Paradigm October 12 PF

PARADIGM
Research
PUBLIC
FORUM
POSITION
PAPER
OCTOBER
2012-2013
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES HAVE A
MORAL OBLIGATION TO MITIGATE
THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
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The Paradigm NFL Public Forum Position Paper

October 2012
by Dr. David Cram Helwich
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Paradigm Research 2012-13
October Public ForumClimate Ethics
Climate Ethics: Table of Contents

Climate Ethics: Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4
CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION JUSTIFIED

Mitigation Justified: Topshelf .................................................................................................................... 9
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Topshelf .............................................................................. 11
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Consensus ........................................................................... 14
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--CO2 Causes ........................................................................ 16
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Feedbacks ........................................................................... 17
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Humans Are to Blame ........................................................ 18
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Indicators ............................................................................ 20
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--IPCC ................................................................................... 21
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Solar Variability ................................................................. 22
Mitigatoin Justified: Climate Change Real--Source Indicts ..................................................................... 23
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Temperatures ...................................................................... 24
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Answers to "Uncertainty" ................................................... 25
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Agriculture .......................................................................... 26
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Biodiversity ......................................................................... 28
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Coral .................................................................................... 30
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Drought ............................................................................... 31
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Economy ............................................................................. 32
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Environment ........................................................................ 34
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (General) .................................................................. 36
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Agriculture) ............................................................ 39
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Children)................................................................. 41
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Domestic Communities of Color) ........................... 42
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Global South) ......................................................... 44
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (War)........................................................................ 46
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Extreme Weather ................................................................. 47
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Future Generations .............................................................. 48
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (General) .................................................................. 50
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (Malaria) .................................................................. 51
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (Vector-Borne Disease) ........................................... 52
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Human Rights ...................................................................... 53
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Mass Death .......................................................................... 55
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Migration ............................................................................. 56
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Moral Considerations .......................................................... 58
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Multiwarrant ........................................................................ 59
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Ocean Acidification ............................................................. 61
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Plankton............................................................................... 62
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Runaway Greenhouse .......................................................... 63
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change--Sea Level Rise ............................................................................ 65
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Terrorism ............................................................................. 66
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (General) ...................................................................... 67
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (Africa) ........................................................................ 69
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (Failed States) .............................................................. 70
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Water ................................................................................... 72
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Water ................................................................................... 73
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "Adaptation" ..................................................... 74
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "CO2 Fertilization" ........................................... 75
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "Ice Age" .......................................................... 77
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Carbon Tax ............................................................................................ 78
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Economy ................................................................................................ 79
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Fossil Fuel Transition ............................................................................ 80
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Must Act Now ....................................................................................... 81
Mitigatoin Justified: Succeeds--Survival Ethics Justifies......................................................................... 83
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--450ppm Target....................................................................................... 84
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "Coercion Objections" ........................................................ 87
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "Transition Costs" ............................................................... 88
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "We Are Not Responsible / Sunstein" ................................ 89
CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION NOT JUSTIFIED

Mitigation Not Justified: Topshelf ........................................................................................................... 90
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Consensus Answers .................................................... 92
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--CO2 Not to Blame ...................................................... 93
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Feedbacks ................................................................... 94
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Funding Bias............................................................... 95
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Indicators .................................................................... 96
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--IPCC Answers ............................................................ 97
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Models ........................................................................ 99
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Natural ...................................................................... 100
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Peer Review Answers ............................................... 101
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Temperatures ............................................................ 103
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Agriculture .......................................................... 105
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Biodiversity ......................................................... 107
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Coral ................................................................... 109
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Equity .................................................................. 110
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Extreme Weather ................................................ 111
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Forests ................................................................. 112
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--General ................................................................ 113
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (General).................................................. 115
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (Malaria) .................................................. 117
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (Vector-Borne Disease) ........................... 118
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Hurricanes ........................................................... 119
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Ocean Acidification ............................................ 120
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Precautionary Principle ....................................... 121
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Sea Level Rise..................................................... 122
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Water / War ......................................................... 123
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (Top)............................................ 124
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (General Ext) ............................... 125
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (Plant Growth) ............................. 127
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Greening................................................................... 129
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Top) ........................................................... 130
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Coming Now) ............................................ 131
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Warming Prevents) .................................... 132
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Ice Age Bad).............................................. 133
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Adaptation Superior .............................................................................. 134
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Collective Responsibility Problems ...................................................... 136
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Domestic Poor Poeple ........................................................................... 137
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Economy ............................................................................................... 138
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Economy (Answers to "Green Jobs") .................................................... 139
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Geoengineering Superior ...................................................................... 141
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth / Innovation (General) .............................................................. 142
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth / Innovation (Poor Nations)...................................................... 144
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth Strategy Superior ..................................................................... 145
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Mitigation is a Poor Strategy................................................................. 147
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Reparations Superior ............................................................................. 148
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Developing Country Emissions ........................................................... 151
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--International Agreements..................................................................... 153
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Momentum / Inevitable........................................................................ 154
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Offsets (Forestry) ................................................................................. 156
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Rebound Effect .................................................................................... 157
Climate Ethics: Introduction

