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Growth Good Environment .............................................................................................................. 33 Growth Good Environment .............................................................................................................. 34 Growth Good Space 1/2 ................................................................................................................... 35 Growth Good Space 2/2 ................................................................................................................... 36 Growth Good Space ......................................................................................................................... 37 Growth Good Space ......................................................................................................................... 38 Growth Good AT Disease .............................................................................................................. 39 Growth Good AT Poverty .............................................................................................................. 40 Growth Bad ............................................................................................................................................. 41 Growth Bad War .............................................................................................................................. 42 Growth Bad War .............................................................................................................................. 43 Growth Bad War .............................................................................................................................. 44 Growth Bad War .............................................................................................................................. 45 Growth Bad Environment ................................................................................................................ 46 Growth Bad Environment ................................................................................................................ 47 Growth Bad Environment ................................................................................................................ 48 Growth Bad Disease ......................................................................................................................... 49 Growth Bad Disease ......................................................................................................................... 50 Growth Bad Disease ......................................................................................................................... 51 Growth Bad Poverty 1/2 .................................................................................................................. 52 Growth Bad Poverty 2/2 .................................................................................................................. 53 Growth Bad Poverty ......................................................................................................................... 54 Growth Bad Poverty ......................................................................................................................... 55 Growth Bad AT Decline Causes War ............................................................................................. 56 Growth Bad AT Space/Asteroids ................................................................................................... 57 Growth Bad AT Terrorism ............................................................................................................. 58 Misc ............................................................................................................................................................. 59 Transition Solves ................................................................................................................................. 60 Transition Solves ................................................................................................................................. 61 Transition Solves ................................................................................................................................. 62 Transition Fails .................................................................................................................................... 63 Transition Fails .................................................................................................................................... 64 Transition Fails .................................................................................................................................... 65
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Uniqueness
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Economy Yes/No
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starters, large US multinational companies are as healthy as I have ever seen them. Their cash balances are extremely high, interest payments on debt are low, and principal obligations have been termed out. Many of them are successfully tapping into buoyant demand in emerging economies, generating significant free cash flow. Company cash is not the only source of considerable spending power waiting on the sidelines. Rich households also hold significant resources that could be deployed in support of both consumption and investment. The third and fourth positive factors relate to housing and the labor market. These two long-standing areas of
persistent weakness have constituted a major drag on the type of cyclical dynamics that traditionally thrust the US out of its periodic economic slowdowns. But recent
data support the view that the housing sector could be in the process of establishing a bottom, albeit an elongated one. Meanwhile, job growth, while anemic, has nonetheless been consistently positive since September 2010. Then there is the US Federal Reserve Board. Despite legitimate questions about the effectiveness of its unconventional and ever-experimental policy stance, the Fed appears willing to be even more activist if the economy weakens. Indeed, if the Fed makes an inadvertent mistake (the likelihood of this is
considerable, given the countrys complex situation and the unusually uncertain outlook), it is more likely to err on the side of staying accommodative for too long, rather than tightening monetary policy prematurely.
Finally, with the November elections in sight and subsequently out of the way, some believe that politicians in Washington might finally be in a better position to agree to much-needed grand policy bargains. In addition to removing the damaging specter of the fiscal cliff
a potentially disruptive economic hindrance equivalent to some 4% of GDP, in the form of excessively blunt spending cuts and across-the-board tax increases greater political effectiveness would serve to remove other uncertainties that inhibit certain economic activities.
Each of these six factors suggests actual and potential economic healing. So, not surprisingly, they have provoked excitement in some circles that the US may finally be poised to leave behind the depressing trio of unusually sluggish growth, persistently high unemployment, and high and growing inequality.
6 Growth Core
weaker reports in recent weeks that showed hiring slowed, applications for unemployment benefits rose and factory
output dropped. This survey will ease concerns that the softer tone of the incoming news in recent months marked the start of a renewed slowdown in growth, Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. We think the
Multiple factors have ensured continued US growthjob growth, debt reduction, avoidance of spending cuts and tax increases Sherter, 3-22-12
[Alain, Journalist, OECD: Global economic recovery is 'fragile,' uneven. Online, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57439004/oecd-global-economic-recovery-is-fragileuneven/] /WFI-MB The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development projects in a new report that GDP growth across the
group's 34 member countries will slow this year to 1.6 percent, down from 1.8 percent in 2011, before recovering to 2.2 percent in 2013. But while the group expects economic growth in the U.S. to rise 2.4 percent in 2012 and 2.6 percent in 2013 , Europe's overall GDP this year is forecast to shrink 0.1 percent. "The crisis in the eurozone remains the single biggest downside risk facing the global outlook," said OECD chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan in a statement. Increasing
moderate job growth is boosting incomes in the U.S., although rising energy prices have muted those positive effects. Americans also continue to reduce their debt, pinching spending and constraining growth. Investment by private businesses in 2012 has declined slightly from last year. On a more positive note for the economy, inflation remains in check and is not expected to rise so long as the Federal Reserve maintains its policy of supporting low interest rates for the foreseeable future. One key factor that has helped the U.S. economy is its avoidance of the major government spending cuts and tax hikes that many European countries have adopted since the 2008 financial crisis. But the expiration of tax cuts and unemployment benefits, coupled with
automatic spending cuts negotiated between Democrats and Republicans as part of a budget compromise last year, could derail the U.S. recovery, the OECD warns.
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Global Economy failing nowEurozone recession and Greece exit speculation Jarvis, 5-24-12
*Gail Marks, Chicago Tribune Award winning Finance Columnist, Eurozone's turmoil threatens global economy. Online, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/ct-biz-0523-gail-market-20120524-11,0,6654603.column] /WFI-MB While the eurozone's debt issues are not new, recessions are deepening, political instability is growing, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Tuesday that without quick action by European leaders and the European Central Bank, Europe could go into a severe recession with global ramifications. New concerns focus on potential runs on banks. In Greece, individuals fearing that their country might leave the eurozone have been removing money from accounts rather than taking a chance that at some point they might be given drachmas instead of euros. Similar behavior is suspected in weak countries such as Spain, although analysts are not sure how extensive the practice has been. "Bank runs can easily get out of control," Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian noted in an essay Monday on Foreign Policy magazine's website. During the last few weeks, stock market strategists and economists have been trying to estimate the impact if Greece defaults, leaves the eurozone and other countries threaten or take the same route. Given the lack of precedent, no analysis is certain. While many analysts believe Greece would face a depression and Europe's recession would deepen amid worry and banking trouble, there is disagreement about the extent of infection worldwide.
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manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index slipped to 53.9 in May from 56.0, with slower export sales sapping momentum. Markit, which also compiles the euro zone PMIs, released its U.S. index for the first time on Thursday but has been tracking data in the entire sector since late 2009. "The cause seems to lie largely with weak export sales, which likely reflects the deteriorating economic situation in Europe as well as slower growth in China," said Markit chief economist Chris Williamson. HSBC's Flash China
PMI, the earliest indicator of China's industrial sector, retreated to 48.7 in May from a final reading of 49.3 in April. It marked the seventh straight month that the index has been below 50. The
figures signal that the sluggish economic conditions of the first quarter are set to continue throughout the first half of the year in China's longest slowdown since the global financial crisis. "The series of highly disappointing April activity data - exports, imports, industrial production and retail sales
indicators all fell short of even the most pessimistic forecasts - the first gauge for economic activity in the current month is a further signal that internal and external headwinds are still biting into economic momentum," said Nikolaus Keis at UniCredit. The HSBC PMI has provided a contrast to the Chinese government's official PMI, which includes more state-owned firms with better access to credit. The government PMI hit a 13-month high of 53.3 in April as exports ticked higher although domestic orders showed signs of weakness. US summer slowdown?
Manufacturing has been a bright spot for the U.S. economy, with the Markit index showing the sector has expanded for 32 straight months. The U.S. PMI index's average reading in 2011 was 54.3. But as the pace of hiring across the economy has slowed in recent months, economists worry about whether demand will hold up this summer . "We are seeing slower growth globally, including China," said Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Manufacturers remain cautious. We have seen evidence of softer equipment demand in the first quarter and that softness will likely continue into the second quarter." Separate data showed orders for long-lasting U.S. durable goods rose less than expected as firms scaled back plans to add machinery and the military
ordered fewer aircraft. Meanwhile, first-time applications for U.S. jobless benefits fell slightly in the latest week, the Labor Department said on Thursday, though data earlier this month showed employers in April added the fewest new jobs to their payrolls since October.
