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1NC
Text: US should diplomatically and economically engage
India over the stabilizing of Afghanistan.
Alyssa Ayers 2015 (founding director of the India and South Asia practice at
McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory fir,
She received an AB magna cum laude from Harvard College, and an MA and
PhD from the University of Chicago) Why the US should work with India to
stabilize Afghanistan http://www.cfr.org/afghanistan/why-united-states-
should-work-india-stabilize-afghanistan/p36414
New Delhi's interests in a unified, stable, and independent Afghanistan
converge with Washington's. The Obama administration should substantially
escalate consultation with India and seek greater Indian involvement in areas
of its special capacitydemocracy, economics, and civilian securityby
undertaking the following steps: Preserve Kabul's delicate political
equilibrium. India and the United States should draw on their experiences
with democracy to advise the unity government in Kabul as it works with a
power-sharing structure unanticipated in the constitution. Given his
involvement, Secretary of State John Kerry should coordinate with India's
foreign minister, especially on the likely challenges of amending the Afghan
constitution to reflect the country's new governing structure. Advance
regional economic integration. Through its dynamic private sector and its
development support, India's assistance to Afghanistan has been fully
compatible with the U.S. New Silk Road initiative. New Delhi has become a
leader in regional economic mechanisms. U.S. officials should prioritize
connecting Afghanistan to the Indian market. This effort should include
pressing Pakistan to permit transit trade to the Attari road integrated check
post on the Indian edge of the India-Pakistan border to fulfill the letter and
spirit of the 2011 Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement. Seek budget
support from India for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). It takes
around $4 billion annually to support the ANSF. The United States has been
the major sponsor over the years and should seek India's help. China has
stepped up assistance with a 2014 pledge of $327 million, though not
specifically for the ANSF. This topic should be raised by the U.S. ambassador
to India at the highest appropriate level and discussed by national security
advisors. Partner with India on counter-improvised explosive device (IED)
training. India's Institute of IED Management, a Central Reserve Police Force
academy, could be a node for ongoing training for Afghan forces, the police in
particular. The Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Devise Defeat
Organization (JIEDDO) has been developing international partnerships on
counter-IED training, and India's institute provides a perfect opportunity to
develop a regional partnerespecially as JIEDDO shrinks in size. Partner with
India on ANSF support-function training. Literacy training remains a critical
ANSF need. The U.S. special inspector general assessed the NATO-run $200
million literacy program as having only "limited impact." India runs the
world's largest adult literacy program. Military emergency medicine is
another area of strong Indian talent. Logistics and supply-chain management
are also areas that could help the ANSF perform better in their challenging
terrain. The United States and India have had great success with joint training
for third countries, such as with agriculture extension training for African
countries. Shifting training for these support functions from the current
Western contractors model to India, which is closer and has greater regional
expertise, would offer more bang for the buck.
2NC
Greater US- Indian engagement in Afghanistan solves
regional economic integration which is key to stability
Lisa Curtis 2015( Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies
Center, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security
and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation was the White House-
appointed senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for South Asian
affairs) http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/07/us-engagement-
required-afghanistan-must-avoid-an-iraq-style-breakdown
Alyssa Ayers 2015 (founding director of the India and South Asia practice at
McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory fir,
She received an AB magna cum laude from Harvard College, and an MA and
PhD from the University of Chicago) Why the US should work with India to
stabilize Afghanistan http://www.cfr.org/afghanistan/why-united-states-
should-work-india-stabilize-afghanistan/p36414
The net benefit is the elections DA, it links to the plan and
the CP has no effect on the election.
The public doesnt care about NASA funding or space
NASA Watch 3/1/16, website dedicated to tracking things related to
NASA and space exploration, Space Is A Non-issue in Presidential Elections,
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2016/03/space-is-a-non-.html
Space is just a blip on the political radar. Rarely, if ever, has it had any
influence on a presidential election whatsoever - and then, it was fleeting and
usually on late night comedy shows. Nor is it likely to change during this
election. Besides, whatever you hear during the campaign will be revised and
reinterpreted after the election. The candidates forget the issue 2 minutes
after they answer a question about it. Nothing on the horizon suggests that
there will be a large increase in NASA's budget. Nor is anyone really targeting
NASA for drastic cuts. Given the large commitments the agency is already in
the middle of, and the prospect of flat budgets, it is unlikely that there will be
any seismic shifts. As for the #JourneyToMars - absent a large infusion of
money (again, not likely) the current pay-as-you-go, we-don't-need-a-plan
approach is simply not going to get us to Mars any sooner. The most that
space advocates should hope for after the dust settles is that the agency will
be held more accountable for its performance and that some budgetary and
policy stability will be injected into things already underway so as to make
them progress more efficiently.
Aff Answers
Asteroid impact inevitable, the policy-making process is
too much of a blockade, the technology isnt advanced
enough, and stopping an asteroid is too expensive
Independent 6/29/15, online newspaper, How to stop an asteroid
hitting Earth: Would people co-operate to face a global peril?,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-to-stop-an-asteroid-hitting-
earth-would-people-cooperate-to-face-a-global-peril-10353951.html
Meanwhile, after eight years of deliberating, in March the UN finally
announced the creation of a global early-warning system to protect the
planet from a potentially city-destroying, tsunami-causing or, worse,
civilisation-ending large space object. And in mid-April the planetary
defenders tested the concept in Frascati. Their mission: save the planet from
an asteroid possibly four times the size of a football field. The scenarios were
so realistic that their press releases had to be emblazoned with bright red
boxes proclaiming, "Exercise. Exercise. Not a Real World Event." At the
beginning of the game, participants learned that an asteroid, estimated to be
somewhere between 460 and 1,300ft in diameter, was apparently on course
to smash into Earth on 3 September 2022. They divided into three groups
national and international policymakers, the media and scientists and
played out over five days what humans might do. In the first year after the
asteroid's discovery (days one and two), the participants heard that scientists
had estimated a long "risk corridor" from south-east Asia to Turkey. As the
asteroid moved through its orbit, the experts refined their predictions, homed
in on its size and likely damage point, and advised policymakers on the
options. By August 2019 (day four), the participants learnt global
policymakers had agreed to fire six kinetic impactors, and they reached their
target six months later. However, a debris cloud then prevented participants
from knowing what had worked until January 2021 (day five), when it was
announced that two of the six KIs had missed, one had hit and fractured the
asteroid, and another had broken off a chunk that remained on a path
towards Earth but was hidden from view by sunlight. Two others hit the
remains of the now-broken asteroid, deflecting the largest piece of it. The
following year (later on day five), the participants learnt that the broken
fragment was still hurtling toward Earth and remained a significant hazard. It
would arrive on time, somewhere in India, Bangladesh or Myanmar. And
about a "month" before its impact, scientists were able to pinpoint the
object's size (about 261ft in diameter), as well as the likely time (9am) and
precise location (Dhaka, Bangladesh, population 15 million). They predicted
that the explosion would release 18 megatons of energy: similar to that
explosion in 1908 that flattened thousands of miles of Siberian forest. Chodas
says: "The number one lesson I took away is that we need infrared, in-space
telescopes to tell us more about the sizes of these objects." Johnson says that
the exercise proved that humans can mount an asteroid response and it can
be affordable, a key element when trying to prevent disasters that might not
occur in our lifetimes. ("A few hundred experts and a few hundred million
dollars per year," he says.) The astronaut Russell "Rusty" Schweickart says: "I
fear there's not enough of a collective survival instinct to really overcome the
centrifugal political forces. That is, in a nutshell, the reason we'll get hit"
But the exercise ended on a cliffhanger, with a massive, flaming rock closing
in on a teeming, impoverished Asian city. Having done the best they could,
the planetary defenders hung up their hero lanyards, packed their suitcases,
checked out of their hotels and headed for the airport, leaving the planet
forewarned.
In addition, two agreements were initiated under the BRICS interbank cooperation mechanism: the
BRICS Multilateral Infrastructure Co-Financing Agreement for Africa , which
paved the way for the establishment of co-financing arrangements for
infrastructure projects across the African continent ; and the BRICS Multilateral
Cooperation and Co-Financing Agreement for Sustainable Development, to
explore the drawing up of bilateral agreements aimed at establishing
cooperation and co-financing arrangements, specifically around
sustainable development and green economy elements . Critics, however, were less
than flattering about Pretoria acting as an interlocutor between the BRICS and Africa, especially since
two BRICS countries had formulated their own bilateral and regional
arrangements with African governments through interstate for a, such as the
India-Africa Forum Summit and the Forum on China-Africa Coop eration. The test
for Pretoria would be to assess its achievements as chair of the forum and against a very broad action plan
underpinned by meetings and consultations without any substantive outputs. At the end of June,
President Obama visited South Africa as part of a three-country African state
trip. The purpose of the visit was to meet with leaders from business,
government and civil society with a view to: reinforcing relations with
Washington; expanding economic growth, investment, and trade relations;
strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of
African leaders. For both Pretoria and Washington, the visit was seen as critical in
identifying and reaffirming economic opportunities.
The world is not yet witnessing the end of a stable Pacific, to quote Robert Kaplans dramatic prediction.53 No matter how their structure is
designed or how many economies they encompass, regional institutions that exclude the United States will not replace U.S. power as a key
organizing force. No other government can bring such massive resources to the table.
economic influence in Asia is a fact of life. The United States should not
automatically oppose Chinas effort to create new organizations,
particularly the AIIB. Nor should it try to persuade like-minded allies and
partners to stay on the sidelines. They have their own concerns that are similar to Washingtons. Instead, U.S. officials should
continue to ask questions about governance and adopt a wait-and-see approach. In the case of the AIIB, for instance, it is appropriate to question whether the AIIB will
conduct high-quality project evaluation, practice open procurement, take into account environmental and social concerns, recruit staff on the basis of merit, submit to
thorough auditing, adopt safeguards against corruption and fraud, and adhere to transparent policies and procedures.54 Act Like a Leader Domestic political
dysfunction inflicts a high cost on U.S. foreign policy and national security. The failure thus far to ratify UNCLOS strikes other countries as senseless and hypocritical,
especially since the U.S. Navy claims to observe it. Likewise, inaction on IMF reform has contributed directly to the emergence of rival regionalisms. The absence of trade
promotion authority damages not only the credibility of U.S. negotiators in the TPP negotiations but also U.S. leadership more generally. Top-level administration officials
must appeal to a broader congressional audience by going beyond issue-specific, conventional arguments and instead making the case for ratification of UNCLOS and the
TPP and passage of TPA on broad strategic grounds. Executive branch officials, especially the president, must also do a better job of explaining what the rebalancing
strategy means and why allocating more budgetary resources and nonmilitary personnel to the Asia-Pacific makes sense, even at a time when parts of the Middle East are
when they see it in action. But resources remain limited, and the policy
toolbox is still heavily weighted toward military hardware and joint
military exercises. American men and women in uniform vastly outnumber civilian officials. One goal of the rebalancing strategy is to reduce this
huge gap and bolster the United States political, economic, cultural, and diplomatic presence. The administration must fight more actively and at a higher level to obtain
The
congressional approval for the necessary resourcesand resist calls to divert them to the Middle East. Only the president can decide on such trade-offs.
United States may not be able or willing to fund major physical infrastructure projects comparable to those funded by China and, presumably, by the new AIIB, but it
can do more to build up Asias soft infrastructure. One example is
expanded English-language instruction, which would have a direct
economic effect in poorer ASEAN countries. Although more people are learning Mandarin, English is still the
language of not only international business but also science and technology. Further expansion of visiting fellowships for students and young professionals is another
relatively low-cost way of restoring the United States image as a generous leader. Good will is a strategic asset. Reinvigorate APECs Vision The United States should
take advantage of upcoming and future APEC summits to restore APECs role as an incubator of big ideas.55 Following former president Clintons example, the U.S.
president and his or her top lieutenants should recommit the United States to an FTAAP and express appreciation for Chinas support of this initiative. He or she should
explain to American audiences why this goal makes sense and where the TPP fits in this vision. Corresponding measures to improve employment prospects at home should
be a core part of this strategy. U.S. officials should not appear to be blocking Chinas effort to promote an FTAAP, because doing so feeds Chinese perceptions that the
United States wants to contain China. They are correct, however, that near-term conclusion of the TPP should take priority. At the 2014 APEC heads-of-state meeting in
Beijing, the United States warded off a feasibility study of the FTAAP, which would formally set the FTAAP in motion, and accepted the establishment of a strategic
study as a face-saving concession to Beijing. Carrying out the study groups mandate will be a low-profile, time-consuming job for trade experts. More months will pass as
APEC member governments study the results and discuss them with affected interest groups. Top-level leaders will not be involved for at least several years. Build on
Shared Strategic Interests and Continue to Contribute to Public Goods The postwar history of U.S.-led regional institutions underscores the importance of shared
strategic purpose. During the Cold War, opposition to the spread of Communism was the glue holding U.S.-led regional institutions together; when top-priority strategies
diverged, the organizations lost their unifying purpose. In todays Asia, all governments see constructive, mutually beneficial U.S.-China relations as a necessary
foundation of stability and growth. But beyond those basics, strategic interests differ. U.S. leadership is most effective when Washington avoids dueling with China or
imposing a grand strategy on the governments of the region and instead assigns equipment and personnel to noncontroversial, relatively nonpolitical areas such as health
and maritime safety. Progress in these fields is as important to the United States as to Asia and should be pursued even if allies and partners engage in free riding (which
them what they should do, but the flip side of that stance is that no
one knows what Chinas ultimate goals in the region are. What goes on
in regional institutions, new or old, conforms to this pattern. There are
strong reasons to believe that China seeks to establish itself
as the dominant power in Asia while diminishing the role of the
United States as an external balancer. But how and toward what end does it hope to achieve this outcome? How far will the
United States go to accommodate a stronger China? The answers to these questions will have enormous bearing on the norms, composition, tasks, and future
achievements of regional institutions.