Resolved: Developed countries have a moral obligation to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The October 2012 Public Forum topic addresses what is perhaps the most important environmental issue of our time, climate
change. Whether the planet is warming because of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions remains one of the most hotly
contested questions in American politics. The U.S. Congress has repeatedly failed in efforts to pass legislation to address the
problem, with warming skeptics able to block a variety of proposals designed to cut the countrys emission of greenhouse
gases. Similarly, the worlds nations remain deadlocked over a new international accord to replace the lackluster Kyoto
Protocol, with most analysts claiming that the prospects for a global emissions accord are rather dim. This situation is
potentially quite dangerous, since many prominent scientists argue that climate change threatens to unravel the fabric of vital
ecosystems and irrevocably alter critical geophysical processes upon which modern human society depends. On the other
hand, there are a number of warming skeptics who contest whether warming is real, whether any changes in temperatures are
human caused, and whether the benefits of cutting carbon dioxide emissions outweigh the costs. This is an issue that is truly
ripe for debate. This introduction will devote the bulk of its space to discussing the varied interpretations of the science and
implications of climate change, and wrap up with some observations about the resolution. This is an example of a topic where
having a firm grasp of the subject material can be an enormous advantage, so we strongly suggest that you carefully review
the evidence contained in this book and work diligently on your own research.
IS THE EARTH WARMING?
Humans have recognized for many decades that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases are responsible for a warming of the
Earths surface. Carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and other trace gases in the atmosphere absorb and emit infrared
radiation from sunlight, which in turn warms the Earths surface and lower atmosphere. Without this natural greenhouse
effect, the temperatures on the planets surface would be far lower, perhaps so cold that most of the planet would be unable
to support life. We also know from geological evidence, including ancient ice cores taken from ice sheets in Antarctica and
Greenland that carbon dioxide levels have varied substantially throughout the planets history.
Concern about global climate change has been a topic of scientific and public debate for over forty years. However, global
warming was not the original source of apprehension. Many climatologists (scientists who study climate) were first
concerned, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that the planets climate was cooling as the Earth descended into a
new ice age. The issue was so controversial that it was featured in major popular press publications. This concern is certainly
understandablethe entire recorded history of humanity has occurred in the relatively warm interglacial period that
followed the last ice age, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago. However, the current warmth is only temporary in a
long-scale geological sense, and it is inevitable at some point that the extensive glaciers will return to the northern
hemisphere, and the sites currently occupied by many major capitols will be covered by ice.
The fear of global cooling was short-lived as many climatologists, led by Dr. James Hansen of NASA, predicted as early as
1981 that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities were responsible for elevating the concentration of
greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, and that these elevated CO2 levels were increasing the
globes average temperature. Although these claims were originally greeted with a degree of skepticism (wasnt it just
cooling?), an increasingly impressive body of scientific evidence seemed to validate what was at the time called the global
warming hypothesis. The issue drew considerable attention, and eventually led to the formation of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global body deputized to compile the available research on climate change and reach a
judgment on whether human activities were affecting the climate. The IPCC has published three major sets of reports,
initially in 1995, followed by updated reports in 2001 and 2007. Even the summary for policymakers of these reports make
for pretty tough reading, but even a cursory survey of the IPCCs conclusions indicate that the organization, which boasts over
1000 members from many scientific backgrounds and nations, is increasingly confident that human activity is affect climate.
The most recent report includes language that indicates a 95% percent degree of certainty that the Earth is warming, and that
humans are, at least in part, to blame for climate change. Given the relatively reserved writing style in most scientific
disciplines, such a claim should be seen as very strong indeed. This book contains evidence arguing that temperature records,
biotic and abiotic indicators, computer models, and other data show that the earth is both getting warmer and that humans are
responsible. There are also strong answers to the claims of so-called warming skeptics, who doubt the truth of potential
climate change.
Climate Ethics: Introduction [contd]