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Sustainability Yes/No
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Growth is Sustainable
Capitalism can be green and is sustainable Wallis, 2010
[Victor, teaches in the Liberal Arts department at the Berklee College of Music (in Boston) and is the managing editor of Socialism and Democracy, Beyond green capitalism. Monthly Review, 61.9, Accessed online via academic search premier] /WFI-MB At a conceptual level, it is clear that "green capitalism" seeks to bind together two antagonistic notions. To be green means to prioritize the health of the ecosphere, with all that this entails in terms of curbing greenhouse gases and preserving biodiversity. To promote capitalism, by contrast, is to foster growth and accumulation, treating both the workforce and the natural environment as mere inputs. Capital is no stranger to contradiction, however. Just as it seeks to balance marketexpansion with wage-restraint, so it must seek to balance perpetual growth with preservation of the basic conditions for survival. Despite the ultimate incompatibility of these two goals, therefore, capital must to some extent pursue both at once. Although green capitalism is an oxymoron, it is therefore nonetheless a policy objective. Its proponents thus find
themselves in an ongoing two-front struggle against, on the one hand, capital's more short-sighted advocates and, on the other, the demand for a far-reaching ecologically grounded conversion of production and consumption. The
green capitalist vision is sometimes associated with small enterprises that can directly implement green criteria by, for example, using renewable energy sources, avoiding toxic chemicals, repairing or recycling used products, and minimizing reliance on long-distance shipment for either supplies or sales. But the scope of such practices is likely
to be severely limited by market pressures. The aspect of local self-sufficiency is most widely seen in the food-services sector, especially in farmers' markets, which have experienced a notable resurgence in recent years in industrialized countries. This corresponds more to what Marx called "simple commodity production," however, than to capitalist enterprise. Agribusiness allows residual space for it, but at the same time undercuts it through economies of scale facilitated by technologies of food processing and storage; political clout, resulting in subsidies; and reliance on a typically migrant workforce that receives less than a living wage. Because of the resulting cost differences (as well as inconveniences of access), patronage of farmers' markets is likely to remain primarily a political choice until much more is done to offset the artificial competitive edge enjoyed by the food-industrial complex. Focusing now on
find the green capitalist agenda expressed partly by the enterprises themselves, partly by industry associations, and partly by government.3 For the corporations themselves, "green" practice takes essentially three forms: (1) energysaving and other costcutting measures, which are advantageous to them in any case; (2) compliance with whatever regulations may be enforced by a government in which they normally have a large voice; and (3) most importantly, public relations (PR). The
industry associations further amplify the PR aspect, playing an especially vital role on the global stage, where they strive to establish the common assumptions underlying international agreements. They
have worked extensively to influence the United Nations Development Program, and they also carry out largescale lobbying campaigns to set negotiating parameters for the
periodic Earth Summits (Rio de Janeiro 1992, Kyoto 1997, Johannesburg 2002, Copenhagen 2009). The Business Council for Sustainable Development thus came into being in the run-up to the Rio conference, declaring in its charter that "economic
growth provides
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Growth is Sustainable
Growth is sustainableInnovation from capitalism and transition to natural capitalism will solve all problems with current growth Schweickart, 2009
*David, Loyola University Chicago, Is sustainable capitalism an oxymoron? PGDT 8, 559-580, Accessed online via academic search premier] /WFI-MB Hawken and the Lovins agree with Kovel that the current model of capitalism is problematic. Capitalism, as practiced, is a nancially protable, nonsustainable aberration in human development (Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins 1999:5). But they do not see the problem as residing in capitalism itself. They distinguish among four kinds of capital, all necessary for production: human capital, nancial
capital, manufactured capital and natural capital. The problem with the current form of capitalism, they argue, is its radical mispricing of these factors. Current
market prices woefully undervalueand often do not value at allthe fourth factor: the natural resources and ecological systems that make life possible and worth living on this planet (Ibid. 2). All economists, liberal, Left and Right, recognize that market transactions can involve externalitiescosts (or benets) not paid for by the transacting parties. All agree that there is a role for governments to play in rectifying these defects. The standard
remedies involve taxation (for negative externalities) and subsidies (for positive externalities). More recently, cap and trade schemes for carbon emissions have been added to the list. Hawken and the Lovins argue that these remediesproperly applied can work. The
rst step, they say, is to eliminate the perverse incentives now in place. They document the massive subsidies that
governments currently provide for ecologically destructive behavior, e.g. highway construction and repair, which encourages suburban sprawl and the shift away from more ecient modes of transportation, agricultural subsidies that encourage soil degradation and wasteful use of water, subsidies to mining, oil, shing and forest industries, etc. Second step: impose resource and pollution taxes so as to reect the true costs of natural capital. Sweeten the pie by phasing out all taxes on labor the payroll tax, which increases unemployment, and income taxes as well. The point is to
level the playing eld so that more sustainable technologies and more energy-ecient processes can compete fairly with the destructive practices of industrial capitalism . We might even want to
go further, and subsidize at least initiallythe technologies that reduce the negative environmental impact of our production and consumption choices. Natural
Capitalism is chock full of examples of the shocking waste pervasive in our current system and of the existing technologies and procedures that could reduce our impact on the environment to a small fraction of what it is now. Many of these changes are already underway. Many more will follow if appropriate government policies are adopted. Hawken and the Lovins envisage a bright future: Imagine for a moment a world where cities have become peaceful and serene because cars and buses are whisper quiet, vehicles exhaust only water vapor, and parks and greenways have replaced unneeded urban freeways. OPEC has ceased to function because the price of oil has fallen to ve dollars a barrel, but there are few buyers for it because cheaper and better ways now exist to get the services people once turned to oil to provide. Living standards for all people have dramatically improved, particularly for the poor and those in developing countries. Involuntary unemployment no longer exists, and income taxes have been largely eliminated. Houses, even low-income housing units, can pay part of their mortgage costs by the energy they produce. (Ibid. 1). Such a future will come about if we harness the creative energy of capitalism and let the markets work.
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Growth is Sustainable
Growth is sustainable profitable technologies will solve for waste and eliminate consumption Schweickart, 2009
*David, Loyola University Chicago, Is sustainable capitalism an oxymoron? PGDT 8, 559-580, Accessed online via academic search premier] /WFI-MB Hawken and the Lovins have much to say about energy. They argue that vast amounts of energy are currently wastedand that there is much prot to be made in reducing this waste. They are convinced that technologies already exist that, if properly implemented, could drastically reduce, and eventually eliminate, fossil fuel consumptionwithout relying on nuclear power. Many of these are already protable. Others would be, if sensible governmental policies were put in place.
Capitalism has regulatory components and profit motives that encourage sustainable growth and use of resources Fleisher, 2009
*Chris, Valley news service, Is Capitalism Sustainable?: Short Answer: Yes, but With Better Regulation. Valley news, 1-18-2009, Accessed online via academic search premier] /WFI-MB "Capitalism is sustainable in every sense of the term," said Anant Sundaram, a professor of business administration at
Tuck, during the opening chat last week. "With extremely important caveats." The conference, which ran Thursday and Friday, posed the question of whether capitalism is sustainable, as an economic system and force on the environment. In
panel discussions, professors, consultants, investment analysts and other corporate leaders considered the question and did their best to offer a way forward. Even if the economic circumstances surrounding the question are not pleasant, most of the panelists agreed with Sundaram that capitalism could function without destroying the natural world. But it might not be sustainable in its current form. If it is going to survive as a system of production
and exchange, it would have to change, become much more forward thinking and acknowledge new restrictions to keep from gobbling itself whole. The question is more than a conversation topic for a Tuck-sponsored salon. It is being considered by plenty of people in the Upper Valley every day. "One thing that comes immediately to mind when you talk about the topic is our whole floodplain on 12A is covered with buildings," said Judy Macnab, chairwoman of the Lebanon Conservation Commission, in reference to the Upper Valley's most notorious commercial strip. That development along the Connecticut River is what happens when capitalist impulses are given unchecked access to the natural environment, and a testament to the need for strong zoning laws, she said. Commercial interests are at stake, too. Poor design and heavy traffic have made West Lebanon's Route 12A an unpleasant place to visit, she said, driving shoppers away whenever possible. A better approach would be the path two other developers have taken in Lebanon. One is David Clem of Lyme Timber Co., she said, who has solicited feedback from residents in redeveloping the former Bailey Brothers building on Route 10. Another is a project planned near the crest of Route 120. The landowner, L-A Suncook LLC, owns 289 acres off the eastern side of Route 120, behind the former Wilson Tire building. Suncook, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm, intends to set aside 223 acres for preservation and develop the rest for offices and a hotel. "Both of those are much appreciated for their willingness to work with us, instead of push things down our throats," Macnab said of the two projects. The incentive to do something that the community wants has some real economic value, according to P.K. Knights, local operating partner of LA Suncook. The company might realize a higher profit if it were to pack all 289 acres with single-family homes, but there is also value in avoiding a long fight with the city by doing something the community wants. "It might be better to create something the community accepts and move forward in the near future," Knights said. Going Green More
than proper land use, however, there are the buildings themselves. Sustainable development, as it relates to so-called "green building," was the subject of one Friday morning panel at Tuck. Environmentally sustainable construction is yet another area where profit motives and environmental concerns are becoming increasingly aligned, even during a recession, according to the panelists. "Growth (in the industry) is unbelievable," said Jim Boyle, founder and CEO of Sustainability Roundtable Inc., a sustainable real estate consultant. The
value of green building construction was estimated at $12.3 billion in 2008, according to the U.S. Green Building Council, and projected to be
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Growth is Sustainable
Continued from last page
$60 billion in 2010. Dartmouth College has supported a number of sustainable projects and has three buildings on campus certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program, a benchmark for green buildings. There
are different certification levels that consider a building's energy efficiency, use of native materials and other initiatives to reduce its environmental impact. LEED certification has become attractive to companies that want to advertise sensitivity to the environment.
But beyond the marketing opportunities, it doesn't always make sense to get certified, said Paul Olsen, of Dartmouth's Real Estate office, who was one of the panelists. Getting certified is expensive, costing as much as $100,000 for a project. "In order to be a green building, it doesn't have to get certified," Olsen said. "That money could be better spent." The financial advantages of going green are something Wayne Bonhag considers every day as a principal of Bonhag Associates. His Lebanon-based engineering firm is working on several LEED projects for Southern New Hampshire University, which is watching its bottom line carefully amid the recession. "We are very much aware that we don't want to spend any more money on the capital side of things that won't be coming back to us in the short term," Bonhag said. Sometimes it doesn't make sense, he said. One industrial client in New Hampshire wanted to line its roof with solar panels. But when Bonhag crunched the numbers, solar just didn't seem to make sense. It was too expensive. However, he was able to find another renewable energy option. "In this particular case, I was able to negotiate a wind purchase," Bonhag said. "It's still green, and yet we were able to do this so they can buy power." Not every problem is so neatly resolved. Especially in the financial sector.