SCS
ADB and World Bank co-financing with the AIIB is key to
resolve SCS disputes --- will force the AIIBs hand to
engage in co-financing, and provides twice the amount of
money for infrastructure
Taggart, 6/10/16 (Stewart, Chinas AIIB Voting Structure: South China
Sea Pressure Point? http://grenatec.com/chinas-aiib-voting-structure-south-
china-sea-pressure-point/ - LK)
Can the Asian Infrastructure Investment Banks (AIIB) voting structure moderate Chinese territorial
assertiveness in the South China Sea? Its an intriguing idea. AIIB votes require a 76% majority. China
holds 25% of the votes. Despite this Chinese veto, the AIIBs other shareholders can make a very strong
statement. The reason: the AIIBs professed independence from Chinese Communist Party control would
be severely questioned if China overruled other AIIB members. China wont want that. On the other hand:
the South China Sea is the Elephant in the Room with the AIIB. Given
Chinas increasing political isolation regarding its Nine-Dotted Line claim to
the entire South China Sea, China could use a political escape hatch . Suitably
united, the AIIBs other countries can provide it. The escape hatch would be for the AIIB to
fund infrastructure that can be used to service Joint Development Areas in
the South China Sea. These JDAs could be created in contested areas off
Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan. Oil, gas, methane hydrates, renewable
energy and even fisheries within the JDAs could then be jointly developed by Chinese and Southeast Asian
energy and fisheries companies. The beauty of JDAs is that countries with contesting claims to a proposed
offshore agree to set those territorial claims aside indefinitely while they cooperate to develop the
resources within the contested areas. Final territorial determination is postponed until far down the track.
All countries in the
At that point the stakes are lower because the resources have been developed.
region including China publicly support the concept of joint
development as a means of reducing risk of war in the South China Sea .
Given this, no one would be seen as backing down. Successful JDAs exist all over the
world. Three have operated successfully for decades in the Gulf of Thailand, adjacent to the South China
Sea. Therefore,Southeast Asias AIIB members, along with the AIIBs European members and
South Korea,could unite behind proposals for AIIB funding of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nation States (ASEAN) proposed Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) and
Trans-ASEAN Electricity Grid (TAEG). If China dug in its heels in opposition,
presumably due to conflict with its Nine-Dotted Line territorial claim, China
could probably muster 47% of the AIIBs votes in support of its position.
Support would likely come from Russia and the AIIBs Central Asian countries and Middle Eastern
European Union members of the AIIB would almost certainly unite in
countries.
favor of JDAs, along with South Korea and the AIIBs ASEAN members
themselves. Together, these would amount to another 47%. In other words, a
virtual tie. Turkey, Brazil and South Africa would represent wild card votes. In the end, such a
vote would offer only a pyrrhic victory for either side. It could open up such
large political divisions within the AIIB that the organization breaks apart. No
one wants that. To date, Chinas underestimated the blow back from its geopolitical over-reach in
the South China Sea. Its been made worse by Chinas domestic propaganda machine. Its been using the
South China Sea as a distracting nationalistic lightning rod to shift attention from issues like needed reform
The AIIB is an important
of domestic residency laws (the hoku system) pollution and corruption.
symbol for the Communist Party that Chinas emergence as a global player
represents the ripening fruit of decades of personal sacrifice by the Chinese
people. While its an overstretch to call the AIIB it a vanity project for China
it is something close. Given this, China will work hard to keep
controversial items off the AIIBs agenda. This gives other members an
avenue for getting Chinas attention that other avenues like appeals to UN
Tribunals havent. Happily, the issue of the South China Sea need not be framed in such naked
political terms. If the AIIB shies away from funding compelling infrastructure
projects in Southeast Asia like the TAGP and TAEG, others can step in.
These include the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, the Green
Climate Fund and even Japans $200 billion export infrastructure
fund which alone boasts twice the capital of the AIIB. If these
organizations worked together to fund a common plan in the South China Sea
and share funding, the AIIBs hand could be forced. This would be
particularly so if the AIIB were internally divided along the voting lines
outlined above. The big issue here isnt a zero-sum involving one side or the other prevailing over
the legality/acceptability of Chinas Nine Dotted Line. The bigger issue is the preparation of the world
economy for the 21st Century. That means building out the infrastructure to enable more of Asias people
to join the global economy and to enable Asias economies (like everywhere) to progressively decarbonize
Given this, joint development in
and more sustainably steward their resources like fisheries.
the South China Sea can set a crucial precedent benefitting everyone
particularly China. Joint infrastructure in the region serving joint development
areas would represent a crucial first piece of Chinas own proposed One Belt,
One Road concept of deepening cross-border interconnections between Asias
economies. Taking this a few steps further State Grid Corp of China, Chinas
electricity power line state champion, envisages a global electricity grid by
2050. That idea isnt farfetched at all. Reaching agreement on core elements of
such networks in the next 10 years can put the world economy on the kind of
multi-decade economic trajectory that can increase wealth, pay the future
income streams to fund aging global populations and solve climate
change. Whats needed is to get global institutions and the worlds countries
in greater alignment. They can start in the South China Sea.
Generic Case
U.S. is willing to work with the AIIB through co-financing
solves US-China cooperation
Fackler, 15 (3/31/15, Martin, New York Times (Online), Japan, Sticking
With U.S., Says It Won't Join China-Led Bank, Proquest database, JMP)
In a speech in San Francisco on Tuesday, the American Treasury secretary,
Jacob J. Lew, said that the United States was willing to work with an
institution like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, so long as it was
accompanied by high governance standards and worked alongside existing
international organizations.
"I was encouraged by my conversations in Beijing in which China's leaders
made clear that they aspire to meet high standards and welcome
partnership," he said.
He added that "having the A.I.I.B. cofinance projects with existing
institutions will help demonstrate a commitment to the highest
standards of governance, environmental and social safeguards, and
debt sustainability."
2015 report, published today, found that "renewables contributed almost half of the world's new
power generation capacity in 2014 and have already become the second-
largest source of electricity (after coal)." More than 150 countries have submitted
climate pledges ahead of the Paris climate talks, and they are "rich in commitments
on renewables and energy efficiency," says the IEA. The report also found renewables are set
to become "the leading source of new energy supply from now to 2040." And
renewables will overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation
by the 2030s. The IEA projects turbulent times ahead for coal: Coal has increased its share of the global energy mix from 23
percent in 2000 to 29 percent today, but the momentum behind coals surge is ebbing away and the fuel faces a reversal of fortune. China's
coal use will "plateau at close to today's levels," says the IEA, but India's energy demand will grow to 2.5 times its current rate. It remains to
be seen whether India will pursue the coal-heavy track that China followed. Coal demand is set to triple in India and Southeast Asia by 2040,
The IEA
meeting in Paris must set a clear direction for the accelerated transformation of the global energy sector," she added. "
energy economy will drive economic growth for decades, create well-paying
jobs and increase household incomes . And in September, Greenpeace outlined a path for the world to transition
to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The impossible is becoming possible. The global breakthrough of renewable energy has happened
much faster than anticipated," said Emily Rochon, global energy strategist at Greenpeace International. The IEA is catching up on renewable
energy trends, but it is still failing to see the full potential of change," said Rochon. "We believe that with the right level of
policy support, the world can deliver 100 percent renewable energy for all by
2050.
power plant CO2 emissions 277 million metric tons annually by 2025the
equivalent of the annual output from 70 typical (600 MW) new coal plants [4]. In addition, a
ground-breaking study by the U.S. Department of Energy 's National Renewable Energy Laboratory explored
Kenya's national power gird, it also highlighted a growing trend among developing
countries to rely heavily on renewable energy to meet domestic and regional
demand. Kenya -- generating 75 percent of its total electricity production
from renewables -- ranks 16th in the world on this measure, below a diverse
set of countries that include many the world's poorest, according to the World
Bank data on renewable energy generation. The data shows that Paraguay and
Iceland lead the world in their reliance on renewable energy, with effectively
100 percent of their electricity generated through hydro and geothermal
power. Albania is equal top, only producing electricity from renewable
sources, although it is still somewhat reliant on imported, non-renewable
energy sources to meet demand. The next three countries on the list might also surprise: Mozambique,
Zambia and Tajikistan come in at four, five and six in their generation on renewable energy for their electricity needs.
of the World Bank data also demonstrates that across the various sub-
categories of countries, it is generally the developed, wealthier West that is
lagging behind in its embrace of renewables. 'High income' and 'High Income: OECD' countries
rely on renewable sources of energy for 19.4 and 20.2 percent of their electricity generation. This is close to the global
average of approximately 21 percent. 'Heavily indebted poor countries' and 'least developed countries', in contrast, utilise
renewable sources for 60.3 and 40.8 percent of their power generation. Australia sits near the bottom of the list, with only 10
percent of electricity consumption being sourced from renewables -- 11 percent below the world average.
broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as
fossil fuels. One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind
auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that
promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source,
anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
"We're in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future," Liebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New York
on Tuesday. "Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at all." Here's what's shaping power markets, in six charts from BNEF:
Renewables are beating fossil fuels 2 to 1 Investment in Power Capacity, 2008-2015 Investment in Power
Capacity, 2008-2015 Source: BNEF, UNEP Government subsidies have helped wind and solar get a foothold in global power markets, but
its level in the 1970s, while the total amount of installed solar has soared
115,000-fold. As solar prices fall, installations boom Source: BNEF The reason solar-power
generation will increasingly dominate: Its a technology, not a fuel. As such, efficiency
increases and prices fall as time goes on. What's more, the price of batteries
to store solar power when the sun isn't shining is falling in a similarly
stunning arc. Just since 2000, the amount of global electricity produced by solar
power has doubled seven times over. Even wind power, which was already
established, doubled four times over the same period. For the first time, the
two forms of renewable energy are beginning to compete head-to-head on
price and annual investment. An industry that keeps doubling in size Renewables share of power generation. Scale is
shown in doublings. Renewables share of power generation. Scale is shown in doublings. Source: BNEF Meanwhile, fossil fuels have been
getting killed by falling prices and, more recently, declining investment. It started with coalit used to be that lower prices increased demand
for fossil fuels, but coal prices apparently can't fall fast enough. Richer OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
countries have been reducing demand for almost a decade. In China, coal power has also flattened. Only developing countries with rapidly
expanding energy demands are still adding coal, though at a slowing rate. Coal phases out in wealthier countries first What does that look like
on a country-level basis? The world's first coal superpower, the U.K., now produces less power from coal than it has since at least 1850. Canary
in the coal mine: U.K. Source: BNEF Source: BNEF More recently it's the oil and gas industry that's been under attack. Prices have tumbled and
investments have started drying up. The number of oil rigs active in the U.S. fell last month to the lowest since records began in the 1940s.
Producersfrom tiny frontier drillers to massive petrol-producing nation-statesare creeping ever closer to insolvency. "What we're talking
about is miscalculation of risk," said BNEF's Liebreich. "We're talking about a business model that is predicated on never-ending growth, a
business model that is predicated on being able to find unlimited supplies of capital." The chart below shows independent oil producers and
their ability to pay their debt.1 The pink quadrant at the bottom right represents the greatest threat to a company's solvency. By 2015, that
quadrant starts to fill up, and Liebreich warned, "It's going to get uglier." U.S. oil patch heads to the insolvency zone Source: BNEF Source:
BNEF Oil and gas woes are driven less by renewables than by a mismatch of too much supply and too little demand. But with renewable
energy expanding at record rates and with more efficient carsincluding all-electric vehiclessiphoning off oil profits at the margins, the
fossil-fuel insolvency zone is only going to get more crowded, according to BNEF. Natural gas will still be needed for when the sun isn't shining
and the wind isn't blowing, but even that will change as utility-scale batteries grow cheaper. The best minds in energy keep underestimating
long-term solar forecast 14 times and its wind forecast five times. Every time
global wind power doubles, there's a 19 percent drop in cost, according to
BNEF, and every time solar power doubles, costs fall 24 percent. And while
BNEF says the shift to renewable energy isn't happening fast enough to avoid
the catastrophic legacy of fossil-fuel dependenceclimate changeit's
definitely happening.
Aff
Renewables Fail
Renewables Fail cant cut CO2 emissions and cause
economic collapse
Page 14 Lewis Page is a journalist and author, covering many beats
including aerospace, defense, enterprise and consumer IT, science, energy,
transport and business, "Renewable energy 'simply WON'T WORK': Top
Google engineers," Nov14,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_wor
k_google_renewables_engineers AudKa
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and
trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that
renewables will never permit the human race to cut CO2 emissions to the
levels demanded by climate activists. Whatever the future holds, it is not a
renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible . Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross
Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren't guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or "technology"
of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company. The duo were employed at
RE<C was
Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.
a failure, and Google closed it down after four years . Now, Koningstein and Fork have explained the
conclusions they came to after a lengthy period of applying their considerable technological expertise to renewables, in an article posted at IEEE Spectrum. The two men
write: At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to todays renewable energy
we
technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope ... Renewable energy technologies simply wont work;
need a fundamentally different approach. One should note that RE<C didn't restrict itself
to conventional renewable ideas like solar PV, windfarms, tidal, hydro etc. It
also looked extensively into more radical notions such as solar-thermal,
geothermal, "self-assembling" wind towers and so on and so forth. There's no
get-out clause for renewables believers here. Koningstein and Fork aren't alone. Whenever somebody with a decent
grasp of maths and physics looks into the idea of a fully renewables-powered civilised future for the human race with a reasonably open mind, they normally come to the
conclusion that it simply isn't feasible. Merely generating the relatively small proportion of our energy that we consume today in the form of electricity is already an
insuperably difficult task for renewables: generating huge amounts more on top to carry out the tasks we do today using fossil-fuelled heat isn't even vaguely plausible.