On the other side, skeptics argue that the Earths temperature is not increasing, and that there is little reason to believe that
human activities will have a substantial effect on something as complex and powerful as climate. These critics offer a number
of objections. First, they claim that temperature records do not support the warming hypothesis. Recent, historic, and
geological records not demonstrate that the Earth has experienced any substantial warming, and even if warming may have
occurred, it certainly is not caused by humans. Skeptics like to point out that historic temperature records are highly
inaccurate for a variety of reasons, including measurement errors, spotty coverage, and inconsistent positioning of weather
stations. Perhaps most significantly, the very best and most accurate temperature data, taken from satellite observations, may
well indicate that the Earth has experienced very little warming in the last thirty years. In fact, there is very good reason to
believe that temperatures have decreased slightly in the last ten years.
Second, skeptics propose that a variety of natural causes are responsible for any observed temperature variability. Critics
point to an array of other potential causes for a warmer earth, including a recover from a natural cooling period dubbed the
little ice age, which saw significant decreases in global temperature and welfare through the northern hemisphere from
1400 CE to approximately 1850. The most frequently cited source of natural changes in temperature is the Earths sun. There
is some pretty strong evidence indicating that the suns output varies in a series of lengthening cycles, and that this variability
can, at least partially, be predicted by changes in sunspot activity. This variance in the suns energy output directly affects the
Earths climate, both in terms of total radiation reaching the planets surface and in the intensity of the solar wind and cosmic
rays that bombard the planet. These factors have significant and only marginally-understood effects on important climate
regulators like cloud formation and reflectivity, and may explain current temperature trends far better than greenhouse gas
concentrations.
Third, skeptics deny that there is any linkage between carbon dioxide, the most prominent greenhouse gas, and global
temperatures. Perhaps the most persuasive piece of evidence to support this argument is the observed surface cooling of the
Earth between approximately 1940 and 1970, a time of intensive industrial activity in North American and Europe, and
growing industrialization (and thus carbon dioxide emissions) in the global South. Warming skeptics observe that most
observed warming occurred very early in this century, well before human activity spurred a substantial increased in CO2
concentrations. These authors also point to some ice-core and other geological data that seems to indicate that atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide only seem to increase after an observed increase in temperature.
Fourth, critics contend that natural feedbacks will check any increase in temperatures. These feedbacks will decrease any
warming-inducing effects of higher CO2 levels. For example, increased warmth increases evaporating, which in turn
increases atmospheric moisture and the formation of clouds. The cloudier the earth, the more light (and thus energy) is
reflected back into space. Warming also spurs the growth of ocean plankton, which released a chemical called DMS that
promotes the formation of reflective clouds. Elevated CO2 levels promote plant and forest growth, and larger and more
abundant plants trap carbon dioxide in their tissues.
Fifth, skeptics claim that the lauded climate models of the major research institutes are nothing more than rough guesses of
current climate trends. There are a number of damaging critiques of climate models, claiming that they are unable to reflect
current climate, backcast to recreate known historic climate conditions, account for important climate factors like
atmospheric aerosols, ocean currents and cloud formation, and that models are thus tweaked to adjust for these known
unknowns in ways that bias them to show warming.
Finally, critics attack the notion that there is a scientific consensus that climate change is a reality. They indict the IPCC by
arguing that its reports are produced in intense negotiations between sponsoring governments and these biased scientists, and
that these negotiations produce conclusions that satisfy political agendas instead of reflecting sound science. Warming
supporters are also victims of their own success, having become so dependent on research funding from governments and
pro-warming organizations that they tend to produce results that validate further research into the dangers of global
warming. Notably, they also contend that pro-warming scientists have been doctoring the data to inflate the degree of
warming, pointing to the Climategate scandal as evidence of bias. Skeptics also shrug off accusations of bias on the basis
of their funding sources (which include some fossil fuel interests), challenging their opponents to answer their evidence
instead of engaging in ad homs.

