, Citigroup and Santander are all rated higher than their American or European parent companies. Now they are starting to
turn on the credit tap. Loans to companies are growing at 12% a year and to individuals at 23%. Given that many enterprises are
informal, many of these personal loans probably go to businesses, according to David Olivares of Moodys, a ratings agency.
There are many financing opportunities in Mexico that are not tapped, says Agustn Carstens, the governor of the
central bank. This gives Mexico an advantage over other Latin American countries that are deep in debt. Five to six
consecutive years of loan growth, coupled with macroeconomic stability, would increase Mexicos annual growth
rate by half a percentage point, the central bank estimates. As credit starts flowing, so could oil. Since striking black gold
Mexico has been one of the worlds ten biggest oil producers. The
revenues of Pemex, the state-run oil and gas monopoly, provide about a
third of the governments income.
in the 1970s,
Mexico's economy will continue to be competitive - energy,

trade, industrial sector
Connelle, 2013 (Claudia, executive director of Mexican Association of Industrial Parks,
23 years of experience in international business with private and public sector, Why Made in
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Mexico Means Quality and Competitiveness, January, 2013,

http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2013/jan/mexico.cfm) Harbeck
Suddenly, the eyes of investors turned toward Mexico, and not because of the violence unleashed by the drug war. It seems that the
land of the tequila is becoming one of the favorite sites for global companies looking to expand their business operations worldwide.
We have found in Mexico an attractive industrial environment and a ready

supply of skilled labor, said Serge Durand, CEO of Eurocopter de Mexico, in
October 2011, during the construction launch of a new manufacturing plant in the city of Quertaro, with an investment value of a
US$550 million. Although Mexico still faces important challenges, the country is
turning into the new little darling of emerging markets, as mentioned by

Kenneth Rapoza in Forbes magazine, on July 2012. There are several reasons and facts that explain why this nation
reflects an important economic evolution, achieved in only 25 years. Reason number one is the opening of the market, started in
1986, when the country joined the GATT, later the World Trade Organization. Now Mexico has 12 free trade
agreements with 44 countries, including NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement signed
with the United States and Canada, in effect since 1994. Since then, the average trade tariff fell from 27 percent to 6.9
percent. The opening policy also included the financial and foreign direct investment liberalization of sectors not considered as
strategic for the nation. Mexico was also able to make a strategic change in its
exports structure. In the 1980s, 61 percent of Mexicos export products

were crude oil. At present, 81 percent of its exports are manufactured
goods, of which 24 percent are high-tech products, including aerospace,
computers, non-electronic machinery, electronic-telecommunications,
weapons, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and scientific instruments, according to
INEGI (Mexicos National Statistics Institute). Mexico is now inserted vertically into the most important segments of global
production chains, as 60 percent of FDI inflows received by the country go to manufacturing. Thanks to all these
changes, the country is now one of the worlds most important export
platforms and an ideal base from which to supply international markets ,
Rupert Stadler, chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG, told the Financial Times in September 2012. Today, this nation
of 114 million people is the leading world exporter of flat screen TVs and the second leading exporter of refrigerators. It is also the
major supplier of medical devices to the U.S. market, the eighth producer and the fourth exporter of new vehicles, as well as the
main supplier of auto parts to the U.S. market, where 11 percent of all cars and light trucks are produced in Mexico. Moreover, of
total U.S. imports, 24 percent of automotive products, 23 percent of chemicals and 21 percent of electronics are coming from the
other side of the countrys southern border. Global automakers have announced new direct
investments in Mexico of about $15 billion, making Mexico the worlds

fourth biggest exporter of automobiles, behind Germany, Japan and South Korea, with exports
expected to be around 2.14 million vehicles by the end of 2012.
Mexico growing most recent evidence proves

Rico, 6-14 (Gabriela, writes for Arizona Daily Star, Mexico growing on manufacturers,
June 14, 2013, http://azstarnet.com/business/local/mexico-growing-onmanufacturers/article_6e4804e7-35e7-52fd-b0ea-c13e20cc5cfd.html) Harbeck
"Made in China" is giving way to "Hecho en Mexico," attendees at the Arizona-Mexico Commission's plenary session heard Thursday.
Risingfuel
costs,coupledwithhigherlaborcostsinChina,makeNorthAmericamoreappealingto
manufacturingcompanies, said Christopher Wilson, associate of the Mexico Institute for the Woodrow Wilson Center.That is a financial
boon for the United States - and especially for states along the Mexican border - becausetheshortersupplychainmeansbigger
profits, he told the crowd of Arizona and Sonora business leaders and politicians meeting in Scottsdale.For every dollar spent on manufacturing in
China, the U.S. earns 4 cents, Wilson said. If that company manufactures in Mexico, the earnings are 40 cents. Mexico's economy is
growing faster than the U.S. economy, and although ours is much larger, "we have
a chance to tap into that growing economy,"
Wilson said.He said monopoly breakups, education reforms and a
pact among the three main political parties could have a positive effect on Mexico's credit rating, making it more attractive to foreign investors."The
hypothesis of saying 'We have to go to China' is fading," said Juan Carlo Briseo, who is with the Mexican Ministry of Economy's Pro Mexico
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Mexico has emerged as a leader in the manufacturing of automobiles,
medical devices, electronics and aerospace components. Now China is casting a curious eye on the
country to see what it's doing right, Briseo said.In Sonora, where the average age is 25, aerospacemanufacturinghastakenoffin
thepastcoupleofyearswithbigcompaniesreadyingtoannouncefurtherexpansionofexisting
operations.Sonorahasfiveinternationalairports,twowithcargocapacity,Briseonoted,makingit
anaturalattraction.Its proximity to Arizona as an export entryway is a selling point, he said.The overview was presented in anticipation of
today's sessions, when committees will meet to map out or approve joint plans and ventures in the areas of economic development, energy, real estate
and infrastructure.Just a little over a decade ago, the focus on these commission meetings was to school Mexico on how to do business with the United
States, said Bruce Wright, associate vice president for university research at the University of Arizona."How refreshing for you in the Sonora business
world to hear us talking about how to do business with Mexico," he said.The Arizona-Mexico Commission meeting is being hosted by Arizona Gov. Jan
Brewer and Sonora Gov. Guillermo Padres.The two governors are expected to address the crowd today and will host a joint news conference.
Mexicos economy is growing and strong
Spencer, 2013 (Linda, writes for SEMA, worldwide automotive company, Considering Mexico
Strong Growth and Fatter Pocketbooks Warrant a Closer Look at the Potential in Latin
Americas Second-Largest Economy, March, 2013, http://www.sema.org/semaenews/2013/13/opportunities-in-mexico-potential-in-latin-americas-second-largest-economy)
Harbeck
i ts economy grew 4% last yearquicker than even Brazils . Credit is increasingly
available, inflation is under control and more of the population is joining
the middle class, according to a new study put out by the Wilson Center
based in Washington, D.C. Sizable Passenger Vehicle Market and Healthy Annual Sales: Mexico has 20
million motor vehicles in circulation, with strong annual sales of about 1
million. Mexicans Love Trucks: Mexican motorists enjoy and use light trucks. Between 20052011, 40% of all vehicles sold
in Mexico were pickups and SUVs. Similar Vehicle Demographics: Many of the vehicles sold in Mexico are the same models
that sell well in the United States. Between 20052011, the best-selling pickups in Mexico were Fords F-150 and F-250, with
232,810 units sold. The Chevrolet Silverado was also a top model, with 164,928 sold during that period. Jeep sales were also strong,
with 145,397 sold between 20052011, and Ford also sold 13,511 Mustangs between those same years. The
country is an
increasingly important gateway to the rest of Latin America. Mexico has freetrade agreements with 44 countriesmore than any other country in the world
including the 2004 North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated
most tariffs between Mexico, Canada and the United States. No Argentinian or Brazilian
Tariffs: Among the many trade deals negotiated by Mexico is its most recently modified pact with Argentina, which allows Mexico
to export up to $600 million in Mexican vehicles to that country without tariffs. Mexico also has a free-trade deal with Brazil. Both
Brazil and Argentina are notorious for their high tariffs, but their agreements with Mexico allow vehicles and partsup to a certain
limitto be shipped to those countries tariff free. OEM Production: There
are nine manufacturers producing

vehicles in Mexico, including Ford, GM, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan and others . These
days, Marcos Alvarez, business director of Big Country America, is quite optimistic about sales opportunities in Mexico and
indirectly to the rest of Latin America. Alvarez notes,
International eyes are on Mexico now under
what has been called MEMO [Mexican Moment], as quality, lead times, trust and
currency and political stability are bringing back manufacturing from Asia to
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Mexico . By selling to the vehicle manufacturers Mexican operations, SEMA members can find an additional route to reach
South and Central American markets. There
are two excellent upcoming opportunities to explore the
Mexican market. For the first, you dont even need to leave the United States. The annual SEMA Show, held each year in early
November, draws more than 130,000 visitors, and 25% of all buyers attending the trade-only event come from outside the United
States, including large numbers from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Another first-rate automotive event where
companies should consider exhibiting is the annual PAACE Automechanika show, which will be held July 1012, 2013, at Centro
Banamex in Mexico City. The 2012 event boasted 14% growth, with 541 exhibiting companies from 20 countries and 19,763 visits by
specialized buyers from more than 33 countries. This year, PAACE Automechanika will feature a specialized vehicle area where the
cars will be categorized as Import, Euro, Racing and Classic.
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Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #2 - Resilient

Mexico's economy resilient - easily able to bounce back from
global financial crisis
Columbia Journal of national Affairs 13 (04/04/2013, The Great Debate: Will
Mexico Assume Clear Leadership in Latin America?,
http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/great-debate-will-mexico-assume-clear-leadership-latinamerica )Wave3seo
Mexicos recent economic performance and its swift recovery from the financial
crisis are seen by many analysts as near-miraculous. While the Brazilian economic
growth has slowed, Mexico has begun to catch up to Latin Americas most-touted
state. After experiencing average growth of barely 2% per year from 2000-2010,
Mexicos GDP has increased by 4 percent in the last year. Mexico boasts a skilled
workforce, low costs and proximity to the United States. Investment has boomed
despite the ongoing drug wars, corruption and a weak rule of law.
More evidence - continued foreign direct investment in the

status quo makes Mexico resilient to economic instability
BanderasNews 13
(January 10, 2013, Mexico Catching Up While 'Booming Brazil' Falters,
Brazil, which overtook Britain

has been hit by weakening Chinese
demand for commodities, while rival Mexico, the new darling of foreign investors,
is posting increasingly strong growth. The figures speak for themselves. Brazil, for
the last decade Latin Americas unchallenged behemoth, is expected to show growth of only one
percent for 2012, down from 2.7 percent in 2011 and a sizzling 7.5 percent in 2010,
according to official estimates. By contrast, Mexico, the perennial underachiever in Latin
America, is suddenly eying a position among the worlds 10 largest economies with
projected growth of between 3.5 and four percent. Mexico took a massive hit from
the 2007-2008 financial crisis, thanks in large part to its proximity to the United
States, but its economy contracted a whopping six percent in 2009 But a huge
reduction in Mexicos "country cost" the cost of doing business there sparked
an impressive turnaround that attracted investment in its industrial sector, created jobs, and
http://www.banderasnews.com/1301/nb-mexeconomysurges-brazilfalters.htm) Wave3seo
last year to become the worlds sixth largest economy,
added value to exports. Sebastian Briozzo, head of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poors for Latin America (the
stock market index tracking Latin American stocks,) said the two countries have very different growth patterns.
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***US/Sino War
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US-Sino War Frontline

1 - No US-China war; both dont want conflict and negotiation
deters
Zhu Feng 12is a professor in the School of International Studies and the deputy director of the Center for
International and Strategic Studies at Beijing University. No one wants a Clash; The New York Times. 5-3-12.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/02/are-we-headed-for-a-cold-war-with-china/no-one-wants-a-coldwar-between-the-us-and-china Reyes
A series of events in recent months seem quite ominous for China-U.S. relations. Last November, President Obama
vowed that the U.S. would remain a power in the Asia-Pacific region for the rest of this century, while the secretary
of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, declared that America was pivoting to Asia. The current standoff in the South China
U.S.-China relationship is complex, but lucrative for both

sides. Neither nation wants confrontation. This rebalancing in the Asia-Pacific region is not
Sea adds to the foreboding. The
necessarily the new U.S. strategy after the military pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does unequivocally
signal the shift of Americas attention from Europe and the Middle East to Asia. What follows is Americas new and
firm military restructuring in the region: setting Darwin Port in Australia as the new submarine corps base, rotating
military presence to the Philippines, ushering in the Pentagons global security programs that very specifically
target China. Now the Asian version of missile defense is under intense discussion, reminiscent of the American
plan to create a missile interception network all over Europe a plan that unnerved the worlds other great power,
Russia. Against this tense backdrop, human rights issues are now creating rifts between Washington and Beijing.
After a local police official, Wang Lijun, reportedly sneaked into the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu in early February, the
blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng sought shelter this week at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Despite quiet
diplomacy so far, there is little sign that the two nations could realistically reach an agreement about human rights
Beijing believes that the U.S. criticisms over

human rights are deliberate and well plotted, aimed at abolishing the
Communist Partys ruling legitimacy and detracting from Chinas re-emergence. Therefore Chinas rulers
might find it much harder to back down over human rights clashes . However there is little worry
that the two powers will collide into a new cold war. First of all, Chinas
authoritarian system has been tremendously mobilized for international
integration. Beijing has been pretty conservative and doesnt welcome democratization.
But it does not strictly adhere to traditional communism either . Any new
questions, as there is slight room to maneuver.
confrontation like the cold war would risk a huge backlash in China by greatly damaging the better-off Chinese
the
power disparity between Washington and China hasnt significantly
narrowed, regardless of Chinese achievements in the past decades. My view is that
Beijing remains an adolescent power, and should learn how to be a great
power rather than unwisely rushing to any confrontation. Though some Chinese
want the nation to assert itself more forcefully, the huge disparity in power should keep
China in place. China is in no position to challenge the U.S. But China will be more
enthusiastic and straightfoward about addressing and safeguarding its legal interests. Competition
between Washington and Beijing will intensify, but that does not
automatically mean that the relationship will be unmanageable . Lastly, the cycle
people. Such a conflict could ultimately undermine the Communist Partys ruling legitimacy. Second,
of action and reaction has mostly turned out to be fruitful for the U.S. and China. Further competition is promising.
dealings over
many thorny issues have proved that each side wants to handle the
conflict, not escalate it. Chen Guangchengs departure from the U.S. Embassy is telling evidence.
The U.S. doesnt want to put China in a corner, or force Beijing to stand up desperately. The
Neither side wants diplomatic confrontation. Rather, it seems that both sides are struggling to react constructively.
China-U.S. relations will continue to be very complicated,

but also very important. The glue to keep these two nations together is
not pragmatism only, but mutual interest especially in trade.
In the years to come,
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2 - No US-China war in SCS, any tensions from miscalc are

mended through negotiations, if miscalc nuke war threat was
real, their impacts from miscalc shouldve happened already
Carlyle A. Thayer 13. Carlyle A. Thayer is Emeritus Professor at the University of
New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra. The ideas in this
paper were first presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Asian
Studies held at San Diego, 22 March 2013. Why China and the US wont go to war
over the South China Sea; East Asia Forum. May 13 2013.
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/05/13/why-china-and-the-us-wont-go-to-warover-the-south-china-sea/ Reyes
Chinas increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea is challenging US primacy in the Asia Pacific. Chinese
sailors stand on a fishing vessel setting sail for the Spratly Islands, an archipelago disputed between China and
other countries including Vietnam and the Philippines (Photo: AAP) Even before Washington announced its official
the United States had undertaken

steps to strengthen its military posture by deploying more nuclear attack submarines to
the region and negotiating arrangements with Australia to rotate Marines through Darwin.Since then, the
policy of rebalancing its force posture to the Asia Pacific,
United States has deployed Combat Littoral Ships to Singapore and is negotiating new arrangements for greater
these developments do not presage armed

conflict between China and the United States. The Peoples Liberation Army Navy has been
circumspect in its involvement in South China Sea territorial disputes, and the United States has
been careful to avoid being entrapped by regional allies in their territorial
disputes with China. Armed conflict between China and the United States in
the South China Sea appears unlikely. Another, more probable, scenario is that both countries
will find a modus vivendi enabling them to collaborate to maintain security
in the South China Sea. The Obama administration has repeatedly emphasised that its
policy of rebalancing to Asia is not directed at containing China . For example,
military access to the Philippines. But
Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander of the US Pacific Command, recently stated, there has also been
it is a strategy of
collaboration and cooperation. However, a review of past USChina military-to-military interaction
criticism that the Rebalance is a strategy of containment. This is not the case
indicates that an agreement to jointly manage security in the South China Sea is unlikely because of continuing
strategic mistrust between the two countries. This is also because the currents of regionalism are growing stronger.
China and the United States

will maintain a relationship of cooperation and friction. In this scenario, both
countries work separately to secure their interests through multilateral institutions such
As such, a third scenario is more likely than the previous two: that
as the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus and the Enlarged ASEAN Maritime Forum.
But they also continue to engage each other on points of mutual interest.
The Pentagon has consistently sought to keep channels of communication open with China through three
established bilateral mechanisms: Defense Consultative Talks, the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement
(MMCA), and the Defense Policy Coordination Talks. On the one hand, these multilateral mechanisms reveal very
little about USChina military relations. Military-to-military contacts between the two countries have gone through
repeated cycles of cooperation and suspension, meaning that it has not been possible to isolate purely military-tomilitary contacts from their political and strategic settings. On the other hand, the channels have accomplished the
following: continuing exchange visits by high-level defence officials; regular Defense Consultation Talks; continuing
working-level discussions under the MMCA; agreement on the 7-point consensus; and no serious naval incidents
since the 2009 USNS Impeccable affair. They have also helped to ensure continuing exchange visits by senior
military officers; the initiation of a Strategic Security Dialogue as part of the ministerial-level Strategic & Economic
Dialogue process; agreement to hold meetings between coast guards; and agreement on a new working group to
despite
ongoing frictions in their relationship, the United States and China will
continue engaging with each other. Both sides understand that military-tomilitary contacts are a critical component of bilateral engagement. Without such interaction
draft principles to establish a framework for military-to-military cooperation. So the bottom line is that,
there is a risk that mistrust between the two militaries could spill over and have a major negative impact on
bilateral relations in general. But strategic mistrust will probably persist in the absence of greater transparency in
military-to-military relations. In sum,
Sino-American relations in the South China Sea are more
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likely to be characterised by cooperation and friction than a modus vivendi of

collaboration or, a worst-case scenario, armed conflict.
3 - No risk of Sino backlash - Multilateral power balances in

Asia prove coexistence of China and US influence possible
John T. Bennett 12. Senior Congressional Reporter at Defense News Past
DEFENSE & NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT at U.S. News & World Report
Senior Defense Reporter at The Hill Senior Reporter - Pentagon & National Security
Beat at Defense News Education The Johns Hopkins University Appalachian State
University. Top Australian Diplomat: U.S.-China War Would Be 'Disastrous' RSS Feed
Print, US News. April 25, 2012.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/dotmil/2012/04/25/top-australian-diplomat-uschina-war-would-be-disastrous Reyes
War between China and the United States would be "disastrous" for the entire world, says Australia's top
diplomat, who also suggests that a conflict between the global giants is
unlikely. As Chinese economic and military power--and its global influence--grows, U.S. analysts, lawmakers,
and some Asian leaders worry Beijing could clash with the world's sitting lone superpower: the United States. A war
between the eagle and the dragon would be "disastrous" for both nations, the Asia-Pacific region, and the entire
globe, Bob Carr, Australian minister for foreign affairs, told a forum Wednesday in Washington. Expert forecasts
that China could challenge America's perch atop the global totem pole are based on even more economic growth in
China and across the Asia-Pacific region. The Obama administration's ongoing shift of U.S. foreign and national
security policies from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific is based on a belief that much of the history of this century
such predictions might be off the mark, says Carr, who spends ample
The United States dominated much of the 20th
century and the early years of the 21st. But the next 88 years, "might not
belong to anyone," Carr said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The levers of global
will be written there. But
time jetting around the vast region.
and economic power are trending toward being more widely dispersed than some experts predict, Carr says. He
Chinese officials collective response to the administration shift

toward their backyard has been "muted," suggesting the U.S. and China
will be able to coexist. Carr showed few signs of worry about what likely would be a bloody and costly
also noted
U.S.-China war, sounding a much different tone than did Singapore defense chief Ng Eng Hen during an April visit to
Washington. Ng urged increased American engagement in Asia, warning that anything else could spawn deadly
U.S.-China tensions. During an April 4 speech in Washington, Ng called the United States a "resident power" in
U.S. and China must

enhance military-to-military contacts, which they believe will help prevent
a war. It was clear from several of Ng's comments in April that Singaporean and other regional leaders are
Asia. But he also made clear Singaporean and other regional leaders feel the
increasingly concerned about a U.S.-China war. But Carr, who spent the opening part of his prepared remarks
a rising China a good thing for his nation, the

Asia-Pacific realm, and the world. Just how China's continued rise goes, he says, will depend
underscoring the U.S.-Australian partnership, calls
largely on Beijing's own actions.
4 - US-China Relations increasing.