(watch out for the meteor!) etc etc would all have to go - none of those things are sustainable without
economic growth.
Market Barriers prevent development
Moskovitz 16 David Moskovitz is an energy and regulatory consultant,
whose clients include the U.S. Department of. Energy, NARUC, and many U.S.
and. Canadian utilities, "Barriers to Renewable Energy Technologies," April 1,
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-
renewables/barriers-to-renewable-energy.html#.V4FDKfkrLIU AudKa
Market research shows that many customers will purchase renewable power even if it costs somewhat more than conventional power.[1]
barriers and market failures that will limit the development of renewables unless
special policy measures are enacted to encourage that development.[2] These hurdles can be grouped into four categories:
will
commercialization: undeveloped infrastructure and lack of economies of scale. Infrastructure Developing new renewable resources
require large initial investments to build infrastructure . These investments increase the
cost of providing renewable electricity, especially during early years . Examples
include Prospecting: Developers must find publicly acceptable sites with good resources and with access to transmission lines.
Potential wind sites can require several years of monitoring to determine whether they are suitable. Permitting: Permitting issues for
conventional energy technologies are generally well understood, and the process and standards for review are well defined. In contrast,
renewables often involve new types of issues and ecosystem impacts. And standards are still in the process of development.
Marketing: In the past, individuals had no choices about the sources of their electricity. But electricity deregulation has opened the
market so that customers have a variety of choices. Start-up companies must communicate the benefits of renewables to customers in order
to persuade them to switch from traditional sources. Public education will be a critical part of a fully functioning market if renewables are to
succeed. Installation, operation, and maintenance : Workers must be trained to install, operate, and maintain
new technologies, as well as to grow and transport biomass fuels. Some renewables need operating experience in regional climate conditions
before performance can be optimized. For example, the optimal spacing of wind turbines is likely to be different on New England ridgelines
than on agricultural land in the Midwest.
Links to Elections
General Public does not support Hillarys renewables plan
CP links to the DA
Adler 15 Ben Adler is a journalist in New York City where he covers
environmental politics and policy, with a focus on climate change, energy and
urban development, "Hillary Clinton has a renewable energy plan, but she still
needs one for fossil fuels," July 28, http://grist.org/climate-energy/hillary-
clinton-has-a-renewable-energy-plan-but-she-still-needs-one-for-fossil-fuels-2/
AudKa
Theres an argument to be made that the president must not overplay his or
her [their] hand. Perhaps doing everything theoretically possible to clamp down
on fossil fuels would be too unpopular with the public, which tends to favor
both fossil fuel production and carbon regulation. But wherever the strongest negotiating position
might be, it surely isnt giving the fossil fuel industry what it wants without getting anything in return before the negotiation has even begun.
Human Rights Credibility
1NC Shell
Counterplan: the United States Federal Government
should issue an assessment of international human rights
conditions that includes extensive self-criticism
YOU SHOULD INSERT IMPACT CALC OF YOUR CASE VERSUS THE NET BENEFIT
DISAD(S) HERE!
HR Cred Fails
International HR cred no longer matters: the US does
better when it goes alone on Human Rights
Schaefer 12 (Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International
Regulatory Affairs at Heritage's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.
Heritage: Issue Brief #3717 on United Nations. The U.N. Human Rights
Council Does Not Deserve U.S. Support published September 5 th, 2012.
Accessed July 9th, 2016.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/the-un-human-rights-
council-does-not-deserve-us-support) Fedora
The African Unions decision to nominate Sudan for the United Nations
Human Rights Council (HRC) elicited justifiable outrage. Pressure from human rights
groups and governments led Kenya to announce its own election bid, causing Sudan to withdraw. This was
a welcome development; the notion of the genocidal government sitting on the most visible U.N. human
rights body was outrageous. However,notorious human rights violators like Cuba,
China, and Russia currently sit on the Council; and even after Sudans
withdrawal, other African countries with dismal human rights records remain
virtually assured of election. The lack of membership standards is a key
reason behind the Councils poor record and, sadly, there is little
chance for establishing such standards. The Administrations current
strategy of focusing limited diplomatic capital on annually blocking a
particularly egregious country while other, only slightly less objectionable
states win election is a losing game. Instead of lending credibility to this
flawed institution, the U.S. should seek to eliminate it and work to establish a
more effective human rights body with rigorous membership standards.
Sudanese Candidacy: Emblematic of Fundamental Flaws Sudan has a repressive government
accused of massive human rights violations, including genocide in Darfur and
brutally repressing ethnic and religious minorities in other parts of the
country. Sudan deserves intense scrutiny by the Council; it should not be
passing judgment on other states records as a HRC member. Nonetheless,
until Kenya announced its decision to run, Sudan was nearly certain to win a
seat on the Council. This was due to the absence of meaningful membership
standards provided by the General Assembly when it established the HRC:[1]
Council members must be U.N. member states. The 47 Council seats would be allocated by regional group:
13 for Africa; 13 for Asia; 6 for Eastern Europe; 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean; and 7 for Western
Europe and other states (WEOG). Countries would be elected by secret ballot and must receive an absolute
majority in the General Assembly (97 out of 193 countries). Conversely, it takes a two-thirds vote (129
votes) to suspend the rights of membership in the Council [for] gross and systematic violations of human
rights. Countries would be elected for three-year terms, with a third of the seats being elected annually.
Countries may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms (six years), after which they shall not be
eligible for immediate re-election, and have to wait at least one year before seeking another term.
Countries were urged to take into account the contribution of candidates to
the promotion and protection of human rights and their voluntary pledges
and commitments made thereto. However, this is not mandatory. Clean Slate
Candidacy Because there are no meaningful human rights standards,
any countryeven those with deplorable records like Sudanare eligible.
Regional groups frequently game the system to facilitate their candidacies by offering the same number of
candidates as there are open seats. This practice, referred to as offering a clean slate, maximizes the
chances for each candidate to receive the 97 vote majority necessary to win a seat. This was the situation
before Kenya was convinced to run by human rights groups and governments opposed to Sudans
candidacy.[2] The Africa Group offered five candidates for the five open African seats on the Council.[3]
With only five candidates for five seats, Sudan was a virtual lock to win. When Kenya entered, the African
slate became competitive.[4] Sudan decided to withdraw shortly after, likely to avoid the embarrassment
of losing. Sudans withdrawal is obviously positive. However, none of the 2013 African candidates have
good human rights records. Freedom House ranks Cote dIvoire, Gabon, and Ethiopia as not free, and
Sierra Leone and Kenya as merely partly free.[5] Thus, even though Sudan has withdrawn, when
combined with previously elected countries the African group will be represented on the Council in 2013 by
seven not free countries (more than in any previous year), four partly free countries, and only 2 free
Deficiencies in membership are one of the key reasons behind the
countries.
Councils fundamental shortcomings: bias against Israel, willful inattention to
serious human rights situations, and a weak and politicized Universal Periodic
Review (UPR).[6] The lack of meaningful membership standards are likely
permanent after nearly all of the substantive reform proposalsincluding U.S.
proposals establishing stronger criteria for candidates and requiring regions
to offer competitive slateswere rejected during the 2011 review.[7] Bereft of
institutional filters, those opposed to human rights violators being elected to the HRC are forced to mount
annual campaigns hoping to block their election. But not every unworthy candidate can be the focus of
such an effort, thus only the most egregious are targeted each year while the slightly less awful candidates
win election. The 2013 candidates likely to win election with poor to terrible human rights records are: Cote
dIvoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
[8] 2013: A Brief Window of Opportunity Africa is not the only region to offer a clean slate to ensure that
countries with poor human rights records have greater chances of winning a seat on the Council. Every
region except WEOG has offered the same number of candidates as vacancies in 2013. This situation,
along with the fact that Freedom House ranks all five WEOG candidates (for three vacancies) as free,
makes projecting the human rights composition of the Council for 2013 simple: the number of free
countries should increase from 20 to 23 and the number of not free countries should decrease from 12 to
10. This improvement is not due to more prudent selection, but from the requirement for countries that
served two consecutive terms to cycle off the Council for at least one year. This means that not free
countries like Cameroon, China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabiawhose terms end in 2012cannot run for
China, Cuba, and Russia have been instrumental in
re-election this year.
undermining the work of the Council and their 2013 absence could open a
brief window for a more effective Council before they are almost certainly re-
elected next year. However, this temporary opportunity should not be
confused with fundamental improvement. Council membership is likely to
reach new lows in 2014, when those countries are eligible to return. The brevity
of the potential window speaks volumes. Moreover, considering the number of countries
with deplorable human rights records cycling off the Council, it is
disappointing that the membership is set to improve so little in 2013. Time
for a New Approach The U.S. should reject this institutionalized bias,
mediocrity, and ineffectiveness. Instead, the U.S. should: Not seek
re-election and eschew the Council unless direct U.S interests are involved; Propose
eliminating the Council and shifting its responsibilitiessuch as receiving the reports of the special
and Establish a more effective alternative
proceduresto the 3rd Committee;
body outside the U.N. to examine and promote human rights
practices. The Obama Administration has sought to positively influence the Council, but these efforts
have rarely been successful and, when so, modest. Most notably, the 2011 review failed to institute
the HRC will continue to be
meaningful reforms, particularly membership standards. As a result,
dysfunctional, differing only in degrees from disappointing to shameful, and
fall far short of the standard that the premier U.N. human rights body should
meet.
Korean Econ- Deregulate
1NC
South Korean Econ CP
CP Text: South Korea should ease regulations on its
service sectors to induce tangible economic growth
SEJONG, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will ease additional regulations governing
the country's free economic zones as part of efforts to boost foreign direct
investment (FDI), the government said Wednesday. "The government will remove the
remaining red tape to help transform free economic zones into a stronghold
for foreign investment while also improving their working conditions to ensure
the inflow of advanced and trained workers," the Ministry of Trade, Industry
and Energy said in a press release. The latest measures were approved at an economy-
related ministers' meeting held in Seoul. They also follow a series of deregulation
measures aimed at attracting more foreign investment, which included
raising a ceiling on the foreign ownership of an aviation maintenance and
operations firm in an free economic zone to 100 percent from 50 percent .
Under Wednesday's steps, the government will increase the allowed ratio of foreign
employees to the total workforce to 30 percent from the current 20 percent at
any given firm in free economic zones. Such a limit on the number of foreign
workers is designed to create more jobs for local laborers, but it often creates
difficulties for foreign employers in finding local workers who are able to
speak their language, the ministry said. The government will also revise related
regulations to allow businesses in free economic zones to submit their import-
export related reports via e-mail, instead of hard copy . Such measures will help
boost the country's FDI to over US$20 billion for the first time in its history, the
ministry said. In the first seven months of the year, new FDI pledged to the country shrank 5.2 percent
from the same period last year to $10.78 billion, according to the ministry. The amount, however, marks
FDI pledges spiked
the second-highest for the cited period in the country's history. In 2014, new
30.6 percent on-year to reach a record high of $19 billion with the amount of
new FDI arriving here also surging 17.1 percent to a new high of $11.52
billion.
Restructuring and Deregulation of the Korean Economy
solves --holds the key to boosting growth potential- long
term solvency Korean economy
Kyung-ho 16 [Kim Kyung-ho is a leading journalist and analyst for the Korea Herald concerning
domestic economic problems, 2016/07/06Restructuring and deregulation holds key to boosting growth
potential http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160706000970]
Economists here and abroad have said that Korea needs to move
from manufacturing to services for its next economic takeoff. One
such way is to expand and upgrade the distribution sector, a pillar of the
service industry, analysts say. Korea's aging heavy industries, such as
shipbuilding, steel and petrochemicals, have been reeling from falling
demand and rising costs, and its more recent moneymakers, including
semiconductors, automobiles and mobile devices, are also seeing warning
signs in the export market amid fiercer competition with newcomers, they
note. To maintain the vigor of domestic consumption, one of two axes
boosting the national economy, the government needs to develop the retail
industry, now struggling with undue regulations and stiffer competition from
global giants, they said. "By deregulating the distribution sector, the
government can increase investment, employment and
consumption," an industry executive said. They cited E-mart Town in Ilsan,
north of Seoul, which opened last June, as an example. The hypermarket, 2.5
times larger than a football stadium, is a complex of home appliances,
groceries, restaurants and leisure activities, the only discount outlet in the
nation that had cars lining up to enter it even before it opened. It has
everything from culinary hot spots to drone and robot stores, attracting
consumers of all categories and emerging as a futuristic, experience-sharing
retail outlet. Industry analysts say the distribution sector is the only way out
of the current protracted slump. Major department stores such as Lotte,
Shinsegae and Hyundai, and even small social commerce sellers such as
Coupang, are making investments in the sector exceeding a trillion won each.