Socially responsible investing has grown in popularity in the past few years, but has been tested in this recession. The Wilderhill New Energy Global Innovation Index -- a benchmark for green
investing -- is down 56 percent since June 30. By comparison, the S&P 500 was down 31 percent over the same six months. Carey Callaghan manages the Energy Alternatives Fund, a mutual fund through American Trust Co. in Lebanon. As its name suggests, the fund invests in companies that, in one way or another, address the twin concerns of climate change and energy supply shortages. Since it was launched last June, the fund has declined 44 percent, Callaghan said. The financial crisis has hurt short-term prospects for some of his companies, as addressing climate change takes a back seat to other pressing concerns. The collapse in energy prices has also affected perceptions about the need to develop alternative fuel. Still, he believes the need for solar technology and alternative fuel sources will not go away. And new regulations that result from this crisis -- for fuel standards, emissions and energy consumption -- could play to his advantage. If
the crisis has resulted in anything, he said, it is a healthy skepticism of unbridled capitalism and calls for tighter regulation. "The blind faith of many adherents to capitalism has been put to the test because it's clear capitalism has flaws," he said. "You need to impose some limits on capitalism." Impure Capitalism The panelists at Tuck largely agreed. One speaker -- Greg Hintz
of the consulting company McKinsey & Co. -- began his introduction with a couple straw polls. First, he asked the audience of about 60 whether capitalism -- simply as a system of exchanging goods -- was sustainable. Most raised their hands in agreement. Then, he wondered whether capitalism, in its pure form -- an open-market free-for-all, with no regulation -- was sustainable in terms of social and environmental needs, able to regenerate the resources upon which it fed. The other panelists wouldn't let him get that far. "No regulation?" Sundaram asked. Pure capitalism, Hintz repeated. The discussion broke down into a series of qualifying questions. No regulation at all? No contracts? Nothing? The question never made it to a vote, and Hintz moved on with his talk. But the provocative suggestion of "pure capitalism" never went away. Later, regulation came up again, and Hintz suggested that if capitalism relied so much on rules and law, then the answer to the conference's question was "no." Capitalism wasn't sustainable. "I completely disagree," Sundaram said. It is
a system that needs regulation to function, even to establish a clearinghouse where trade can happen, the other panelists suggested. It requires policing to keep its practitioners' safe from their own worst impulses. The economic system upon which our modern world relies would be unworkable otherwise. "I won't accept a definition of capitalism that doesn't have a regulatory component," said Michael Dworkin, a professor at Vermont Law School. "It becomes meaningless."
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is no element in our suicidal condition that is more important than this mindless obsession with accelerating the main factor causing the condition. The following points drive home the magnitude of the overshoot. If the 9 billion people we will have on earth within about 50 years were to use resources at the per capita rate of the rich countries, annual resource production would have to be about 8 times as great as it is now. If 9 billion people were to have a North American diet we would need about 4.5 billion ha of cropland, but there are only 1.4 billion ha of cropland on the planet. Water resources are scarce and dwindling. What will the situation be if 9 billion people try to use water as we in rich countries do, while the greenhouse problem reduces water resources. The worlds fisheries are in serious trouble now, most of them overfished and in decline. What happens if 9 billion people try to eat fish at the rate Australians do now? Several mineral and other resources are likely to be very scarce soon, including gallium, indium, helium, and there are worries about copper, zinc, silver and phosphorous. Oil and gas are likely to be in decline soon, and largely unavailable in the second
half of the century. If 9 billion were to consume oil at the Australian per capita rate, world demand would be about 5 times as great as it is now. The seriousness of this is extreme, given the heavy dependence of our society on liquid fuels. Recent "Footprint" analysis indicates that it takes 8 ha of productive land to provide water, energy, settlement area and food for one person living in Australia. (World Wildlife Fund, 2009.) So if 9 billion people were to live as we do about 72 billion ha of productive land would be needed. But that is about 10 times all the available productive land on the planet. The most disturbing argument is to do with the greenhouse problem. It is very likely that in order to stop the carbon content of the atmosphere rising to dangerous levels CO2 emissions will have to be totally eliminated by 2050 (Hansen says 2030). (Hansen, 2009, Meinschausen et al., 2009.) Geosequestration cant enable this, if only because it can only capture about 85% of the 50% of emissions that come from stationary sources like power stations. These
kinds of figures make it abundantly clear that rich world material living standards are grossly unsustainable. We are living in ways that it is impossible for all to share. We are not just a little beyond sustainable levels of resource consumption -- we have overshot by a factor of 5 to 10. Few seem to realise the magnitude of the overshoot, nor therefore about the enormous reductions that must be made.
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Links
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Impacts
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Growth Good
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The threat of instability is a pressing concern. China, until last year the world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20
million migrant laborers lost their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years, China faced upward of 70,000 labor uprisings a year. A sustained downturn poses grave and possibly immediate threats to Chinese internal stability. The
regime in Beijing may be faced with a choice of repressing its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's neighbors. Russia, an oil state completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put down riots in its Far
East as well as in downtown Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse.
If that devil's bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing threatening posture toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies face increasing risk and the threat of internal or possibly external conflict. As Japan's exports have plummeted by nearly
50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have passed emergency economic stabilization plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary employees hired during the first part of this decade are being laid off. Spain's unemployment rate is expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish unions are already protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as occurred in the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece, workers have already taken to the streets. Europe as a whole will face dangerously increasing tensions between native citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have increased the labor pool in the past several decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since 1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's residents have foreign citizenship, including almost 2 million Turks. The xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not bode well for the rest of Europe. A
prolonged global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise tensions inside these countries. Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial disputes in all regions of the globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what they are doing. The result may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang.
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in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crisis could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Seperately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain
unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copelands (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that future expectation of trade is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviours of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations, However,
if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crisis could
potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic
conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflict self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. P. 89) Economic decline has been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. Diversionary theory suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increase incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a rally around the flag effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting
evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that
the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlated economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels. This implied connection between integration, crisis and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This
observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter.
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economic development and terrorism, several studies found that higher levels of development are obstacles to the production of transnational terrorism (cf., e.g., Santos Bravo and Mendes Dias, 2006; Lai, 2007; Freytag et al., 2008). Blomberg and Hess (2008) also found that higher incomes are a strong deterrence to the genesis of domestic terrorism. Furthermore, there is evidence connecting solid short-run economic conditions with less political violence (cf. Muller and Weede, 1990; Freytag et al., 2008). In general, the evidence indicates that terrorism and economic conditions are linked. Here, economic success seems to impede the genesis of terrorism, presumably due to higher opportunity costs of conflict. In other words, in times of stronger economic performance individuals simply have more to lose.
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most terrorists obviously already know about the nuclear tensions between powerful countries. No doubt, theyve figured out that the best way to escalate these tensions into nuclear war is to set off a nuclear exchange. As Moore points out, all that militant terrorists would have to do is get their hands on one small nuclear bomb and explode it on either Moscow or Israel. Because of the Russian dead hand system, where regional nuclear commanders would be given full powers should Moscow be destroyed, it is likely that any attack would be blamed on the United States Israeli leaders and Zionist supporters have, likewise, stated for years that if Israel were to suffer a nuclear attack, whether from terrorists or a nation state, it would retaliate with the suicidal Samson option against all major Muslim cities in the Middle East. Furthermore, the Israeli Samson option would also include attacks on Russia and even anti-Semitic European cities In that case, of course, Russia would retaliate, and the U.S. would then retaliate against Russia. China would probably be involved as well, as thousands, if not tens of thousands, of nuclear warheads, many of them much more powerful than those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would rain upon most of the major cities in the Northern Hemisphere. Afterwards, for years to come, massive radioactive clouds would drift throughout the Earth in the nuclear fallout, bringing death or else radiation disease that would be genetically transmitted to future generations in a nuclear winter that could last as long as a 100 years, taking a savage toll upon the environment and fragile ecosphere as well. And what many people fail to realize is what a precarious, hair-trigger basis the nuclear web rests on. Any accident, mistaken communication, false signal or lone wolf act of sabotage or treason could, in a matter of a few minutes, unleash the use of nuclear weapons, and once a weapon is used, then the likelihood of a rapid escalation of nuclear attacks is quite high while the likelihood of a limited nuclear war is actually less probable since each country would act under the use them or lose them strategy and psychology; restraint by one power would be interpreted as a weakness by the other, which could be exploited as a window of opportunity to win the war. In other words, once Pandora's Box is opened, it will spread quickly, as it will be the signal for permission for anyone to use them. Moore compares swift nuclear escalation to a room full of people embarrassed to cough. Once one does, however, everyone else
feels free to do so. The bottom line is that as long as large nation states use internal and external war to keep their disparate factions glued together and to satisfy elites needs for power and plunder, these nations will attempt to obtain, keep, and inevitably use nuclear weapons. And as long as large nations oppress groups who seek self-determination, some of those groups will look for any means to fight their oppressors In other words, as
long as war and aggression are backed up by the implicit threat of nuclear arms, it is only a matter of time before the escalation of violent conflict leads to the actual use of nuclear weapons, and once even just one is used, it is very likely that many, if not all, will be used, leading to horrific scenarios of global death and the destruction of much of human civilization while condemning a mutant human remnant, if there is such a remnant, to a life of unimaginable misery and suffering in a nuclear winter.