Greitens, 6/11 [Sheena Chestnut, Academy Scholar, Harvard Academy for
International and Area Studies, Harvard University, Brookings.edu, 6/11/13,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/06/11-us-china-relations-asiaalliances-greitens] He
In discussing this relationship, American public intellectuals have become fond of referencing Thucydides account
of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta to issue warnings about the risk of conflict, and to offer
advice on how one can best manage the geopolitical tensions that have historically attended the rise of a new great
Leaders on both sides, the argument goes, must be acutely aware

of the dilemma they face if they are to avoid it. Reflecting this discourse,
power.[1]
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as well as their own research into the rise of previous great powers,
Chinese scholars and officials have consistently called for a New Type of
Great Power Relationship ( , xinxing daguo guanxi) between
Washington and Beijing that avoids the tensions that surrounded past
rising powers.[2]
Many of the prescriptions for avoiding conflict call for the two leaders to
spend time, energy, and discussion focused on creating strategic trust
( , zhanlue xinren) in the bilateral relationship.[3] In his February 2012
address in Washington, President Xi Jinping called for the enhancement of mutual trust as the first of four major
principles upon which American and Chinese leaders should base their relationship.[4] In a 2012 Brookings
Institution report, Kenneth Lieberthal and Wang Jisi argue that strategic distrust is rooted in the narrowing gap in
power between the U.S. and China; differences in political traditions and values; and insufficient understanding of
In an effort to build strategic trust,

forums for discussion and the enhancement of mutual understanding have
multiplied; over sixty formal dialogues between the United States and the
Peoples Republic of China now occur each year.
each others policymaking structures and processes.[5]
And, it won't go nuclear - China's No-First-Use policy

Zhenqiang 05 (Pan, Professor of International Relations at the Institute for
Strategic Studies, National Defence University of the Peoples Liberation Army of
China , retired Major General of the Peoples Liberation Army, China Insistence on
No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons, China Security (World Security Institute China
Program, http://www.irchina.org/en/news/view.asp?id=403]
In my view, No-First Use (NFU) has been a theoretical pillar of Chinas nuclear
policy. This rationale of NFU of nuclear weapons serves Beijings foremost
security interests. It also contributes to the maintenance of world
strategic stability. There are at least five reasons to explain why China has
consistently stuck to that principle, and will continue to do so in the
future.
Underlying Principles
NFU highlights Chinas philosophical belief that nuclear weapons can

only be used to serve one purpose, that of retaliation against a nuclear
attack, pending complete nuclear disarmament. Indeed, their extremely large destructive capabilities render
First,
nuclear weapons the only truly inhumane weapon of mass destruction and are of little other use to China. Faced
with U.S. nuclear blackmail in the 1950s, China had no alternative to developing its own nuclear capability so as to
address the real danger of being a target of a nuclear strike. But even so, Beijing vowed that having a nuclear
capability would only serve this single purpose.
From the very beginning of acquiring a nuclear capability, Beijing

announced that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons under
any conditions; it also pledged unconditionally not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon
states. This claim is not merely rhetoric that cannot be verified, as some
Western pundits accused. On the contrary, Chinas nuclear rationale has
determined the defensive nature of its nuclear force, its posture, size and
operational doctrine, which have been highly visible and have stood the test of time. It is in this sense
that China is NOT a nuclear weapon state in the Western sense. Unlike all the other nuclear weapon states, for
China has never intended to use its nuclear capability to make up

for the in efficiency of conventional capabilities vis--vis other world
powers nor has China an interest in joining a nuclear arms race with other
nuclear states. And thanks to the insistence of this policy based on NFU, China succeeds in
reducing the nuclear element to the minimum in its relations with other
nuclear nations, avoiding a possible nuclear arms race, and contributing to
example,
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the global strategic stability at large. If this policy serves well its core security interests, why
should Beijing change it?
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***US/Russian Relations
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US-Russian Relations Frontline

First, US-Russian Relations are stable now - relations are
resilient
CIC73013 ("US-Russia Relations: It Could Be Worse, Canadian International Council,
http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/interviews/u-s-russia-relations-it-could-be-worse/)
The relationship today isnt good, but its nowhere near as bad as it could be. As difficult as
things can sometimes be with Moscow and they have been very difficult lately and as
diametrically opposed President Putin and President Obama and their teams seem to
be, fundamentally, Russia and America are not out to get one another . You could imagine a
world in which they were, and it would be a very different and far, far worse world.
Its important to remember that Russia is not our enemy. Only a few years ago, at the
time of the 2009 re-set there were opportunities for cooperation on everything from
security something which we actually started to see with Russian logistical support for
NATO forces in Afghanistan, and which was critical at a time when relations with Pakistan were not good to
Iran to counter-terrorism, anti-narcotics, anti-trafficking, and anti-piracy. And of course, there was the new nuclear treaty.
Thats a huge amount of progress on the security side. On the economic side, we brought Russia into the WTO, another
huge step forward. The strength of the relationship today is still nowhere near where it could or should be.
U.S. trade
with Russia is about forty billion dollars a year, which, for perspective, is less than half of one percent
of total U.S. trade. Its less than two percent of Russias total trade. So the trade relationship is not a major factor in either
countrys economic success. But at the same time, theres
a lot of potential these are two very big

economies. Russia, depending on how you measure, is around the tenth largest
economy in the world. It has an increasingly wealthy middle class thats interested in
consuming more American goods. Ford automobiles, American heavy equipment, American consumer
products generally they certainly like American intellectual property, from television shows to computer software.
And, no risk of bad relations escalating to conflict

CIC73013 ("US-Russia Relations: It Could Be Worse, Canadian International Council,
http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/interviews/u-s-russia-relations-it-could-be-worse/)
Right now, the U.S.-Russia relationship is caught in a trap of mutual distrust. Both sides
are relatively convinced that theyre talking to the wrong person . The United States
thinks that if they just wait out Putin, or fund some people that might be able to replace him,
then maybe in a couple of years there will be a much better Russian government with which
they can negotiate. On the other side, you have Putin thinking, Im tougher than these guys,
Ive been around longer than these guys, Im just going to embarrass them on one issue after
another and then soon enough I wont have to deal with them.
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But even during the Cold War, when we had two political systems that unequivocally
defined the other as a failure, we still managed to work together in several areas, and
we have many more bilateral ties now.
And, alternate causality to US-Russian Relations - missile

defense
Business Recorder 2012
[Pakistani business agency - cites a
US-Russia working group that studied how missile defense relates to
US-Russia cooperation, "Missile defence poisoned US-Russia relations:
report", February 04, http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/1-front-top-
news/44716-missile-defence-poisoned-us-russia-relations-report.html]
WASHINGTON: Missile defence, an issue that has poisoned US-Russia relations,
could be a "game-changer" that transforms ties if the two sides cooperate
on a shared system, says a report by former top officials from both sides of the Atlantic . Recent
headlines in both countries have been reminiscent of the Cold War, with
the Russians threatening to deploy missiles aimed at countering a
proposed US missile shield, and the Americans responding that they will
build the system, come what may. The planned US shield, endorsed by NATO, would deploy US
interceptor missiles in and around Europe in what Washington says is a layered protection against missiles that
could be fired by countries like Iran. Moscow says this could undermine its security if it
becomes capable of neutralizing Russia's nuclear deterrent. Now an international commission has been working on
the matter for two years that has designed a basic concept for cooperation with the help of military professionals
from both sides.
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***Democracy
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Democracy Advantage Frontline

First, Democracy is unsustainable---inescapable debt leads to
economic collapse
Adams, 11 [Mike, editor for Natural News, Why democracy is failing America,
5/10/11, http://www.naturalnews.com/032346_democracy_America.html] STRYKER

Why democracy isn't working for America At its core, the democratic process of
electing representatives is a popularity contest. The voters inevitably end
up supporting whichever lawmakers offer the best handouts right now,
regardless of the long-term consequences to the nation. Voting, in other words, is a
contest based on short-term rewards rather than long-term vision . Not
surprisingly, when the voters go to the polls, they tend to elect the person who promises them the most right now.
No government can offer something to

one person without first taking it from another. So the more handouts,
entitlements and benefits any government offers, the more it must
confiscate from others in order to meet its "obligations" to the voters. This
creates a downward spiral of entitlements leading to inescapable debt .
Because sooner or later, governments always run out of other people's money. But that doesn't stop
the voting action which still boils down to a popularity contest to decide
the leader who tells the best lies. When given a choice between a realistic candidate who says
Now, it's crucial to recognize this simple economic fact:
America is deep in debt (Ron Paul) and a fantasy-land candidate who says there's nothing to worry about (almost
most voters will choose the fantasy candidate... especially if it

means more money in their pockets.
everybody else),
And, Democracies are unstable---free expression leads to

collapse
Mundt, 97 [Robert, author on history studies, Is Democray Stable? Compared to

What? 1997, http://www.stier.net/writing/demstab/stability.htm] STRYKER
Contemporary doubts about democracy follow the long tradition of premodern political thought, a tradition that pointed both to the disadvantages of democratic regimes
and the advantages of non-democratic regimes. Democratic regimes allow for the
expression of the range of views held by the members of a political
community. And it has often been held that, in a number of ways, this
makes government difficult. For one thing, the people are likely to be
resistant to the demands of government, and especially, to taxes and
military service. But effective government requires that governments pay
their bills and mobilize armies. Critics of democracy suppose that
monarchs and aristocrats, who have greater experience with and training for political matters will,
be better able to grasp and deal with these necessities of politics . For another
thing, the people are likely to be divided about the proper direction of
government. This leads to two possible problems. If political
circumstances allow one group and then another to triumph over another,
a government might adopt a series of radical changes in direction . If, on the
other hand, political circumstances make it difficult for one group to gain power, the result is likely to be stalemate.
Either way, it will be difficult for democratic regimes to adopt consistent and effective public policies. Under
under
unfavorable conditions, these regimes will, it is held, be unable either to
protect themselves or serve the common good. The result, then, is likely
favorable conditions, conflict in or paralysis of democratic regimes may not be too serious. But,
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to be dissatisfaction, dissent and, eventually instability . Once opposition to the

regime arises, a democracy is, again, likely to find it difficult to respond in ways that preserves itself. Democratic
regimes are often reluctant to use force against their own population. And, even when they do so, they are not as
likely to be as brutally decisive and potent as a dictator who is not constrained by the rule of law or popular opinion.
That, we all think, is to the good. But in our preference for benign government, we should not assume that
good government is always the most stable government.
Promoting democracy fails and backfires---resistance leads to

conflicts
Hobsbawm, 05
[Eric is professor emeritus of economic and social history of

the University of London at Birkbeck, The dangers of
exporting democracy, 1/22/05,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/22/usa.comment] STRYKER
Although President Bush's uncompromising second inaugural address does not so much as mention the words Iraq,
Afghanistan and the war on terror, he and his supporters continue to engage in a planned reordering of the world.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are but one part of a supposedly universal effort to create world order by
"spreading democracy". This idea is not merely quixotic - it is dangerous. The

rhetoric implies that democracy is applicable in a standardised (western)
form, that it can succeed everywhere, that it can remedy today's
transnational dilemmas, and that it can bring peace, rather than sow
disorder. It cannot. Democracy is rightly popular. In 1647, the English Levellers broadcast the powerful
idea that "all government is in the free consent of the people". They meant votes for all. Of course, universal
suffrage does not guarantee any particular political result, and elections
cannot even ensure their own perpetuation - witness the Weimar Republic. Electoral
democracy is also unlikely to produce outcomes convenient to hegemonic or imperial powers. (If the Iraq war had
depended on the freely expressed consent of "the world community", it would not have happened). But these
uncertainties do not diminish its justified appeal. Other factors besides democracy's popularity explain the
dangerous belief that its propagation by armies might actually be feasible. Globalisation suggests that
human affairs are evolving toward a universal pattern. If gas stations, iPods, and computer geeks are the same
worldwide, why not political institutions? This view underrates the world's complexity. The
relapse into bloodshed and anarchy that has occurred so visibly in much of the world has also made the idea of
spreading a new order more attractive. The Balkans seemed to show that areas of turmoil required the intervention,
military if need be, of strong and stable states. In the absence of effective international governance, some
one should always be

suspicious when military powers claim to be doing weaker states favours
by occupying them. Another factor may be the most important: the US has been ready with the
humanitarians are still ready to support a world order imposed by US power. But
necessary combination of megalomania and messianism, derived from its revolutionary origins. Today's US is
unchallengeable in its techno-military supremacy, convinced of the superiority of its social system, and, since 1989,
no longer reminded - as even the greatest conquering empires always had been - that its material power has limits.
Like President Wilson, today's ideologues see a model society already at work in the US: a combination of law,
liberal freedoms, competitive private enterprise and regular, contested elections with universal suffrage. All that
world in the image of this "free society". This idea is

dangerous whistling in the dark. Although great power action may have morally or politically
desirable consequences, identifying with it is perilous because the logic and
methods of state action are not those of universal rights. All established states put
remains is to remake the
their own interests first. If they have the power, and the end is considered sufficiently vital, states justify the means
Both good and evil empires have

produced the barbarisation of our era, to which the "war against terror"
has now contributed. While threatening the integrity of universal values,
the campaign to spread democracy will not succeed. The 20th century demonstrated
of achieving it - particularly when they think God is on their side.
that states could not simply remake the world or abbreviate historical transformations. Nor can they easily effect
social change by transferring institutions across borders. The conditions for effective democratic government are
rare: an existing state enjoying legitimacy, consent and the ability to mediate conflicts between domestic groups.
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Without such consensus, there is no single sovereign people and therefore no legitimacy for arithmetical majorities.
When this consensus is absent, democracy has been suspended (as is the case in Northern Ireland), the state has
"Spreading
democracy" aggravated ethnic conflict and produced the disintegration of
states in multinational and multicommunal regions after both 1918 and
1989. The effort to spread standardised western democracy also suffers a
fundamental paradox. A growing part of human life now occurs beyond the
influence of voters - in transnational public and private entities that have
no electorates. And electoral democracy cannot function effectively
outside political units such as nation-states. The powerful states are therefore trying to
split (as in Czechoslovakia), or society has descended into permanent civil war (as in Sri Lanka).
spread a system that even they find inadequate to meet today's challenges. Europe proves the point. A body such
as the European Union could develop into a powerful and effective structure precisely because it has no electorate
other than a small number of member governments. The EU would be nowhere without its "democratic deficit", and
there can be no legitimacy for its parliament, for there is no "European people". Unsurprisingly, problems arose as
soon as the EU moved beyond negotiations between governments and became the subject of democratic
The effort to spread democracy is also dangerous

in a more indirect way: it conveys to those who do not enjoy this form of
government the illusion that it actually governs those who do . But does it? We
now know something about how the actual decisions to go to war in Iraq were taken
in at least two states of unquestionable democratic bona fides : the US and the
campaigning in the member states.
UK. Other than creating complex problems of deceit and concealment, electoral democracy and representative
assemblies had little to do with that process. Decisions were taken among small groups of people in private, not
very different from the way they would have been taken in non-democratic countries.
And, No democratic backslide---democracies grow more

resilient in economic crises
Pei and Adesnik 2000 (Minxin and Ariel, senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, and Mr. Adesnik is a junior fellow there,
"Democracies Grow More Resilient to Economic Crisis, New York Times, 3/4/2000,
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/04/opinion/04iht-edpei.2.t.html) Han
Recent trends suggesting the erosion of democracy in Latin America have
led some observers to warn of a possible authoritarian resurgence in the
region. They fear that the economic crisis in some countries is
undermining democratic regimes. Based on our study of 93 episodes of
economic crisis in 22 countries in Latin America and Asia after World War
II, such fears are unnecessary. Democracies are far more resilient than
authoritarian regimes in the face of economic adversity. It is not the democrats but
the dictators who should fear for their survival when an economic crisis hits. A case in point is the Asian financial
In
South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, however, democracies survived
the crisis intact. Much of the conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises may be
wrong. In 46, or half, of the cases we studied, the crisis produced neither a change of
government nor a change of a regime (system of government). In 17 cases, it led to a change
crash of 1997, which brought down the Suharto regime that had ruled Indonesia for more than 30 years.
of government but not of regime. With one exception, all of these changes took place in democratic states as a
changes do not destabilize the

political system and seldom lead to an outbreak of violence. Economic
crisis caused regime collapses in 30, or about one-third, of the cases, mostly
through a gradual process. Immediate collapse is rare only six regime collapses
result of elections, no-confidence votes or resignations. Such
(three of which took place in Ecuador) were observed within nine months of the outbreak of the crisis. Among the
fallen were 15 dictatorships, 10 democracies and five semidemocracies regimes that rely on coercion to maintain
power despite having formal democratic institutions. The 10 cases of collapsed democracies suggest that political
the severity of
economic crisis (measured in terms of inflation and negative growth) bore
no relationship to the collapse. Political variables, however, such as
factors, rather than purely economic ones, contributed to the breakdown. In fact,
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ideological polarization, labor radicalism, guerrilla insurgencies and an

anti-Communist military, played a more direct role in the demise of
democracy in developing countries. The most striking and heartening finding is that
democracies may have grown more resilient over time. Since 1980, only one
democracy Peru has fallen in the midst of crises. Of the 23 economic crises that struck democracies in Latin
America and Asia after 1980, 10 had no serious political effects while only 12 led to constitutional changes of
government. In economic terms, many of these crises were more severe than those that claimed democratic
regimes in the same countries in the 1960s and 1970s. Argentina is a case in point. Since its transition in 1983, the
Argentine democracy has weathered hyperinflation and deep recession in sharp contrast to the repeated collapse
of democracy when Argentina experienced less devastating crises during the Cold War. The source of democracies'
resilience is their institutional capacity to enforce political accountability, via elections or confidence votes.
Governments fall, but democracy survives as a system of government.
And, Democracy collapse doesnt lead to extinction--authoritarian regimes cooperate to solve the same problems
Erdmann et al, 13 [Dr. Gero Erdmann is head of Research Program 1 Legitimacy
and Efficiency of Political Systems and lead research fellow at the GIGA Institute of
African Studies, Andr Bank is a research fellow at the GIGA Institute of Middle East
Studies, Dr. Bert Hoffmann is acting director of the GIGA Institute of Latin American
Studies, Dr. Thomas Richter is a senior research fellow at the GIGA Institute of
Middle East Studies, International Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes: Toward a
Conceptual Framework, 7/2013, http://www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?
d=/content/publikationen/pdf/wp229_erdmann-bank-hoffmann-richter.pdf] STRYKER
In politics and political science alike, awareness is growing about the increasing
international influence of authoritarian regimes. The primary focus of attention has been the
neighbor hood policies of Russias post Soviet regime as well as Chinas international political and economic activities. The
reverse wave of democratization, the expan sion of

nondemocratic rule (Merkel 2010; Puddington 2008, 2009) and the earlier backlash
against democracy promotion (Carothers 2006, 2009) reflects these trends. More recently,
controversy about a
scholarly attention has turned away from the international dimension of democratization to address the international dimension of
authoritarian regimes. This new interest drew authors from two strands. First, scholars formerly interested in processes of
authoritarian rollback that reversed many efforts of de

mocracy promotion (Burnell and Schlumberger 2010; Burnell 2011). Second, scholars previ
ously interested in the stability and durability of authoritarian regimes
became increasingly aware of the importance of international factors (Art
democratization took notice of the
2012: 201). Some of the literature main tains a democratizing perspective insofar as it asks how and why some
nondemocratic re gimes were able to fend off international diffusion of or

even pressure for democracy (Levitsky and Way 2010; Weyland 2010). However, the strand of research that
does not approach the issue from the angle of democratization still needs to develop a comprehensive conceptual approach. The
issue goes well beyond the particular antidemocratic leverage of authoritarian powers, such as Russias counterinfluence on the
Au thoritarian regimes collaborate in various ways:

provide each other with ideational and material support; They protect each other on
the international level for example, through vetoes in the UN Security Council; They help each other in
military and security related issues; They learn from each other in how to deal with opposition and how to build a solid
color revolutions in its neighborhood.
They
polit ical party; They exchange ideas on the design of development strategies; And they provide each other with direct
personal advice on how to cope with insurgent forces and how to control Internet usage. While it is obvious that
authoritarian regimes use multiple forms of international coopera tion

reinforce their rule, the existing literature pays scant attention to these phenomena.
And, Authoritarianism isnt bad---limitations are good

Rahib Raza 12, columnist at The Express Tribune http://rahibraza.blogspot.com/2012/10/normative-theory-authoritarian-theory.html, 10-29,12
Shah
to
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Since the earliest times, the control of leaders which led to the oppression
of the people has been demonstrated. The concept of authoritarianism developed throughout history
wherein people in various societies lived under the authority of scrupulous people. Even English monarchs in the 15th and 16th
century, when the printing press was realized, compelled restrictive censorship on publishers through a series of limitations such as
licensing, taxation, and seditious libel. Actually, these
forms of limitations are not bad at all

because these serve as gatekeepers for some irresponsible printed
materials.
Conspicuously, even up to now, lots of people are still living under the authoritative
form of government system wherein the government has the absolute
control over the media and that they use media for propaganda purposes.
Sometimes its a funny thing to know that in this type of political system there are no marketing strategies being used, only but just
threat morose threat.
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Democracy Adv - Exts #1 - Unsustainable