CLIMATE CHANGE CONSEQUENCES
Although much of the debate in the scientific and policy literatures centers on whether warming is real, there is also a bevy of
work on the potential consequences of climate change. On the pro-warming side, many analysts believe that even a few
degrees of warming could cause significant changes to natural ecosystems, and if this warming is large, the consequences
could indeed be dire. At the very worst extreme, warming gets out of control as positive feedbacks continue to pump more
and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere until the Earth becomes too warm to support complex life forms. Prowarming scientists also believe that a warmer world will, on balance, hurt agricultural output. Hotter summers will decrease
the yields of most important cereal crops, and the melting of the worlds glaciers will deplete many reservoirs and undermine
irrigation-dependent agricultural regions. Warming will likely increase rainfall in some areas, and decrease it in others,
expanding the worlds deserts. Although the total quantity of rainfall will likely increase, these rains will occur at the wrong
time of year for utilization in agriculture. Various adaptive technologies and techniques will limit some of the worst effects of
warming, but there is very good evidence that warming will overwhelm the adaptive capacity of many farmers, particularly in
tropical regions and nations where farmers tend to be too poor to afford high-tech seeds, equipment, and infrastructure.
Negative teams are likely to argue that elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase plant growth, more than
offsetting the harmful effects of warming. However, there is very good evidence that recent trends in temperature and
agricultural output prove that, on balance, the negative effects of warmer temperatures outweigh this fertilization effect.
CO2 is beneficial in the lab, but not in the field. The net result is that the number of starving people in our world will
increase, and the problem will only get worse as the temperatures rise.
Warming could also wreak havoc on many ecosystems. Climate change will likely damage the ocean, as warmer and more
acidic waters (from absorbing CO2) kill coral, plankton, and other organisms vital to marine food webs. Warming and
subsequent ice melt will also increase sea levels, flooding major coastal cities, inundating productive farmland, and creating
potentially hundreds of millions of climate migrants. Storms are also likely to increase in both frequency and intensity,
posing an enormous threat to many coastal communities. Perhaps the most deadly and ironic outcome of this warming posits
that Arctic warming will melt Greenlands ice sheet, inundating the North Atlantic with freshwater. This freshwater will sink,
disrupting the oceans temperature and salinity gradients and significantly weakening the Gulf Stream, or North Atlantic
Current (NAC). The NAC is responsible for transferring enormous quantities of energy (warmth) from the tropic to northern
Europe, and is largely responsible for the relatively mild climate of Great Britain and coastal Western Europe. Some
scientists fear that a disruption of the NAC risks massive glaciation in North America and Europe within a few decades, and
could throw these continents into new ice ages.
Warming may also pose serious threats to human societies as well. Extreme weather, declining agricultural output, and other
environment-induced disruptions threaten the viability of the global economy. Poorer people are particularly vulnerable,
while their wealthier counterparts can use the resources at their disposal to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate
change. A warmer world thus risks exacerbating the already significant income gap. Warming will likely increase the
incidence of disease as vectors spread to new regions. The end result is that the scarcity, social and economic disruption, and
agricultural problems associated with climate change will spur conflict.
The warming skeptics crowd also has an array of potent arguments at their disposal. First, we have included evidence
answering the most common warming bad scenarios, including those relating to agriculture, biodiversity loss, health
effects, sea-level rise, and warming-induced ice ages. These cards contain a many warrants for why warming does not pose a
threat to the environment, our economy, or other social systems. We have also included two arguments about the potential
benefits of warming, or at least elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first argument claims that
CO2 and warmer temperatures tend to benefit agriculture. CO2 is plant food, promoting more growth and food production.
CO2 also increases the water-use efficiency of plants, decreasing the need for irrigation. There is so much research evidence
linking higher CO2 levels to greater agricultural output that the gas has been dubbed the elixir of life. We are fortunate that
CO2 is such a great plant food because growing human populations substantially increase demand for food in the coming
decades. With more CO2 emissions, we can meet this demand through carbon dioxide fertilization. However, if we slow our
CO2 emissions, agricultural output will not keep up with human population growth, and many people will starve. Second,
many analysts believe that greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to avert a new ice age, which would destroy modern
civilization. Decreasing solar activity means that the earth is likely to experience substantial cooling in the next few decades.
Geological evidence also indicates that warm interglacial periods between ice ages have averaged approximately 10,000
years or so, at least during the current epoch. Unfortunately, our current interglacial is in at least its 10,000th year, meaning
we are due for another ice age. Therefore, CO2-induced warming might be good because it prevents ice sheets from covering
major cities throughout the northern hemisphere.
6