Massive investments lead to employment. Together, Lotte and Shinsegae
hired 15,000 workers last year, overwhelming major exporters. Coupang
plans to invest 1.5 trillion won ($1.25 billion) through next year and employ
40,000 to beef up its delivery staff. Politicians and bureaucrats seem to think
somewhat differently, however, stressing the need for co-prosperity with
traditional outdoor markets and mom-and-pop stores, industry sources said. A
case in point is the bill proposed last year in the National Assembly, which
aims at restricting the opening of supersize stores by large retailers. This
regulatory mindset has resulted in a decrease in consumption of 2 trillion won
a year, damaging even the small vendors the bill was intended to help, they
added. "Upgrading the domestic retail industry cannot be done without
enlarging the sector," said Ahn Seung-ho, head of the Korea Distribution
Association. "To reignite domestic demand, the government and political
community need to relax regulations and draw a new industrial map."
However, a civic activist said the key for any sustainable growth will lie in
how to harmonize the interests of both the gigantic and small retailers by
shaping policies that minimize overlapping areas of service.
AFF
Regulatory reform net better than Deregulation.
Deregulations kill enviro. Deregulation kills gender equity
in workplace.
White 14 [MARCH 28, 2014 Regulatory Reform- deregulation versus better regulation Simon White is
an independent policy advisor who works with national, regional and city governments, business
organisations and development agencies to formulate and implement strategies for enhanced economic
growth, business development and job creation. He has worked throughout Australia, Asia and
Africa .http://simonwhite.com.au/2014/03/28/regulatory-reform-deregulation-versus-better-regulation/]
It seems that governments around the world are paying greater attention to regulatory reform. While
reform is a continuous activity of all governments, more and more are becoming aware of how the
accumulation of regulation can quash business growth and constrain economic competitiveness. It is
interesting to see the ways these reforms are being introduced and the potential savings governments
there is great danger that can
claim will be made. However, among these crusades,
undermine the value of good regulation . The removal of environmental
regulation, which some are calling green tape, is being parcelled up in the
name of relief for small business. Is this going too far? In Korea this month, the
government announced it will cut the total number of regulations on business activities to 80 percent of
the current level by 2016 through its Deregulation Drive. The plan was unveiled during a seven-hour
marathon meeting led by President Park Geun-hye on national television and translates into the removal of
2,200 regulations and a drop in the total from more than 15,000 to just over 13,000. This is considered
important to spur greater levels of economic growth in Korea. On 28 March, Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok
presided over the first ministerial-level meeting on the matter to inspect, evaluate, and come up with
follow-up measures to President Park Geun-hyes three-year economic innovation plan. They
pinpointed 52 regulations that could be improved . Hyun said 41 of the regulations can
be addressed immediately, with 27 of them to be amended in the first half of this year. This site contains
an interesting interview on Koreas reform efforts with Dr. Kim In-chul, professor of
International economics at Sung Kyung Kwan University. He talks about
creating the right incentives for reform and how the government as learned
from the previous governments attempts at regulatory reform. He also
describes the adoption of the one-in, one-out system or the regulation
cap and the use of sunset clauses. Last year I reported on some the the UK government
initiatives in this field, which included the Red Tape Challenge. The RTC is gaining
momentum. Some 3,000 pieces of regulation have been identified for action.
They will either be improved or scrapped. An Excel document containing this list can be downloaded from
here. David Camerons announcement can be found here. So we have trawled through thousands of pieces of regulation from the serious to
the ridiculous, and we will be scrapping or amending over 3,000 regulations saving business well over 850 million every single year. Thats
half a million pounds which will be saved for businesses every single day of the year. The infographic below promotes the savings of cutting
red tape. In Australia, the new Coalition Government has introduced Repeal Day. See the governments Cutting Red Tape site. Two Repeal Days
will be held each year. The first was on 19 March 2014 and the second will be during the Autumn session of Parliament. When introducing the
initiative into Parliament this month, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the red tape repeal would remove 9,500 unnecessary or counter-
productive regulations and 1,000 redundant acts of Parliament. Removing just these will save individuals and organisations more than $700
million a year, every year, he said. The Liberal Partys own policy document on regulatory reform will save one billion Australian Dollars
annually. The use of parliamentary sitting days for the repeal of legislation and regulation has been used in other jurisdictions to repeal
redundant or unnecessary legislation. In the United States, the House of Representatives holds repeal days that are known as the Corrections
Calendar. The Corrections Calendar contains a list of bills that focus on changing laws, rules, and regulations that are judged to be out-dated or
unnecessary. These bills are considered by the House of Representatives and debate is limited to one hour. For a bill on the Corrections
Calendar to pass the House of Representatives a three-fifth majority vote of those present is required. In Australia, the first repeal day was
organised by the Western Australian Government on 8 November 2012, which was used to repeal five acts from the statute book. Later this
year, the Australian Senate will debate the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, available here. This Bill, which was passed by the
Parliament this week (on 26 March 2014) is described as: a whole of government initiative to amend or repeal legislation across ten portfolios.
The Bill brings forward measures to reduce regulatory burden for business, individuals and the community sector that are not the subject of
Does
individual stand-alone bills. There are two questions that arise from this growing push for regulator reform. The first is:
business actually benefit from these reforms? The second: Are red-tape
reduction strategies being used to remove good and proper
regulation? Does regulatory reform help business? The red-tape reduction
initiatives described above are all justified by the savings they will produce for business and consumers.
There is no question that, in most countries, there are too many regulations, often old and outdated, but
also unnecessary and inefficient, that increase the cost of doing business and that these increases have a
broader influence on competitiveness. Campaigns that aim to identify and remove these are important and
necessary. However, it is easy to get caught up in a public relations exercise that imply all these
regulations have an equal influence. For example, a recent article by Peter Martin, the economics editor of
The Age newspaper in Melbourne, quotes Professor Fred Hilmer, former chair of the National Competition
Policy Review Committee, and author of the Hilmer Report the 1995 National Competition
Policy. Ill give you a silly example, he said referring to his own experience as vice-chancellor of the
University of NSW. Under the Audit Act, a university has to file accounts to the Parliament for every one of
its subsidiaries. That would be a book centimetres thick. We dont. No one does it. And theyll repeal it.
While removing useless, unenforced regulation is not a bad thing to
do, as Peter Martin says, removing laws that cause actual damage
is harder. John Wanna from the Australian National University similarly
describes deregulation exercises as smoke and mirrors : Parliament is unrelentingly
cranking out thousands of new amendments and regulations each session, yet governments will
periodically want to appear to be reducing the regulatory burden on the community and especially
business as a productivity measure. Reporting requirements, compliance frameworks and other
accountability impositions are increasing at a far faster rate than any rolling back of out-dated
There are some big deceptions behind regulations and the Abbott-
regulations
they claim the abolition of these regulations sitting
Frydenberg initiative. One is that
on the statute books will miraculously save millions of dollars and make us
more competitive. Yet most of the ones destined for abolition are truly
anachronistic laws and regulations (some decades and even centuries old)
that hardly apply to modern business . The take home of all this is that while red-tape
reduction is a good thing, the repeal of old and out-dated laws and regulations is a normal part of the work
of parliaments and governments. While thousands of laws and regulations will be
removed or improved, the challenge is to focus efforts on those that have the most impact on business
and the economy. In the Australian instance, many of the problematic laws and regulations faced by
business are created by local and state governments. These will not be affected by the Federal
Governments Repeal Day efforts. Cutting what we shouldnt the chaining colour of tape The second
question Ive raised concerns the danger of using regulatory reform campaigns to remove or alter
A case in point is regulation that protects the
regulation that serves a useful purpose.
environment. Whether by design or accident, red-tape reduction is now
including so-called green-tape. The Australian Governments reform programme consistently
uses the term red and green tape, as does the Coalition policy. Similarly, in the UKs Red Tape Reduction
campaign, the British Prime Minister announced that by this month next year the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will have slashed 80,000 pages of environmental guidance saving
businesses around 100 million per year. While environmental regulation should not be
excluded from assessments that might improve its effect and efficiency, there
appears to be a danger that the scope of a general deregulation agenda is
widening. All regulation, whether good or bad, imposes a cost on business . All
costs are not bad. The purpose of deregulation should not be to remove as
much regulation as possible, but to balance the cost on business
with the benefits to the broader community and the environment .
Another regulatory issue that is possibly affected by the deregulation push in
Australia concerns gender audits. Beth Gaze, from the University of Melbourne, is concerned that
the requirement for employers to report on the gender makeup of their
workforce could easily fall victim to a deregulatory agenda . She describes how
the Workforce Gender Equality Act of 2012 requires employers to provide annual information on several
gender equality indicators, including the gender composition of the workforce and governing bodies such
as councils or boards of directors; pay equity between women and men in the workforce; and the
availability and use of flexible working arrangements for male and female parents and carers. Pay equity
data shows the current pay gap between men and women is 17.5% and has consistently been between
15% and 18% over the past two decades. This suggests that little or no progress has
occurred in moving towards workforce gender equality. Is reporting
by employers unjustifiable and wasteful red tape? asks Gaze. It applies only to
employers of more than one hundred people and not to small businesses. Do the benefits of
reporting justify the extra time and effort? Information on an employers
workforce and how it changes from year to year allows both assessment of
the employers progress on gender equity, and identification of effective
practices. This knowledge is not available from anywhere else and is essential to understanding both
progress and the barriers to progress in gender equity at work. Reports will give shareholders, employees,
job seekers and the public a concrete view of whether a companys expressed commitment to gender
equity at work has led to improvements in practice. While this legislation has been in the governments
indicates it will delay these changes and consult further.
deregulation sights, government currently
There are substantial benefits to be gained from a regulatory reform
effort that reduces the burden of unnecessary and onerous regulation
on business, while improving the quality and efficiency of the
regulation we require. The term red tape is typically used to describe excessive regulation or
rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or overly bureaucratic. This does not apply to
Most regulation exists for good reason and while it might
all regulation.
need updating from time to time, it should not be thrown out with
the proverbial bathwater. The greatest challenge in all this effort it to identify those barriers
that have the greatest impact on economic performance. This is where the full benefits of reform can be
realised.
More effective regulation can act as a lever for economic growth, according to
the OECD. The OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2015 found that even small
efforts to fix regulatory shortcomings can have a tangible positive impact on
economic activity and well-being, and encouraged governments to further
improve their law-making. Angel Gurra, OECD secretary general, said:
Governments tend to focus their energy on getting their tax and spending
policies right and often overlook a third lever that can support economic
growth regulation. The report argues that making regulations more
accountable and evidence-based pays dividends. It cited cases such as
Australia, where reduced regulatory costs increased gross domestic
product by 1.3%. Cutting red tape in the UK had saved businesses
10bn over four years, while simplified regulation delivered savings
of 1.25bn in Belgium, it said. OECD governments and industries
save 153m a year through regulatory cooperation that reduces
chemical testing and uses harmonised formats and work sharing, it added.
The report argues that international cooperation in law making is essential for
creating global rules and standards, addressing trade frictions and
environmental risks and reducing the risk of regulatory failures such as the
2008 financial crisis or the recent VW emissions test scandal. In tracking how
OECD countries develop, implement and review their laws and regulations it
found that only a third of the 34 nations have a clear policy for international
regulatory cooperation. One third have no policy at all on regulatory
compliance and enforcement, while two-thirds have no system for evaluating
laws once they are implemented. Such poor coordination on regulation
between countries hampers business and trade, the OECD said.
Governments trying to shake off anaemic growth must address shortcomings
in regulation and ensure laws work as well in practice as they do on paper.
Laws need to be not just well designed, but well implemented, properly
evaluated and consistently applied across sectors, jurisdictions and borders,
Gurra said.
Korea Regime Collapse
CP: Reverse NKSEA
1NC Shell
Stanton 2016 (advised the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the drafting of
the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, blogger for onekorea.org)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/on-north-korea-ed-royce-leads-a-bipartisan-
coup-against-a-bipartisan-failure/article/2000670 ob
If the NKSEA becomes law, it will greatly strengthen our relatively weak
sanctions on North Korea and legislate a return to the only strategy that has
ever worked against it cutting off its access to the global financial system,
and stranding its billions of dollars in regime-sustaining slush funds in
Chinese and European banks. It would require the Treasury Department to
follow and block the money that funds the army, secret police, and elites that
keep Kim Jong-un in power; and pays for his luxury cars, ski resorts, dolphin
aquariums, waterparks, and copious diet, while the vast majority of his
subjects go hungry. Critically, it would also impose secondary sanctions on
third-country banks that launder the proceeds of its illicit activities, arms
deals, and forced labor, and help sustain its proliferation and human rights
abuses.
CP Doesnt Link to Elections
Reich 2016 (Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of
Political Science, Rutgers University Newark)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-us/should-america-be-
focusin_b_9674522.html Should America Be Focusing On ISIS When North
Korea Poses an Existential Threat? ob
It is understandable that Americans focus their attention on the Middle East.