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that aim at improving economic status should also be pursued because they may robustly reduce the propensity towards domestic terrorism at least in some countries. The opportunity costs of
violence and the general influence of economic factors on terror should not be disregarded. (ii) Policies that aim to increase the efficiency of markets and institutions should also be undertaken because they help to protect economies from the negative effects of terrorism by increasing markets and institutions resiliency to terrorist attacks.
Economic success crowds out terrorismanalysis of many countries proves Gries, Krieger, and Meierreks, 2011
*Thomas, Time, and Daniel, Univ. of Paderborn Dept. of Economics, Causal Linkages Between Domestic Terrorism and Economic Growth. Defence and Peace Economics, Vol. 22, Issue 5, 493-508, Accessed Online via Taylor Francis Online] /WFI-MB
We found that (i) all investigated growth and terror series exhibit structural breaks matching major turning points in the countries economic and political history. (ii) In bivariate systems, economic growth leads terrorist violence in all cases, whereas terrorism causally influences growth only for one country. We argued that economic performance appears to influence the terrorists calculus, while attacked economies are generally resistant to domestic terrorism. (iii) We noted that bivariate causality tests may be prone to inconsistencies, so we also performed causality tests in trivariate systems. The findings confirmed that economies under attack are successful in adjusting to the threats of terror, so economic growth is not impaired. With respect to causality running from growth to terrorism, the results weaken those of the bivariate analysis. Economic
performance robustly sways the terrorists calculus only for Germany, Portugal and Spain, but not for France, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom. Solid growth in some countries may raise the opportunity costs of terror, thus discouraging violent behavior, for instance as individuals found more economic opportunities. In the light of our results, policymakers therefore should not underestimate the role of economic factors - and the role of the opportunity costs of violence - in impacting domestic terrorism. For some countries in the investigated part of the world, economic success apparently has contributed to a crowding out of domes- tic terrorist violence. However, factors other than economic performance
should also be considered when explaining terrorism dynamics, in particular when the links between economic growth and domestic terrorist violence are not found to be strong.
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United States does not get serious about alternative energy sources, then we risk not only intensifying this crisis, but also ceding hundreds of billions in profit opportunities (and millions of jobs) to China
and Germany, who have accelerated their investments in green energy. The German government recently provided one billion Euros in incentives to companies developing electromobility technology, such as clean vehicles and fuels. Germany is home to some of the worlds most innovative companies, such as BMW, Bosch, Porsche, and Deutsche Telekom, which are rushing to take advantage of the governments green technology incentives. With its largest and strongest companies investing in new clean energy technology, Germany is cornering this new market. In addition, small and medium-sized businesses (Mittelstand) have been able to take advantage of these incentives. German business has seen the writing on the wall. In the next few decades, clean cars developed through electromobility investments will likely replace petroleum-powered cars. The
energy crisis, climate change, or a combination of both, will force us to move on to alternative energy sources and more efficient technology. When this time comes, the companies currently investing billions into technology development will profit immensely. These companies will become the face of green industry, and the green market will explode in Germany, creating millions of new jobs for German
workers. These arent start-up companies taking a long shot risk; these are giants like BMW and BASF seeing clean technologys potential in their industries. Its time for the United States to take note. We need to ask ourselves whether, when electromobility becomes the industry standard, we want to import cars from Germany, or manufacture them in America, with American technology and parts, employing millions of American workers. Talk
of government involvement in the free market inevitably degrades into a debate over big government vs. free market capitalism. Frankly, this debate holds us back, because it obscures the enormous opportunity for the United States in green energy technology. President Obama has tried to make substantial investments in green technology, but this has faced ferocious opposition that would have us maintain our dependence on oil. Germany has shown the world the power of a progressive approach, making the free market and the government partners with a mutual goal of innovation. This approach is underscored through Germanys use of government incentives that encourage companies to innovate, rather than regulations that force compliance. Government regulation can squash creativity by favoring incumbent technologies. With government incentives, companies that do not invest in new technologies will simply be at an economic disadvantage when the new industry expands. Thus, these companies have a competitive incentive to invest, rather than a one-size-fits-all legal
mandate. The German government has chosen not to approach the clean energy market with sweeping regulations, because they realize that regulations favoring existing technologies will hamper this emerging market. Rather, it uses government incentives
to spur innovation in existing and emerging companies that hope to capitalize on economic opportunities opened by government investment and support. Government investment and incentives encourage companies to respond in kind by investing billions in the clean energy industry, which holds seemingly endless potential for America to regain its status as a global manufacturing giant. In order to promote an American clean energy revolution, the United States could replicate many of the measures that the German government has
implemented. Given Americas geographical advantagesthousands of miles of coastline, and wide, flat, open plainswind and solar energy have the potential to emerge as booming American commodities. This has the potential to create millions of new manufacturing jobs, and to
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to become a growing, stable market, with opportunities for American carmakers, steel manufacturers, utility companies, and
other industries to build a new market in the private sector. Making the United States energy-independent is vital to our long-term prosperity and security. Our dependence on oil has involved us with authoritarian and anti-democratic nations around the world, severely weakening us financially, and tarnishing our international credibility. If we wish to be the worlds leader for decades to come, the
government needs to accelerate investment in green technology and provide greater incentives for public-private partnerships. This can be the centerpiece of Americas comeback, and a source of renewed strength for our country. Green investments and incentives will pay huge dividends over time, making us energy-independent, more efficient, and a global leader in fighting climate change. Ignorance will no longer cut it in the energy debate. Its time for
us to move on to a better, more progressive approach to energy.
That solves collapse of civilization John C. Dernbach, Associate Professor, Law, Widener University, Sustainable Development as a
Framework for National Governance, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW v. 49, Fall 1998, p. 16. The global scale and severity of environmental degradation and poverty are unprecedented in human history. Major adverse consequences are not inevitable, but they are likely if these problems are not addressed. Many civilizations collapsed or were severely weakened because they exhausted or degraded the natural resource base on which they depended. n76 In addition, substantial economic and social inequalities have caused or contributed to many wars and revolutions. n77 These problems are intensified by the speed at which they have occurred and are worsening, making it difficult for natural systems to adapt. The complexity of natural and human systems also means that the effects of these problems are difficult to anticipate. The potential impact of global warming on the transmission of tropical diseases in a time of substantial international travel and commerce is but one example.
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Economic growth solves environmental destruction, at higher standards of living environmental protection increases Arrow et al, 1995
*Kenneth, K Arrow is in the Department of Economics, Stanford University, Economic Growth and Carrying Capacity. Science, Vol 268, 4-28-1995, Online, http://www.precaution.org/lib/06/econ_growth_and_carrying_capacity.pdf] /WFI-MB The general proposition that economic growth is good for the environment has been justified by the claim that there exists an empirical relation between per capita income and some measures of environmental quality. It has been observed that as income goes up there is increasing environmental degradation up to a point, after which environmental quality improves. (The relation has an "invertedU" shape.) One explanation of this finding is that people in poor countries cannot afford to emphasize amenities over material well-being. Consequently, in the earlier stages of economic development, increased pollution is regarded as an acceptable side effect of economic growth. However, when a country has attained a sufficiently high standard of living, people give greater attention to environmental amenities. This leads to environmental legislation, new institutions for the protection of the environment, and so forth.
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itself leads to
new definitions of human growth also explains the Wests faith in progress. Our accomplishments consistently exceed our wildest dreams. Regardless of the stated purpose of a technology, the applications usually exceed such purposes. The automobile became important as a means of redistributing the population from cities to the suburbs; the discovery of the
steam engine revolutionized industry and the very concept of abundance. Third, growth itself contains to their economic woes. hence, he concludes that in order to ensure the solutions to the problems it produces. Supporting this principle is the World Banks 1992 report Development and the Environment, which blatantly states that growth
is a powerful antidote to a number of ills plaguing Third World countries, including the pollution that growth supposedly generates. The report thus contends that eliminating poverty should remain the top goal of world policymakers. Although economic growth can initially lead to such problems as pollution and waste, the resulting prosperity also facilitates the developments of technologies that lead to cleaner air and water. In fact, once a nations per capita income rises to about $4000 in 1993 dollars, it produces less of some pollutants per capita, mainly due to the fact that it can afford technology like catalytic converters and sewage systems that treat a variety of wastes. According to Norio Yamamoto, research director of the Mitsubishi Research Institute, We consider any kind of environmental damage to result from mismanagement of the economy. He claims that the pollution problems of poorer regions such as eastern europe can be traced to their economic woes. Hence, he concludes that in order to ensure environmental safety we need a sound economy on a global basis. so the answer to pollution, the supposed outgrowth of progress, ought to be more economic growth.
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twice in the last hundred years in remote areas where an object exploded near the Earths surface bur did not impact (such as in Russia). If either of these events had occurred over a populated area the death toll would have been enormous. Our armed forces are concerned that an asteroid strike could be interpreted as a nuclear attack, thus triggering retaliation. What higher goals could Space Colonization have than in helping to prevent the destruction of human life and to ensure the future of civilization? The odds of an object 1 km in diameter impacting Earth in this century range between 1 in 1,500 and 1 in 5,000 depending on the assumptions made. A 1-km-diameter meteoroid impact would create a crater 5 miles wide. The death toll would depend on the impact point. A hit at Ground Zero in New York would kill millions of people and Manhattan Island (and much of the surrounding area) would disappear. The resulting disruption to the Earths environment would be immeasurable by todays standards. A concerted Space
Colonization impetus could provide platforms for early warning and could, potentially, aid in deflection of threatening objects. NEO detection and deflection is a goal that furthers international cooperation in space and Space Colonization. Many nations can contribute and the multiple dimensions of the challenge would allow participation in many waysfrom telescopes for conducting surveys, to studies of lunar and other planet impacts, to journeys to the comets. The Moon is a natural laboratory for the study of impact events. A lunar colony would facilitate such study and could provide a base for defensive action. Lunar and Mars cyclers could be a part of Space Colonization that would provide survey sites and become bases for mining the NEOs as a resource base for space construction.