CLIMATE ETHICS
The resolution tasks the debaters with assessing whether so-called developed countries have a duty to mitigate the effects
of climate change. Several elements of the resolutional wording will be critical in determining the content of the debates and
the division of ground between the pro and con sides. First, developed countries is generally used to refer to countries with
relatively high average annual incomes and advanced infrastructure networks. Many international economists tend to equate
developed with the Central Intelligence Agencys list of developed countries which can be found in the CIAs World
Factbook at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-b.html#D. This cite also
includes a list of developing countries. The pro team is thus required to defend that climate change action be taken by a
specific group of wealthy nations. The resolution leaves open the question of whether pro cases can also defend climate
action by developing nations, although the con side has some pretty strong fairness based justifications for claiming that their
opponents should be limited to only those countries explicitly mentioned in the resolution. This issue reflects the broader, real
world dispute between wealthy and developing nations. Rich states, such as the U.S., are reluctant to cut their emissions of
greenhouse gases unless less wealthy countries, including China and India, also agree to decrease their CO2 emissions (or at
least the rate of growth in such emissions), both for fear of compromising their economic competitiveness and because of the
concern that any cuts in emissions by wealthy nations will be swamped by emissions increases among developing nations.
The second important element of the resolution is the basis upon which the attempts to address climate change are justified.
Namely, the resolution mandates that the pro team demonstrate that there is a moral obligation to deal with the effects of
climate change. However, the resolution is silent on why type of ethical framework should be used in assessing the existence
of such a duty. Therefore we strongly suspect that most debates will feature considerable clash on the nature of moral duties
for nations, whether those duties vary from those placed on individuals, and how such duties intersect with the likely positive
and negative consequences of climate change. In the literature on climate change, two ethical concerns are most prominent.
The first question is whether wealthy countries have an obligation to address the negative consequences of their greenhouse
gas emissions upon the citizens of the world, especially those of poorer nations, who are less likely to be able to adapt to a
warmer world and are thus more likely to suffer harm as a result of climate change. The second concern is whether current
generations, who would likely experience some degree of harm from the negative economic and social effects of mitigation
efforts, have any duty towards future human generations, who are most likely to experience any benefit of climate change
mitigation because of the relatively long timeframe on the alleged negative consequences of climate change. Thus, students
should prepare themselves to debate whether wealthy nations have an obligation to mitigate the negative repercussions their
emissions have on poor nations, and whether people living today have an obligation to protect future generations from the
problems associated with a warmer world decades from now.
The third key part of the resolution concerns what it means to mitigate climate change. Based upon our research, the term is
used rather broadly in the literature and often reflects a wide array of potential meanings. Standard dictionary definitions of
mitigate include to lessen the gravity of or to make less severe, serious, or painful, or to lessen in force or intensity.
There are a number of ways that climate change could be made less severe or less painful. The most obvious way is to
limit the extent of climate change by either cutting greenhouse gas emissions or extracting such gases from the atmosphere.
Several field definitions support this view. The IPCC defines mitigation as technological change and substitution that
reduce resource inputs and emissions per unit of output. Although several social, economic and technological policies would
produce an emission reduction, with respect to climate change, mitigation means implementing policies to reduce GHG
[greenhouse gas] emissions and enhance sinks. This is in contrast with either a do nothing approach or an adaptation
strategy, which the same report defines as initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems
against actual or expected climate effects. [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CLIMATE CHANGE 2007,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/glossary/ar4-wg3.pdf] This distinction is reflected in many political approaches to climate change.
For example, a United Kingdom government says climate change mitigation means limiting the extent of future climate
change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions now and in the future. It can also mean removing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, for example by planting more trees. [http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate/mitigating/] Pro teams thus
must defend emissions cuts, while con teams have a wider array of options.