The media supplies a daily stream of news about Americas continued war
with the Islamic State, or ISIS. And the recent attacks in Europe and San
Bernardino, have made terrorism a major issue in this years election,
whether initiated by Jihadists recruited from at home or abroad. Poll numbers
at the end of last year suggested that a majority of Americans think that
President Obama is not taking the threat from ISIS seriously enough. They
believe that an overwhelming use of force would end the threat. Indeed, a
more recent poll suggested that a plurality of those questioned believe the
U.S. is losing the war on terrorism. But is this where Americans should be
focusing their attention if they are looking for large-scale threats? As
someone who studies security issues, I believe that a recent cluster of events
- North Koreas missile and nucleartests, Chinas uncharacteristic reaction
and the comments of G7 officials - provides us with some clues. Existential
threats must be...well, existential The fact is that ISIS does not pose what has
fashionably been termed an existential threat to the United States. The
word existential is increasingly used by politicians and analysts with little
regard for its meaning beyond a large-scale threat. But Ted Bromund, a
foreign policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, offers this
more comprehensive definition: An existential threat is one that would
deprive the United States of its sovereignty under the Constitution, would
threaten the territorial integrity of the United States or the safety within U.S.
borders of large numbers of Americans, or would pose a manifest challenge
to U.S. core interests abroad in a way that would compel an undesired and
unwelcome change in our freely chosen ways of life at home. Clearly,
Jihadism as an ideology cant do that to Americans. And despite the recent
concerns expressed by President Obama, there is little chance that groups
like ISIS can detonate a nuclear weapon in the U.S. Even the admittedly
terrifying release of a dirty bomb wouldnt kill casualties on a massive scale.
As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission succinctlyphrased it, A dirty
bomb is not a Weapon of Mass Destruction but a Weapon of Mass
Disruption where contamination and anxiety are the terrorists major
objectives. The very long struggle with North Korea The American public,
particularly Republican voters, may continue to focus attention on terrorism,
but they should be focusing their attention on developments in North Korea.
Arguably, the events unfolding there far more threatening. The U.S. has a
long and violent history of struggle with North Korea, dating back to the
bloody war that took place in the early 1950s and cost 36,574American lives.
The truce between the two Koreas was never concluded by a peace
agreement. In defense of South Korea, the U.S. has been in a perpetual state
of limbo ever since, caught between war and peace. Most Americans either
dont understand this or dont care very much, with only 16 percent of
Americans polled naming North Korea as Americas greatest enemy in a
recent survey. But the North Koreans certainly do. The Demilitarized Zone - a
148-mile-long strip of land that separates North and South Korea - is
protected by 37,000 troops to its south and is home to over a million
landmines. Indeed, the fact that the U.S. lays mines there is theprimary
reason often given for its failure to sign the 1998 Global Landmine Treaty.
North Korea is an impoverished country that has been propped up by China,
its only major ally, since the end of World War II. The Chinese dont want a
reunited, more powerful Korea on their doorstep, let alone one allied to the
United States. China is North Koreas biggest trading partner, and the Chinese
have repeatedly provided diplomatic support to stave off the imposition of
U.N. sanctions. Comprehensive figures on aid or trade with North Korea are
hard to find. But the U.N. routinely provides emergency assistance to stave
off the occasional famine. North Korea has been brutally ruled by 33-year-old
Kim Jong-un for five years. He succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, who led the
country for 17 years. To Americans, North Korea seems like a caricature of an
evil dictatorship drawn in a Hollywood movie (as indeed it was,
controversially, in the 2014 movie The Interview). It is one they only
occasionally hear about, usually when an American foolhardy enough to visit
there is detained on charges that baffle most Americans. The North Koreans
then extort some prize in exchange for the prisoners release. This usually
involves the visit of a high-level dignitary to plea for clemency, as Jimmy
Carter did in 2010. Just this January, Otto Frederick Warmbier, a visiting
American student, was detained in January on the grounds that he had
committed a hostile act by allegedly removing a political banner from a
hotel and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March. Is there a real
North Korean threat? To many Americans, then, North Korea seems an
appalling place. But they regard it as distant, backward and relatively
harmless.
Aff Answers
Sanctions not key- circumvented by illegal online
gambling revenue that goes directly to regime
Stanton 2016 (advised the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the drafting of
the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, blogger for onekorea.org)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/on-north-korea-ed-royce-leads-a-bipartisan-
coup-against-a-bipartisan-failure/article/2000670 ob
Six days after North Koreas fourth nuclear test, and just hours before
President Obama would address the Congress for his final State of the Union
speech, the House of Representatives passed the North Korea Sanctions
Enforcement Act (NKSEA) by a vote of 418-2. (Full disclosure: I worked with
Foreign Affairs Committee staff to draft the legislation.) If the NKSEA becomes
law, it will greatly strengthen our relatively weak sanctions on North Korea
and legislate a return to the only strategy that has ever worked against it
cutting off its access to the global financial system, and stranding its billions
of dollars in regime-sustaining slush funds in Chinese and European banks. It
would require the Treasury Department to follow and block the money that
funds the army, secret police, and elites that keep Kim Jong-un in power; and
pays for his luxury cars, ski resorts, dolphin aquariums, waterparks, and
copious diet, while the vast majority of his subjects go hungry. Critically, it
would also impose secondary sanctions on third-country banks that launder
the proceeds of its illicit activities, arms deals, and forced labor, and help
sustain its proliferation and human rights abuses. Senate leaders are now
working to merge two versions of the House bill into a bipartisan compromise,
which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expects the Senate to act on soon. In
the eleventh hour of his presidency, with his diplomatic efforts stalled, the
president has little reason to veto the bill. The overwhelmingly bipartisan
result was the fruit of more than two years of tough negotiation and patient
coalition-building by Ed Royce, the California Republican who chairs the
Foreign Affairs Committee. In the end, Nancy Pelosi directed House
Democrats to vote for the bill. (The two dissenting votes came from Justin
Amash and Thomas Massie, Republican "non-interventionists" in the Ron Paul
mold.) Because President Obama cannot lift legislative sanctions unilaterally,
the NKSEA would put strict conditions on any deal with Iran's main supplier of
missile technology, and with Syria's main supplier of nuclear and chemical
weapons technology, for years to come. And because Congress's rejection of
the president's "strategic patience" was so broad, it cannot be dismissed as
party-line posturing. For years, Royce had seethed at the gullible diplomacy
that traded billions of dollars in aid for Pyongyang's broken promises. So did
Korean-American voters in Royce's Orange County district, who worried about
Pyongyang's growing threat to their ancestral homeland, and its horrific
atrocities against their ethnic brethren. Unlike the State Department, Royce
could see the incoherence of simultaneously subsidizing and sanctioning the
same target at the same time. As the son of a soldier who witnessed the
liberation of Dachau, he objected to sidelining North Korea's crimes against
humanity, including its own ghastly concentration camps, from the State
Department's diplomatic agenda. He objected just as strenuously when
Republicans did it, calling the policy "a bipartisan failure." At a 2007 hearing,
Royce was among the most outspoken dissenters when the Bush
Administration lifted most U.S. sanctions against North Korea to get an
agreement strikingly similar to the one President Clinton had signed in 1994,
and which Bush had denounced and walked away from in his first term, amid
evidence that North Korea was cheating on the deal. Royce rightly saw an
opportunity to unite security hawks from both parties who were concerned
about North Korea's proliferation and support for terrorism, and conservatives
and liberals who were equally incensed about its crimes against humanity.
The Democratic members and staff who joined this effort were often
surprisingly tough in their negotiations with the State Department, and the
relative bipartisan comity in the Foreign Affairs Committee improved its
efficiency in producing tough legislation. And let no one say that Royce, a
strong opponent of the President's Iran agreement, did so by sacrificing the
toughness of his rhetoric, his principles, or his legislation. After years of
appeasement, billions of dollars in aid, broken agreed frameworks, nuclear
tests, and unmourned atrocities, Ed Royce led a rebellion by a united House
of Representatives I repeat, aunited House of Representatives against
ten years of soft-line North Korea policies, driven from the State Department's
East Asia Bureau, that had spanned two presidencies of both parties. There
was no special wizardry behind this, other than the competent practice of old-
fashioned political coalition-building. Tended carefully, that coalition could
last for years to come, and make the difference between an ephemeral and
symbolic victory, and a decisive and enduring one. That is how politics is
done right.
Korean War- Precision Strike
1NC
The United States Federal Government should use
precision airstrikes neutralize North Korean ballistic
missile launch capabilities
Rhawn Joseph 2010 (Ph.D. from the Chicago Medical School and completed
his training at Yale University Medical School (in the department of Neurology
and Neuropsychology) Marketing Mars: Financing the Human Mission to Mars
and the Colonization of the Red Planet Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 12,
peer reviewed journal.
The conquest of Mars and the establishment of a colony on the surface of the
Red Planet could cost up to $150 billion dollars over 10 years. These funds
can be easily raised through a massive advertising campaign, and if the U.S.
Congress and the governments of other participating nations, grant to an
independent corporation (The Human Mission to Mars Corporation, a
hypothetical entity), sole legal authority to initiate, administer, and supervise
the marketing, merchandizing, sponsorship, broadcasting, and licensing
initiatives detailed in this article. It is estimated that $10 billion a year can be
raised by clever marketing and advertising thereby generating public
awareness and enthusiasm, and through the sale of Mars' merchandise
ranging from toys to clothing. With clever marketing and advertising and the
subsequent increase in public interest, between $30 billion to $90 billion can
be raised through corporate sponsorships, and an additional $1 billion a year
through individual sponsorships. The sale of "naming rights" to Mars landing
craft, the Mars Colony, etc., would yield an estimated $30 billion. Television
broadcasting rights would bring in an estimated $30 billion. This comes to a
total of up to $160 billion, and does not include the sale of Mars' real estate
and mineral rights and other commercial ventures.
2NC Extension
Doesnt link to ________ because CP doesnt involve
engagement with China. Counter plan doesnt use US
federal budget- just grants a monopoly to a company
dedicated to Mars colonization
Rhawn Joseph 2010 (Ph.D. from the Chicago Medical School and completed
his training at Yale University Medical School (in the department of Neurology
and Neuropsychology) Marketing Mars: Financing the Human Mission to Mars
and the Colonization of the Red Planet Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 12,
peer reviewed journal.
This also takes out the solvency off the aff advantage
because it indicts the likelihood of a two governments
engaging in the long term funding necessary to
successfully colonize mars and ability to maintain public
support. Absent a mechanism for funding at some point
the support for funding will waiver and the mission will
become unsuccessful.
Aff Answers
China cooperation necessary- tech and decreased Russian
support
Shannon Tiezzi June 05, 2014 (A.M. from Harvard University and her B.A. from
The College of William and Mary. Shannon has also studied at Tsinghua
University in Beijing. ) http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/report-to-reach-mars-
nasa-must-work-with-china/
Report: To Reach Mars, NASA Must Work With China A National Research
Council report recommends lifting the ban on NASA-Chinese cooperation. The
U.S. space program should seek to expand its cooperation with China, a new
report has found. The report by the National Research Council, titled
Pathways to Exploration Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of
Human Space Exploration, laid out recommendations for the future of U.S.
space agency NASA. Congress ordered the report in 2010; the results of the
four-year investigation were released Wednesday. NASA is banned from
cooperating with China on projects under a 2011 appropriations law that
states: None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) or the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop, design, plan, promulgate,
implement, or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any
kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with
China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically
authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act. Enjoying
this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. The ban
reflects congressional unease about high-tech cooperation with China in any
field. There are also restrictions limiting the extent of mil-to-mil cooperation
with China as well as a ban on certain high-tech exports. Frank Wolf, the
Representative behind the anti-China clause, explained his reasoning. We
dont want to give them the opportunity to take advantage of our technology,
and we have nothing to gain from dealing with them, he said back in 2011.
He also cited moral concerns over working with the Chinese government:
Would you have a bilateral program with Stalin? Scientists, however, have
been far less supportive of the ban. Last October, when it came to light that
Chinese scientists had been banned from attending a NASA conference, the
news sparked outrage and boycotts among American scientists. Geoff Marcy,
a U.S. scientist considered to have been on the short-list for the 2013 Nobel
Prize in physics, called the ban completely shameful and unethical. NASA
eventually backtracked and re-invited the Chinese scientists, in part after
Rep. Wolf said that NASA was not prohibited by law from interacting with
individual Chinese citizens. Though Wolf argued the law had been
misinterpreted, he stood firm behind the blanket ban on cooperation between
NASA and Chinese government entities. However, the backlash over the
conference drew new attention to the ban, with many speaking out against it.
Since then, there have been signs NASA is seeking a change. And such a
change may be possible: with Rep. Wolf announcing he will not seek
reelection this year, the ban on NASA-China cooperation will lose its strongest
supporter. In January, officials from Chinas National Space Administration
were included in an international meeting hosted by the U.S. State
Department. Because funding was provided by State, not NASA, it did not
violate the 2011 law. The meeting was a rare opportunity for U.S. and
Chinese officials to talk about potential space cooperation. Still, NASA
Administrator Charles Bolden cautioned against too much optimism: Human
spaceflight is not something thats going to happen with [the] U.S. [and]
China in the foreseeable future, because we are forbidden from doing that by
law, he reminded reporters. Now, the NRCs report officially calls for a
reexamination of the 2011 ban. This policy, while driven by congressional
sentiment, denies the U.S. partnership with a nation that will probably be
capable of making truly significant contributions to international collaborative
missions, the report said. Given the rapid development of Chinas
capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open
to its inclusion in future international partnerships, it continued. The report
also recommended that NASA turn its focus to sending a manned mission to
Mars, calling the red planet the horizon goal for human space exploration.