Colonization would serve a similar purpose to the solar system as did that of the United States Interstate Highway system or the flood control and land reclamation in the American West did for the United States development. In short, it would allow civilization to expand into the high frontier.
Those cause extinction Richard A. Posner (Senior Lecturer @ the University of Chicago Law School and Judge of the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit) 2004
[Catastrophe: Risk & Response, p. 3, loghry] You wouldnt see the asteroid, even though it was several miles in diameter, because it would be hurtling toward you at 15 to 25 miles a second. At that speed, the column of air between the asteroid and the earths surface would be compressed with such force that the col- umns temperature would soar to several times that of the sun, inciner- ating everything in its path. When the asteroid struck, it would penetrate deep into the ground and explode, creating an enormous crater and ejecting burning rocks and dense clouds of soot into the atmosphere, wrapping the globe in a mantle of fiery debris that would raise surface temperatures by as much as 100 degrees Fahrenheit and shut down photosynthesis for years. The shock waves from the collision would have precipitated earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, gargantuan tidal waves, and huge forest fires. A quarter of the earths human population might be dead within 24 hours of the strike, and the rest soon after.
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the 1960s.
Profit motive from capitalism is key to space development and travel Kalinchenko, 2012
*Dmitry, MA in Information Science and Concentration Economics and Univ. of Michigan, Capitalism as a driver of space exploration. 3-31-2012, Online, http://dmitrykalinchenko.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/capitalism-as-a-driver-of-space-exploration/] /WFI-MB While moon colonies are a fairly distant goal, I think that more casual space travel could become feasible within next decade. The force behind this, however, will not be Newts administration controlling the White House (hopefully); instead it will be the profit motif driving any organization in a capitalist society. Today we already have a number of firms like SpaceX that are close to developing a ship capable of carrying a person to space. SpaceX was mostly funded
by the ambitious entrepreneur Elon Musk, a founder of PayPal, whose passion for space exploration drove him to invest millions of dollars in the firm. But, while the ambition started this endeavor, the eventual goal of the firm is to be profitable in the long run. Once the company is capable of sending a man to space, Musk is planning on selling trips to space to those who can afford it. While the price of these kinds of trips is likely to be very expensive initially, I bet there are going to be a lot of takers (I know I would buy a trip to space if I was a multi-millionaire). Even if one trip were to cost $1 million, I can see at least 100 people signing up for it, which would rake in considerable revenue (I have to admit, though, that I have absolutely no idea how much a space flight would cost to a firm like SpaceX). The
profits from these trips can be invested back into R&D which will make the flights more affordable to the broader public. So my point is that markets can soon become a better tool for space exploration than
government funding. It is important to understand that governments played a major role in this by doing the fundamental research that firms like Space X were able to take an advantage of. In the future, though, I can see space
exploration can take a similar evolutionary path as Internet once did where the government provided initial research and development which allowed the private sector to see the market potential of the invention and develop it further .
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is the problem of mutation. To become airborne, HIV would have to evolve in such a way as to become more durable. Right now the virus is highly sensitive to changes in temperature and light. But it is hardly going to do any
damage if it dies the moment it is coughed into the air and exposed to ultraviolet rays. HIV would have to get as tough as a cold virus, which can live for days on a countertop or a doorknob. At the same time HIV would have to get more flexible. Right now HIV mutates in only a limited manner. The virus essentially keeps changing its clothes, but its inner workings stay the same. It kills everyone by infecting the same key blood cells. To become airborne,
it would have to undergo a truly fundamental transformation, switching to an entirely different class of cells. How can HIV make two contradictory changes at the same time, becoming both less and more flexible? This is what is wrong with the Andromeda Strain argument. Every infectious agent that has ever plagued humanity has had to adopt a specific strategy, but every strategy carries a corresponding cost, and this makes human counterattack possible. Malaria is vicious and deadly, but it relies on mosquitoes to spread from one human to the next, which means that draining swamps and putting up mosquito netting can all but halt endemic malaria. Smallpox is extraordinarily durable, remaining infectious in the environment for years, but its very durability, its essential rigidity, is what makes it one of the easiest microbes to create a vaccine against. aids is almost invariably lethal because its attacks the body at its point of great vulnerability, that is, the immune system, but the fact that it targets blood cells is what makes it so relatively uninfectious.
Disease pandemics wont lead to human extinction Posner 5 *Richard, federal judge Judge 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Catastrophe, 11:3, Proquest+hs
AIDS illustrates the further point that despite the progress made by modern medicine in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, developing a vaccine or cure for a new (or newly recognized or newly virulent) disease may be difficult, protracted, even impossible. Progress has been made in treating ATDS, but neither a cure nor a vaccine has yet been developed. And because the virus's mutation rate is high, the treatments may not work in the long run.7 Rapidly mutating viruses are difficult to vaccinate against, which is why there is no vaccine for the common cold and why flu vaccines provide only limited protection.8 Paradoxically, a treatment that is neither cure nor vaccine, but merely reduces the severity of a disease, may accelerate its spread by reducing the benefit from avoiding becoming infected. This is an important consideration with respect to AIDS, which is spread mainly by voluntary intimate contact with infected people. Yet the fact that Homo
survive every disease to assail it in the 200,000 years or so of its existence is a source of genuine comfort, at least if the focus is on extinction events. There have been enormously destructive plagues, such as the Black Death, smallpox, and now AIDS, but none has come close to destroying the entire human race. There is a biological reason. Natural selection favors germs of limited lethality; they are fitter in an evolutionary sense because their genes are more likely to be spread if the germs do not kill their hosts too quickly.
The AIDS virus is an example of a lethal virus, wholly natural, that by lying dormant yet infectious in its host for years maximizes its spread. Yet
there is no danger that AIDS will destroy the entire human race. The likelihood of a natural pandemic that would cause the extinction of the human race is probably even less today than in the past (except in
prehistoric times, when people lived in small, scattered bands, which would have limited the spread of disease), despite wider human contacts that make it more difficult to localize an infectious disease. The reason is improvements in medical science. But the comfort is a small one. Pandemics can still impose enormous losses and resist prevention and cure: the lesson of the AIDS pandemic. And there is always a first time.
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Growth will solve poverty, and check conflict Gregg Easterbrook, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution, The Capitalist Manifesto, Review of The
Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 27, 2005, p. 16. Though ''The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth'' may not quite succeed in showing an iron law of growth and liberalization, Friedman is surely correct when he contends that economic expansion must remain the world's goal, at least for the next few generations. Growth, he notes, has already placed mankind on a course toward the elimination of destitution. Despite the popular misconception of worsening developing-world misery, the fraction of people in poverty is in steady decline. Thirty years ago 20 percent of the planet lived on $1 or less a day; today, even adjusting for inflation, only 5 percent does, despite a much larger global population. Probably one reason democracy is taking hold is that living standards are rising, putting men and women in a position to demand liberty. And with democracy spreading and rising wages giving ever more people a stake in the global economic system, it could be expected that war would decline. It has. Even taking Iraq into account, a study by the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, at the University of Maryland, found that the extent and intensity of combat in the world is only about half what it was 15 years ago.
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Growth Bad
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for control of resources, for control of the revenues that certain resources bring, like diamonds or rare timber, has been a decisive factor in many of the conflicts that we have seen. Im not saying that ethnicity and culture and religion are not an important factor. Often demagogues
and warlords and rising leaders use ethnicity and religion as a tool to arouse public support for whatever their program might be. But if you look closely, often underneath all of this is a desire to control valuable sources of resources or their revenues. You can see this in conflicts such as the one now underway in the DR Congo, where, as the UN has recently indicated, some of the foreign and domestic parties have developed very valuable interests in the exploitation of rare minerals or timber, diamonds and gold, and that this, more than anything else, appears to be driving the continuing conflict and explains why its so difficult to reach a negotiated peace settlement. Same thing in Angola and Sierra Leone, where diamonds are a key factor. In conflicts even like that in Chechnya, which is described primarily as an ethnic conflict, Moscow has a strong interest in controlling the critical pipelines from the Caspian Sea that go right through Grozny. This kind of dynamic operates in many other conflicts as well. Im sure youre saying to yourself that, There isnt anything new about this.
important resource dimension. And this is absolutely true. If you go back to the oldest human written histories that we have, the
texts from the ancient Near East, a lot of what those ancient texts are about is the struggle to control the irrigated river valleys of Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and much of the Old Testament in Exodus is about resource conflict in the area of the Jordan River Valley. Both of those places remain important centers of resource or water conflict today. Also, if you look at the history of the Western Hemisphere and the history of Africa in recent times, in both cases you see that the pursuit of valuable resources gold and silver in South America; furs and tobacco and other agricultural products and fish in North America; again, the mineral and timber of Africa, slaves; and more recently in the Middle East, oilalways
expansion, conquest, colonialism, and conflict. So some of what we see today does bear a resemblance to what we have seen in the past. Yet we are in a qualitatively different situation today. There are forces and dynamics in the world that will
bring these resource issues much more to the fore, to the center of international relations, and they are really qualitative new phenomena. Let me briefly summarize these key phenomena. 1) Population. In the 20th century, world population grew from about 1.5 billion to 6 billion at the end of the century, and we expect another 2 billion people to be added between now and the year 2025. There
history been population growth on this scale. I am not going to argue that population is necessarily the most decisive factor in all of this, as youll see; nonetheless, this kind of increase in population has to be having a tremendous impact on the world resource base. We see this especially with respect to water and arable land. Its not that the water
is becoming more scarce, but that the demands on the available supply are growing so rapidly that the existing supply is simply proving inadequate for many populations, especially in the Middle East, South Asia, Central and Southwest Asia, and North Africa. Ill come back to the water issue, but this is one where population will have a big impact. The same is true of arable land. 2) Consumption patterns. The 6 billion people of today, on average, have an enormously higher consumption rate than the 1.5 billion people of the year 1900.