Your pro case will thus have to be prepared to defend at least four arguments, any of which you can attack from the con side.
First, you will need to show that global warming is real. As noted in the earlier part of the essay, there is a strong consensus
among mainstream scientists that climate change is a reality, but many broadly published skeptics in the scientific and policy
communities remain. Second, you must demonstrate that climate change will produce problems that merit concern.
According to Dr. Hansen and others, we are on the verge of climatic tipping points that risk triggering cascading climate
change, with very serious consequences for the health of planets ecosystems and the stability of human societies. Con teams
can argue that warming is not real, that warming is relatively benign, and even that greenhouse gas emissions are good
because they increase food production and may prevent a new ice age. The key to winning these two questions lies in
addressing source credibility, meaning both sides should focus on why their experts are more believable than those of their
opponents. Third, the pro team must demonstrate that a moral duty exists for developed countries, presumably their
governments. Generally speaking, the basis of such a duty relates back to the reality and consequences of climate change,
although you must also be ready to defend against claims that there cannot, or should not, be collective responsibility for a
problem as diffuse and ephemeral as climate change. Finally, you need to prove that the appropriate response is mitigation
(emissions cuts), defending such action against the potential negative economic consequences of a large, short-term decrease
in the use of fossil fuels. Not only must you show that such cuts are effective in discharging the moral duty of the developed
countries, but you will also be pressed by con teams to show that these cuts are the best way to respond to warming,
especially given the availability of adaptive strategies. There is a wealth of high-quality evidence on both sides of all of these
questions, and we have included strong examples in the topshelf section of the pro and con sections of the book. This topic
promises to spark many entertaining and informative debates.
Mitigation Justified: Topshelf

1. Overwhelming consensus proves that warming is real, human caused, and requires immediate action
claims to the contrary are just wrong
Kevin Trenbeth, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research et al.,
writing with over 30 other distinguished climate researchers, Check with Climate Scientists for Views on Climate, WALL
STREET JOURNAL, letter to the editor, 2112,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662.html, accessed 4-6-12.
In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If
you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.
You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science
equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in
climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly
every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not
accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause
cancer, long after that was settled science. Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past
decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And
computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is
occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate
phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate
our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming. Thus, climate experts also know
what one of us, Kevin Trenberth, actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Mr. Trenberth
was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the
short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend. The National Academy of
Sciences of the U.S. (set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies
of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the
science is clear: The world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase.
Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases. Research shows that more than
97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of
recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change
clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only
allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the
doctor ordered.
2. Must act now on climate changeare nearing a tipping point, else risk irreversible changes and
massive ecosystem damage
David Perlman, Close to Tipping Point of Warming, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 6712, p. A1.
The Earth is reaching a "tipping point" in climate change that will lead to increasingly rapid and irreversible destruction of the
global environment unless its forces are controlled by concerted international action, an international group of scientists warns.
Unchecked population growth, the disappearance of critical plant and animal species, the over-exploitation of energy resources,
and the rapidly warming climate are all combining to bring mounting pressure on the Earth's environmental health, they say.
Scientists from five nations, led by UC Berkeley biologist Anthony Barnosky, report their analysis Thursday in the journal
Nature. They likened the potential impact of the forces to previous major changes - both gradual and abrupt - in the planet's
history that triggered mass extinctions and expansions, and produced completely new worldwide environments. The most
recent of those was the sporadic end of the last ice age that began 14,000 years ago and shifted rapidly from warm to cold and
then back to warm again over a few thousand years. That period saw the extinction of half the world's large animal life, and
then the spread of an expanding human population to every continent on the planet. Difficult to reverse A similar "critical
transition" is occurring now, Barnosky's scientists maintain, and they warn that once it starts, it will be "extremely difficult or
even impossible for the system to return to its previous state." "The science tells us that we are heading toward major changes
in the biosphere," Barnosky said in an interview this week. "And given all the pressures we are putting on the world, if we do
nothing different, I believe we are looking at a time scale of a century or even a few decades for a tipping point to arrive."
Mitigation Justified: Topshelf [contd]