Yet the NRC cautioned that this goal could not be reached without more
extensive international cooperation. Were really talking about international
collaboration of a different scale than what has been conducted in the past,
Jonathan Lunine, co-chair of the NRC panel, told reporters. Even while the
NRC highlighted the need for international efforts, Russia is drastically scaling
back its space cooperation with the U.S. in response to Western sanctions
stemming from the Ukraine crisis. Russia has announced that it will withdraw
from the International Space Station in 2020, and will cease selling the RD-
180 engine that currently powers the U.S. Atlas 5 rocket. With Russia
withdrawing (at least temporarily) from space cooperation with the U.S.,
cooperation with China becomes all the more vital. Current federal law
preventing NASA from participating in bilateral activities with the Chinese
reduces substantially the potential international capability that might be
pooled to reach Mars, the report found.
China 's ASAT weapon hit its target, the obsolete Feng Yun-1C weather
satellite, almost head on with a rapid closing speed of just more than 8
kilometers per second.[3] To accomplish this, it almost certainly used an
onboard optical tracker. This is basically a video camera that would see the
satellite as a bright star, albeit one that moved very fast relative to the other
stars. If so, China has been developing this weapons system for quite some
time with previous flight tests of the tracking system, perhaps mounted on
experimental satellites.
Rabia Akhtar July 2016 Ph.D in Security Studies from Kansas State University.
Assessing the Impact of Chinas MIRVs on South Asia
https://www.stimson.org/content/sav-review-series-china-belated-embrace-
mirvs-jeffrey-g-lewis
Dr. Keith B. Payne 7/6/16 ( president of National Institute for Public Policy,
head, Graduate Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State
University (Washington area campus) and a former deputy assistant secretary
of defense.)
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/07/06/once_again_why_a_no-
first-use_policy_is_a_bad_very_bad_idea_109520.html
The Obama Administration reportedly is seriously considering adopting a No-
First-Use (NFU) nuclear policy.[1] A prospective NFU policy would be a US
commitment never to be the first to use nuclear weaponsas opposed to
existing policy that retains some ambiguity regarding when and if the US
would use nuclear weapons. An NFU policy would eliminate that ambiguity for
US adversaries. It sounds warm and progressive, and has long been a policy
proposal of disarmament activists. NFU has, however, been rejected by all
previous Democratic and Republican administrations for very sound reasons,
most recently by the Obama Administration in 2010. The most important of
these reasons is that retaining a degree of US nuclear ambiguity helps to
deter war while adopting an NFU policy would undercut the deterrence of war.
How so? Under the existing policy of ambiguity, potential aggressors such as
Russia, China, North Korea or Iran must contemplate the reality that if they
attack us or our allies, they risk possible US nuclear retaliation. There is no
doubt whatsoever that this risk of possible US nuclear retaliation has deterred
war and the escalation of conflicts. In fact, the percentage of the world
population lost to war has fallen dramatically since US nuclear deterrence
was established after World War II.[2] That is an historic accomplishment. The
fatal flaw of the warm and progressive-sounding NFU proposal is that it tells
would-be aggressors that they do not have to fear US nuclear retaliation even
if they attack us or our allies with advanced conventional, chemical, and/or
biological weapons. They would risk US nuclear retaliation only if they attack
with nuclear weapons. As long as they use non-nuclear forces, a US NFU
policy would provide aggressors with a free pass to avoid the risk now posed
by the US nuclear deterrent. Promising potential aggressors that they can use
modern conventional, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies
without fear of possible US nuclear retaliation will encourage some to
perceive greater license to do precisely that. Numerous historical case
studies demonstrate without a doubt that some aggressors look for such
openings to undertake their military moves to overturn a status quo they
deem intolerable. They do not need to see a risk-free path to pursue
aggression, only a path that allows them some vision of success, however
improbable that vision may seem to others. The great advantage of current
US nuclear policy is that the US nuclear deterrent helps to shut down the
possibility that would-be aggressors contemplate such paths.
areas of international trade regulation, compliance, and anti-corruption, with particular emphasis and experience assisting clients in complying
with the economic sanctions and embargo regulations administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC). While in law school, Eric worked in the Office of Chief Counsel at OFAC and in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime at
the Treasury Department. His commentary on sanctions and related issues has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National
Interest, Cato Unbound, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Middle East Policy Journal, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters, among
others. Mr. Lorber graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he received the Noyes E. Leech Award for highest
achievement in international law and was a member of the Moot Court Board and a Arthur Littleton and H. Clayton Louderback Legal Writing
Instructor. He graduated from Columbia University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, magna cum laude and with
departmental honors, and was awarded the Charles Beard Prize for academic achievement. Mr. Lorber is admitted to practice in Maryland and
the District of Columbia and currently maintains a Secret-level security clearance. He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and
a Next Generation National Security Fellow at the Center for a New American Security., http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-right-way-
sanction-china-15285 - LK)
Over the last five years, the United States has struggled to influence
Chinese behavior. Washingtons responses to Beijings increasingly
assertive activities have been largely ineffective . Yet U.S. leaders are now
considering a new option: economic sanctions. Conventional wisdom holds that
the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship is too big to fail and that Washington
therefore has little economic leverage with Beijing . Indeed, U.S. policymakers should be
realistic that extensive sanctions against China would be unwise and infeasible .
Nevertheless, certain limited, conduct-based sanctions may be able
to shape Chinese behavior at an acceptable cost. The surprising aspect
of the debate in Washington over whether to sanction China is that it took so
long to emerge; within the last decade, the United States has sanctioned every one of its major
national-security concerns other than China. Iran, Russia, North Korea and terrorist groups have found
themselves facing not only U.S. unilateral sanctions, but extensive international sanctions regimes.
President Barack Obama issued an
Acknowledging the need for more effective policy options,
executive order providing the Treasury Department authority to sanction
state and nonstate actorsincluding Chinese entitiesengaging in malicious cyber
activity. Last year, the administration threatened to impose sanctions on a number of Chinese persons in
candidates have suggested
the lead up to President Xis state visit. Likewise, various presidential
that the United States impose sanctions against Chinese agencies or
businesses involved in cyber attacks against economic targets. Yet China is not
Russia or Iran, and trying to impose an extensive sanctions regime on Beijing
would be both unwise and ultimately ineffective . Given Chinas global economic
importancenotwithstanding its recent economic troublesU.S. policymakers would struggle
to attract the international support required to implement an extensive
sanctions regime in response to cyber attacks or regional coercion. In addition,
unlike the Russian or Iranian economies, which are dependent on energy exports, the Chinese economy is
highly diversified and would be much more resilient to sanctions. Even if such sanctions could be
constructed, China has the economic heft and political influence to hit back and do real damage to both
U.S. companies and broader U.S. interests. If Beijing viewed extensive economic sanctions as an effort to
undermine the economic basis of the Chinese Communist Partys ruleparticularly in the aftermath of
Chinas recent economic stumblesBeijings response could be highly escalatory. In short, Chinas global
importance and its enormous economy inoculate it against the type of extensive sanctions levied on Russia
and Iran.Nevertheless, the United States has a set of more targeted
economic options for shaping Chinese behavior. These options would
need to be limited and designed to deter or reverse specific destabilizing
activities undertaken by Chinese individuals, companies or agencies. While these
options are far from perfect, they may provide policymakers better responses than
threatening to use military forceor watching idly as China alters the status
quo. STARTING IN THE mid-2000s, the United States began employing highly
sophisticated and targeted economic sanctions. Washington found new ways to
pressure rogue actors by leveraging the dollars importance in the world financial system, private
firms reputational concerns and the fact that the United States is the hub for many technologies
necessary for economic development abroad. The construction of sophisticated sanctions
regimes effectively rehabilitated sanctions as an effective tool of foreign policy
after they fell out of favor in the late 1990s. In the case of Iran, the United States
used its position as the financial capital of the worldand its largest market to force foreign
companies to abandon their business with the Islamic Republic. The U.S. Treasury
Department threatened companies with a choice: either do business in U.S. financial markets (and have
access to U.S. dollars for transactional purposes) or do business in Iran. A large number of foreign firms
consequently ceased doing business with Iran, exerting economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. This
ability to impose biting sanctions wasat least in partresponsible for
bringing Iran to the negotiating table and ultimately concluding the nuclear
deal. Similarly, the United States has imposed sophisticated sanctions on
Russia that target Moscows ability to refinance its massive external debt and
prevent its firms from developing key energy resources. These sanctions
leverage U.S. asymmetric advantages, such as technological superiority
and attractive capital markets. The sanctions prevent U.S. energy companies from providing
Russian firms with cutting-edge technologies to develop difficult-to-reach oil resources. U.S. and European
Union sanctions also prohibit Western financial firms from dealing in new Russian debt or equity with more
than a thirty-day maturity period. This makes it difficult for Russian companies to secure the necessary
Policymakers have seen the powerful
financing to service the countrys massive debt.
impact of these sanctions and concluded that they can be used to address a
wider range of foreign policy issues. As U.S. Treasury official David S. Cohen noted in a 2014
speech, [f]inancial power has become an essential component of our countrys
national security toolkit. That fact may mean that we are called on to use it more frequently and
in more complex ways than we have in previous decades. Not surprisingly, U.S.
policymakers have grown more interested in employing sanctions to counter
Chinese activities. White House officials have threatened to sanction perpetrators of cyber attacks.
Likewise, policymakers have investigated whether sanctions could blunt
Chinas increasingly assertive maritime activities. Based on public statements
and private discussions, it is clear that the administration is moving closer to
employing economic leverage to shape Chinese behavior. YET EFFECTIVELY using
extensive sanctions to deter Chinese economic espionage and maritime assertiveness is likely to prove
difficult. First, imposing extensive sanctions would be politically difficult within the United States. Most U.S.
policymakers recognize that Chinas rise presents many opportunities for the United States. Chinas
economic dynamism has pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and energized regional and global
economies. Beijings growing political influence could help alleviate shared problems such as climate
change and nuclear proliferation. Chinas increasingly capable military could even cooperate with the
United States to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, noncombatant evacuation and
peacekeeping operations abroad. For these reasons, the Obama administration has
attempted to focus its relationship with China on shared interests rather than divergent perspectives.
to
Imposing extensive economic sanctions on China would seriously damage bilateral ties. For example,
authorize sanctions against China for its activities in the South China Sea, U.S.
law requires the president declare a national emergency in response to an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the United States. While such a declaration is pro forma under most U.S. sanctions programs,
declaring that Chinas actions pose an extraordinary threat to the United States would be a major political
step and appears unlikely during the current administration.
2NC
These sanctions would specifically target Chinese energy
companies in the SCS
Glaser 15 (Conflict in the South China Sea CSIS Bonnie S. Glaser is senior
advisor for Asia, Freeman chair in China studies, and senior associate, Pacific
Forum, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. April 2015;
http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/conflict-south-china-sea/p36377 - LK)
The United States should be prepared to respond to future Chinese coercive
acts including using U.S. naval forces to deter China's continuing use of "white hulled" paramilitary
vessels. Other responses, such as imposing economic sanctions on Chinese energy
companies should they drill in contested waters , are also conceivable but should
not be specified in advance.
Even now, the center's Bogdan said, the most damaging emissions from big
storms travel slowly enough to be detected by sun-watching satellites well
before the particles strike Earth. "That gives us [about] 20 hours to determine
what actions we need to take," Viereck said. (Related pictures: "Multicolored
Auroras Sparked by Double Sun Blast" [August 2011].) In a pinch, power
companies could protect valuable transformers by taking them offline before
the storm strikes. That would produce local blackouts, but they wouldn't last
for long. "The good news is that these storms tend to pass after a couple of
hours," Bogdan added. Meanwhile, scientists are scrambling to learn
everything they can about the sun in an effort to produce even longer-range
forecasts.
electricity networks, from the power plants and wind farms all the way to the consumers of electricity in homes and businesses. They
offer many benefits to utilities and consumers -- mostly seen in big
improvements in energy efficiency on the electricity grid and in the energy
users homes and offices. For a century, utility companies have had to send workers out to gather much of the data
needed to provide electricity. The workers read meters, look for broken equipment and measure voltage, for example. Most of the devices
utilities use to deliver electricity have yet to be automated and computerized. Now, many options and products
are being made available to the electricity industry to modernize it. The
grid amounts to the networks that carry electricity from the plants where it
is generated to consumers. The grid includes wires, substations,
transformers, switches and much more. Much in the way that a smart phone these days means a phone
with a computer in it, smart grid means computerizing the electric utility grid. It includes adding two-way digital
lets the utility adjust and control each individual device or millions of devices
from a central location. The number of applications that can be used on the smart grid once the data communications
technology is deployed is growing as fast as inventive companies can create and produce them . Benefits include
Twenty years later, the March 1989 'Quebec Blackout' has reached legendary stature, at least among
electrical engineers and space scientists. It is a dramatic example of how solar storms can affect us even
storms as powerful as this are rather rare. It
here on the ground. Fortunately,
takes quite a solar wallop to cause anything like the conditions leading up to
a Quebec-style blackout. Typical solar activity 'sunspot' cycles can produce least
two or three large storms, so it really is just a matter of chance whether
one will cause a blackout or not. As it is for hurricanes and tornadoes, the more we can learn
about the sun's 'space weather,' the better we can prepare for the next storm when it arrives.
events are thought to threaten the Earth every 100 years or so. The last
major coronal mass ejection to hit the Earth, known as the Carrington event,
was a powerful geomagnetic solar storm in 1859 and is thought to have been
the biggest in 500 years. At the time technology was still relatively underdeveloped, although Telegraph systems all over
the world failed and pylons threw sparks. A large solar flare in March this year knocked out radio
transmissions in some parts of the world. The UK government's Space Weather Preparedness Strategy
said on that occasion it took the blast of energy and particles 18 hours to reach the
Earth. But it added: 'It is therefore likely that our reasonable worst case scenario would only allow
us 12 hours from observation to impact .' The strategy warns that while the UK power
network would likely be able to cope with a major space weather
event, other countries are less well prepared. It said: 'The GB Power Grid is likely to be more
resilient than that of some other countries to the effects of severe space weather for a range of reasons: shorter power lines, a mesh
like grid system with the ability to close sections and route power around them and, a more reliant design for new and replacement
transformers.' 'Nonetheless, for the GB grid, our relatively high latitude, long coast line and geology are factors that increase risk.' The
report also warns that Britain's supergrid transformers have been damaged in the past
blackouts that could
and could be vulnerable to a major space weather event. It said voltage instability could also lead to local
last several hours. This would mean householders should ensure they have candles and
emergency lighting to cope for that amount of time . It recommends preparing for a solar
storm in much the same way as other natural disasters such as flooding or
major storms. The report warned far greater impacts will be felt due to the loss of signal from GPS
satellites caused by a solar storm, which could last for around three days. It said oil
drilling relies heavily on GPS for accuracy and could result in a fall in oil production for the days after the storm. This could lead
to short term impacts on fuel for motorists . Drivers should also carry maps to
help them navigate while the GPS network is down. However mobile phone networks and
to the effects of space weather so are protected against the direct impacts.