Water use, petroleum use, mineral use, are growing at two or three times the rate of population increase. So its not
just population, but our consumption patterns. There are still as many as a billion people who dont have enough food and other resources to lead a healthy life, so the whole world is not benefiting from this increase in consumption. But, on average, people have more than they ever did. We see this most especially in the use of petroleum for private vehicles. A century ago, nobody owned a private motor vehicle. Today there are about 675 million private motor vehicles in circulation around the world, and the expectation is that number will grow to about 1.1 trillion in the year 2020. This vast expansion in automobile ownership and use, what the Department of Energy calls the motorization of the world has produced just an extraordinary increase in demand for petroleum products. That is just one example of the way in which individual
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is another aspect of the current scene that has qualitatively changed the environment. Industrialization is spreading from the few centers of the 20th centuryin Western Europe, the United States, Japanto vast areas of the world: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and increasingly other regions such as Southeast Asia. As industrialization spreads, the demand for all of our needsminerals, wood, petroleum, energy increases at a very high rate. We expect that the demand for energy in the developing parts of Asia, for example, will more than
double over the next twenty-five years, developing Asia being China and Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and South Korea. The rate for India, Central America, and Latin America is expected to increase by even higher rates during that period. So globalization,
increased consumption, population growth on an unprecedented scale, are producing an enormous increase in demand for all of these products. And the fact is that some of them are quite limited. The Earth provided us
with an extraordinary bounty of the resources we need to survive: water, energy, minerals, timber. Its easy to think, as people did in the past, that there were always new continents to conquer to find more resources. But we are beginning to approach limits to the availability of some of these materials. The supply of oil is not unlimited, and in all likelihood we
will begin to reach the end of the easy availability of petroleum by the middle of this century. Water is a renewable resource, but each year there is only so much fresh
water. Were now using about half of it. Its very likely that in this current century were likely to see large areas of the world that are fully utilizing the available supply of fresh water, and in many of those areas there simply wont be enough to meet the need. The
resource base is not unlimited, but we are using it at an unprecedented rate. This is producing a collision between rising demand and limited supply that has many consequences. These pressures will intensify at an everincreasing rate, if these patterns that Im describing continue, with increased pressure on the available supply of resources. This will lead to increasing competition between the users of resources for access. These pressures will
be mediated in various ways. Market forces will kick in and have a significant impact on resolving some of this competition. In some cases, rising prices for some of these products will lead to an impetus either for the development of new technologies or for the utilization of resources that are currently too expensive to obtain but are within our reach. For instance, oil in Siberia, in the Arctic region, or deep offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Gulf of Mexico. These supplies will, under the pressure of demand, come on-line and ease some of the pressure on supply. So technology/market forces will certainly mediate some of these pressures. In some areas, people will be motivated to cooperate more. In the case of water resources, its absolutely critical that people in the Nile River Basin or the Jordan Basin, for example, cooperate in sharing whats available, because through cooperation they will each be assured of a more secure supply. We hop
some of this competition will lead to violent conflict in some cases. I see evidence of the securitization of resource issuesthe articulation of the view that certain resources are vital to national security of the states involved and, therefore, something that legitimately can be fought over. We see this explicitly in U.S. policy on petroleum supplies. In the Carter Doctrine of January 23, 1980, the President said that the
to see more cooperation in the developing of available resources, in new technology, and conservation. But I also fear that free flow of petroleum from the Persian Gulf is essential to the national security of the U.S. and to protect that well use any means necessary, including military force. That principle still holds today. It was cited by President Reagan to justify the re-flagging of Kuwait tankers during the Iran-Iraq war. It was cited by President Bush the elder to justify Operation Desert Storm. It was cited by President Clinton to undertake a massive increase in American military forces in the Gulf. And we see that in President Bushs recent energy policy, which emphasizes the strategic importance of Persian Gulf oil to the United States. While the United States has drawn down its military presence in Europe and in other parts of the world, it is rapidly building up its military presence in the Gulf area, building new bases, pre-positioning forces there, gradually accreting the permanently or semi-permanently deployed forces in the region. So with respect to the Gulf, the United States has been very explicit. President Clinton spoke in the same terms of the Caspian region in 1999, when the President of Azerbaijan visited the White House. He said that gaining access to the Caspians oil is a security interest of the United States, and he undertook a number of initiatives leading to greater American military involvement in that region. These activities, which havent been widely reported in the U.S.building military ties with the military organizations of the new states of the Caspian, training exercises, arms transfers, military training activitieshave caused deep alarm in Russia, which also views the Caspian as vital to its security, and which has have also been building up its military capabilities in the region, even as it draws down significantly in other parts of the former Soviet Union. Not only Russia and the United States, but China has expressed the view that resources are vital to its security. We see this explicitly with the case of the South China Sea, where China has claimed the Spratly and Paracel islands as part of its national territory, because of the resources that are believed to lie underneath the South China Sea, and has clashed with Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam over control of those islands. We see the same with respect to water, particularly in the Middle East, where Israel has said about Jordan and Egypt about the Nile River, that gaining access to these supplies is vital to their security, and that if necessary they are prepared to use force to protect access to those valuable supplies. A different situation applies to some of the internal conflicts around the world, where governments that depend on the revenue from vital resources that are threatened by separatist groups have used whatever military power they have to suppress those challenges. A brief example is the struggle over the island of Bougainville, which is claimed by Papua, New Guinea. It hired Executive Outcomes, the private military firm, to undertake an invasion of Bougainville, which has declared its independence from Papua, New Guinea. Bougainville houses the largest copper mine in the world. It was the sole source of income for the Papua New Guinea government, and so they were prepared to hire a mercenary army to
many governments, and factions within governments, view resources as something worth fighting over and are building up military capacities in order to carry out these operations. It is this logic of the securitization of resource issues that worries me most; not scarcity per se, but the government view that territorial disputes over resources can be solved by force when other means dont succeed. If these trends continue, the 21st century increasingly will be plagued with conflicts over access to resources, the protection of resources, or control over particularly valuable sites of resource revenues such as diamond fields and timber stands. Unless, therefore, the human community could put more emphasis on other optionstechnology, cooperation, and the use of market forces to try to resolve some of these problemswe will see much more conflict.
invade and reconquer the island. My argument is that
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Economic growth fosters militarization, resource wars and resentment that cause conflict Barret, 2008
*Mark, MA in Environment and Management, Dedevelopment. Masters thesis prepared for Royal Roads University, Online, http://dspace.royalroads.ca/docs/bitstream/handle/10170/59 /BarrettThesis20081105.pdf?sequence=1] /WFI-MB Following the end of the cold war many believed the reasons for military conflict would lessen, but militarization has in fact increased. There is now potential for endless conflict (Putin, 2007). The destruction of the environment (Schwartz & Randall, 2003) and declining opportunities for development, economic growth, and consumption are increasingly leading to conflict (Leahy, 2007) (Ziegler, 2005) (Christian Aid, 2001). Conflicts over resources are fueling wars in many countries (United Nations Development Programme, 2005). Climate change is likely to threaten international stability and security and global economic development. There are risks of growing national and international conflicts over the distribution of resources, and of the failure of disaster management systems (Klare, 2002) (Hiro, 2006). There is the possibility of an increase in the number of weak and fragile states, and rising migration. As well, the effects of climate change may erode the social order, causing increased violence and threatening human rights. The legitimacy of the role of industrialized countries as global governance actors may be called into question (German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), 2007). Throughout the world, people are increasingly questioning why they should suffer and do without in order to satisfy the profligate lifestyles of the elites. Their resistance to social injustice may lead to conflict (Leahy, 2007) (Ramonet, 2002).
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47 Growth Core
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49 Growth Core
unprecedented volume and speed of human mobility are perhaps the most conspicuous manifestations of the present era of globalization. From international tourists to war-displaced refugees, more people are on the move than ever before. They are also traveling faster and are regularly visiting what used to be very remote parts of the world. This movement has the potential to change dramatically the factors involved in the transmission of infectious disease. Of particular concern, over the next 15 years, as the global population continues to grow and economic and social disparities between rich and poor countries intensify, the world will likely continue to witness rapidly growing numbers of migrants in search of
employment or a better quality of life. In fact, many political scientists and demographers already refer to the twenty-first century as the century of migration (Leaning, 2002). Migrant
populations are among the most vulnerable to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases and have been implicated as a key causal factor in the global spread of such diseases, most notably multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Workshop presentations and discussions addressing this increased human
mobility and its effect on infectious disease transmission are summarized here; those addressing the need for improved surveillance of mobile populations are reported in Chapter 2. Just as modern
modes of transportation allow more people and products to travel around the world at a faster the airways to the transcontinental movement of infectious disease vectors. That mosquitoes can cross the ocean by riding in airplane wheel wells is a commonly cited example of this phenomenon and is one of several hypotheses proposed to explain the introduction of West Nile virus into New York City in 1999, the
pace, they also open
first known incidence of this disease in North America. Beyond such transport of disease vectors, controversial evidence suggests that global warming, much of which is generated by human activities, has caused or is causing changes in vector distributions worldwide and affecting the incidence rates of various tropical infectious diseases, such as malaria and dengue.