Democracy will inevitably collapse---it is inherently unstable
Mundt, 97 [Robert, author on history studies, Is Democray Stable? Compared to

What? 1997, http://www.stier.net/writing/demstab/stability.htm] STRYKER
The empirical study of democratic regimes in the last fifty years has
focused on the question of what makes for stable democracies.[1] Various
hypotheses have been put forward and tested about the social and political conditions under which democratic
regimes come to be or to endure. A presupposition of most of this research is that
democratic regimes
are particularly fragile . The supposition that democracies are fragile

probably has a number of sources. The frightening experience of the
descent of European democracies into fascism and communism is perhaps
the most important. But we can also find support for this presupposition in
the evident fragility of democratic regimes in the less developed world.
And, standing behind these events, is the long standing tradition in
political philosophyand especially, in pre-modern political thoughtof
disparaging democracy and warning that it is likely to lead to tyranny.
Democracy is fundamentally flawed---the average voter

doesnt know whats best
Tucker, 10 [Reed, contributor to NYPost, When Democracy fails, 2/14/10,
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/when_democracy_fails_LHBo
3rZ6u43hQfgpULEZ7L] STRYKER
You dont have to be a C-SPAN junkie to see that our government is just plain broken. You get
the feeling that more substantial work gets accomplished at a high schools model UN. But what if its not just
democracy itself doesnt work ? After watching Jaywalking,

or, God help us all, an episode of Jersey Shore, its hard to argue that We the People are
best equipped to make the important decisions of state. As Winston
Churchill once said, The best argument against democracy is a fiveminute conversation with the average voter. Maybe the problem with
government these days is simply that we Americans (and that includes many of those
in power) dont know enough to make the best choice . To see just how sensible we as a
government thats broken? What if
people are, lets look at some times weve been given a chance to be heard:
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Democracy Adv - Exts #2 - Unstable

Democracies are unstable---several reasons
Kapstein, 12 [Ethan, visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development with
expertise in airer trade; inequality and growth; political economy, Why
Democracies Fail: Lessons from Mali? 3/29/12, http://www.cgdev.org/blog/whydemocracies-fail-lessons-mali] STRYKER
The recent coups in the Maldives and Mali against democratically elected
leaders, and the continuing political struggles in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya
following the Arab Spring, are potent reminders that democracy is a
fragile institution. In fact, of the 120 attempts at democratization that have
occurred around the world since 1960, nearly half have been reversed at
some point. The reasons for democratic failure, however, are surprising. In our book, The Fate of Young
Democracies, Nathan Converse and I found that democracies do not fail for the reasons commonly supposed. They
do not generally fail, for example, because of poor economic performance. In fact, the democracies that are
overthrown have, on average, higher growth rates than those that are sustained over long periods of time. Some
recent examples of fast growing democracies that have reversed include Russia, Venezuela, and Thailand. Nor do
democracies reverse while undergoing the process of economic reform. To the contrary, reforms like trade
liberalization and privatization tend to support the democratic process, as they bring forth entrepreneurs who
provide a bulwark against an authoritarian backlash. Finally, democracies are no more likely to be sustained by
adopting parliamentary instead of presidential institutions. Though parliamentary forms of government are often
said to help prevent power grabs by the executive branch, prime ministers have proved to be very adept at
commanding powerthink of Vladimir Putinand parliaments are often weak and sharply divided, thus incapable of
First,
young democracies are often weakened by extreme levels of income
inequality. Rising income inequality indicates a dysfunctional democratic
state in which economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few,
rather than one in which economic opportunities are widely shared and
diffused. Second, young democracies that are unable to constrain the
executive branch of powerwhether presidential or parliamentarywill find it difficult to sustain
exercising authority. Why, then, do democracies fail? Our study identified several common factors.
participatory forms of government. The usual red flags here are changesor attempts to changethe constitution,
Among the leaders who have

threatened their democracies in this way are Hugo Chavez in Venezuela
and Eduardo Correa in Ecuador. Third, democratic states that are
ethnically fragmented face severe challenges of institution building they
may be unable to overcome. Such societies are often characterized by
insider-outsider tensions that are not easily resolved. As the insidersthe ethnically
particularly with respect to term limits and electoral cycles.
dominant groupcentralize political power, the outsiders may find they have no alternative but to try and
Fourth, newly democratic states that do not provide

adequate supplies of public goods like health care and education are
unlikely to succeed. In crucial respects, democracy as a regime type is justified by its ability to deliver
overthrow the regime.
public goods to a broad spectrum of citizens, and not just to an elite. If democracies are unable or unwilling to meet
these demands, their very raison detre may be called into question.
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Democracy Adv - Exts #3 - Promoting Democracy

Fails
Promoting democracy fails---strong resistance and carried out
poorly
WMD, 08
[World Movement for Democracy, Confronting the Challenges

to Democracy in the 21st Century, Current Challenges to
Democracy, 1/2008, http://www.wmd.org/about/current-challenges/current-challengesdemocracy] STRYKER
The process of learning to practice democracy meets challenges of
various kinds . The first challenge lies in the fact that democratization
takes place in often still authoritarian environments that resist change , in
countries with weak states that provide insufficient security to their citizens, in countries with incomplete processes
of nation-building, and in countries with poorly developed or skewed economies. Furthermore, while there has been
progress in the participation of women in the political arena, they are still a minority in the power positions of even
Transitions to democracy do not move forward across

straight lines and are bound to encounter backlashes. Democracy activists, therefore,
most democratic states.
and the international organizations that support them, must prepare for the long haul and adopt comprehensive
The second challenge lies in the inadequate and inappropriate

international approaches in supporting democratic development . The
delivery of international support is not always compatible with the
intrinsic values of democracy itself. Does the process through which international support is
approaches.
delivered have as its ultimate goal a democratic outcome? Are the instruments used and procedures followed
democratic? When they are not, democracy support is likely to become problematic.
The premise of
economic development first, democracy later still holds for much of international
assistance. It results, for example, in the promotion of liberal market reforms while
reinforcing systems of autocracy in the process. That countries become economically as
well as politically fit through democracy as argued by the Nobel laureate Armatya Sen - requires a comprehensive
Confusing democracy promotion with

regime change, and even with the use of military force to remove a
regime, is counter-productive and often inconsistent with the values of
democracy. Such an approach has played into the hands of autocrats who are
rethinking of how international assistance is delivered.
resisting necessary democratic reforms by playing up sentiments against perceived foreign intrusion in violation of
the sovereignty of their countries. It also is often accompanied by double standards since only unfriendly regimes
Such practices real or

perceived in the conduct of international cooperation by established
democracies are giving democracy and democracy support, unfortunately,
a bad name. Furthermore, in countries moving out of violent conflict, often the emphasis lies on
stability and reconstruction first, democracy later. This approach frequently
entrenches the very political-economic interests which are the causes of
conflict in the first place. Rather than sequencing approaches, successful international cooperation
are targeted while friendly tyrants are treated much more leniently.
ought to be comprehensive by balancing the three interlinked objectives of democracy, security and development.
Promoting democracy fails---forcing regimes doesnt work

Ronen, 13
[Dov, lecturer on psychology at Harvard Medical School, is the

author of The Quest for Self-Determination, End the
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Campaign to Spread Democracy, 4/30/13,

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/opinion/global/End-the-Campaign-to-Spread-Democracy.html?_r=1&
STRYKER
the United
States has been waging an ideological campaign to spread democracy
around the world, and many of its citizens hope that the campaign will
eventually be victorious. This is not likely to happen. An old proverb says: You
AFTER its victory in the ideological confrontation between two camps during the Cold War,
cannot whistle against the wind; the wind is stronger . One can whistle
the ideological campaigns tune of democracy forcefully, but it will be
silenced by the thunderous storm of the human struggle for selfdetermination. The launching of the ideological campaign is most likely
based on the conviction that the collapse of the Marxist/Communist
Eastern camp during the Cold War proved once and for all the unquestionable
superiority and universal applicability of democracy and its political and
economic institutions. This is not the case . The victory only proved that the
implementation of the Marxist idea failed in the Soviet empire, and the collapse of economies there
did not lead to entrenchment of democracy but to the exercise of selfdetermination by Estonians, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, among others, including Chechens under
Dzhokar Dudayev. Yes, peoples of the Soviet empire did proclaim aspirations for democracy. So did participants in
ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, and so did participants in the
Arab Spring uprisings some two decades later. But neither peoples of the former Soviet empire, nor peoples of
Yugoslavia, nor those in the Arab Spring uprisings aspired to democratic rule. All these peoples aspired to what
Woodrow Wilson advocated during and after World War I: self-determination. He remarked,
No people
must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live .
President Wilson also wrote in Article 3 of his first draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations: The Contracting
Powers unite in guaranteeing ... territorial adjustments ... as may in the future become necessary by reason of
changes in the present social conditions and aspirations or present social and political relationships,
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Arctic Conflict Advantage Frontline

First, - No chance of Arctic Conflict- Countries are maintaining
peace in the region now
Berkman 3/12 [Paul Arthur Berkman a biological oceanographer at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, is the author of Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean: Promoting Co-operation
and Preventing Conflict. March 12, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/opinion/preventing-anarctic-cold-war.html?_r=0 accessed on August 1, 2013] JAKE LEE
the Arctic Ocean was covered yearround by ice, creating an impregnable wilderness that humans rarely
negotiated. Today, as the effects of global warming are amplified in the
high north, most of the ocean is open water during the summer and
covered by ice only in the winter. This unexpected transformation has radically altered the stakes for the
JUST a quarter-century ago, and for millenniums before that,
Arctic, especially for the eight nations and indigenous peoples that surround it. But while there has been cooperation on extracting
the regions oil, gas and mineral deposits, and exploiting its fisheries, there has been little effort to develop legal mechanisms to
prevent or adjudicate conflict. The potential for such conflict is high, even though tensions are now low .
Several
countries, along with corporations like ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell,
are preparing to exploit the regions enormous oil and natural gas
reserves. New shipping routes will compete with the Panama and Suez
Canals. Vast fisheries are being opened to commercial harvesting, without
regulation. Coastal areas that are home to indigenous communities are
eroding into the sea. China and the European Union are among non-Arctic governments rushing to assert their
interests in the region. Some states have increased military personnel and equipment there. The most
fundamental challenge for the Arctic states is to promote cooperation and
prevent conflict. Both are essential, but a forum for achieving those goals does not yet exist. In 1996, eight
countries the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden,
Iceland and Denmark (which manages the foreign affairs and defense of
Greenland) and groups representing indigenous peoples established the
Arctic Council to chart the regions future. So far, this high-level forum has
identified sustainable development and environmental protection as
common Arctic issues. But another crucial concern maintaining the peace was
shelved in the talks that led to the councils creation. The fear then, as now, was that
peace implied demilitarization. It doesnt. But if these nations are still too timid to discuss peace in the region when tensions are low,
how will they possibly cooperate to ease conflicts if they arise? Since 2006, each of the Arctic nations has adopted its own security
policy to safeguard its sovereign rights. What they must do now is compare their separate security policies, identify the ways in
which those policies reinforce or conflict with one another, and then balance national interests with common interests. How, for
instance, will each nation position its military and police its territory? How will the Arctic states deal with China and other nations
that have no formal jurisdictional claims but have strong interests in exploiting Arctic resources? How will Arctic and non-Arctic
states work together to manage those resources beyond national jurisdictions, on the high seas and in the deep sea? Without
how can the

United States cooperate with other nations to resolve territorial disputes
in the ocean? NATOs top military commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis of
the United States Navy, warned in 2010 of an icy slope toward a zone of
competition, or worse, a zone of conflict if the worlds leaders failed to ensure Arctic peace.
ratifying the Convention on the Law of the Sea, a 1982 treaty governing use of the worlds oceans,
Whether it is through the Arctic Council or another entity, there needs to be a forum for discussing peace and stability, not just
environmental and economic issues. We need rules of the road to take us safely into the Arctics future .
President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whose economy is reliant on its rich deposits
of oil and natural gas, clearly understands the benefits of a northern sea
route and of the hydrocarbon deposits on his nations continental shelf,
and has emphasized the importance of peace and cooperation in the
Arctic. So have leaders of other Arctic nations. But we have heard virtually
nothing from President Obama, even as he has made the dangers of a
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warming earth a priority of his second term. At an Arctic Council meeting

in Tromso, Norway, last year, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, said the world increasingly looks to the
North but did not go much further. She called for responsible management of resources and efforts to prevent and mitigate the
effects of climate change.
As the head of an Arctic superpower and a Nobel laureate,

Mr. Obama should convene an international meeting with President Putin
and other leaders of Arctic nations to ensure that economic development
at the top of the world is not only sustainable, but peaceful
Second, Zero chance of escalation- there are treaties made to

prevent conflict
Grtz 12 [Jonas Grtz for Center for Security Studies (CSS) The Arctic: Thaw With Conflict Potential
July 2012 http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?
id=157901&contextid774=157901&contextid775=157922 accessed on August 1, 2013] JAKE LEE
the background of the changes in the Arctic, this region is occasionally

identified as a potential area of future conflict. However, it is important first
Against
to point out that there is much scope for cooperation.
This is particularly apparent when
considering soft security concerns such as environmental pollution resulting from the extraction of raw materials. The threats that
arise for humans from the exceptional climatic situations are pushing actors towards cooperative approaches, too .
Many of
these issues are taken on by the Arctic Council. Founded in 1996, the
Council is a forum to promote coordination among the eight Arctic
countries. Representatives of indigenous peoples have a consultative role.
One concrete result of the Arctic Council is a binding agreement on
maritime search and rescue activities. For 2013, an agreement on standards for oil spill preparedness and response is
expected, which will reinforce the current non-binding offshore oil and gas guidelines. Cooperation among the littoral states is also
advancing in the sensitive area of national sovereign rights .
The 2010 border treaty between Russia

and Norway indicates that bilateral agreements are possible even though
the power asymmetry between the two countries is reflected in a deal advantageous to
Russia. International maritime law and the pressure of non-Arctic countries are also fostering
multilateral cooperation, at least in areas where all parties can still gain
further sovereign rights. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows for
the extension of the continental shelf towards the North Pole, which would extend the mining privileges of the coastal states at the
expense of the interests of non-Arctic states. The water column and the animals living in it, by contrast, would continue to enjoy
the coastal states declared their

intention to settle any territorial conflicts within the framework of UNCLO S. By signing the
international status. In the Ilulissat Declaration adopted in 2008,
declaration, the US which has not ratified UNCLO S has signalled its willingness to observe it within the Arctic. What is more, the
coastal states have been collaborating for a long time in the exploration of the sea bed .
Provided that there are
no major conflicts among these countries , non- Arctic players will hardly be able to assert
themselves in this context. Potential for conflict The scope of sovereign rights in the maritime
area around the Svalbard archipelago, believed to be rich in oil and gas, is a question that is not easy
to resolve. On the one hand, the archipelago and the surrounding 200-mile zone are an undisputed part of Norwegian territory. On
the other hand, Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago is substantially limited by the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. All 40 signatory
countries have the right to exploit natural resources and to conduct research. The treaty also states that the archipelago must not
be used for offensive military purposes. Likewise, the right to levy taxes is limited to the administrative requirements of Svalbard. It
was only later under UNCLO S that the EEZ emerged as an institution. Hence, it remains unclear whether the Svalbard Treaty also
applies to this zone. Countries such as Russia, Iceland, and the UK assume this to be the case. Norway takes the opposite view.
Nevertheless, Oslo has not declared a full EEZ in this area, but established a fisheries protection zone instead. It concedes fishing
Russia, Iceland, and other nations. This has never been explicitly
acknowledged by these countries, but is usually accepted in practice. The modus
privileges to
vivendi has so far provided stability as it has served Russian interests too, with the fisheries protection zone granting privileges to
Russian fishing interests over other signatory states. Moreover ,
Russia has sufficient oil and gas

reserves at its disposal on its own territory. Norway, by contrast, has a
strong interest in opening up the area for oil and gas exploration. Such an
opening, however, would undermine the current fragile balance and encourage other signatory states to question openly the scope
of the Treaty. Even if Norway were to take no action, other nations could try to push for an opening of the area for exploration with
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reference to the Treaty. Due to the variety of the players concerned and the absence of international rules, the issue can ultimately
only be resolved at a political level. Interests and positions diverge concerning the issue of sovereignty over the new sea routes as
well. Again, even the Arctic coastal states do not agree on the legal status:
Russia and Canada regard the

routes as internal waterways in what is a very broad interpretation of
UNCLO S. This implies that ships flying foreign flags must request
permission for transit. Other coastal nations, such as the US, and nonArctic players like the EU and presumably China, however, consider these to be international
waterways for which no authorisation for transit is necessary. For the time being, no escalation of this conflict is to be expected,
since the commercial navigation routes are competing with non-Arctic sea routes and the use of these routes will correlate with the
extent of their opening and the stability of the agreed arrangements.
In addition, Russia and Canada

depend on the cooperation of foreign non-state and state-owned players
in order to attract investments in their inadequate coastal infrastructures.
Also, the International Maritime Organisation is working on a binding
Polar Code, which will establish clear rules for polar navigation. This will weaken the case for additional national regulations
and approval procedures.
And, Zero Risk of Arctic Conflict Just media hype

Beckhusen 2012 (Robert, Staff writer for Wired on International Affairs, Wired,
8/9/12, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/arctic/ ) Okuno
The exaggerated fears of a coming Arctic war with Russia have largely receded since
a media freakout last year. But that isnt stopping Russia from building new bases in the frigid north.
Canada is also splurging on Arctic drones. Less assertive is the United States, which is boosting
Coast Guard operations near Alaska. On Monday, Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev said Russia is
planning to build a string of new naval bases in the Arctic. The bases are intended to be key
double-purpose sites for warships in remote areas of the Arctic Seas. Theres no word on what those double
purposes might be. Russias plans to create a combined-arms force for the Arctic is also still on track, according to
The logic behind Russias Arctic bases is seductive. The

thinking goes like this: As global warming causes the northern polar ice to recede
and one day disappear during the summer months nations like Russia, Canada,
Norway and the United States will scramble for the bountiful deposits of oil, gas and
minerals hidden beneath, sparking an Arctic resource war. Oh, and a swarm of media reports
and even videogames about a hypothetical war on the northern horizon . But a
war is exceedingly unlikely because Russia would lose. For one, the United States has an
overwhelming and decisive advantage in submarines . U.S. subs are more advanced, there are
more of them, and their crews are better trained. Its unlikely Arctic nations would also begin killing each
other over low-key and remote territorial disputes.
Moscow-based news wire RIA Novosti.
And, the melting of the polar ice means no conflict

Mahony 3/19 [Honor Mahony is a staff writer for the EU observer Fears of Arctic conflict are
'overblown' March 19, 2013 http://euobserver.com/foreign/119479 accessed on August 3, 2013] JAKE
LEE
The Arctic has become a new frontier in international relations, but fear of
potential conflict in the resource-rich region is overblown, say experts. For long a
mystery because of its general impenetrability, melting ice caps are revealing more and more
of the Arctic region to scientists, researchers and industry. Climate change
experts can take a more precise look at a what global warming is doing to
the planet, shipping trade routes once considered unthinkable are now
possible, and governments and businesses are in thrall to the potential
exploitation of coal, iron, rare earths and oil. The interest is reflected in the growing list of those
wanting to have a foot in the Arctic council, a forum of eight countries with territory in the polar region. While the US, Denmark,
Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and Canada form the council, the EU commission, China, India, South Korea and Japan
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have all expressed an interest in having a permanent observer status.
"The Arctic has become a new

meeting place for America, Europe and the Asia Pacific," says Damien
Degeorges, founder of the Arctic Policy and Economic Forum. During a
recent conference on Arctic shipping routes in the European Parliament,
Degeorges noted that "China has been the most active by far in the last years." He points to its redcarpet treatment of politicians from Greenland, a territory that recently got full control over its wealth of natural
resources. Bejing also cosied up to Iceland after the island's financial meltdown. The two undertook a joint expedition
North Pole and the Chinese have the largest foreign embassy in
Reykjavik. Meanwhile, South Korea's president visited Greenland last year
and shipping hubs like Singapore are holding Arctic conferences. The
interest is being spurred by melting icebergs. Last year saw a record low
of multi-year ice - permanent ice - in the polar sea. This means greater shipping and mineral
to the
exploitation potential. There were 37 transits of the North East Passage (NEP), running from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the top
of Russia, in 2011. This rose to 47 in 2012. For a ship travelling from the Netherlands to China, the route around 40 percent shorter
than using the traditional Suez Canal. A huge saving for China, where 50 percent of its GDP is connected to shipping. Russia is also
keen to exploit the route as the rise in temperatures is melting the permafrost in its northern territory, playing havoc with its roads
and railways.
According to Jan Fritz Hansen, deputy director of the Danish

shipowners association, the real breakthrough will come when there is a
cross polar route. At the moment there are are two options - the North
East Passge for which Russia asks high fees for transiting ships - or the
much-less developed North West Passage along Canada. His chief concern is that "trade
up there is free. We don't want protectionism. Everyone should be allowed to compete up there." And he believes the biggest story
Arctic
holds 13 percent of undiscovered oil and 30 percent of undiscovered gas
supplies. Greenland is already at the centre of political tussle between the
EU and China over future exploitation of its rare earths - used in a range
of technologies such as hybrid cars or smart phones. "The biggest adventure will be the
Arctic destination. There is a lot of valuable goods that should be taken out of nature up there," he said. This resource
potential - although tempered by the fact that much of it is not
economically viable to exploit - has led to fears that the Arctic region is
ripe for conflict. But this is nonsense, says Nil Wang, a former Danish
admiral and Arctic expert.
of the Arctic is not how it is traversed but what will be taken out of it. According to the US Geological Survey (2009), the
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Arctic Adv - Exts #1 - No conflict coming