'However, the connection with the satellites might be lost for up to three days. The impact of its loss or the effectiveness of mitigation - is not
Companies and
service. It also says power and communication infrastructure should be updated to include backups.
emergency services are urged to have plans in place to deal with the impacts too.
Aff Answers
Turning off the grid cant solve
A) Satellites
Odenwald 15 (Dr. Sten Odenwald is a NASA Astronomer, also works at ADNET/Catholic
University, The Day the Sun Brought Darkness NASA, July 31, 2015, lk
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html)
In space, some satellites actually tumbled out of control for several hours.
NASA's TDRS-1 communication satellite recorded over 250 anomalies as high-energy
particles invaded the satellite's sensitive electronics. Even the Space
Shuttle Discovery was having its own mysterious problems . A sensor on one of the
tanks supplying hydrogen to a fuel cell was showing unusually high pressure readings on March 13. The
problem went away just as mysteriously after the solar storm subsided.
B) Radio communication
Gray 15 (Are YOU prepared for a major solar storm? World will have just 12 hours warning if the sun
erupts Daily Mail UK, Richard Gray is the first iphoneography teacher in England and probably all over
Europe, and recently featured in major newspapers and on-line medias like BBC, Daily Mail or The Sun; July
30, 2015, LK http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3178801/Are-prepared-major-solar-storm-
World-just-12-hours-warning-sun-erupts.html)
The report warns that GPS systems could go down for up to three days at a
time, leaving train networks and shipping badly affected . While mobile phones and
landlines are expected to be unaffected, satellite communication and high frequency
radio communication used by shipping and aircraft, could also go down for
several days.
While the majority of power failures from national grids last only a few hours , some
blackouts can last days or even weeks, completely shutting down production at companies and critical infrastructures
such as telecommunication networks, financial services, water supplies and hospitals. Furthermore, it is likely that power
blackouts will become more frequent owing to the lack of incentives to invest in aged national grid infrastructures in
Europe and the US, as well as the fact that energy from decentralized, volatile renewable sources is not well aligned to
as more and more grids are
work on electricity grids that were designed 50 or 60 years ago. Also,
interconnected, a blackout in one region can trigger a domino effect that
could result in supra-regional blackouts . Heightened risk from terrorism, cyber
attacks and solar flares also highlights how vulnerable the worlds energy
grids are to systemic failure. Research shows that the financial impacts of even a small
power cut can be catastrophic. Analyses from blackout events in the US show that a 30-minute
power cut results in an average loss of US$15,709 for medium and large
industrial clients, and nearly US$94,000 for an eight-hour interruption. Even
short blackouts which occur several times a year in the US add up to an
annual estimated economic loss of between US$104 and US$164 billion.
Trade Wars- Stable Exchange
Rates CP
1NC
Text: The United States Federal Government should
establish a system of stable exchange rates with the
nations of the G-20 to prevent currency and trade wars
LEWIS E. LEHRMAN and JOHN D. MUELLER 4/19/16, Lewis Lehrman is an
American investment banker, businessman, Republican politician, economist,
and historian, He was presented the National Humanities Medal, He was a
member of the Advisory Committee of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission and the Lincoln Forum. In addition to co-authoring Money and
the Coming World Order and The Case for Gold, Lehrman's has written Lincoln
at Peoria: The Turning Point, The True Gold Standard, Newly Revised and
Enlarged, Second Edition, Money, Gold, and History and Lincoln "by littles,
John D. Mueller is the Lehrman Institute Fellow in Economics and Director of
the Economics and Ethics Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr.
Mueller specializes in the relation of modern economic theory to its Judeo-
Christian and Greco-Roman origins, its practical application to personal,
family, and political economy, and the interaction of economics, philosophical
worldviews, and religious faith. Mr. Mueller retired in January 2015 as
president of LBMC LLC, a firm in Washington, D.C. specializing in economic
and financial-market forecasting and economic policy analysis. He has more
than 35 years experience in those fields, Monetary Reform or Trade War,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/monetary-reform-or-trade-war-1461104951
The solution is to establish a level trade playing field with a system of
stable exchange rates among the nations of the G-20, or at least the G-
7, to which emerging countries will conform. Such a solution would require
the next president to bring together the major world leaders to establish
stable exchange rates to avoid trade and currency wars that inevitably lead
to protectionism and sometimes to real wars. This international monetary
solution of stable exchange rates would eliminate the burden and privilege of
the dollars reserve-currency role. Neither tax, nor regulatory, nor budget
reforms, however desirable, will eliminate currency wars. To restore Americas
competitive position in production, manufacturing and world trade, stable
exchange rates are the only solution tested in the laboratory of U.S. history
from President Washington in 1789 until 1971. Stable exchange rates have
proven throughout history to establish the most reliable level playing field for
free and fair world trade. There are no perfect solutions in human affairs. But
the history of the past three centuries suggests that stable exchange rates ,
resulting from adoption of currencies mutually convertible to gold at
statutory fixed parities, are the least imperfect solution to avoid
currency and trade wars.
O/V
The CP has the US establish an international system of
stable exchange rates. This will prevent currency
devaluation, trade wars, and will make the economy more
secure.
A common exchange system will prevent fluctuations and
will be beneficial for the world economy, prefer our highly
qualified and successful economist
James Tobin july/October 1978, James Tobin was an American economist who
served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He
developed the ideas of Keynesian economics, and advocated government
intervention to stabilize output and avoid recessions, A Proposal for
Monetary Reform, https://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-
policy/global-taxes-1-79/currency-transaction-taxes/45989-a-proposal-for-
monetary-reform.html
But first let us pay our respects to the "one world" ideal. Within the United
States, of course, capital is extremely mobile between regions, and has been
for a long time. Its mobility has served, continues to serve, important
economic functions: mobilizing funds from high-saving areas to finance
investments that develop areas with high marginal productivities of capital;
financing trade deficits which arise from regional shifts in population and
comparative advantage or from transient economic or natural shocks. With
nationwide product and labor markets, goods and labor also flow readily to
areas of high demand, and this mobility is the essential solution to the
problems of regional depression and obsolescence that inevitably occur.
There is neither need for, nor possibility of, regional macroeconomic policies.
It would not be possible to improve employment in West Virginia or reduce
inflation in California. Even temporarily, by changing the parity of a local
dollar with dollars of other Federal Reserve Districts. With a common
currency, national financial and capital markets, and a single
national monetary policy, movements of funds to exploit interest
arbitrage or to speculate on exchange rate fluctuations cannot be
sources of disturbances and painful interregional adjustments.
CCS Works
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 09, November, Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory is transforming the nation's ability to predict
climate change and its impacts. This research was supported and funded by
the U.S. Department of Energy; the Ministry of Science and Technology of the
People's Republic of China; the multilateral Carbon Sequestration Leadership
Forum; the many public and private sector sponsors of the PNNL-led Global
Energy Technology Strategy Program, China Shows Promise in Carbon
Capture and Storage, <https://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?
id=685>. JG
China's rapid industrial growth has come at a pricethe country now ranks
as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, the chief culprit in global
warming. But new research points to a cost-effective, promising option
to dramatically reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions while meeting
China's growing energy demands. Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory scientists, working with their Chinese partners, showed that
China has adequate deep geologic storage capacity for carbon dioxide
storage to meet likely demand for more than 100 years. Furthermore,
these natural storage reservoirs already are located near many of China's
stationary carbon dioxide-emission sources. Why it matters: Carbon dioxide
capture and storage (CCS) technologies may represent a cost-effective,
viable option to help China continue to meet its growing energy demands
while also delivering deep and sustained reductions in industrial
greenhouse gas emissions. This research defines the pivotal role that CCS
technologies can play in cost effectively reducing China's greenhouse gas
emissions over the course of this century. Until now, the discussions around
China's options were limited. "A lot of the policy dialogue and technical
discussions have this really sharp dichotomy: Either China continues to use its
vast supplies of coal and bad things happen to the environment, or they
agree to forgo the use of this valuable coal and bad things happen to their
economy," stated James Dooley, PNNL scientist and co-author of the report.
Dooley leads CCS research for the Joint Global Change Research
Institute (a collaboration of PNNL and the University of Maryland) and the
Global Energy Technology Strategy Project. But the new study shows there is
a much-needed third option for addressing these twin challengeslarge-scale
deployment of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage technologies. The
study is the first to map enormous and widely distributed deep geologic CO2
storage formations in China that could allow for long-term, cost-
effective, large-scale deployment of CCS. The mapping of over 2,300
billion metric tons of theoretical geologic CO2 storage capacity in 90 onshore
storage formations represents a vast and valuable domestic natural resource
for China. The team has also identified an additional 780 billion metric tons of
CO2 capacity in 16 offshore geologic formations along mainland China's
heavily developed coastal regions, which could prove immensely valuable in
this part of China where there is strong potential demand for storage. The
Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum(Offsite link) awarded the
team its recognition award for this project in October 2009.
AT: Kemper Plant
Kemper failure is an outlierthe tech is varied and strong
Plumer 16, Brad, Senior editor at Vox.com, where he oversees the site's
science, energy, and environmental coverage. He was previously a reporter
at the Washington Post covering climate and energy policy, July 6, A flagship
clean coal plant is a flailing mess. Does that mean the technology is
doomed?< http://www.vox.com/2016/7/5/12098504/kemper-ccs-problems-
clean-coal>. JG
The Kemper project is just one example of carbon capture and storage
(CCS), a catchall term for techniques in which CO2 is captured at an emission
source and then sequestered underground. But CCS can come in many
flavors, which makes generalizing from a single project tricky.
Worldwide, there are 15 CCS projects currently in operation and 7 more on
the drawing board. Four are coal plants, but theres also a natural gas
processing plant, an iron/steel facility, a fertilizer plant, an ethanol plant, and
so on. And they often use very different technologies to capture
and/or store the CO2:
AT: Unpopular
Calls and action on going green have momentum and are
only getting louder
Roberts 12, David, Correspondent for Vox and Grist on Climate and
Politics, July 7, U.S. leads the world in cutting CO2 emissions so why arent
we talking about it? <http://grist.org/climate-policy/u-s-leads-the-world-in-
cutting-co2-emissions-so-why-arent-we-talking-about-it/>. JG
One thing that jumps out is that renewables are growing much faster in
some places than others. South Dakota now gets 22 percent of its electricity
from wind, Iowa 19 percent. The top two states in total installed wind are
Kansas and Texas. The top two for wind jobs are Iowa and Texas. Thats three
red states and a deeply purple one a wedge separating clean energy
from the climate culture wars. That portends accelerating changes in the
political economy. Also driving changes in political economy: 29 states and
D.C. now have mandatory renewable energy standards.Installed wind
and solar have doubled in the U.S. since Obama took office. Costs for
solar are plunging like crazy and onshore wind power may be competitive
with fossil fuels without subsidies by 2016. The National Renewable Energy
Laboratory says the U.S. could get 80 percent of its power from renewables
by 205o. Given that official projections of renewable energy growth have
been consistently beneath the mark, its not unreasonable to think we may
be underestimating future growth. And renewables dont have to get
that big to start making waves. The sun shines most when the most
electricity is being used peak demand so it serves to sharply reduce
peak prices. Turns out thats where utilities make a lot of their money. U.S.
utilities are being forced to crank off coal plants when peak prices drop and
then crank them back on afterwards. It is no fun to turn coal plants on and off
its slow, laborious, and kills their economics. More and more, utility
managers are turning toward upgraded, smarter grids and more flexible,
responsive mid-load plants (i.e. natural gas). By hacking off peak prices,
renewables will make the dynamics even worse for coal, well before
they reach a large proportion of total electricity. So renewables are a
bigger part of this story than they appear, and getting bigger.
Artificial trees dont have a way to get rid of the CO2 and
will be hard to mass produce.