Extinction Yu 9Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science (Victoria, Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of
Our Fate, 22 May 2009, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-ofour-fate) A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that
scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIVs rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the viruss abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIVs use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for
more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the
inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a global influenza pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral strain which could only infect birds into a human-viable strain (10).
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cost and efficient means of international transportation allow people to travel to more remote places and potential exposure to more infectious diseases. And the close proximity of passengers on passenger planes, trains, and cruise ships over the course of many hours puts people at risk for higher levels of exposure. If a person contracts a disease abroad, their symptoms may not emerge until they return home, having exposed others to the infection during their travels. In addition, planes and ships can themselves become breeding grounds for infectious diseases. The 2002-2003 SARS outbreak spread quickly around the globe due to international travel. SARS is
caused by a new strain of corona virus, the same family of viruses that frequently cause the common cold. This contagious and sometimes fatal respiratory illness first appeared in China in November 2002. Within 6 weeks, SARS had spread worldwide, transmitted around the globe by unsuspecting travelers. According to CDC, 8,098 people were infected and 774 died of the disease. 49 SARS represented the first severe, newly emergent infectious disease of the 21st century. 50 It illustrated
mobile and interconnected world. SARS was contained and controlled because public health authorities in the communities most
affected mounted a rapid and effective response. SARS also demonstrated the economic consequences of an emerging infectious disease in closely interdependent and highly mobile world. Apart from the direct costs of intensive medical care and disease control interventions, SARS caused widespread social disruption and economic losses. Schools, hospitals, and some borders were closed and thousands of people were placed in quarantine. International travel to affected areas fell sharply by 50 - 70 percent. Hotel occupancy dropped by more than 60 percent. Businesses, particularly in tourism-related areas, failed. According to a study by Morgan Stanley, the Asia-Pacific regions economy lost nearly $40 billion due to SARS. 51 The World Bank found that the East Asian regions GDP fell by 2 percent in the second quarter of 2003. 52 Toronto experienced a 13.4 percent drop in tourism in 2003. 53
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Corporate goals include providing high and rising salaries, stock options, and bonuses to top executives and rising dividends and share prices to shareholders. The less paid to the workers who actually produce what corporations sell, the more corporate revenue goes to satisfy directors, top managers, and major shareholders. Corporations also raise profits regularly by increasing prices and/or cutting production costs (often by compromising output quality). Higher priced and poorer-quality goods are sold mostly to working people. This too pushes them toward poverty just like lower wages and benefits and government service cuts. Over the years, government interventions like Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage laws, regulations, etc. never sufficed to eradicate poverty. They often helped the poor, but they never ended poverty. The same applies to charities aiding the poor. Poverty always remained. Now capitalism's crisis worsens it again. Something more than government interventions or charity is required to end poverty.
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hypothetical nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other word, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world.
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income of the world's poorest did not even keep up with inflation. Why has the laissez-faire approach worsened both world growth and world income distribution? First, the IMF and the World Bank often commend austerity as an economic cure-all in order to reassure foreign investors of a sound fiscal and business climate--but austerity, not surprisingly, leads to slow growth. Second, slow growth itself can mean widening income inequality, since
high growth and tight labor markets are what increase the bargaining power of the poor. (Economists estimate that poverty increases by 2 percent for every 1 percent of decline in growth.) Third,
the hands-off approach to global development encourages foreign capital to seek regions and countries that offer the cheapest production costs--so even lowincome countries must worry that some other, even more desperate workforce will do the same work for a lower wage. Finally, small and newly opened economies in the global free market are vulnerable to investment fads and speculative pressures from foreign investors--factors that result in instability and often overwhelm the putative benefits of greater openness. All of these upheavals disproportionately harm the poorest.
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According to a study Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there would not appear to be any merit in this hypothesis. After studying ninety-three episodes of economic crisis in twenty-two countries in Latin America and Asia in the years since the Second World War they concluded that: Much of the conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises may be wrong The severity of economic crisis- as measured in terms of inflation and negative growth bore no relationship to the collapse of regimes (or, in democratic states, rarely) to an outbreak of violence.. In the cases of dictatorships and semidemocracies, the ruling elites responded to crisis by increasing repression (thereby using one form of violence to abort another).
Economic decline doesnt cause war Ferguson 2006 [Niall, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow
at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. The next war of the world, Foreign Affairs. V 85. No 5.] Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in modern historiography links the great depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But the simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war In Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were the cause rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some sever economic crises were not followed by war.
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can cause an extinction event every few hundred million years, the odds of being killed by a meteorite are beyond remote - in all of human history, the only claimed meteorite fatality was a dog in Egypt in 1911, and he says that was almost certainly just a story. And, on any sort of timescale we should be worried about, Earth's chances of being hit by a meteorite are next to zero.
No Extinctionpopulation distribution and tech solve Alasdair Wilkins (io9 staff) 1/3/2011
*Why a massive meteorite strike could be the best thing to happen to us online @ http://io9.com/5723654/why-a-massive-meteorite-strike-could-be-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-us, loghry] That said, Nield doesn't downplay the destructive capabilities of these meteorites. When asked to imagine a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid headed towards Earth, he paints a grim picture: It would be travelling at 30-40km per second when it hit the top of the
atmosphere and would immediately start to vaporise. It would be like turning an oven to broil except it would happen to the entire planet. You would be talking about rendering large areas, possibly a hemisphere, uninhabitable. Within the blast zone, nothing would survive, because when these things hit, they produce plasma and incredible temperatures. He says humanity
is widely distributed enough that some scattered population pockets might survive the explosion, although they'd then be looking at tens of thousands of years spent scraping by on a charred planet. There are, however, solutions, although he does dismiss the survival plan put forward by the acclaimed physicists Michael Bay and Bruce Willis: It is possible to envisage dealing with an incoming meteorite if we saw it far in advance. We could try to deflect it using spacecraft. Hollywood pictures suggest we could use a big
bomb, though this would probably be very silly. We would break the meteorite into parts and would then have several lethal objects, instead of just one, heading our way. However, you
could attach little ion engines to the meteorite to divert it over several orbits around the sun. It would only take a very slight deviation. So, no, meteorites don't mean the end of humanity.
No risk of extinction from asteroids Robin McKie & (Guardian staff) Ted Nield (Geologist & Author) 1/2/2011
*Ted Nield: We won't go the way of the dinosaurs online @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/02/my-bright-idea-ted-nield, loghry] So is it really time to love a meteorite? Why not? No one has ever been killed by one. Indeed, the only claimed fatality is that
of a dog, from the village of Nakhla in Egypt, supposedly vaporised by a meteorite on 28 June 1911 . In fact, this story is almost certainly made up. No humans killed and one disputed dead dog. It's not much of a death list. Not really. Also, we
have been monitoring nearEarth asteroids for many years and haven't found one yet that stands the remotest chance of hitting us in the near future. Your risk of being killed by one is about the same as dying by a firework. As for our chances of being hit by something like the one that helped kill the dinosaurs, those are pretty much nil in the foreseeable future.
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"remains very, very unlikely. It's a possibility, but unlikely." Also: The best information is that no one has gotten anywhere near this. I mean, if you look carefully and practically at this process, you see that it is an enormous undertaking full of risks for the would-be terrorists. And so far there is no public case, at least known, of any appreciable amount of weapons-grade HEU [highly enriched uranium] disappearing. And that's the first step. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.
Terror threat overblownmore likely to be killed by comet John Mueller, Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? FOREIGN AFFAIRS v. 85 n. 5, September/October 2005, p. 2+.
But while keeping such potential dangers in mind, it is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year, and that the lifetime chance of an American being killed by international terrorism is about one in 80,000 -about the same chance of being killed by a comet or a meteor. Even if there were a 9/11-scale attack every three months for the next five years, the likelihood that an individual American would number among the dead would be two hundredths of a percent (or one in 5,000). Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist -- reminiscent of those inspired by images of the 20-foot-tall Japanese after Pearl Harbor or the 20-foot-tall Communists at various points in the Cold War (particularly after Sputnik) -- may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.
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Misc
60 Growth Core
Transition Solves
Quick collapse is better means we are able to survive the transitionthe sooner the better LEWIS 2002
(Chris H., Instructor, Sewall Program @ CU Boulder, On the Edge of Society, "Global Industrial Civilization: The Necessary Collapse," ed. M Dobkowski & I Wllimann, Syracuse U. Press, P.____) In conclusion, the only solution to the growing political and economic chaos caused by the collapse of global industrial civilization is to encourage the uncoupling of nations and regions from the global industrial economy. Unfortunately, millions will die in the wars and economic and political conflicts created by the accelerating collapse of global industrial civilization. But we can be assured that on that basis of past history of the collapse of regional civilizations such as the Mayan and the Roman Empires, barring global nuclear war, human societies and civilizations will continue to exist and develop a smaller, regional scale . Yes, such civilizations will be violent, corrupt, and often cruel, but, in the end, less so than our current global industrial civilization, which is abusing the entire planet and threatening the mass death and suffering of all its peoples and the living biological fabric of life on earth. The paradox of global economic development is that although it
creates massive wealth and power for First World Elites, it also creates massive poverty and suffering for Third World people and societies.