No Arctic Conflict all signs point towards cooperation
Fries 2012 (Tom, , 4/18/12, The Arctic Institute,
http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2012/04/perspective-correction-how-we.html )
Okuno
War and conflict sell papers -- the prospect of war, current wars, remembrance of
wars past. Accordingly, a growing cottage industry devotes itself to writing about the prospect of conflict
among the Arctic nations and between those nations and non-Arctic states, which is
mostly code for China. As a follower of Arctic news, I see this every day, all the time: eight articles last week, five
Sometimes this
future conflict is portrayed as a political battle, sometimes military, but the
portrayals of the states involved are cartoonish, Cold-War-ish...its all good guys and bad guys.
Im convinced that this is nonsense, and I feel vindicated when I see the extent to
which these countries' militaries collaborate in the high North. From last week's
meeting of all eight Arctic nations' military top brass (excepting only the US; we were represented by
General Charles Jacoby, head of NORAD and USNORTHCOM) to Russia-Norway collaboration on
search & rescue; from US-Canada joint military exercises to US-Russia shared
research in the Barents...no matter where you look, the arc of this relationship bends
more already this week from the Moscow Times, Scientific American or what-have-you.
towards cooperation . But there's a bigger misconception that underlies the predictions of future Arctic
conflict that we read every week. This is the (usually) unspoken assumption that the
governments of these states are capable of acting quickly, unilaterally and secretly to
pursue their interests in the Arctic . False. This idea that some state might manage a political
or military smash-and-grab while the rest of us are busy clipping our fingernails or
walking the dog is ridiculous. The overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the
governments of the Arctic states are, like most massive organizations, bureaucratic messes. Infighting between
federal agencies is rampant all around, as are political shoving matches between federal and
state/provincial/regional governments. Money is still scarce, and
chatter about military activism isnt
backed up by much:
Canada is engaged in a sad debate over the downgrading of the proposed Nanisivik
port; the United States icebreaker fleet is barely worth mentioning and shows little sign of new life in the near-term
Russias talk
about a greater Arctic presence has been greatly inflated for the sake of the recent elections. In a more
general sense, we have viciously polarized governments in the US and, to a lesser extent,
future; US Air Force assets are being moved 300+ miles south from Fairbanks to Anchorage; and
Canada, as well as numerous hotter wars elsewhere that will take the lions share of our blood and treasure
before the Arctic gets a drop of either.
Peaceful cooperation in arctic now economic cooperation

Alexeev 2/20 (Igor, Russian reporter, blogger, and journalist for the Strategic
Culture Foundation specializing in oil and gas politics, 2/20/13, Strategic Culture
Foundation, http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/02/20/economiccooperation-prevents-conflict-interests-in-arctic.html ) Okuno
New technologies and climate change have significantly raised the profile of Arctic
resources for the global economy. According to the Economist, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as
the rest of the planet. Many experts quoting Alfred T. Mahans work The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
will become an important geopolitical factor

over the next several decades. Prospects of political dominance in the Arctic provoke heated
debates sometimes overdramatised by the media. But realpolitik dictates that all
states concerned should rely on existing legal and institutional framework enabling
peaceful cooperation. Looking beyond the media hype we should admit that political tension
agree that seaborne commerce in the High North
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in the Arctic is low today.
Nevertheless, business competition may create challenges in the future. Luckily

the Arcitc Council has already established all necessary mechanisms to deliver credible and balanced regional
management. If we want to understand the Arctic better, the situation analysis should cover three important areas:
military aspects, legal environment and energy policy. Speaking about power politics the U.S.
military planners currently consider the Arctic to be an area of low conflict. Swedish
experts agree with American conclusions. Background paper Military Capabilities in the Arctic (SIPRI, 2012) says,
that power projection into the Arctic in 2010-2011 was very limited. The Arctic states maintain military presence in
There is no sign of military standoff along

the borders - the situation is stable and predictable. Therefore any extension of
NATOs engagement in the Arctic is counterproductive, because it could renew tensions
nonexistant since the end of the Cold War. As the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it in
2011, there is no reason for drawing NATO into Arctic affairs. The Arctic is a zone of peace now and
the region only to patrol and protect sovereign territories.
should remain so. From the legal point of view the status of the Arctic is already specified in the provisions of the
international law. The Arctic Council and the Ilulissat Declaration (Greenland, 2008) provide a solid institutional and
legal foundation for responsible management of the Arctic by the five coastal states. Under the Ilulissat declaration
any demarcation issues in the Arctic should be resolved on a bilateral basis between contesting parties. Besides, all
members of the Arctic Council except the U.S. ratified an important treaty -
Convention on the Law of the Sea
the United Nations
(UNCLOS). Norway and Denmark also made an official submission
Russia's final claim to a portion of the

Arctic shelf would be filed with the Comission by December 2013, according to Arthur
into the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Tchilingarov, the veteran explorer who led the expedition to plant a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole in
2007.
No risk of Arctic Conflict- Boundaries have been set up and no

one has attacked anyone
RT 11 [News source for Russian Politics Arctic not zone of interstate conflicts - Russian diplomat
October 13, 2011 http://rt.com/politics/arctic-russia-reserves-rights-785/ accessed on August 1, 2013]

JAKE LEE
The territories of the Arctic zone are already divided
and should not be a subject of
The
Russian diplomat said there have been no conflicts involving territorial
boundaries in the Arctic. "Concerning the continental shelf, no overlapping bids have been involved thus far,
dispute, Russia's special envoy and representative in the Arctic Council, Anton Vasilyev, said in an interview with Interfax.
Vasilyev said. Russia filed its bid in 2001 and is gathering additional scientific proof to support it. We have done enormous work in
Russian explorers traveled to the floor of the Arctic and

planted a Russian flag on the seabed 4,200m (14,000ft) below the North
Pole in an effort to prove that an underwater area, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, was an
extension of its continental territory. Russias successful mission sparked something of a
gold rush in the region, which is thought to contain oil, gas and mineral
reserves. We are playing by the rules and we are working in the
this connection. In May 2007,
institutions ,
specially set up for this purpose, Vasilyev, who spoke at the Arctic Future Symposium, organized by the
International Polar Foundation jointly with the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, told Interfax .
We can see that

our partners are doing the same." The Arctic resources already prospected
lie 95-97 percent within the zone of the Arctic states' sovereign rights, he
added. Norway's additional bid got the backing from the UN Continental
Shelf Commission in 2009, while Canada and Denmark could file their
additional bids, too, he said. "It is a normal process and these countries are working to provide substantiation for
their bids," Vasilyev said. The Russian special envoy then spoke about the difficulties of proving claims so far below one of the
there is no
conflict between the countries that have filed their bids for the continental
shelf already, or will probably do so, because according to the rules all of
us abide by, we are to prove the same thing, he said. Our proof and the
proof to be provided by our partners, involves an enormous amount of work, including the gathering of
scientific evidence which lies in the realm of logic and natural sciences physics, geology, etc." "But most
coldest places on Earth. "Contrary to some media reports and unconscientiously written commentaries,
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important, the members of the Arctic Five Denmark, Canada, Norway,

Russia and the United States have established a dialogue and we exchange data and inform each other of
the progress made in gathering additional proof to back our bids or in preparing new ones, he said.
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Arctic Adv - Exts #2 - No Escalation

Zero chance of conflict area is well-regulated
Mahoney 3/18 (Honor, is editor of the EU observer in Brussels and has also
written for The Irish Times, Sunday Business Post and Spiegel Online., 3/18/13, EU
Observer, http://euobserver.com/foreign/119479 ) Okuno
There is a general public perception that the Arctic region holds great potential for
conflict because it is an ungoverned region where all these resources are waiting to
be picked up by the one who gets there first. That is completely false," he said. He notes that it is an
" extremely well-regulated region ," with international rules saying that coastal
states have territorial jurisdiction up to 12 nautical miles off their coast. On top of that is a
further 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone " where you own every value in the water
and under the seabed." "Up to 97 percent of energy resources is actually belonging to someone already," says
He suggest the actors in the region all want to create a business environment,
which requires stable politics and security. But he concedes there are "risk factors." These include
Wang.
"ambiguous communication" (so that there is an impression of a security conflict), and possible fishing wars as fish
stocks move further north because of rising temperatures into areas with no fishing rules. A fall-out in relations
between the China and the US could also impact the Arctic region but the
"Arctic itself will not create
conflict ." As for the EU, it has been seeking to gain a foothold in the region. It
spends millions of euros each year on research, environmental and social
programmes in the Arctic area.
There would never be an Arctic Conflict well-regulated

RT 2012 (News source for Russian Politics, 9/12/12, Race for Arctic Resources
Shouldnt Spark New Cold War, http://rt.com/politics/arctic-resources-russia-gas972/ ) Okuno

With global demand for energy resources surging, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed
hopes that there will never be a war for resources or an even hotter conflict in
the Arctic Region. Foreign Ministry official Alexander Gorban expressed confidence that no such
conflict over resources would ever take place. "We are trying to fight for the Arctic shelf, but in
light of recent events involving the Shtokman field, [other sources of fuel] will prevail,"
Gorban told Interfax on Wednesday. Gazprom announced last month that its foreign partners were
withdrawing from the Shtokman project due to cost concerns. Other reasons for the
pullout include the shale gas revolution in the United States, which had been viewed as a
primary export market for Shtokman. Foreign companies like Total claimed that the project has not been canceled,
but simply postponed. Russia has been a pioneer in the research and development of Arctic fuel sources. In 2007,
a Russian expeditionary team made a daring 4,000-meter descent to the seabed of the Arctic Ocean a historic
first. The expedition aimed to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Russia's landmass. If
Russias
claims are validated, the find will increase the nation's claims on the continental
shelf by 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles). This area is said to hold some nine or
ten trillion tons of hydrocarbon reserves. There are five Arctic-bordering countries that have
laid claim to the vast deposits of natural resources deep below the regions frigid
waters: Russia, the United States (via Alaska), Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland). The United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives each nation a ten-year period to register a claim to their
If valid, each country would have exclusive rights to

resources on or below their areas seabed.
portion of the continental shelf.
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No Arctic conflict security measures

Dyer 2012 (Gwynn, Independent Journalist specializing in International Affairs,
8/2/12, The Sudbury Star, http://www.thesudburystar.com/2012/08/02/wars-unlikelyover-arctics-resources ) Okuno

In the Bering Strait, there is a treaty defining the seabed boundary between the U.S. and
Russia, but the Russian Duma has refused to ratify it. However, the legal uncertainty caused by
the dispute is likelier to deter future investment in drilling there than lead to war.
And there was the seabed boundary dispute between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea, which led Norway to
But last year the two countries signed a deal

dividing the disputed area and providing for joint exploitation of its resources. So no
war between NATO and the Russian Federation. Which leaves the fish, and its hard
to have a war over fish. If countries with Arctic coastlines want to preserve this resource, they can
only do so by creating an international body to regulate fishing . And they will have to let
other countries fish there too, with agreed catch limits. So no war over the Arctic . All we have
to worry about now is the ice is melting. But thats a problem for another day.
double the size of its navy over the past decade.
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Arctic Adv - Exts #4 - Ice melting

There will be no Arctic conflict- the ice is melting to fast
Dyer 12 [Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45
countries. Sorry, generals: No war over the warming Arctic August 4, 2012
http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/2251611-sorry-generals-no-war-over-the-warming-arctic
accessed on August 3, 2013] JAKE LEE
Arctic resources.
The ice is melting fast, and it was all the usual stuff about how there will
be big strategic conflicts over the seabed resources especially oil and
gas that become accessible when its gone. The media always love
conflict, and now the Cold War is long gone, theres no other potential
military confrontation between the great powers to worry about. Governments
around the Arctic Ocean are beefing up armed forces for the coming struggle, so where are the flashpoints
and what are the strategies? Its great fun to speculate about possible
wars. In the end I didnt do the interview because the Skype didnt work, so I didnt get the chance to rain on their parade. But
heres what I would said to the Russians. There are three separate resources in the Arctic.
On the surface, there are the sea lanes that are opening up to commercial
traffic along the northern coasts of Russia and Canada. Under the seabed,
there are potential oil and gas deposits that can be drilled once the ice
retreats. And in the water in between, there is the planets last unfished
ocean. The sea lanes are mainly a Canadian obsession, because the
government believes the North-West Passage that weaves between
Canadas Arctic islands will become a major commercial artery. Practically
every summer Prime Minister Stephen Harper travels north to declare his
determination to defend Canadas Arctic sovereignty from well, its not
clear from exactly whom, but its a great photo op. Canada is getting new
Arctic patrol vessels and building a deep-water naval port and Arctic warfare training
Russian television contacted me the other night asking me to go on a program about the race for
centre in the region, but its all much ado about nothing. The Arctic Ocean will increasingly be used as a shortcut between the North
Atlantic and the North Pacific, but the shipping will not go through Canadian waters. Russias Northern Sea Route will get the
Then theres the hydrocarbon deposits

under the Arctic seabed, which the U.S. Geological Survey has forecast
may contain almost one-fourth of the worlds remaining oil and gas
resources. But from a military point of view, theres only a problem if there is some disagreement about the seabed
traffic, because its already open and much safer to navigate.
boundaries. There are only four areas where the boundaries are disputed. Two are between Canada and its eastern and western
neighbours in Alaska and Greenland, but there is zero likelihood of a war between Canada and the United States or Denmark (which
is responsible for Greenlands defence).
In the Bering Strait, there is a treaty defining the

seabed boundary between the United States and Russia, signed in the
dying days of the Soviet Union, but the Russian Duma has refused to ratify
it. However, the legal uncertainty caused by the dispute is likelier to deter
future investment in drilling there than to lead to war. And then there was
the seabed boundary dispute between Norway and Russia in the Barents
Sea, which led Norway to double the size of its navy over the past decade. But last year the two countries signed an agreement
dividing the disputed area right down the middle and providing for joint exploitation of its resources. Which leaves the
fish, and its hard to have a war over fish. The danger is rather that the
worlds fishing fleets will crowd in and clean the fish out. If the countries with Arctic
coastlines want to preserve this resource, they can only do so by creating an international body to regulate the fishing. And they will
have to let other countries fish there too, with agreed catch limits, since it is mostly international waters. They will be driven to cooperate, in their own interests.
So no war over the Arctic. All we have to worry about
now is the fact that the ice IS melting, which will ultimately raise sea
levels worldwide by seven metres. But thats a problem for another day.
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***Bioterror
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Bioterrorism Advantage Frontline

First, Bioweapons cant spread wont cause epidemic
Bailey 13 (Regina Bailey is an About.com Guide who holds a bachelor's degree in biology from
Emory University, in Atlanta, Ga., Biological Weapons,
http://biology.about.com/od/biotechnologycloning/a/biological-weapons.htm, Website last updated
2013) Deng
Biological Weapons Biological weapons are toxic materials produced from pathogenic organisms (usually microbes) or artificially
manufactured toxic substances that are used to intentionally interfere with the biological processes of a host. These substances
work to kill or incapacitate the host. Biological weapons may be used to target living organisms such as humans, animals or
vegetation. They may also be used to contaminate nonliving substances such as air, water and soil. There are a variety of
microorganisms that can be used as biological weapons. Agents are commonly chosen because they are highly toxic, easily
obtainable and inexpensive to produce, easily transferable from person to person, can be dispersed in aerosol form, or have no
While it is possible to develop biological weapons from microbes ,

finding a means of distributing the substances is difficult . One
possible way is through aerosols. This can be ineffective as the materials often get
clogged when spraying. Biological agents distributed by air may also be
destroyed by UV light or rain may wash them away. Another method of
distribution may be to attach the toxins to a bomb so that they may be released
upon explosion. The problem with this is that the microbes will most likely be
destroyed by the explosion as well.
known vaccine.
typically bacteria,
And, bioweapon defense is getting better - solves the impact

to an attack
Soligenex 13 (Soligenex Inc. is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company
focused on developing products to treat inflammatory diseases and biodefense

countermeasures, BioDefense and Emerging Diseases,
http://www.soligenix.com/prod_def.shtml, Website last updated 2013) Deng
Since 2001, a new sense of vulnerability to radiation, infectious diseases, toxins and chemical agents has
generated significant research and development efforts to identify and produce innovative
therapies and means to protect against threats that could be used as biological weapons. There is a
growing need for products that protect the population against such agents of bioterrorism, as well as against emerging infectious
diseases that could arise through natural epidemics. With very few exceptions, such products do not exist, and those that are
available for current deployment are based on outdated and sometimes ineffective technologies. Many of these products will only be
Products to combat biological warfare or bioterrorism will be

supplied to the population from medicines stored in the US Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).
The federal government has previously established a special fund to acquire
biological warfare countermeasures (termed Project Bioshield ), which
allocated $5.6 billion over a 10-year period to acquire products for the SNS. Realizing that many of these
used in the event of an emergency.
countermeasures do not yet exist, the US government has recently established the Biomedical Advanced Research and
Development Authority (BARDA). The existence of BARDA creates a situation in which products arising from research, primarily
sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can be prioritized and then developed for
Soligenix, Inc.
is addressing the development of products and technologies that can be
used to protect against several biological threats considered agents of
bioterrorism, consistent with biological warfare threats and emerging diseases that the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the NIH, has identified as high priorities. Soligenix is developing
several potential products to prevent morbidity and mortality due to the
threat of biological toxins for which preventive vaccination is the most
feasible means to protect a susceptible population. This approach is being taken because the
large-scale manufacturing and clinical evaluation, and ultimately acquisition of the product for the SNS.
known mechanism of protection against toxin exposure is mediated through antibodies in the serum or present on mucosal surfaces
Soligenix's process for product

development of biodefense products is highly cooperative with
government funding, since the government itself will be the final supplier
that can be elicited by vaccination with subunit immunogens.
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of the products. Currently, Soligenix is operating under a $9.4 million

grant award from NIAID, which will fund, over a five-year period, the development of formulation and
manufacturing processes for vaccines, including RiVax (ricin toxin vaccine), and VeloThrax (anthrax
vaccine) that are stable at elevated temperatures. The grant will also fund the development of improved thermostable adjuvants
expected to result in rapidly acting vaccines that can be given with fewer injections over shorter intervals. In addition, Soligenix is
expanding the range of applicability of its lead product, oral beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP), referred to as OrbeShield, for
gastrointestinal Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS).
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Bioterror Adv - Exts #1 - No attack - Al Qaeda

No risk of Al Qaeda attack
Stewart 11 (Scott 1/8/11 Why Al Qaeda is Unlikely to Execute Another 9/11
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110831-why-al-qaeda-unlikely-execute-another911) Scullion
Since we published our 2011 forecast, bin Laden has been killed as well as senior al
Qaeda leader Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who reportedly died in a strike by a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle
Aug. 22 in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. We continue to believe that the al Qaeda core group
is off balance and concerned for its security -- especially in light of the
intelligence gathered in the raid on bin Laden's hideout. The core group simply
does not enjoy the operational freedom it did prior to September 2001. We also
believe the group no longer has the same operational capability in terms of international travel and the ability to
transfer money that it had prior to 9/11. Some people believe there is a greater chance of an attack on this year's
9/11 anniversary because of the killing of bin Laden, while others note that al-Zawahiri may feel pressure to
al
Qaeda has been doing its utmost to attack the United States and has not
pulled any punches. Because of this, we do not believe it possesses the ability to increase this effort
conduct an attack in order to prove his credibility as al Qaeda's new leader. Our belief, as noted above, is that
beyond where it was prior to bin Laden's death. As to the pressure on al-Zawahiri, we noted in December 2007 that
the al Qaeda core had been under considerable pressure to prove itself relevant for several years and that, despite
this pressure, had yet to deliver. Because of this, we do not believe that the pressure to conduct a successful attack
is any heavier on al-Zawahiri today than it was prior to bin Laden's death. Finally, we believe that if al Qaeda
possessed the capability to conduct a spectacular attack it would launch the attack as soon as it was operationally
ready, rather than wait for some specific date. The risk of discovery is simply too great.
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***Disease
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Disease Advantage Frontline