3. Climate change worst affects the worlds poor, locking them into poverty and reversing development
gains
Jeff Otieno, journalist, How Rising Heat Traps Millions in Poverty, ALLAFRICA, 12-5-07,
www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2007/1205heat.htm, accessed 9-4-12.
Gains made in human development in Africa may be reversed if climate change is not checked, the UN now warns. A
document published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says the increasing global warming, threatening
to average more than two degrees centigrade before the end of the century, may compromise gains made in developing
countries, mainly African states. It provides a stark account of the threat posed by global warming and argues that the world is
drifting towards a 'tipping point' "that could lock the world's poorest countries and their poorest citizens on a downward spiral".
If this happens, the document warns, it will leave hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water scarcity, ecological threats
and a loss of livelihoods. "Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with
no responsibility for the current ecological debt, who face the immediate and most severe human costs," says UNDP
administrator Kemal Dervis after the launch of the Human Development 2007/08 entitled: Fighting Climate Change: Human
Solidarity in a Divided World.
4. We have an ethical obligation to cut emissionswarming will hurt people who are not the cause of the
problem
Gary C. Bryner, Professor, Public Policy Program, Brigham Young University, Carbon Markets: Reducing Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Through Emissions Trading, TULANE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW JOURNAL v. 17, Summer 2004, p. 298.
For residents of the industrialized nations, climate change is an ethical issue. Those responsible for most greenhouse gases are
not the same people who will suffer the consequences of climate change. Residents of industrialized nations are mostly
responsible for the threat, and they have the resources to protect themselves from modest changes and disruptions. Developing
countries lack the resources to protect their citizens against the effects of climate change. It is simply not tenable to argue that
satisfying the continually growing demand by Americans for cheap energy must outweigh the need to contribute to global
solutions for climate change.
5. We have a moral duty to protect the interests of future generations--this is an issue on par with ending
slavery
Michael McCarthy, "Global Warming Issue 'On Par with Slavery'," THE INDEPENDENT, 4--7--12,
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-issue-on-par-with-slavery-7624916.html, accessed
9-6-12.
Dealing with climate change is a moral issue on a par with ending slavery, the world's most celebrated climate scientist, James
Hansen, of Nasa, believes. Dr Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, will be making the slavery
comparison in his acceptance speech for the Edinburgh Medal next Tuesday, when he will also be calling for a global tax on all
carbon emissions. Nothing less will do, he will argue, so urgent is the challenge which climate change presents for future
generations. The Edinburgh Medal is awarded each year to scientists and technological experts judged to have made a
significant contribution to the understanding and well-being of humanity. Widely thought of as "the father of global warming"
his dramatic alert about climate change in US Senate hearings in July 1988 put the issue on the world agenda Dr Hansen is
now one of the most outspoken advocates of drastic climate action. He said last year he thought climate sceptics were winning
the global warming argument with the public. In his acceptance speech, he will argue that an immediate worldwide carbon tax
is needed to force cuts in fossil fuel use, and that current generations have an over-riding moral duty to their children and
grandchildren to act now.
10
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Topshelf