The failure of global development to end this suffering and destruction will bring about us collapse. This collapse will cause millions of people to suffer and die throughout the world, but it should paradoxically, ensure the survival of future human societies. Indeed, the collapse of global industrial civilization is necessary for the future long-term survival of human beings. Although this future seems hopeless and heartless, it is not. We can learn alot from our
present global crisis. What we learn will shape our future and the future of the complex, interconnected web of life on Earth.
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Transition Solves
Transition solves the negative impacts of growthradical change is key Trainer, 2011
*Ted, University of New South Wales Australia, The radical implications of the zero growth economy. Real world economics review, issue 57, Online, http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue57/Trainer57.pdf] /WFI-MB
The argument in this paper is that the implications of a steady-state economy have not been understood at all well, especially by its advocates. Most proceed as if we can and should eliminate the growth element of the present economy while leaving the rest more or less as it is. It will be argued firstly that this is not possible, because this
is not an economy which has growth; it is a growth-economy, a growth is eliminated then radically different ways of carrying out many fundamental processes will have to be found. Secondly, the critics of growth typically proceed as if it is the only or the primary or the sufficient thing that has to be fixed, but it will be argued that the major global problems facing us cannot be solved unless several fundamental systems and structures within consumer-capitalist society are radically remade. What is required is much greater social change than Western society has undergone in several hundred years. Before offering support for these claims it is important to sketch the general limits to growth situation confronting us. The magnitude and seriousness of the global resource and environmental problem is not generally appreciated. Only when this is grasped is it possible to understand that the social changes required must be huge, radical and far reaching. The initial claim being argued here (and detailed in Trainer 2010b) is that consumer-capitalist society cannot be reformed or fixed; it has to be largely scrapped and remade along quite different lines.
system in which most of the core structures and processes involve growth. If
Its try or dieonly a complete abandonment of growth will ensure we can survive the transition to small scale economies Trainer, 2011
*Ted, University of New South Wales Australia, The radical implications of the zero growth economy. Real world economics review, issue 57, Online, http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue57/Trainer57.pdf] /WFI-MB If we must abandon growth and greatly reduce production and consumption then there is no alternative but to develop an economy which is basically under social control, i.e., in which we discuss, decide, plan and organise to produce that stable quantity of the basic things we need to enable a high quality of life for all. In the coming conditions of intense resource scarcity, viable communities will have to be mostly small, selfsufficient local economies using local resources to produce what local people need. Such economies can only work well if control is in
the hands of all citizens, via participatory-democracy exercised through whole town assemblies. This vision would enable most of the firms and farms to be privately owned or community cooperatives, and would involve little role for councils, state or federal governments. Although the
case against the wisdom of pursuing growth and affluence has in my opinion been overwhelmingly convincing for decades, it has been almost totally ignored. Although it is now gaining more attention, on the fringes of the economics profession, unfortunately there is little recognition of just how profoundly radical the notion of zero-growth is. It logically entails the termination of several fundamental structures and processes, values and taken for granted ideas, which have developed over hundreds of years. If the limits analysis is valid we have only decades to make the enormous transitions. Given that the mainstream, resolutely led by the economics profession, shows no sign of ever attending to these issues, it is difficult to maintain belief that we have the wit or the will to save ourselves.
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Transition Solves
Only a transition away from growth can solve environmental and social destruction Foster, 2011
*John Bellamy, editor of The Monthly Review and author, Capitalism and Environmental Catastrophe. 10-31-2011, Online, http://www.zcommunications.org/capitalism-and-environmental-catastrophe-byjohn-bellamy-foster] /WFI-MB The other approach is to demand changes in society itself; to move away from a system directed at profits, production, and accumulation, i.e., economic growth, and toward a sustainable steady-state economy. This would mean reducing or eliminating unnecessary and wasteful consumption and reordering society -- from commodity production and
consumption as its primary goal, to sustainable human development. This could only occur in conjunction with a move towards substantive equality. It would require democratic ecological and social planning. It therefore coincides
with the classical objectives of socialism. Such a shift would make possible the reduction in carbon emissions we need. After all, most of what the U.S. economy produces in the form of commodities (including the unnecessary, market-related costs that go into the production of nearly all goods) is sheer waste from a social, an ecological -- even a long-term economic -- standpoint. Just think of all the useless things we produce and that we are encouraged to buy and then throw away almost the moment we have bought them. Think of the bizarre, plastic packaging that all too often dwarfs the goods themselves. Think of military spending, running in reality at $1 trillion a year in the United States. Think of marketing (i.e. corporate spending aimed at persuading people to buy things they don't want or need), which has reached $1 trillion a year in this country alone. Think of all the wasted resources associated with our financial system, with Wall Street economics. It is this kind of waste that generates the huge profits for the top 1 percent of income earners, and that alienates and impoverishes the lives of the bottom 99 percent, while degrading the environment.8 What we need therefore is to change our economic culture. We need an ecological and social revolution. We
have all the technologies necessary to do this. It is not primarily a technological problem, because the goal here would no longer be the impossible one of expanding our exploitation of the earth beyond all physical and biological limits, ad infinitum. Rather the
goal would be to promote human community and community with the earth. Here we would need to depend on organizing our
local communities but also on creating a global community -- where the rich countries no longer imperialistically exploit the poor countries of the world. You
may say that this is impossible, but the World Occupy Movement would have been declared impossible only a month ago. If we are going to struggle, let us make our goal one of ecological and social revolution -- in defense of humanity and the planet.
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Transition Fails
Transition will inevitably failthere are no alternatives to capitalism to fill in Rogoff, 2012
*Kenneth, Professor of Economic and Public Policy at Harvard University, Is modern capitalism sustainable? The International Economic, 26.1, 60-61, Accessed online via Proquest] /WFI-MB In the broad sweep of history, all forms of capitalism are ultimately transitional. I am often asked if the recent global financial crisis marks the beginning of the end of modem capitalism. It is a curious question, because it seems to presume that there is a viable replacement waiting in the wings. The truth of the matter is that, for now at least, the only serious alternatives to today's dominant AngloAmerican paradigm are other forms of capitalism. Continental European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it except sustainability. China's Darwinian capitalism, with its fierce competition among export firms, a weak social-safety net, and widespread government intervention, is widely touted as the inevitable heir to Western capitalism, if only because of China's huge size and consistent outsize growth rate. Yet China's economic system is continually evolving. Indeed, it is far from clear how far China's political, economic, and financial structures will continue to transform themselves, and whether China will eventually morph into capitalism's new exemplar. In any case, China is still encumbered by the usual social, economic, and financial vulnerabilities of a rapidly growing lower-income country. Perhaps the real point is that, in the broad sweep of history, all current forms of capitalism are ultimately transitional. Modern-day capitalism has had an extraordinary run since the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, lifting billions of ordinary people out of abject poverty. Marxism and heavyhanded socialism have disastrous records by comparison. But, as industrialization and technological progress spread to Asia (and now to Africa), someday the struggle for subsistence will no longer be a primary imperative, and contemporary capitalism's numerous flaws may loom larger.
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Transition Fails
Collapse failscauses right wing fascist states that are worse Martin Lewis, Professor, School of the Environment, Duke University, GREEN DELUSIONS, 1992, p.
170-171. While an explosive socioeconomic crisis in the near term is hardly likely the possibility certainly cannot be dismissed. Capitalism is an inherently unstable economic system, and periodic crises of some magintude are inevitable. An outbreak of jingoistic economic nationalism throughout the world, moreover, could quickly result in virtual economic collapse. Under such circumstances we could indeed enter an epoch of revolutionary social turmoil. Yet I believe that there are good reasons to believe that the victors in such a struggle would be radicals not of the left but rather of the right. The extreme left, for all its intellectual strength, notably lacks the kind of power necessary to emerge victorious from a real revolution. A few old street radicals may still retain their militant ethos, but todays college professors and their graduate students, the core marxist contingent, would be ineffective. The radical right, on the other hand, would present a very real threat. Populist right-wing paramilitary groups are well armed and well trained, while establishment-minded fascists probably have links with the American military, wherein lies the greatest concentration of destructive power this planet knows. Should a crisis strike so savagely as to splinter the American center and its political institutions, we could well experience a revolutionary movement similar to that of Germany in the 1930.
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Transition Fails
Rejection of capitalism causes massive transition wars Harris 3 (Lee, Analyst Hoover Institution and Author of The Suicide of Reason, The Intellectual
Origins of America-Bashing, Policy Review, January, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3458371.html) This is the immiserization thesis of Marx. And it is central to revolutionary Marxism, since if capitalism produces no widespread misery, then it also produces no fatal internal contradiction: If everyone is getting better off through capitalism, who will dream of struggling to overthrow it? Only genuine misery on the part of the workers would be sufficient to overturn the whole apparatus of the capitalist state, simply because, as Marx insisted, the capitalist class could not be realistically expected to relinquish control of the state apparatus and, with it, the monopoly of force. In this, Marx was absolutely correct. No capitalist society has ever willingly liquidated itself, and it is utopian to think that any ever will. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of socialism, nothing short of a complete revolution would do; and this means, in point of fact, a full-fledged civil war not just within one society, but across the globe. Without this catastrophic upheaval, capitalism would remain completely in control of the social order and all socialist schemes would be reduced to pipe dreams.
Extinction Kothari 82 (Rajni, Professor of Political Science University of Delhi, Toward a Just Social Order, p.
571) Attempts at global economic reform could also lead to a world racked by increasing turbulence, a greater sense of insecurity among the major centres of power -- and hence to a further tightening of the structures of domination and domestic repression producing in their wake an intensification of the old arms race and militarization of regimes, encouraging regional conflagrations and setting the stage for eventual global holocaust.