1 - Advances in vaccine technology solve disease extinction
McCullers 2008 [Jonathan, MD, Adjunct faculty at St Jude Childrens Research Hospital, Chair
of the Department of Pediatrics at University of Tennessee, Pediatrician in Chief at Le Bonheur
Childrens Hospital, National Center for Biotechnology Information, January 2008,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730064/] Bak
The discovery of vaccines has led to the near eradication of several important diseases and has had a tremendous impact on health for a relatively low
cost. However, most vaccines in use today were developed by techniques that were pioneered more than 100 years ago and do not represent the full
The introduction of genetic engineering has fueled rapid

advances in vaccine technology and is now leading to the entry of new
products in the marketplace. In the past, options for the utilization of vaccines in the area of managed care had been
potential of the field.
quite limited because of the historically straightforward application of immunizations. The growing number and type of vaccine targets, coupled with
novel, more effective formulations, adjuvants, and routes of delivery for vaccines, will undoubtedly create new challenges. Although progress in vaccine
technology has the potential to prevent illness and reduce the economic burden of diseases in the long term, thereby improving outcomes, ongoing
problems remain in the short term. Who should and will pay for these anticipated improvements in health? How will this period of change be managed?
This article describes the present vaccine revolution and attempts to answer these questions, which are becoming increasingly important in managed
Universal
immunization against certain diseases has led to the eradication of
smallpox and has almost completely eliminated many other infectious
agents in the U.S., including those causing diphtheria, tetanus,
poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and Haemophilus influenzae type
b invasive disease.1 However, many other diseases, including the three biggest killershuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, tuberculosis, and
care.The advent of vaccines to prevent deadly childhood illnesses was one of the great success stories of the 20th century.
malariahave not yet been adequately targeted by a vaccine effective enough to achieve a similar outcome. In addition, some common vaccinepreventable diseases such as influenza and pertussis continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality, primarily in adults, because of the under-
Recent advances in vaccine technology

stemming from the application of genetic engineering are now providing
an opportunity to target new diseases. The previous centurys successes in reducing the primary causes of
utilization or ineffectiveness of available vaccines.2,3
mortality in childhood now include protecting against infectious agents that can result in significant morbidity. Scientific progress and these broadened
applications will no doubt result in improved health-based outcomes, but progress often comes at a significant short-term cost. Although it is true that
improved outcomes are the goal of health care technology and that preventing disease is preferable to treatment, thus reducing overall costs, confusion
persists about the best course going forward. Given the current underutilization of vaccines (even when patients have no copayments) and the expanding
use of vaccines to cover morbidity rather than mortality, managed care organizations (MCOs) are confronted with several questions, particularly in terms
of benefits, reimbursement, and formulary management. To accept the newer vaccine technology, MCOs will require not only improved mortality data but
also cost-efficacy data with long-term proven outcomes accompanied by lower medical and pharmacy expenses. For example, the use of new vaccines for
human papillomavirus (HPV) must result in fewer cases of cervical cancer as well as in reduced cost savings in related medical expenses, such as for Pap
smears and colposcopies. In this way, a manufacturer might be able to differentiate its product from a competing one. For several years, cost efficacy has
been used to evaluate other classes of injectable vaccines, and it is a good method of comparing products when no head-to-head studies have been
conducted. MCOs are beginning to analyze data involving comparisons of outlays for resources for specific outcomes, such as adverse events and
hospitalizations. Most vaccines in use today were developed by one of two classic methods. In the 19th century, Salmon and Smith pioneered the
inactivation of an organism and the injection of immunogenic components.4 The attenuation of live organisms, as first attempted by Louis Pasteur,5 was
adapted to modern vaccine technology by Enders et al. in the 1950s.6 All but three vaccines in the currently recommended immunization schedule in the
U.S.those directed against hepatitis B virus, rotavirus, and HPVare manufactured according to these techniques. In the 1970s, a pair of key discoveries
the expression of proteins in plasmids and the ability to sequence DNAushered in the era of genetic engineering.7,8 A decade later, in 1986, these
techniques were used to develop the first recombinant vaccine, the hepatitis B vaccine.9 Recombinant technology enables the target antigen to be
produced outside the context of the parent organism, such that no live, infectious agents or potentially toxic components of those agents need to be
handled. As a result, the quantity of antigen produced, the vaccines safety, and the purity of the product are improved; efficacy is increased; costs are
reduced; and potential side effects are minimized. Since the advent of the hepatitis B vaccine in 1998, one recombinant vaccine, LYMErix, has been
approved. Although LYMErix was effective against Lyme disease in adults,10 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) withdrew this product in 2002 because of declining
sales and negative publicity.11 This outcome has dampened enthusiasm for further development of human vaccines against Lyme disease, but it has not
had an adverse impact on the prospects for creating a vaccine that uses a similar strategy of a recombinant protein against other infectious agents. Many
other recombinant vaccines are currently being evaluated in clinical trials to determine their activity against such varied targets as malaria, hookworm,
cytomegalovirus, parvovirus, and anthrax.12 The second major advance in the 1980s was in the area of adjuvantation. Adjuvants are used to improve the
presentation of an antigen to the immune system or to enhance its immunogenicity. The only adjuvants currently approved in the U.S. for the concomitant
use with vaccines are the mineral salts calcium phosphate and alum.13 Mineral salts are still used in some inactivated vaccines, but their effectiveness is
modest at best. For example, aluminum salts were included in early influenza vaccine formulations but were removed when the vaccines showed
comparable immunogenicity in the absence of these salts.14 In 1987, however, the application of conjugation as a method of adjuvantation led to the
approval of a highly effective vaccine against H. influenzae type b, a leading cause of invasive infections, including meningitis, in children.15
Polysaccharide-based vaccines in general are poorly immunogenic, particularly in small children, because of a lack of T-cell help for the B-celldependent
antibody response. Conjugating polysaccharides to a toxoid carrier converts these antigens from T-independent to T-dependent antigens, thus improving
overall immunogenicity and lengthening the period of effectiveness.16 The success of this approach has led to the development of other polysaccharide
conjugate vaccines, including Prevnar (Wyeth), a 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine approved in the U.S. in 2000, and Menactra (Sanofi-Pasteur), a
quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine licensed in the U.S. in 2004. A vaccine directed against the serotypes of Salmonella typhi, which is responsible for
typhoid fever, is now being studied.12 The ongoing problem of suboptimal immunogenicity of protein-based vaccines, coupled with the success of
conjugation for polysaccharide-based vaccines, is driving a search for new vaccine adjuvants. We predict that the development of virtually all vaccines
Entire viral genomes can now be

cloned into bacterial or yeast vectors, allowing manipulation of genes
prior to rescue, or regeneration of infectious organisms in culture.
These techniques enable the rapid custom design of organisms for use in
vaccines. Influenza virus vaccines can serve as an example. The surface proteins from circulating strains can be cloned into plasmids and are
licensed from this point forward will involve some form of genetic engineering.
co-expressed with a set of backbone genes responsible for high growth in eggs but attenuation in humans, allowing the production of safe, high-yield
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vaccines.17 Undesirable traits, such as the multibasic cleavage site found in the main attachment protein of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, can
be edited out at the DNA level before rescue of the virus, further enhancing safety.18 The use of plasmid-based methods also has the potential to hasten
production of reassortant vaccines (i.e., vaccines from viruses created by combining genes from more than one organism or strain). The current process
for making influenza vaccine relies on selecting appropriate vaccine strains from among many candidates generated by chance, whereas molecular
methods allow complete control over the output, eliminating several steps in the generation of seed stocks.17 A variety of virus types, engineered by
these methods to be safe in humans, are being used to express immunogenic foreign proteins outside of the context of the virulent parent organism. As an
example, adenoviruses in which critical virulence genes are deleted have been used to express proteins from HIV19 and are being utilized in clinical trials
for many other pathogens such as the Ebola virus and malaria.12 It may be possible to create vaccine cocktails directed against several different
pathogens by inserting multiple proteins into a single vector or by mixing several vaccines made with the same viral vector but expressing different
proteins.20 It is also possible to deliver the immunogenic proteins without using a replication-competent, live virus. Virus-like particles (VLPs) are selfassembling constructs that express a viral antigen, but they do not contain the necessary material to replicate. This technology was used to develop
Gardasil, Mercks vaccine to protect against HPV, approved in 2006.21 In conjunction with new technology for vaccines, adjuvants are also needed. New
compounds may enhance immunogenicity quantitatively, by increasing the levels of protective immune responses, and qualitatively, by eliciting
responses from different arms of the immune system or by broadening the scope of covered immunogens. This advance has the potential to improve
overall outcomes and achieve cost-savings by allowing lower doses to be used and, possibly, by eliminating or postponing the need for booster injections.
Although no new adjuvants have been approved in the U.S. since the original licensing of the mineral salts, several compounds appear close to being
approved. The squalene-containing, oil-in-water emulsion adjuvant MF59 from Novartis has been approved in Europe for use in influenza vaccines targeted
to the elderly population.22 In a clinical trial in humans, another oil-in-water emulsion from GSK enhanced the immunogenicity of a potential pandemic
influenza vaccine. This vaccine enabled the dose to be reduced, and it induced responses that were cross-reactive in several clades (distinct virus
groupings).23Clinical trials of GSKs VLP-based HPV vaccine Cervarix have shown similar cross-protective responses to subtypes not included in the
vaccine, which might be attributable to the novel adjuvant ASO4.21,24,25 The ability of certain adjuvants to enhance the levels of memory B cells and
antibodies, in some cases to numbers much higher than those seen with natural infection,26 has implications for the longevity of the response as well. In
one study comparing ASO4 plus alum with alum alone against HPV, significantly higher antibody titers were observed when ASO4 was included.26 This
advantage was maintained during long-term follow-up. These dual benefitsextending the time that antibody levels are maintained above the threshold
required for neutralization of the organism and enhancing the capacity of the patient to respond to a booster immunizationare important for future
planning and estimating costs. However, we need to better define the correlates of immunity for specific vaccines. The threshold necessary for
neutralization differs among various organisms; knowing this parameter and other related measures is desirable and sometimes necessary. Advances in
vaccine technology necessitate concomitant advances in vaccine immunology. Considering the rising costs of research and development, another
desirable feature of adjuvants is their ability to be paired with multiple antigens so that they can be included in different vaccines. For example, ASO4 has
been studied in conjunction with both hepatitis B and HPV vaccines.26 This capability can reduce the vaccines developmental costs and the time to
market. With each new adjuvant and each new combination of adjuvant and vaccine, the advantages of increased immunogenicity, longevity, and perhaps
broadened coverage of strains must be balanced with the potential for increased reactogenicity. In this context, reactogenicity refers to the generally
undesirable effects of the vaccine, typically mediated by the immune response to the vaccine rather than by the products direct toxicological effects.
Redness or swelling at an injection site are two common examples. Despite this rapid technical progress, vaccines were not on the radar screen for
managed care before some of the recent product launches. Previously, the extent of managed cares involvement was limited to assisting in acquiring
supplies for some integrated systems, working with quality on Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures, and participating in
clinics and health fairs. However, the advent of newer vaccines that target diseases causing morbidity rather than mortality in the U.S. (e.g., rotavirus or
herpes zoster) is encouraging MCOs to perform more clinical and economic analyses in order to ensure that their investments in vaccination are being
maximized. The entry of the live attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist (MedImmune) into the market in 2004 and the anticipated introduction of a second
HPV vaccine (Cervarix, GSK) present new challenges. These products target essentially the same disease processes as those targeted by vaccines already
approved, but they differ in their approach and, potentially, in their clinical effectiveness. The availability of similar products is relatively new in the world
of vaccines, and MCOs will have to evaluate them closely in terms of their efficacy, safety, and economic impact. For example, the question confronting
MCOs, in view of the HPV vaccine (Gardasil), as well as ASO4, and MF59, is whether the potential of lower reactogenicity from an established adjuvant is
more important than the potential for a stronger and possibly more durable immunogenic response. Ultimately, we might simply derive the answer if we
know which product provides better protection against the HPV types most commonly linked to cervical cancer in a cost-effective manner. These types of
analyses place a greater value on cost-effectiveness, clinical, and budget-impact data for the newer vaccinesdata that have been lacking in the past.
Although short-term benefits offer immediate returns to MCOs, it would be irresponsible for these health plans to focus exclusively on these benefits and
deny coverage of vaccines in an effort to save money. Such restrictions place the broader population at risk, and they may have the unintended
consequence of damaging a companys reputation. Further, a focus on short-term benefits puts health plans at a disadvantage in terms of competing for
participants during enrollment; most plans offer broad vaccine coverage, although there might be restrictions based on product labels, guidelines, or age
limitations. Another way to increase the value of future vaccines would be to quantify both the possible short-term and long-term cost offsets attributable
to the availability of the specific product. Again, because it is crucial that MCOs not waste money, the emphasis should be on outcomes and costeffectiveness. In concert with the advances in vaccine engineering and adjuvantation, novel routes of delivery are also being investigated. Intradermal
delivery directly to an environment rich in antigen-presenting cells (APCs) is considered to be a dose-sparing measure for several vaccines, including those
used for HIV and influenza.27 Needle-free variants of this route, such as trans-dermal patches and electroporation, are also being tested for conditions as
diverse as influenza, travelers diarrhea, and melanoma.12,28,29 Mucosal delivery, which has the advantage of not requiring a needle, is already being
used for several vaccines. The live, attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist is given as a nasal spray, and the rotavirus vaccine, licensed in the U.S in 2006, is
delivered orally.30,31 The mucosal route of delivery may contribute to the heterovariant cross-protection seen with both of these vaccines by inducing
broader immunity, including mucosal immunoglobulin A. Mucosal delivery is also being studied for several other potential vaccines directed against
diseases such as HIV infection and tuberculosis.12 In the past, MCOs tended not to pay a premium for convenience alone. If an alternative (needle-free)
route of delivery is associated with improved outcomes, such a premium might be worth the additional investment. The demand for vaccines by
employers and physicians is also an important consideration. Individual health plan members and small employers might be less willing to cover the cost
of new vaccines because of the possibly significant impact on premiums. Small employers with a pool of healthy young employees might not be interested
in covering vaccines for disease states with poorly documented short-term benefits. With the arrival of many new biologic agents and vaccines, as well as
the future role of genomics, the traditional model of medical coverage may need to evolve. The questions of how these innovations will be funded and who
will fund them may become more fluid. In the past, the question of whether different vaccines created an equivalent reduction in morbidity and mortality
for the same cost was not asked; however, this question needs to be addressed. Many payment and reimbursement structuresranging from universal
coverage, effective from the first dollar, to differing levels of reimbursement, such as a standard coverage (100%) versus a nonstandard benefit (a 20%
plan member copayment)will be analyzed and reviewed by those responsible for funding these advances. Again, documented clinical and financial
outcomes and targeted disease states will be playing a significant role in determining how health plans approach the placement of vaccine products. The
role of activism and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) guidelines will remain important variables. This is because many health
plans routinely follow the ACIPs recommendations; if this reviewing body begins to cover certain vaccines or populations, many plans will probably follow
those guidelines. The success of vaccines against childhood diseases has created enthusiasm for researching additional targets. Mercks Gardasil was the
first vaccine licensed with a primary indication to prevent cervical cancer. A second HPV vaccine, Cervarix is being considered for licensure in the U.S.
Other preventive cancer vaccines are also in development, many of which are in clinical trials,12 and therapeutic vaccines designed to treat or ameliorate
different types of cancer after it has occurred are also being pursued. Therapeutic vaccines for chronic infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, HIV, and
cytomegalovirus are being studied, as are vaccines designed to halt or reverse the progression of Alzheimers disease.12,32 Even with these new goals
and with the trend of therapeutic vaccines moving toward targeting morbidity rather than mortality, we must still ask: How should efficacy be analyzed?
Although 100% efficacy is rarely seen, products with the greatest clinical impact on the broadest population have been favored. With some of the newer
agents, this criterion might not remain as important. For instance, if a vaccine works in a portion of the population and that segment can be identified, an
MCO might direct the products use to ensure its appropriateness for that segment. If a screening tool or a laboratory value can narrow the pool of patients
to those who are most likely to benefit from a vaccine, an MCO might use controls (e.g., prior authorizations) to ensure that the most appropriate patients
are being targeted with that tool or lab value, thereby resulting in improved success and in protection of the companys financial investment. As more
costly vaccines enter the market, the financial implications for health plans and physicians will become more pronounced. The debate over who will pay
and how much will be paid will only intensify. Vaccines remain the single best investment in health care,33 but the costs associated with the increasing
options are beginning to strain both public and private systems. Most health plans have liberal coverage and reimbursement policies for vaccines, and this
approach is considered to offer a good return on investment. As we mentioned earlier, this traditional approach may be re-examined in some areas, with
many alternative options to be explored. With most of these alternatives, one goal remains: making sure that the best vaccines reach the right patients
with few impediments. For physicians, the introduction of newer vaccines has led to a greater number of nontraditional vaccinators, such as pharmacies
and businesses traditionally outside the health care system that are now becoming acquainted with, and challenged by, the financial implications.
Expectations about reimbursement levels and profitability may need to be addressed to ensure that all parties involvedhealth plans, physicians,
employers, and patientsfeel their contribution is significant. In 2007, the immunization schedule for children was already crowded; 15 different vaccines
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were recommended for children from birth to six years of age, and 14 were recommended for older children, seven to 18 years of age. Many of these
vaccines are administered multiple times, and adults may need additional boosters. The development and approval of new vaccines against infectious
diseases, as well as other potential uses for them, are likely to exacerbate this problem. A desire to simplify the regimen is fueling a trend toward
combination vaccines. Although many combined vaccines have been used historically (e.g., diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus), new combinations are
being approved for children (e.g., pentavalent vaccines such as GSKs Pediarix [diphtheria, acellular pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B, and inactivated polio
vaccine]) and for adults (e.g., GSKs Twinrix for hepatitis A and B). The main challenge will be to balance immunogenicity in the newer formulations while
maintaining their benefits of easier administration and lower costs. In this regard, adherence is likely to be a key issue in the future. If it can be shown that
a product improves compliance and clinical outcomes while reducing costs, that vaccine may benefit from preferential positioning by health plans. For
instance, Happe et al., using data from SelectHealth, retrospectively compared children receiving the HEDIS Combination 2 vaccine series with those
receiving each vaccine series individually.34 By two years of age, children in the combination cohort were more likely to have been fully vaccinated, and
vaccinated within the recommended age ranges, than children receiving each series individually (86.9% vs. 74.1%, P < 0.001; 45.2% vs. 37.5%, P = 0.001
respectively). Additional studies with data indicating improved compliance rates and outcomes support the value of this technological advancement.
Vaccines exemplify the premise behind managed care to promote wellness and prevent disease while also avoiding unnecessary treatment-related costs.
The benefits of childhood vaccines in reducing mortality alone are undeniable.1 However, the costbenefit relationship for the new generation of vaccines
that can target reductions in morbidity or prevent rare and costly illnesses such as cancer is less clear. The promise of a brighter future is motivation up to
a point; eventually, however, as the health care dollar is stretched, proven results, both clinical and financial, will be required. In health care, there is an
increasing awareness of the need to look at the bigger picture and to have less siloing between pharmacy and medical divisions. Most organizations
that practice evidence-based medicine acknowledge that both pharmacy and medical dollars often need to be spent in order to realize improved overall
outcomes and reduced long-term expenses. One obstacle that affects this investment is the phenomenon of continuous enrollment in areas of the
community with high competition for plan enrollees. If one plan invests liberally in vaccine benefits but a competitor does not, is the plan making the
investment placed at a disadvantage in terms of premiums? Community-wide standards, agreed upon by health plans, employers, and physicians, would
need to address this matter and ensure that all parties act in concert through their investments in the short-term and long-term health of the community.
Rapid advances in our understanding of the immune system and our

desire to engineer both preventive and therapeutic vaccines for a wide
spectrum of diseases are fueling changes in medicine and in the managed
care industry. There will be a growing emphasis on providing evidence-based medicine demonstrating tangible, long-term clinical benefits
and cost effectiveness. There will always be a need to balance cost, efficacy, and choice, and our advancements in science will force all parties to alter
their approaches to treatment.
2- Disease cant cause extinction Burnout theory