Richard Schiffman 2/8/13, Richard Schiffman is an environmental
journalist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, NPR, the New
York Times, Reuters and elsewhere. He is also the author of two biographies
and a widely published poet, Can Carbon-Mopping Artificial Trees Slow
Climate Crisis?, http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/can-carbon-mopping-
artificial-trees-slow-climate-crisis
The principle is not new. Similar technologies have been used in the enclosed
spaces of submarines and space shuttles to scrub the air of excess carbon
dioxide. What is novel in Lackner and Wrights approach is mainly their
outsized ambition, and the knotty technological problems which
implementing it globally would entail. They are still trying to find a cost-
effective way to further purify the CO2 after it comes off the plastic leaves,
and to securely bury the gas underground or below the ocean floor. Their
biggest challenge, however, is not technical but economic: How to
manufacture and market the artificial trees cheaply enough and in sufficient
quantities to begin to make a real dent on global warming. In order for this to
happen, there needs to be equal economic incentives for taking CO2 out of
the atmosphere as there currently are for putting it in through the
combustion of fossil fuels.
to a supercomputer that lets them analyze climate change data. In West Africa, the UK's
amount of data is both computing and data intensive in that data analytics requires complex procedures and
multiple tools. To tackle these challenges , a scientific workflow framework is proposed for big geoscience data analytics.
In this framework techniques are proposed by leveraging cloud computing , MapReduce,
and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Specifically, HBase is adopted for storing and managing big geoscience data across distributed
computers. MapReduce-based algorithm framework is developed to support parallel processing of geoscience data. And service-oriented
workflow architecture is built for supporting on-demand complex data analytics in the cloud environment. A proof-of-concept prototype tests
the performance of the framework. Results show that this innovative framework significantly
improves the efficiency of big geoscience data analytics by reducing the
data processing time as well as simplifying data analytical procedures for
geoscientists. Go to: Introduction Geoscience data are a core component driving geoscience advancement [1]. Understanding
for humankind due to its broad impacts on society and ecosystems worldwide [8]. Information about
future climate is critical for decision makers , such as agriculture
planning, emergency preparedness, political negotiations and intelligence [9].
However, a major problem the decision makers face is that different climate
models produce different projected climate scenarios due to unknown model uncertainties. Testing
the sensitivity of input parameters of a climate model is a standard modeling practice for determining the model uncertainties [10]. To do this,
perturbed physics ensembles (PPEs) run a model hundreds or thousands of times with different model input parameters, followed by analyses
of the model output and input to identify which parameter is more sensitive to simulated climate changes (diagnostic). Climate@Home
(http://climateathome.com/climate@home) is a project initiated by NASA to advance climate modeling studies [11]. In this project to study the
sensitivity of ModelE (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/, global climate model developed by NASA), 300 ensemble model-runs (PPE-300)
are required for each experiment, sweeping seven atmospheric parameters in each model-run input (Table 1). The simulation period is from
December 1949 to January 1961 with a 4 x 5 spatial resolution and a monthly time resolution. Each model run generates 10 gigabytes data
in four dimensions (3D space and 1D time) with 336 climatic variables and totally three terabytes of data for the PPE-300 experiment. Table 1
Table 1 Seven tested atmospheric parameters in the PPE-300 experiment. To identify which of the 336 output variables are sensitive to the
seven input parameters, the three terabytes model output is analyzed. Specifically, the following steps are taken: S1. Simulation: Run ModelE
300 times sweeping seven input parameters; S2. Preprocess: Convert model output (monthly .acc files) into NetCDF files, and combine
monthly data to reduce the file numbers; S3. Management: Store and manage the NetCDF files in a file system or database; S4. Process: For
each of the 336 variables in each of the 300 runs, calculate the annual global and 10-year mean. S5. Analysis: Conduct linear regression
analysis for each Parameter-Variable (P, V) pair (totally 336*7 pairs) using the 300 runs; and S6. Visualization: Identify and plot the variables
most affected by the parameters. 1.2 Challenges Posed by Geoscience Data Analytics Geoscience data analytics poses three computing
challenges as exemplified in the climate model sensitivity study case. C1. Big data or data intensity: Storing, managing, and processing
massive datasets are grand challenge in geosciences [12,13,51]. For example, one PPE-300 experiment produces 3 terabytes of climate data.
A scalable data management framework is critical for managing these datasets. Furthermore, geoscience data analytics need to deal with
heterogeneous data formats (e.g., array-based data, text files, and images), access distributed data sources, and share the result. Different
data access protocols (e.g., FTP, HTTP) and data service standards (e.g., WCS, WFS, and OpenDAP) are normally involved in each steps
input/output. Hence, a mechanism to encapsulate these heterogeneities is essential. C2. Computing intensity: Multi-dimensions and
heterogeneous data structures are intrinsic characteristics of geoscience data [14]. Processing and analyzing these complex big data are
computing intensive, requiring massive amounts of computing resources. In the case study, S4 is computing intensive given the terabytes of
4-D data. A parallelization-enabled algorithm is one key to accelerate these processes. Another computing intensive aspect is climate
simulation (S1), where each model-run requires 5 days to simulate a single 10-year scenario. Traditional computing cannot finish the 300
model-runs with reasonable effort and time [15]. In addition, parallelization requires more resources since processing threads are running at
the same time. Therefore, supplying adequate computing resources is another key to tackle the computing intensity challenge. C3. Procedure
complexity: Geoscience data analytics normally require complex steps with a specific sequence [16]. For example, the study case needs six
steps (S1 to S6) from data generation (simulation) to visualization. A workflow platform tailored for handling these procedures is critical for
managing, conducting and reusing the processes. In addition, conducting each step requires different tools, libraries and external processing
services. To accomplish an analytics task, geoscientists normally need to discover appropriate tools/libraries, write their own programs/scripts
and deal with Linux command lines. For example, S2 requires data format conversion tools, and S4 requires specific tools using libraries. And,
heterogeneous tools and libraries is essential . Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm
characterized by its on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service [17]. Cloud
legal issues raised by technology (particularly in the field of data protection and privacy) and in more
generic issues related to the articulation of law, sciences, technologies and societies.He is the director of
the research center Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Published
2014, accessed on google e-books at https://books.google.com/books?
id=uI3HBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=%22problems%22+
%22cloud+computing+sector
%22&source=bl&ots=DQUm8PXUXW&sig=yiE2al8PrdWE7E42hEFJ7ob-
ZCY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjktPXsgezNAhWMExoKHYPKB9EQ6AEIQjAD#v=onepage&q=
%22problems%22%20%22cloud%20computing%20sector%22&f=false - LK)
WASHINGTONShortly after Edward Snowden revealed extensive U.S. government surveillance, the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that the U.S. tech sector could lose
between $21.5 billion and $35 billion over three years if U.S. cloud computing
providers saw even a modest drop in their foreign market share due to
concerns about electronic surveillance. Since then, it has become clear
that the U.S. tech industry as a whole, not just the cloud computing
sector, has under-performed as a result of these spying concerns. Therefore,
the total economic impact of U.S. surveillance practices will likely far exceed
ITIFs initial $35 billion estimate. ITIF is releasing a new report today, Beyond the
USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S.
Competitiveness, which catalogues a wide range of specific examples of
the economic harm that has been done to U.S. businesses as result of
unreformed government surveillance practices, and it proposes a series of reforms designed to improve security,
protect transparency, and increase cooperation and accountability in the global technology ecosystem. Foreign customers are
The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated
arguments and dangerous confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key
commodities, as well as factors of production that must, out of necessity be acquired from less-than-
friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials use in strategic industries or basic
necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate
supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems
constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the
environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such
tensions will give rise to full-scale military encounters, often with
minimal provocation. In some other instances, economic conditions will serve
as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious
differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from
domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist sentiment towards
other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap technology and the waning
threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the
frequency and scale of their horrifying attacks, bringing the threat
of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions will
encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok.
Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more heated sense or urgency. China
will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture towards Taiwan, while
Iran may embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may
look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing
number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at
the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an intense
confrontation between the United States and China is inevitable
at some point. More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing
cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles soaked
in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of
human instincts and triggering genocidal acts. Terrorists employing
biological or nuclear weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise
missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will
interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the
beginnings of a new world war. As events unfold, unsettling geopolitical tensions and the
continuing economic collapse will weigh heavily on the familiar routines of everyday life, forcing many
Americans to wonder when, or if, it will ever end.
AT: Links to DA K2 Containment
Cloud computing is key to broader tech innovation
Kehl et al 14 (Danielle Kehl is a Policy Analyst at New Americas Open Technology Institute (OTI).
Kevin Bankston is the Policy Director at OTI, Robyn Greene is a Policy Counsel at OTI, and Robert Morgus is
a Research Associate at OTI)
(New Americas Open Technology Institute Policy Paper, Surveillance Costs: The NSAs Impact on the
Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity, July 2014)
It appears that little consideration was given over the past decade to the potential economic
repercussions if the NSAs secret pro- grams were revealed.38 This failure was acutely demonstrated
by the Obama Administrations initial focus on reassuring the public that its programs primarily affect
non-Americans, even though non-Americans are also heavy users of American companies products.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put a fine point on the issue, saying that the government blew it in
its response to the scandal. He noted sarcasti- cally: The government response was, Oh dont worry,
were not spying on any Americans. Oh, wonderful: thats really helpful to companies [like Facebook]
trying to serve people around the world, and thats really going to inspire confidence in American
internet companies.39 As Zuckerbergs comments reflect, certain parts of the American technology
industry are particularly vulnerable to international backlash since growth is heavily dependent on
foreign markets. For example, the U.S. cloud computing industry has grown from an
estimated $46 billion in 2008 to $150 billion in 2014, with nearly 50 percent of worldwide cloud-
computing revenues com- ing from the U.S.40 R Street Institutes January 2014 policy study
new products and services that rely on cloud
concluded that in the next few years,
computing will become increasingly pervasive. Cloud computing is also
the root of development for the emerging generation of Web-based applications
home security, out- patient care, mobile payment, distance learning, efficient energy use and
it is a research area where
driverless cars, writes R Streets Steven Titch in the study. And
the United States is an undisputed leader .41 This trajectory may be
dramatically altered, however, as a consequence of the NSAs surveillance
programs.
harms way. In November Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL sent a letter to Congress supporting the creation of a
privacy advocate to represent the interests of civil liberties when it comes to
the NSAs counter-terror surveillance efforts. Distrust of the US intelligence community at
home and abroad is eroding consumer confidence and hampering US
technology firms in their pursuit of global business. This could
ultimately lead to a tech recession at a time when the sector should be
showing historic and unprecedented growth . The cloud of cyberwar This scenario is not far-
fetched. Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, said that tens of
billions of dollarsare at stake for US cloud providers, and many US tech vendors
are already hearing complaints. He appealed to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee for greater
transparency over surveillance and s tronger oversight, including a civil liberties advocate at the US Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. "Made in the USA" is no longer a badge of honor, but a basis for questioning the integrity and the
Many countries are using the NSA's
independence of US-made technology, Garfield said.
the NSA
This paper has attempted to quantify and categorize a variety of the costs of
surveillance programs, demonstrating the negative impact on the U.S. and
global economy, American foreign policy interests, and the security of the
Internet itself. Our findings indicate that the actions of the National Security Agency have
already begun and will continue to cause significant damage to the interests
of the United States and the global Internet community. American
companies have reported declining sales overseas and lost
business, especially as foreign companies turn protection from NSA
spying into a competitive advantage. This erosion in trust threatens to do the
most immediate damage to the cloud computing industry, which could
lose billions of dollars in the next three to five years as a result. The rise of
proposals from foreign governments looking to implement data localization requirements or much
stronger data protection laws could also compound these losses and force changes to the architecture
In its foreign policy objectives, the United States has lost
of the global network itself.
significant credibility not only with respect to the Internet Freedom agenda,
but also in terms of broader bilateral and multilateral relations with both
friendly and adversarial nations. Revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance have
already colored a number of critical interactions with nations such as Germany and Brazil in the past
the NSA has seriously undermined Internet security in the past
year. And finally,
decade, by weakening international encryption standards, mandating the
insertion of backdoors into Internet products, stockpiling security
vulnerabilities rather than responsibly disclosing them to vendors, and
carrying out a variety of other offensive hacking operations.
AT: Permutation
CP is mutually exclusive doesnt engage China in any
way actually solves relations without boosting Chinas
power
Perm links to the DAs
Its been two years since Edward Snowden leaked details of the NSAs
PRISM surveillance program, and although analysts predicted an exodus
from US-based cloud and hosting services in response to the revelations, it
hasnt exactly worked out that way, a new report finds . Forrester released
a new report last week that suggests concerns around international
customers severing ties with US-based hosting and cloud companies
were overblown. Lost revenue from spending on cloud services and
platforms comes to just over $500 million between 2014 and 2016 . While
significant, these impacts are far less than speculated, as more
companies reported taking control of security and encryption
instead of walking away from US providers, Forresters principal
analyst serving security and risk professionals Edward Ferrara said in a
blog post. Snowden recently told a crowd of cloud and hosting providers
that use of encryption is growing, and encrypted traffic has doubled since
2013. In 2013, Forrester predicted that US cloud providers cloud lose up to
$180 billion in business by 2016 due to concerns around the scope of
NSAs PRISM program. According to NextGov, Forrester finds that 26
percent of enterprises based in Asia Pacific, Canada, Europe and Latin
America have stopped or reduced their spending with US-based firms
for Internet-based services. Thirty-four percent said these concerns
were related to fears of US surveillance, while others said they want to
support businesses in their own country, or data sovereignty rules prevent
them from storing data abroad.