Gerber 2005 [Leah, PhD, Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Science
Ecological Society of America, August 2005,
https://labs.eemb.ucsb.edu/kuris/armand/pubs/Gerber_etal_05_EA.pdf] Bak
A fundamental
principle of epidemiology is that the spread of an infectious disease through a population
is a function of the density of both susceptible and infectious hosts. If infectious
agents are supportable by the host species of conservation interest, the impact of a
pathogen on a declining population is likely to decrease as the host population
declines. A pathogen will spread when, on average, it is able to transmit to a
susceptible host before an infected host dies or eliminates the infection (Kermack and
McKendrick 1927, Anderson and May 1991). If the parasite affects the reproduction or mortality
of its host, or the host is able to mount an immune response, the parasite population may eventually
reduce the density of susceptible hosts to a level at which the rate of parasite
increase is no longer positive. Most epidemiological models indicate that there is a host threshold
The density of a population is an important parameter for both PVA and hostpathogen theory.
density (or local population size) below which a parasite cannot invade, suggesting that rare or depleted species
should be less subject to host-specific disease. This has implications for small, yet increasing, populations. For
example, although endangered species at low density may be less susceptible to a disease outbreak, recovery to
higher densities places them an increasing risk of future disease-related decline (e.g., southern sea otters; Gerber
et al. 2004). In the absence of stochastic factors (such as those modeled in PVA), and given the usual assumption of
the chance that a susceptible host will become infected is

proportional to the density of infected hosts (the mass action assumption) a host- specific
pathogen cannot drive its host to extinction (McCallum and Dobson 1995). Extinction in the
disease models that
absence of stochasticity is possible if alternate hosts (sometimes called reservoir hosts) relax the extent to which
transmission depends on the density of the endangered host species. Similarly, if transmission occurs at a rate
proportional to the frequency of infected hosts relative to uninfected hosts (see McCallum et al. 2001), endangered
hosts at low density may still face the threat of extinction by disease. These possibilities suggest that the
complexities characteristic of many real host pathogen systems may have very direct implications for the recovery
of rare endangered specie of extinction by disease. These possibilities suggest that the complexities characteristic
of many real hostpathogen systems may have very direct implications or the recovery of rare endangered species,
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3- No solvency for impacts---New infectious diseases will

always appear and quicker than medical tech advances
Bransfield 01 (Dr. Robert Carroll Bransfield M.D. The Neuropsychiatric Assessment of Lyme
Disease. February 1, 2001. http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/tnaold.html ) Ji
Microbes evolve faster than people. For this reason, infectious disease will always
exist. Many poorly understood diseases were later found to have an infectious disease basis. Infectious agents are continually
evolving. New organisms are being recognized, and old ones develop new
capabilities. As we develop new therapeutic agents, microbes evolve
defenses against this technology. We are seeing increasing problems with
infectious disease in humans and animals. Why? Are we losing ground in the "arms war"? Is this due
to increased exposure to otherwise remote part of the globe? Is it a natural cycle of infectious disease? Is it a result of a declining
global environment? Has the irresponsible use of technology contributed to this problem? Why is Lyme disease more prevalent now?
How much of what is called "Lyme disease" is some other infectious disease? Could some of these patients be infected with
seronegative syphilis? What can we do to reduce the number of infected ticks in our environment?
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Disease Adv - Exts #1 - Vaccines check

Constant improvements in vaccines solve disease extinction
past proves
Greenwood and Pisani 4/18 [Jim, President and CEO of Biotechnology Industry
Organization, Director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers &
Associations, The Hill, April 18 2013, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/294505-thepromise-of-vaccines-for-preventing-and-eradicating-disease] Bak
During the last three decades, the biopharmaceutical industry has invested
significantly in new and improved vaccines. The results have provided remarkable
new ways to prevent cases of cervical cancer, meningitis, pneumonia, pandemic
influenza, and rotavirus diseases. The collaborative efforts of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), national governments and
industry have led to major progress in addressing global immunization goals and
reducing illness and death due to vaccine-preventable diseases. According to the WHO,
immunizations prevent between two and three million deaths each year.
Thanks to polio eradication efforts, for example, the WHO estimates that more than eight
million people are walking today who would otherwise be paralyzed, and the incidence
of polio has declined by 99.8 percent. In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles
caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths annually. The WHO reports that the number has
dropped by 71 percent, thanks to vaccinations. Vaccines do not just save lives, they also save
money. The CDC estimates that for every dollar spent in the U.S. on pediatric vaccines, we save $10.20. In fact, the
U.S. saves almost $70 million in direct and indirect costs each year as a result of the pediatric vaccination program.
In 2005, Harvard University scientists calculated that spending on the GAVI Alliances program to expand vaccine
coverage would deliver a rate of return of 18 percent by 2020, higher than most other health preventions. The
Gates Foundation, meanwhile, has found that just three vaccines HIB, pneumococcal and rotavirus have the
capacity to save $63 billion annually. Although
vaccinations are among the most cost-effective
health interventions developed,
vaccine development is a highly complex, lengthy, expensive and highrisk venture. Despite that hurdle, the research and development pipeline is robust. According to BIO Ventures for
there are more than 200 vaccines in development targeting 23 neglected

diseases that disproportionately affect the poorest countries, such as dengue,
cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis. As science expands and our world shrinks, we
have unrealized opportunities to reach and save greater numbers of people. We
have the power to increase the availability of vaccinations to respond to a wider
variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases.
Global Health,
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Disease Adv - Exts #2 - No extinction

Disease cant cause extinction Lethal diseases burnout
quickly
Carlson 2006 [Shawn, PhD, MacArthur Fellow, Founder and Executive Director for Society of
Amateur Scientists, Creator of LABRats, The Tribe, April 2 2006,
http://tribes.tribe.net/freedomguardians/thread/084f5b5c-379c-487a-a99d-c9ca6d386951] Bak
Forrest M. Mims III has reported in a Special Feature in The Citizen Scientist ("Meeting Dr. Doom," 31 March 2006)
on a lecture he recently heard at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science. The Academy chose to honor one
Professor Eric R. Pianka, an eminent ecologist
who studies desert ecologies, with its 2006

Distinguished Texas Scientist Scientist award. Professor Pianka used the occasion to champion the notion,
apparently without sanction of the Academy, that the Earth can only be saved if ninety percent of the human beings
alive today are purged form the planet. He championed airborne Ebola as the most efficient virus to accomplish
this. And while he stopped short of calling for terrorist action to bring this result about, he clearly implied that this
was a right and proper future for our species and our planet. Astonishingly, after advocating for a future in which
more than 5,000,000,000 persons would die a slow and agonizing death, many members of the Texas Academy of
Science stood to their feet and applauded. I want to answer two questions here. Do academic institutions like the
Texas Academy of Science have a duty to provide Professor Pianka a forum to advance these ideas? And what might
the consequences be of allowing him to do so? My answer to the first question is a resounding "no." Furthermore, I
am convinced that continuing to allow Professor Pianka unfettered access to impressionable students could one day
lead to a loss of life that could make the Killing Fields of Southeast Asia look like a picnic ground. Let me explain.
First, do Pianka's opinions deserve protection under the rubric of academic freedom? Well, that depends on whether
this ideas are truly academicthat is, that they are consistent with the best understanding of our world that science
has established. Now consider Pianka's arguments. Pianka claims that the natural world would be "better off" if
there weren't so many humans. To see if that's true, we have to figure out just what constitutes the "natural world"?
As an evolutionist, I see human beings as the products of the same natural forces that shaped all other life on earth.
Our brains evolved on this planet subject to the same kinds of natural selection pressures as those that shaped
peacock feathers. The same can be said of all of our social structures, our religions and every other aspect of what
we are that helped us secure resources and propagate our species (the hammer and anvil of natural selection). In
short, our institutions and our technology are every bit as much a part of the natural world as elk mating rituals and
beaver dams. In fact, by evolving the ability to adapt the world to fit us , human beings have become better at
securing resources and procreating than any other vertebrate on the planet. By this measure, we are evolution's
most successful creation (amongst vertebrates). If extraterrestrials were asked to select nature's most successful
vertebrate on the Earth they would certainly point to us. So it seems very strange to me for an evolutionist to
identify one of evolution's most successful creations as somehow operating outside the natural order. To do so is to
deny this undeniable truth of evolution. Pianka, however, is an evolutionist who believes that humanity is not part
of the natural world. Somehow, the fact our evolution led us to a point whereby we can adapt our environment to
our bodies, rather than wait for our bodies to adapt to our environment, puts us in an inferior position in nature. In
his mind, Homo sapiens are the despoilers, the corruptors of the natural order. This viewpoint is every bit as
anthropocentric as those who would place humans in a superior position, saying that we are the "pinnacle of
evolution" or "chosen by God." Only instead of lauding humanity's position in nature, Pianka denigrates it. Evolution
supports neither camp. Pianka is, of course, free to ignore the evidence and believe that humanity is, as he says,
the "scourge" on the natural world. But this is a political opinion based on some vision he holds in his mind about
the way the world ought to be. It is not a scientific fact. Indeed, it is a glaring scientific fallacy. Pianka also argues
that human beings are now so densely populated that they provide an idea vector for disease transmission, and he
expects that microbes will "ultimately purge the Earth of the scourge of humanity."
(Personal correspondence with Forrest Mims.) The data stand utterly against
this idea. Plagues have run rampant through human populations throughout time.
Millions have died. Huge fractions of some populations have been wiped out. But the net death rate has
never come close to the fractions that Pianka envisions. Virulent diseases that kill
quickly tend to burn themselves out. Natural selection creates less lethal
varieties because an organism can't spread if it kills its host before it can propagate.
The flu pandemic of 1918 (the influenza virus is championed by Pianka) may have killed 50 million people, but that
was only about 5 percent of those infected. Moreover, every year sees medical advancementsscreening
techniques improve, as do our methods of creating new vaccines and treating illness of all kinds. Not only that, a
desperate situation would be met by desperate measures, including the implementation of martial law, the halting
In short, there is no
historical precedent that supports the notion that humanity could be ninety percent
depopulated by a single disease. Moreover, as time goes on and our technology and awareness grows,
of all air and ground traffic except for emergency vehicles and so on, to stop contagion.
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the risk to humanity is steadily falling. Professor Pianka can believe that microbes will depopulate the earth if he
wants, and such alarmist nonsense by some Ph.D.s sells lots of books. However, Pianka's viewpoint runs contrary to
the best science.
NDI 2013
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Disease Adv - Exts #3 - Diseases inevitable

Disease cant cause extinction Lethal diseases burnout
quickly
Carlson 2006 [Shawn, PhD, MacArthur Fellow, Founder and Executive Director for Society of
Amateur Scientists, Creator of LABRats, The Tribe, April 2 2006,
http://tribes.tribe.net/freedomguardians/thread/084f5b5c-379c-487a-a99d-c9ca6d386951] Bak
Forrest M. Mims III has reported in a Special Feature in The Citizen Scientist ("Meeting Dr. Doom," 31 March 2006)
on a lecture he recently heard at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science. The Academy chose to honor one
Professor Eric R. Pianka, an eminent ecologist
who studies desert ecologies, with its 2006

Distinguished Texas Scientist Scientist award. Professor Pianka used the occasion to champion the notion,
apparently without sanction of the Academy, that the Earth can only be saved if ninety percent of the human beings
alive today are purged form the planet. He championed airborne Ebola as the most efficient virus to accomplish
this. And while he stopped short of calling for terrorist action to bring this result about, he clearly implied that this
was a right and proper future for our species and our planet. Astonishingly, after advocating for a future in which
more than 5,000,000,000 persons would die a slow and agonizing death, many members of the Texas Academy of
Science stood to their feet and applauded. I want to answer two questions here. Do academic institutions like the
Texas Academy of Science have a duty to provide Professor Pianka a forum to advance these ideas? And what might
the consequences be of allowing him to do so? My answer to the first question is a resounding "no." Furthermore, I
am convinced that continuing to allow Professor Pianka unfettered access to impressionable students could one day
lead to a loss of life that could make the Killing Fields of Southeast Asia look like a picnic ground. Let me explain.
First, do Pianka's opinions deserve protection under the rubric of academic freedom? Well, that depends on whether
this ideas are truly academicthat is, that they are consistent with the best understanding of our world that science
has established. Now consider Pianka's arguments. Pianka claims that the natural world would be "better off" if
there weren't so many humans. To see if that's true, we have to figure out just what constitutes the "natural world"?
As an evolutionist, I see human beings as the products of the same natural forces that shaped all other life on earth.
Our brains evolved on this planet subject to the same kinds of natural selection pressures as those that shaped
peacock feathers. The same can be said of all of our social structures, our religions and every other aspect of what
we are that helped us secure resources and propagate our species (the hammer and anvil of natural selection). In
short, our institutions and our technology are every bit as much a part of the natural world as elk mating rituals and
beaver dams. In fact, by evolving the ability to adapt the world to fit us , human beings have become better at
securing resources and procreating than any other vertebrate on the planet. By this measure, we are evolution's
most successful creation (amongst vertebrates). If extraterrestrials were asked to select nature's most successful
vertebrate on the Earth they would certainly point to us. So it seems very strange to me for an evolutionist to
identify one of evolution's most successful creations as somehow operating outside the natural order. To do so is to
deny this undeniable truth of evolution. Pianka, however, is an evolutionist who believes that humanity is not part
of the natural world. Somehow, the fact our evolution led us to a point whereby we can adapt our environment to
our bodies, rather than wait for our bodies to adapt to our environment, puts us in an inferior position in nature. In
his mind, Homo sapiens are the despoilers, the corruptors of the natural order. This viewpoint is every bit as
anthropocentric as those who would place humans in a superior position, saying that we are the "pinnacle of
evolution" or "chosen by God." Only instead of lauding humanity's position in nature, Pianka denigrates it. Evolution
supports neither camp. Pianka is, of course, free to ignore the evidence and believe that humanity is, as he says,
the "scourge" on the natural world. But this is a political opinion based on some vision he holds in his mind about
the way the world ought to be. It is not a scientific fact. Indeed, it is a glaring scientific fallacy. Pianka also argues
that human beings are now so densely populated that they provide an idea vector for disease transmission, and he
expects that microbes will "ultimately purge the Earth of the scourge of humanity."
(Personal correspondence with Forrest Mims.) The data stand utterly against
this idea. Plagues have run rampant through human populations throughout time.
Millions have died. Huge fractions of some populations have been wiped out. But the net death rate has
never come close to the fractions that Pianka envisions. Virulent diseases that kill
quickly tend to burn themselves out. Natural selection creates less lethal
varieties because an organism can't spread if it kills its host before it can propagate.
The flu pandemic of 1918 (the influenza virus is championed by Pianka) may have killed 50 million people, but that
was only about 5 percent of those infected. Moreover, every year sees medical advancementsscreening
techniques improve, as do our methods of creating new vaccines and treating illness of all kinds. Not only that, a
desperate situation would be met by desperate measures, including the implementation of martial law, the halting
In short, there is no
historical precedent that supports the notion that humanity could be ninety percent
depopulated by a single disease. Moreover, as time goes on and our technology and awareness grows,
of all air and ground traffic except for emergency vehicles and so on, to stop contagion.
NDI 2013
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COPT Lab
the risk to humanity is steadily falling. Professor Pianka can believe that microbes will depopulate the earth if he
wants, and such alarmist nonsense by some Ph.D.s sells lots of books. However, Pianka's viewpoint runs contrary to
the best science.
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Biodiversity Advantage Frontline

No impact to biodiversity- their calculations are flawed
Heath, 99
(Jim Heath - Australian Orchid Council Inc., 1999, Orchids Australia, WHY SAVE ORCHIDS UNDER
THREAT?, http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/whysave.htm, CM)
Here was this sane-looking manager at Western Power, telling me the company was
spending $200,000 to rescue six types of orchids. Would I like to write something
about it? Give me time to investigate, I told him. I wanted to find out if it made
sense. A month later, I knew it didnt make economic or ecological sense yet the
money had been wisely spent. The $200,000 went to the Plant Science and Micropropagation Unit in Perth. The
orchid project is led by Dr Kingsley Dixon, a botanist with a long reputation for saving endangered plants. To save
orchids, his group isolates the helper fungus for each one, grows thousands of plants and puts them in bushland
sites. They back this up with tissue culture, cyrostorage of shoots, and DNA fingerprinting. It is painstaking work,
with no shortcuts; and it all costs. Why do it? I guessed there was some scientific incentive for saving these
delicate, about-to-expire flowers: Drakaea elastica (the Glossy-leafed Hammer orchid), Caladenia huegelii (Grand
Spider orchid), Epiblema grandiflorum ssp. cyanea (the Blue Babe in the Cradle orchid), Diuris purdiei (Purdies
Donkey orchid), Diuris micrantha (Swamp Donkey orchid) and Thelymitra mangeniae (Cinnamon Sun orchid).
Weve all read about the imperatives of biodiversity, the cancer-cures that may flow in the sap of some rainforest
shrub. Could that be it? A lot of the information about biodiversity reduces to two assertions: Biodiversity is
needed as a life-support system for the planet and as a carrier of priceless genetic information. Species are being
We hear scary estimates about how many species are

disappearing from our planet but those numbers may be nonsense. These estimates were
based on the species area curve equation established by two
researchers in the Florida Keys who counted the number of species in a
specific area under study. Soon ecologists started using the same
equation on Amazon rainforests and claimed something like 50,000
species a year were being lost. However, to know how many species are
lost, you have to know how many you started with. In all of this there
was a factual problem. Over the past 500 years, almost 90 per cent of the
forest along the Atlantic coast of Brazil has been cleared. But guess what?
No one has found a single known species that could be declared extinct.
Yet according to the species area curve, about half the known species in
that Brazilian forest should have been lost. The scare about species
extinction has been manufactured in complete contradiction to the
scientific data, declares Professor Julian Simon in his book The State of Humanity. The highest proven
lost at a horrifying rate.
observed rate of extinction until now is only one species per year. Yet the official forecast has been 40,000 species
dying out per year in the century, a million in all. It is truth that is becoming extinct, not species. Even if species
were disappearing at a great clip in the Amazon, what has this to do with orchids in Western Australia? The Amazon
scare started a Save Everything! movement. If the Amazon numbers were true (few doubted them), in time our
only companions might be cockroaches and rats. Under those conditions, saving orchids, or anything else, seemed
a wonderful idea. But if the Amazon numbers are nonsense, there is no reason to panic about saving orchids. If
you want an example of an extinct Australian plant, the last Scarlet Snake Bush died in 1995. So extinction does
happen here. There are 29 other known cases like that in Western Australia, if you go back 100 years. Most of those
plants probably were wiped out in the great agricultural expansion in the first part of the 20th century (up to about
1930). Globally this is a high extinction rate. But at least those extinctions are facts.
Biodiversity is maintainable through natural processes, nature

is resilient
Isbell 12 (Forest Isbell, 2011-present, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Minnesota, 2010-2011,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, McGill University 2010, Ph.D. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Iowa State
University 2005, B.S. Biology, University of Northern Iowa 2005, B.A. Chemistry Teaching, University of Northern
Iowa, Causes and Consequences of Biodiversity Declines, 2012,
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/causes-and-consequences-of-biodiversity-declines-16132475 )
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Theoretical and empirical studies have identified a vast number of natural

processes that can potentially maintain biodiversity . Biodiversity can be
maintained by moderately intense disturbances that reduce dominance by
species that would otherwise competitively exclude subordinate species . For
example, selective grazing by bison can promote plant diversity in grasslands (Collins et al. 1998). Additionally,
biodiversity can be maintained by resource partitioning , when species use different

resources, or spatiotemporal partitioning, when species use the same resources at different times and places. For
instance, plant species in the tundra can coexist by using different sources of nitrogen or use the same sources of
nitrogen at different times of the growing season or at different soil depths (McKane et al. 2002). Furthermore,
biodiversity can be maintained by interspecific facilitation , which occurs when

species positively influence one another by increasing the availability of limiting resources, or by decreasing the
limiting effects of natural enemies or physical stresses. Although previous theoretical and empirical studies have
identified numerous processes that can maintain biodiversity, ecologists and conservationists rarely know which of
these mechanisms actually maintains biodiversity at any particular time and place. Thus, further investigation is
needed to identify the natural processes that actually maintain biodiversity in intact ecosystems.
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Biodiversity Adv - Exts #1 - No impact

Biodiversity loss does not impact the overall survivability of
the environment - scientifically proven
Dodds 2000
[Donald - president of North Pacific Research, The
Myth of Biodiversity]
there is no proof that
biodiversity is important to the environment. Something without basis in
scientific fact is called a Myth. Lets examine biodiversity througout the
history of the earth. The earth has been a around for about 4 billion
years. Life did not develop until about 500 million years later . Thus for
the first 500 million years bio diversity was zero. The planet somehow
survived this lack of biodiversity. For the next 3 billion years, the only life
on the planet was microbial and not diverse. Thus, the first unexplainable fact is that the
Biodiversity is a corner stone of the environmental movement. But
earth existed for 3.5 billion years, 87.5% of its existence, without biodiversity. Somewhere around 500 million years
ago life began to diversify and multiple celled species appeared. Because these species were partially composed of
sold material they left better geologic records, and the number of species and genera could be cataloged and
counted. The number of genera on the planet is a indication of the biodiversity of the planet. Figure 1 is a plot of
the number of genera on the planet over the last 550 million years. The little black line outside of the left edge of
the graph is 10 million years. Notice the left end of this graph. Biodiversity has never been higher than it is today.
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Amazon Deforestation Advantage Frontline

First, Alt causes- Brazilian paralysis
Reuters 6/5 [Wed Jun 5, 2013 3:34pm EDT, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/05/us-brazildeforestation-idUSBRE9541D920130605] //duffee
CONTINUED DESTRUCTION The limbo enables destruction,

environmentalists say. After years of declines, preliminary government
data suggests that deforestation increased by 15 percent between August
2012 and April 2013, compared with the same nine-month period a year
earlier. The government says a fuller picture will follow the dry season and clarify what damage is man-made
and what is the result of wildfires and other natural deterioration. But the data so far supports
the theory that high crop and commodity prices provoke destruction, said
Ferreira, the federal official. In Mato Grosso, the state with the most
deforestation since August, there was a 12 percent jump in soy planting .
The government's figures are modest compared to those compiled by Imazon, a private research institute that also
deforestation increased by as much as 88

percent during the nine-month period. If borne out, the trend would
underscore fears that Rousseff has delegated too much enforcement to
local authorities, who critics say are more likely to favor development over
environmental concerns. Deforestation is already creeping into areas
where she has declassified parkland and changed policy to allow for
hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure projects.
tracks satellite imagery. Its figures suggest
And, Alt cause- Warming

Watts 13 [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/19/amazon-rainforest-showingsigns-of-degradation-due-to-climate-change-nasa-warns/ Amazon rainforest showing
signs of degradation due to climate change, NASA warns, Jonathan Watts an awardwinning journalist and the author of When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will
Save the World - or Destroy It., The Guardian, Saturday, January 19, 2013 1:21 EDT]
The US space agency Nasa warned this week that the Amazon rainforest may
be showing the first signs of large-scale degradation due to climate
change. A team of scientists led by the agency found that an area twice the size of
California continues to suffer from a mega-drought that began eight years
ago. The new study shows the severe dry spell in 2005 caused far wider
damage than previously estimated and its impact persisted longer than
expected until an even harsher drought in 2010. With little time for the trees to recover
between what the authors describe as a double whammy, 70m hectares of forest have been severely affected,
the analysis of 10 years of satellite microwave radar data revealed .
The data showed a

widespread change in the canopy due to the dieback of branches,
especially among the older, larger trees that are most vulnerable because
they provide the shelter for other vegetation. We had expected the forest canopy to
bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth, but the damage appeared to persist right up to the
The Amazon is
experiencing a drought rate that is unprecedented in a century, said the
agency. Even before 2005, water availability had been shrinking steadily
for more than 10 years, which made the trees more vulnerable. Between
2005 and 2010, localised dry spells added to the problem .
subsequent drought in 2010, said study co-author Yadvinder Malhi of Oxford University.
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And, Amazon resilient we have best studies and data

World Climate Report 10 (nations leading publication in this realm,often cited
by prominent scientists and lawmakers,
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/about-us/)
Do a search on Global Warming and Amazon Rainforest and enjoy over 200,000 sites mostly proclaiming that Amazon rainforest
may become a desert or large portion of the rainforest will be lost or you name it. Throw in the 200 indigenous cultures in the
forest, add in some clever phrases like lungs of the planet, argue that the rainforest is being destroyed faster than anyone
The cure for everything and

anything is surely hidden in the rainforest of the Amazon, and the loss of
that ecosystem could spell the end of us all. Three recent papers
appearing in leading scientific journals spell trouble for the alarmists
claims about global warming and the precious and delicate Amazon
rainforest. The first paper appeared in Science magazine and was written by four scientists from the University of Arizona
expected, and then claim incalculable damages all because of global warming.
and Brazils University of So Paulo. Saleska et al. begin reminding us that Large-scale numerical models that simulate the
interactions between changing global climate and terrestrial vegetation predict substantial carbon loss from tropical ecosystems,
They further explain

that Model-simulated forest collapse is a consequence not only of climate
changeinduced drought but also of amplification by the physiological
response of the forest: Water-limited vegetation responds promptly to
initial drought by reducing transpiration (and photosynthesis), which in
turn exacerbates the drought by interrupting the supply of water that
would otherwise contribute to the recycled component of precipitation . This
including the drought-induced collapse of the Amazon forest and conversion to savanna.
physiological feedback mechanism should be observable as short-term reductions in transpiration and photosynthesis in response to
drought under current climates. In 2005, Mother Nature conducted an experiment for us by producing a substantial drought in the
Amazon; the drought peaked in intensity during July to September of that year with the hardest hit part of the Amazon occurring in
the central and southwestern portions of Amazonia. Saleska et al. used satellite-based measurements and much to their surprise,
They
conclude that These observations suggest that intact Amazon forests
may be more resilient than many ecosystem models assume, at least in
response to short-term climatic anomalies. Next up is an article in a
recent issue of the Journal of Vegetation Science by seven scientists from
Panama, Brazil, and California; the piece is entitled Long-term variation
in Amazon forest dynamics and therefore must contain horrible news
about the state of the rainforest, right? Wrong! Laurance and her team conducted five different surveys of
they found that forest canopy greenness over the drought-stricken areas increased at a highly significant rate.
the forest in a protected area 50 miles north of Manaus in the central Amazon; they made these measurements between 1981 and
2003. Getting right to the bottom line, they report that Forest biomass also increased over time, with the basal area of trees in our
plots, which correlate strongly with tree biomass, rising by 4% on average. They then add The suite of changes we observed
accelerating tree growth and forest dynamism, and rising biomasslargely accords with findings from other long-term, comparative
studies of forest dynamics across the Amazon Basin. They state One of the most frequent explanations for such findings is that
forest productivity is rising, possibly in response to increasing CO2 fertilization or some other regional or global driver(s), such as
increasing irradiance or rainfall variability. We are partial to the increasing CO2 explanation, and it is worth noting that the first
sentence in the Conclusions section in their abstract clearly states The
increasing forest dynamics,

growth, and basal area observed are broadly consistent with the CO2
fertilization hypothesis. Our third recent article was written by three scientists from Brazil and Germany and it
appeared in Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Lapola et al. begin noting that Tropical South America vegetation cover projections for
the end of the century differ considerably depending on climate scenario and also on how physiological processes are considered in
vegetation models. To investigate the future of the vegetation of the Amazon, the team created a numerical Potential Vegetation
Model that could be coupled with global climate models. As seen in their figure below (Figure 1), the vegetation model appears to
accurately replicate the current vegetation in the region. When they simulated climate change in the future and they included the
CO2 fertilization effect, the vegetation was largely unchanged. Without the CO2 fertilization effect, the rainforest all but disappears
under their expected change in climate. And if the climate does not change much and the CO2 fertilization effect is realized, the
rainforest expands considerably. In their own words, Lapola et al. conclude Biome projections for the end of the century in tropical
South America are quite variable, depending not only on the climate scenario, but also on the effect of CO2 fertilization on
photosynthesis. Furthermore Our
simulations show that if, in the future, CO2

fertilization effect does not play any role in tropical ecosystems then there
must be substantial biome shifts in the region, including substitution of
the Amazonian forest by savanna. If the CO2 fertilization does in fact
occur (and 1,000s of experiments suggest it is occurring and will occur in
the future), most of Amazonia would remain the same.
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And, Long timeframethe impacts of deforestation take on a

larger scale, making it difficult to measure
Butler 12 (Rhett Butler, Today he serves as president and editor-in-chief of the web site. He is also the senior
writer and photographer, creating much of the site's content, Consequences of deforestation, mongabay.com, July
22, 2012, http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0901.htm) //You
mankind stands to
lose much more. By destroying the tropical forests, we risk our
own quality of life, gamble with the stability of climate and local weather, threaten the existence of
Actually the concern should not be about losing a few plants and animals;
other species, and undermine the valuable services provided by biological diversity. While in most areas
environmental degradation has yet to reach a crisis level where entire systems are collapsing, it is important to
examine some of the effects of existing environmental impoverishment and to forecast some of the potential
Continuing loss of natural systems could make

human activities increasingly vulnerable to ecological
surprises in the future. The most immediate impact of deforestation occurs at the local level with
the loss of ecological services provided by tropical rainforests and related ecosystems. Such habitats
afford humans valuable services such as erosion prevention,
flood control, water filtration, fisheries protection, and
pollinationfunctions that are particularly important to the
world's poorest people, who rely on natural resources for their
everyday survival. Forest loss also reduces the availability of renewable resources like timber,
medicinal plants, nuts and fruit, and game. Over the longer term, deforestation of
tropical rainforests can have a broader impact, affecting global
climate and biodiversity. These changes are more challenging
to observe and forecast from local effects, since they take
place over a longer time scale and can be difficult to measure.
repercussions of forest loss.
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Amazon Defo Adv Exts - #1 - Brazil

And, Brazil will never escape the paralysis- recent collapse
proves
CD 08
[Brazil Amazon Deforestation Soars, Thursday, January 24, 2008,
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/24/6591, Common Dreams, Independent, non-profit newscenter
and progressive community] //duffee
The Brazilian government has announced a huge rise in the rate of

Amazon deforestation, months after celebrating its success in achieving a
reduction. In the last five months of 2007, 3,235 sq km (1,250 sq miles)
were lost. Gilberto Camara, of INPE, an institute that provides satellite imaging of the area, said the rate
of loss was unprecedented for the time of year. Officials say rising commodity prices are
encouraging farmers to clear more land to plant crops such as soya. The monthly rate of
deforestation saw a big rise from 243 sq km (94 sq miles) in August to 948
sq km (366 sq miles) in December. "We've never before detected such a
high deforestation rate at this time of year," Mr Camara said. His concern, outlined during
a news conference in Brasilia on Wednesday, was echoed by Environment Minister Marina Silva. Expensive soya
Ms Silva said rising prices of raw materials and commodities could be spurring the rate of forest clearing, as more
and more farmers saw the Amazon as a source of cheap land. "The economic reality of these states indicate that
these activities impact, without a shadow of a doubt, on the forest," she said. The state of Mato Grosso was the
worst affected, contributing more than half the total area of forest stripped, or 1,786 sq km (700 sq miles). The
states of Para and Rondonia were also badly affected, accounting for 17.8% and 16% of the total cleared
The situation may also be worse than reported, with the

environment ministry saying the preliminary assessment of the amount of
forest cleared could double as more detailed satellite images are
analysed.
respectively.
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Amazon Defo Adv Exts - #2 - Warming

Amazon and global warming are inextricably tied
Masters 10
(December 03, 2010Dr. Jeff, University of Michigan, where he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Meteorology, Ph.
D in Air Pollution Meteorology) http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/amazon-rainforest-recovering-fromits-second-100year-drought-in-5-yea)
We often hear about how important Arctic sea ice is for keeping Earth's climate cool, but the Amazon may be even
more important. Photosynthesis in the world's largest rainforest takes about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of
However, in 2005, the drought reversed this process. The

Amazon emitted 3 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, causing a net 5
billion ton increase in CO2 to the atmosphere--roughly equivalent to 16 22% of the total CO2 emissions to the atmosphere from burning fossil
fuels that year. According to Phillips et al., 2009, "The exceptional growth in atmospheric CO2
the air each year.
concentrations in 2005, the third greatest in the global record, may have been partially caused by the Amazon
The Amazon stores CO2 in its soils and biomass

equivalent to about fifteen years of human-caused emissions, so a
massive die-back of the forest could greatly accelerate global warming. In
late 2009, before the 2010 drought, the World Wildlife Federation released
a report, Major Tipping Points in the Earth's Climate System and
Consequences for the Insurance Sector, which suggested that odds of
extreme 2005-like droughts in the Amazon had increased from once every
40 - 100 years, to once every 20 years. The study projected that the extreme droughts would
drought effects documented here."
occur once every two years by 2025 - 2050. This year's drought gives me concern that this prediction may be
correct. The occurrence of two extreme droughts in the past five years, when no El Nio conditions were present
and record warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures occurred, are suggestive of a link between global warming and
If the climate continues to warm as expected, the future

health of Earth's greatest rainforest may be greatly threatened, and the
Amazon may begin acting to increase the rate of global warming.
extreme Amazon drought.
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Amazon Defo Adv Exts #3 - Amazon resilient

No deforestation- predictive evidence
Masters 10
(December 03, 2010Dr. Jeff, University of Michigan, where he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Meteorology, Ph. D in Air Pollution Meteorology)
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/amazon-rainforest-recovering-from-its-second100year-drought-in-5-yea)
There is some good news from the Amazon--deforestation rates in the

Brazilian Amazon have fallen 14% in the past year, and are at their lowest
rate on record, according to mongabay.com, an environmental science and
conservation news site that focuses on tropical forests. In 2009, Brazil
passed a law committing to a 36 - 39% reduction in emissions of
greenhouse gases. Reducing deforestation by 80% by 2020 was the primary method envisioned to
achieve the reduction. Brazil is now four years ahead of that schedule, and no longer is the world's biggest
deforester--Indonesia now cuts down more acreage of forest each year than Brazil does.
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Global Warming Advantage Frontline

First, global warming is not anthropogenic - temperature
increases due to ocean cycles and sunspots, not CO2
Ferrara 2013 [Peter - director of entitlement and budget policy for
the Heartland Institute and senior advisor for entitlement reform and
budget policy @ National Tax Limitation Foundation, "To the horror of
global warming alarmists, global cooling is here", FORBES, May 26,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-globalwarming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/]
The increase in global temperatures since the late 19th century just reflects the end
of the Little Ice Age. The global temperature trends since then have
followed not rising CO2 trends but the ocean temperature cycles of the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Every 20 to 30 years, the
much colder water near the bottom of the oceans cycles up to the top,
where it has a slight cooling effect on global temperatures until the sun
warms that water. That warmed water then contributes to slightly warmer global temperatures, until the
next churning cycle.

Those ocean temperature cycles, and the continued recovery from the Little Ice Age, are primarily why global
temperatures rose from 1915 until 1945, when CO2 emissions were much lower than in recent years. The change to
a cold ocean temperature cycle, primarily the PDO, is the main reason that global temperatures declined from 1945
until the late 1970s, despite the soaring CO2 emissions during that time from the postwar industrialization
spreading across the globe.
The 20 to 30 year ocean temperature cycles turned back to warm from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, which is
the primary reason that global temperatures warmed during this period. But that warming ended 15 years ago, and
global temperatures have stopped increasing since then, if not actually cooled, even though global CO2 emissions
have soared over this period. As The Economist magazine reported in March, The
world added
roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and
2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since
1750. Yet, still no warming during that time. That is because the CO2
greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural causes of
global temperature changes.
At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles
turning back to cold. But something much more ominous has developed
over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term cycles, with longer
cyclical trends of 90 and even 200 years. The number of sunspots declined substantially in
the last 11 year cycle, after flattening out over the previous 20 years. But in the current cycle, sunspot activity has
collapsed. NASAs Science News report for January 8, 2013 states,
And, global warming not real - temperatures are declining and

the Aff's models are flawed
DAleo 6/8 (Joseph, Certified Consultant Meteorologist and was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society,
Chief Meteorologist at Weather Services International Corporation and Senior Editor of Dr. Dewpoint for WSIs popular
Intellicast.com web site. expertise include climatology, natural factors involved in climate change, weather and climate prediction,
and North Atlantic Oscillation, WUWT, 8/2/13, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/05/global-warming-theory-has-failed-all-tests-soalarmists-return-to-the-97-consensus-hoax/) bcho
(1) Warming not global. It is shown in satellite data to be northern

hemisphere only
(2) It is now not warming. Warming (global mean and northern
hemisphere) stopped in the 1990s
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(3) Models suggest atmosphere should warm 20% faster than surface but surface
warming was 33% faster during the time satellites and surface observations used.
This suggests GHG theory wrong, and surface temperature contaminated.
(4) Temperatures longer term have been modified to enhance warming trend and
minimize cyclical appearance. Station dropout, missing data, change of local siting,
urbanization, instrumentation contaminate the record, producing exaggerating
warming. The GAO scolded NOAA for poor compliance with siting standards.
(5) Those who create the temperature records have been shown in
analysis and emails to take steps to eliminate inconvenient temperature
trends like the Medieval Warm Period, the 1940s warm blip and cooling
since 1998. Steps have included removal of the urban heat island
adjustment and as Wigley suggested in a climategate email, introduce
0.15C of artificial cooling of global ocean temperatures near 1940.
(6) Forecast models have failed with temperature trends below even the
assumed zero emission control scenarios
(7) Climate models all have a strong hot spot in the mid to high troposphere in the tropical regions. Weather
balloons and satellite show no warming in this region the last 30 years.
(8) Ocean heat content was forecast to increase and was said to be the canary in the coal mine. It too has stalled
according to NOAA PMEL. The warming was to be strongest in the tropics where the models were warming the
atmosphere the most. No warming has been shown in the top 300 meters in the tropical Pacific back to the 1950s.
(9) Alarmists had predicted permanent El Nino but the last decade has featured 7 La Nina and just 3 El Nino years.
This is related to the PDO and was predicted by those who look at natural factors.
(10) Alarmists had predicted much lower frequency of the negative modes of the AO and NAO due to warming. The
trend has been the opposite with a record negative AO/NAO in 2009/10
(11) Alarmists predicted an increase in hurricane frequency and strength globally but the global activity had
diminished after 2005 to a 30+ year low. The U.S. has gone seven consecutive years without a landfalling major
hurricane, the longest stretch since the 1860s
(12) Alarmists have predicted a significant increase in heat records but despite heat last two summers, the 1930s to
1950s still greatly dominated the heat records. Even in Texas at the center of the 2011 heat wave, the long term
(since 1895) trends in both temperature and precipitation are flat. And when stations with over 80 years of
temperature data were considered, the number of heat records last July were not extraordinary relative to past hot
summers.
(13) Extremes of rainfall and drought were predicted to increase but except during periods of strong El Nino and La
Nina, no trends are seen
(14) Alarmists indicated winter would become warmer and short. The last 15 years has seen a decline in winter
temperatures in all regions. In places winter have been the coldest and longest in decades and even centuries.
(15) Alarmists had indicated snow would become increasingly rare in middle latitudes especially in the big cities
where warming would be greatest. All time snow records were set in virtually all the major cities and northern
hemisphere snow coverage in winter has increased with 4 of the top 5 years since 2007/08. Also among the east
coast high impact snowstorms tracked by NOAA (NESIS), 11 of the 46 have occurred since 2009.
(16) Alarmists had indicated a decline of Antarctic ice due to warming. The
upward trends since 1979 continues.
(17) Alarmists had indicated Greenland and arctic ice melt would accelerate. The arctic ice tracks with
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the IARC shows the ice cover was similarly reduced in the
1950s when the Atlantic was last in a similar warm mode. In Greenland, the warmth of the 1930s and
1940s still dominates the records and longer term temperatures have declined.
And, you are wrong - there is a growing consensus of scientists

that say warming is not happening - computer models prove no
rise in temperature
Allegre, et. al. 2012
[Claude - former director of the Institute for the
Study of Earth @ University of Paris, J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of
Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the
Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger
Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National
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Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer,

professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of
Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the
Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric
sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University;
Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences;
Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison
H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of
astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal
Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of
Scientists, Geneva, "No need to panic about global warming", WALL STREET
JOURNAL,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.
html]
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about
"global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that
a large and growing number

of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions
on global warming are needed.
In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in
the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a
letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live
with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global
warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical
something draMatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact,
and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time
and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"
In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant"
large numbers of scientists, many very

prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific
"heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of
stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well
over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009
carbon dioxide will destroy civilization,
"Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming
at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models
where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decadeindeed, the smaller-thanpredicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) began issuing projectionssuggests that computer models
have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause .
Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather
extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
And, treat the Aff's evidence with skepticism - alarmist

warming research yields more profits and grants for their
authors
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JOURNAL,
html]
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government
funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies
to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes,
taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work
the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations
promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their
dogma and the privileges it brought them.
Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate,
There is no compelling scientific

argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if
one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive
greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically .
we have a message to any candidate for public office:
And, long timeframe before any devastating impacts of

warming
Lean 13 (Geoffrey, Geoffrey Lean pioneered the coverage of green issues long before they became
fashionable and has won Scoop of the Year in the British Press Awards and the Martha Gelhorn Award for
investigative journalism, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/) bcho
The research, moreover, comes at a time when many experts are beginning to despair that warming can be
prevented from running out of control. Six weeks ago, for example, Prof Sir Robert Watson the deeply respected
former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said he believed the world had now
missed its chance to keep the average rise in global temperature to less than 2C the level at which dangerous
effects are thought inevitable. But if the new research is right, it might be held below this ominous threshold after
all, if determined worldwide action is taken.
Prediction, as they say, is tough, especially when its about the future and thats
especially true when it comes to the climate, whose complexity we only partially
understand. It is, as we all know, naturally immensely variable. And the effect of human intervention is
subject to long timelags: it will be decades, even centuries, before the full
consequences of todays emissions of carbon dioxide become clear .
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Warming Adv - Exts #1 - Not anthropogenic

Jury still out- no conclusive proof that warming is
anthropogenic
Lupo 2012 (Anthony, PhD, Atmospheric Science department chair and
professor, Michigan University, http://www.napsnet.com/pdf_archive/34/50144.pdf)

(NAPSA)One of the fundamental tenets of our justice system is one is
innocent until proven guilty. While that doesnt apply to scientific discovery, in the global
warming debate the prevailing attitude is that human induced global
warming is already a fact of life and it is up to doubters to prove
otherwise.
To complete the analogy, Ill add that to date, there is no credible evidence to demonstrate
that the climatological changes weve seen since the mid-1800s are
outside the bounds of natural variability inherent in the earths climate
system.
Thus, any impartial jury should not come back with a guilty verdict convicting humanity of forcing recent
climatological changes.
Even the most ardent supporters of global warming will not argue this point. Instead, they argue that humans are
only partially responsible for the observed climate change. If one takes a hard look at the science involved, their
assertions appear to be groundless.
First,
carbon dioxide is not a pollutant as many claim. Carbon dioxide is good for
plant life and is a natural constituent of the atmosphere . During Earths long history there
has been more and less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we see today.
Second, they claim that climate is stable and slow to change, and we are accelerating climate change beyond
natural variability. That is also not true.
Climate change is generally a regional phenomenon and not a global one.

Regionally, climate has
been shown to change rapidly in the past and will continue to do so in the
future. Life on earth will adapt as it has always done. Life on earth has been shown to thrive when planetary
temperatures are warmer as opposed to colder.
Third, they point to recent model projections that have shown that the earth will warm as much as 11 degrees
Fahrenheit over the next century.
One should be careful when looking at model projections. After all, these
models are crude representations of the real atmosphere and are lacking
many fundamental processes and interactions that are inherent in the real
atmosphere. The 11 degrees scenario that is thrown around the media as if it were the mainstream prediction
is an extreme scenario.
Most models predict anywhere from a 2 to 6 degree increase over the next century, but even these are problematic
given the myriad of problems associated with using models and interpreting their output.
No one advocates destruction of the environment, and indeed we have an obligation to take care of our
environment for future generations. At the same time, we need to make sound decisions based on scientific facts.
My research leads me to believe that we will not be able to state

conclusively that global warming is or is not occurring for another 30 to 70
years. We simply dont understand the climate system well enough nor
have the data to demonstrate that humanity is having a substantial
impact on climate change.
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Warming Adv - Exts #2 - Temps not increasing

Surface temperatures are not increasing
Booker 08
(Christopher, English journalist and author; founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed
to it since then. He has been a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph since 1990, Telegraph, 8/2/13,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4029837/Global-warming-Reasons-whyit-might-not-actually-exist.html)
Temperatures are falling, not rising

As Christopher Booker says in his review of 2008, temperatures have been dropping in a wholly
unpredicted way over the past year. last winter, the northern hemisphere saw its greatest snow cover
since 1966, which in the northern US states and Canada was dubbed the "winter from hell". This winter
looks set to be even worse.
The earth was hotter 1,000 years ago

Evidence from all over the world indicates that the earth was hotter 1,000 years ago
than it is today. Research shows that temperatures were higher in what is known as
the Mediaeval Warming period than they were in the 1990s.
The earth's surface temperature is not at record levels
According to Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis of surface air
temperature measurements, the meteorological December 2007 to November 2008
was the coolest year since 2000. Their data has also shown that the hottest decade
of the 20th century was not the 1990s but the 1930s.
Ice is not disappearing
Arctic website Crysophere Today reported that Arctic ice volume was 500,000 sq km greater than this
time last year. Additionally, Antarctic sea-ice this year reached its highest level since satellite records
began in 1979. Polar bear numbers are also at record levels.
Himalayan glaciers
A report by the UN Environment Program this year claimed that the cause of melting glaciers in the
Himalayas was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud"
over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia's dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels
and deforestation.
Temperatures are still dropping

Nasa satellite readings on global temperatures from the university of Alabama show
that August was the fourth month this year when temperatures fell below their 30year average, ie since satellite records began. November 2008 in the USA was only
the 39th warmest since records began 113 years ago.
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Warming Exts - CO2 Good - Agriculture

CO2 is not a pollutant - rise in CO2 levels leads to rise in plant
growth and greater agricultural yields

JOURNAL,
html]
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high
concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle . Plants
do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often
increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better
growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2
concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better
plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management
contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century,
but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the
atmosphere.
NDI 2013
***Agriculture
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NDI 2013
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Agriculture Advantage Frontline

First, Ag production high now mechanization
McConnell 12 (Kathryn, is a staff writer at IIP Digital, Modern Agricultural
Production Continues to Increase Yields, April 5 th, 2012
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/04/201204053331.html#ixzz2
akVShede, SD)
Washington Since the 1980s, large-scale conventional crop farming has
increasingly produced higher yields while using less fertilizer and water,
and fewer chemical pesticides, says American political scientist Robert Paarlberg. And that is
good for the environment, he said. With conventional agriculture based on science, the land
footprint of agriculture is getting smaller, Paarlberg said at a March 15 discussion about The Culture War Over
Food and Farming at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. He added
conventional
farming today is dramatically different from conventional farming in the
1960s. One big factor affecting higher yields was the commercial
introduction in 1996 of disease- and insect-resistant seeds improved through
biotechnology, also known as genetically modified seeds. Biotech-modified maize, for instance, protects
that increased yields are needed to feed the worlds growing population. Paarlberg said
against infections from the corn borer insect without requiring the use of chemical spreads, he said. Resistant
soybeans have replaced multiple sprayings of toxic herbicides and pesticides. And because biotech crops resist
insects and weeds, less mechanical tillage is needed, reducing the amount of diesel fuel exhaust going into the air
and conserving soil. The other more recent factor affecting conventional agriculture has been the
use of
global positioning systems (GPS) on farm machinery that tell farmers exactly what
part of the field needs to be watered and what part does not, what part is low on nitrogen and what part is not,
Paarlberg said. That prevents excessive applications of fertilizer and reduces toxic runoff into streams. GPSequipped tractors also allow farmers to insert fertilizer into the soil precisely where seeds have been planted.
Today,
farm equipment is much more precise, Paarlberg said. The benefits of

biotech seeds and other modern farming techniques such as targeted
irrigation are widespread. Between 1990 and 2004 in the 34 countries that belong to the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the use of water for irrigation decreased 9 percent, excess
nitrogen from overapplications of fertilizer decreased 17 percent, pesticide use went down 5 percent and
greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture dropped 3 percent. Because tractors are applying fewer pesticides and
fertilizer, agricultural energy use is increasing at only one-sixth the rate of energy use in other areas of the
economy, Paarlberg said.
Second, alternate causality to food security - climate change

Wheeler 13 (Tim is Professor of Crop Science at the University of Reading and
Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser for the UK Department for International
Development, World Food Security More Vulnerable than ever to Climate Change,
8-2-13, SD)
A new study, published today (2 August) in Science, has called for a 'climate-smart food
system' to prevent climate change from slowing progress in eradicating
global hunger. The researchers carried out a review of key scientific papers on food security and climate
change since 1990. It confirmed a robust and coherent global pattern of climate
change impacts on crop productivity that could have consequences for
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food availability. The review highlighted improvements in agricultural technologies, such as more
productive and climate-resilient crop varieties, are important to counter this threat, but are unlikely to be sufficient
Wider changes in food trade and stocks, and nutrition and social
policy options are also critical. The last few decades have witnessed a substantial decline in the
number of hungry people worldwide. However, since 2007, progress has slowed and world food
supply and demand have been precariously balanced - climate change
threatens to tip this balance, most dramatically in the poorer areas of the world. Professor Tim
on their own.
Wheeler, from the University of Reading's Walker Institute for Climate System Research and lead author of the
review, said: "The
food price spike of 2008 highlights the increasing

vulnerability of the global food system to shocks , such as extreme
weathe r and economic volatility. A step change is needed in efforts to create a
'climate-smart food system' that can better withstand whatever climate
throws at us. This should include development of drought- and heat-tolerant
crops or new tillage techniques that reduce release of carbon from soils,
but we need to go further and ensure trade, investment and development
policies all have 'climate-smart' food as a central goal. " Warmer temperatures,
changes in rainfall patterns and more extreme weather under climate change are expected to affect food and
fodder production, change patterns of pest and diseases of crops and animals and impact on food supplies.
Countries where these impacts are expected to be negative are also those where hunger is most prevalent now.
Extreme weather, such as floods, drought and heatwaves, contributes to

short term food price spikes and longer term climate change is likely to be
an important factor in future price trends. Volatile food prices are a particular concern to the
poor, who often spend a high proportion of their income on food.
And, alternate causes to food prices - drought

AG Professional 8-1( Grocers, Fast Food Shops Blame Ethanol for Higher Food
Prices 8-1-13 http://www.agprofessional.com/news/Grocers-fast-food-shops-blameethanol-for-higher-food-prices-217793201.html?ref=201)
Some fast food companies say the increased demand for corn brought on by ethanol
plants is the reason menu prices, namely beef, pork and chicken, are higher. "It's harder
every day to offer great value because our costs are skyrocketing ," Lisa Ingram, president
of White Castle, recently said in Washington. "In fact, since the RFS became law our cost for beef has
increased by forty-seven percent." Fox News reports the sentiment is mimicked by Wendys franchise
owners. Ron Ross, owner of four Wendys restaurants in southern California, says an industry study found higher
costs, supposedly impacted by the RFS, have taken $25,000 in revenues from each of his stores. Because
competition limits how much of the costs can be transitioned to customers, Ross says hes had to cut back on
Higher beef prices cant be blamed solely on

increased corn demand created by ethanol plants. Two consecutive years of drought
forced cattle herds to shrink to a 60-year low, which pushed wholesale beef prices
to record highs earlier this summer.
employee bonuses and delay new store plans.
And, no food collapse - global food reserves

Harkness 11 (Jim, as a B.A. in Asian studies from the University of Wisconsin and a
master's in development sociology from Cornell University and has written and spoken
frequently on China and sustainable development, and has served as an advisor to the World
Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Food security and national
security: Learning from Chinas approach to managing its wheat supplies, IATP, February
28th, 2011, http://www.iatp.org/documents/food-security-and-national-security-learning-fromchina%E2%80%99s-approach-to-managing-its-wheat-s#sthash.7krfIN0g.dpuf, SD)
China maintains vast reserves of grain, and other foods like pork and edible oils,
the United States and most other countries have abandoned this wise
approach. Thirty years of neoliberal market fundamentalism has treated
Although
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agriculture and food like other consumer productsas opposed to a

necessity of life. Private big grain traders never liked reserves, and their greed was rationalized by
efficient markets hypothesis, which claimed that reserves were inefficient and distorted markets. U.S. farm bills
have abandoned reserves and other tools to manage supply. International financial institutions often pressure
countries around the world to sell off their reserves and reduce support for their own farmers. This free-market
system left food-importing countries without a lifeline when global prices spiked in 2007. In the following year the
Fortunately, the idea of grain

reserves is gaining traction again. It will be among the topics of discussion
at the G-20 summit in France in May as a response to rising global hunger .
West African countries are considering the establishment of regional
reserves, Asian countries are starting a rice reserve, and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
are exploring options for a collective reserve. Thus far, the United States has resisted these
proposals despite the lessons of the last food crisis. But that could change. Earlier this month, the
ranks of the worlds hungry swelled by another 100 million.
U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the lowest stocks for corn in the last 15 years, putting us one severe
And major agricultural exporting countries

have all experienced major weather events that have limited crop
production and further tightened global grain supplies.
weather event away from a major corn shortage.
like Russia, Argentina and Australia
NDI 2013
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Agriculture Adv - Exts #1 - Ag production high now

Ag production will continue to rise
FAO 13 (OECD-FAO expect slower global agricultural production growth, June
6th, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, SD)
6 June 2013, Beijing - Global agricultural production is expected to grow 1.5 percent
a year on average over the coming decade, compared with annual growth of 2.1 percent
between 2003 and 2012, according to a new report published by the OECD and FAO today. Limited expansion of
agricultural land, rising production costs, growing resource constraints and increasing environmental pressures are
the report argues that farm commodity supply

should keep pace with global demand. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook
2013-2022 expects prices to remain above historical averages over the medium
the main factors behind the trend. But
term for both crop and livestock products due to a combination of slower production growth and stronger demand,
agriculture has been turned into an increasingly

market-driven sector, as opposed to policy-driven as it was in the past, thus offering
developing countries important investment opportunities and economic
benefits, given their growing food demand, potential for production
expansion and comparative advantages in many global markets.
including for biofuels. The report says
High production fertilizer, tech

Fuglie 07 (Keith , is Chief of the Resource, Environmental, and Science Policy Branch in the Resource and Rural
Economics Division, Productivity Growth in US agriculture, USDA, September 2007,
http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/201254/eb9_1_.pdf, SD)
many reasons for the impressive improvements in U.S. agriculture

in the late 20th century. The greater use of agricultural inputs, such as
more fertilizer and more machinery per acre of land, was one reason. But yield
was also increased through the development of new technology, which made inputs
There are
more effective or allowed inputs to be combined in new and better ways. ERS has developed the total factor
productivity (TFP) statistical series, which isolates the effect of changes in technology and related factors from
those effects that result from changes in inputs on the growth of agricultural output (see box on p.6, Explaining
Total Factor Productivity). In the long run,
growth in TFP is the primary source of new

wealth creation. The trend in TFP, therefore, is an important indicator of
the longrun performance of the agricultural sector in the United State s.
Figure 1 shows changes in total output (an aggregation of crop and livestock commodities and related services),
total inputs (an aggregation of land, labor, capital, and intermediate inputs like fertilizer, feed and seed), and TFP
from 1948 to 2004. These changes are measured as indices with 1948 set equal to 100. For output, the index value
reached 266 in 2004, meaning that total agricultural production in 2004 was 2.66 times higher than in 1948. Over
aggregate input use in agriculture actually decreased slightly.

Although the use of some inputs like fertilizer and machinery increased,
these increases were more than offset by reductions in cropland and
especially the amount of labor employed in agriculture. Overall, the amount
of crop and animal output produced per unit of (aggregate) input, which is
measured by TFP, increased 2.70 times. As figure 1 shows, agricultural productivity
growth was strong in each decade, allowing output to grow with little or no increase in inputs
the same period,
throughout the 1948-2004 period.
NDI 2013
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Agriculture Adv - Exts #2 - Alternate Causes to

Food Security
Agriculture is sensitive to climate change - leads to a change in
food availability
Wheeler and Braun 13 (Tim is Professor of Crop Science at the University of
Reading and Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser for the UK Department for International
Development, Climate Change Impacts on Global Food Security, Science Vol. 341
no. 6145 pp. 508-513, August 2 2013,
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/508.full, SD)
Thus, climate change is expected to bring warmer temperatures ; changes to rainfall
patterns; and increased frequency, and perhaps severity, of extreme weather. By the end of this
century, the global mean temperature could be 1.8 to 4.0C warmer than at
the end of the previous century (15). Warming will not be even across the
globe and is likely to be greater over land compared with oceans, toward
the poles, and in arid regions (15). Recent weather records also show that land surface
temperatures may be increasing more slowly than expected from climate models, potentially because of a higher
level of absorption of CO2 by deep oceans (19). Sea-level rises will increase the risk of flooding of agricultural land
in coastal regions. Changes in rainfall patterns, particularly over tropical land, are less certain, partly because of the
inability of the current models to represent the global hydrological cycle accurately (20). In general, it is expected
that the summer Asian monsoon rainfall may increase, while parts of North and southern Africa could become drier
How will these regional changes in climate affect food security?

Agriculture is inherently sensitive to climate variability and change, as a
result of either natural causes or human activities. Climate change caused
by emissions of greenhouse gases is expected to directly influence crop
production systems for food, feed, or fodder; to affect livestock health; and to alter the
(15).
pattern and balance of trade of food and food products. These impacts will vary with the degree of warming and
Climate change could

have a range of direct and indirect effects on all four dimensions of food
security. How is the evidence base distributed across the dimensions of food security? We undertook a
associated changes in rainfall patterns, as well as from one location to another .
bibliographic analysis of peer-reviewed journal papers on food security and climate change since the publication of
the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 1990 (21). That report was ground-breaking for
the climate science that it reviewed, but agriculture was entirely absent. Our analysis shows that a small peak of
papers with climate change and food security in the title or abstract were published in the mid-1990s, followed by a
lull then a sharp increase in papers published with these terms from 2008 onward. The distribution of the evidence
across the four dimensions of food security is, however, heavily skewed toward food availability within 70% of the
publications. Access, utilization, and stability dimensions of food security are represented by only 11.9, 13.9, and
4.2% of the total publications on food security and climate change, respectively .
Climate change could

transform the ability to produce certain products at regional and
international levels. If it turns out, for example, that the geography of biomass production shifts at a
global scale (38), this will have production implications for all bio-based productswhether food, feed, fuels, or fiber
and will impinge on food trade flows, with implications for (farm) incomes and access to food (39). Similar
changes have been observed in the geography and relative productivity of certain ocean species, such as shifts
between anchovy and sardine regimes in the Pacific Ocean (40).
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Agriculture Adv - Exts #3 - Alt Causes to Food

Prices
Alt cause weather conditions
GBN 7-30( World Food Prices Fall But Remain High 7-30-13 Ghana Business News
http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2013/07/30/world-food-prices-fall-but-remainhigh-world-bank/)
World food prices have dropped in the third consecutive quarters , says the
World Bank July 25, 2013. According to the Banks Food Price Watch, global food prices continued to fall between
February and June 2013, a trend observed since the recent all-time peak in August 2012. But it noted that food
The World Banks monitoring showed that

higher production, declining imports and lower demand generally pushed
export prices down although international markets continue to be tight for
maize. It said the current prices of wheat reflect expectations that world production will rebound this year from
last years declines as rice prices continued to decrease moderately. Domestic prices, meanwhile,
generally followed seasonal trends but wide variations continued. Where
prices rose between February and June 2013, the Bank attributed it to a
combination of factors including bad weather , dwindling supplies, currency devaluations
prices were only 12% below the August peak.
and public procurement policies. Looking ahead, the World Bank said uncertainty in the international market
remains.
Recently unfavourable weather conditions in northern and central

Europe, the Russian Federation and China may affect the prospects of a
rebound in the world wheat production, it said and the current situation in Egypt may also
impact international markets of wheat, given Egypt is the worlds top wheat importer.

Advantage Frontline Toolbox - Northwestern 2013 Sophomores

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Mexico Economy Advantage Frontline

the Mexican auto industry was shaped by

the process, Mexico has become a very attractive export

And, Mexico's economy is resilient - ability to withstand

resilience lightens the shadows of violence, http://www.thomaswhite.com/worldmarkets/mexico-the-glow-of-economic-resilience-lightens-the-shadows-of-violence/ )Wave3seo

Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #1 - High now

now boasts free-trade deals with 44

goods from Asia to America is costlier too. The

Mexico the worlds cheapest place to manufacture

Mexico's economy will continue to be competitive - energy,

Mexico Means Quality and Competitiveness, January, 2013,

We have found in Mexico an attractive industrial environment and a ready

turning into the new little darling of emerging markets, as mentioned by

exports structure. In the 1980s, 61 percent of Mexicos export products

investments in Mexico of about $15 billion, making Mexico the worlds

Mexico growing most recent evidence proves

Wilson said.He said monopoly breakups, education reforms and a

Mexico has emerged as a leader in the manufacturing of automobiles,

Mexicos economy is growing and strong

are nine manufacturers producing

International eyes are on Mexico now under

are two excellent upcoming opportunities to explore the

Mexico Econ Adv - Exts #2 - Resilient

More evidence - continued foreign direct investment in the

(January 10, 2013, Mexico Catching Up While 'Booming Brazil' Falters,

Brazil, which overtook Britain

US-Sino War Frontline

U.S.-China relationship is complex, but lucrative for both

Beijing believes that the U.S. criticisms over

China-U.S. relations will continue to be very complicated,

2 - No US-China war in SCS, any tensions from miscalc are

the United States had undertaken

these developments do not presage armed

China and the United States

Sino-American relations in the South China Sea are more

likely to be characterised by cooperation and friction than a modus vivendi of

3 - No risk of Sino backlash - Multilateral power balances in

time jetting around the vast region.

Chinese officials collective response to the administration shift

U.S. and China must

a rising China a good thing for his nation, the

4 - US-China Relations increasing.

Leaders on both sides, the argument goes, must be acutely aware

In an effort to build strategic trust,

And, it won't go nuclear - China's No-First-Use policy

NFU highlights Chinas philosophical belief that nuclear weapons can

From the very beginning of acquiring a nuclear capability, Beijing

China has never intended to use its nuclear capability to make up

US-Russian Relations Frontline

a lot of potential these are two very big

And, no risk of bad relations escalating to conflict

And, alternate causality to US-Russian Relations - missile

Democracy Advantage Frontline

5/10/11, http://www.naturalnews.com/032346_democracy_America.html] STRYKER

No government can offer something to

most voters will choose the fantasy candidate... especially if it

And, Democracies are unstable---free expression leads to

Mundt, 97 [Robert, author on history studies, Is Democray Stable? Compared to

to be dissatisfaction, dissent and, eventually instability . Once opposition to the

good government is always the most stable government.

Promoting democracy fails and backfires---resistance leads to

[Eric is professor emeritus of economic and social history of