1. Warming is real and acceleratingtemperature records, multiple indicators
DIGITAL JOURNAL, Global Warming Heat Mets Away Denialism, 71012, npg.
The critical question to ponder today is not whether humans are responsible or not for the global warming but how best can we
respond to the looming threat posed by the global warming. For the naysayers, it should be enough to learn that there are telltale irrefutable scientific evidences that show the planet we inhabit is warming. There are thermometer records over past
century and half that shows global temperature rise over this period. Keys to the past can be found and interpreted by scientists
in a number of ways through diverse sources. Scientists can study hundreds or thousands of years old trees to study climatic
conditions of the places they grew in. Sediments buried deep in lakes and ocean beds contain vital climatic conditions that
experts can decipher. Similarly tiny bubbles trapped in polar ice sheets contain vital climatic information of our planet that
scientists can study. That s how scientists have claimed the reality of global warming in recent years. Besides, computer models
can reveal the past, present and the future of climatic conditions over the planet. While the average temperature of planet earth
has risen more than 1 degree F since 1900, the rate of warming has gone on to increase three folds since 1970 due to global
warming which according to specialists has been caused primarily by the emission of green house gases through human
activities. Can we still afford to miss the telltale signs of global warming when different agencies that have undertaken
independent investigations have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that global warming is real unless you choose to close
your eyes to the reality? NASA s Goddard Institute for Space Academy, for instance, has estimated that the average
temperature has climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree C) since 1880. What is even more dangerous is not just the
increase in temperature but the increase in the rate of warming in recent years. The United Nation s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change claims that the last two decades of the 20th century have been hottest in the last 400 years and possibly
warmest for several millennia. According to the same study, 11 of the 12 among the dozen warmest years since 1850 have been
in the last two decades of 20th century.
2. Warming is realmultiple natural indicators and observed temperatures prove

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), L Bernstein et al., CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: SYNTHESIS REPORT,
2007, p. 30.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and
ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level (Figure 1.1). {WGI 3.2, 4.8, 5.2,
5.5, SPM} Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of
global surface temperature (since 1850). The 100-year linear trend (1906-2005) of 0.74 [0.56 to 0.92]C is larger than the
corresponding trend of 0.6 [0.4 to 0.8]C (1901-2000) given in the TAR (Figure 1.1). The linear warming trend over the 50
years from 1956 to 2005 (0.13 [0.10 to 0.16]C per decade) is nearly twice that for the 100 years from 1906 to 2005. {WGI 3.2,
SPM} The temperature increase is widespread over the globe and is greater at higher northern latitudes (Figure 1.2). Average
Arctic temperatures have increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years. Land regions have warmed
faster than the oceans (Figures 1.2 and 2.5). Observations since 1961 show that the average temperature of the global ocean has
increased to depths of at least 3000m and that the ocean has been taking up over 80% of the heat being added to the climate
system. New analyses of balloon-borne and satellite measurements of lower- and mid-troposphere temperature show warming
rates similar to those observed in surface temperature. {WGI 3.2, 3.4, 5.2, SPM} Increases in sea level are consistent with
warming (Figure 1.1). Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3]mm per year over 1961 to 2003 and at
an average rate of about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8]mm per year from 1993 to 2003. Whether this faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects
decadal variation or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. Since 1993 thermal expansion of the oceans has contributed
about 57% of the sum of the estimated individual contributions to the sea level rise, with decreases in glaciers and ice caps
contributing about 28% and losses from the polar ice sheets contributing the remainder. From 1993 to 2003 the sum of these
climate contributions is consistent within uncertainties with the total sea level rise that is directly observed. {WGI 4.6, 4.8, 5.5,
SPM, Table SPM.1} Observed decreases in snow and ice extent are also consistent with warming (Figure 1.1). Satellite data
since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 [2.1 to 3.3]% per decade, with larger decreases in
summer of 7.4 [5.0 to 9.8]% per decade. Mountain glaciers and snow cover on average have declined in both hemispheres. The
maximum areal extent of seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7% in the Northern Hemisphere since 1900, with
decreases in spring of up to 15%. Temperatures at the top of the permafrost layer have generally increased since the 1980s in
the Arctic by up to 3C. {WGI 3.2, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 5.5, SPM} At continental, regional and ocean basin scales, numerous
long-term changes in other aspects of climate have also been observed. Trends from 1900 to 2005 have been observed in
precipitation amount in many large regions. Over this period, precipitation increased significantly in eastern parts of North and
South America, northern Europe and northern and central Asia whereas precipitation declined in the Sahel, the Mediterranean,
southern Africa and parts of southern Asia. Globally, the area affected by drought has likely2 increased since the 1970s. {WGI
3.3, 3.9, SPM}
11
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change RealTopshelf [contd]

3. Warming is realshould move towards debating what to do about it, multiple recent studies prove
REUTERS, A Wilted Climate Contrarian Case, Climate Spectator, 41112, npg.
A clutch of recent studies reinforces evidence that people are causing climate change and suggests debate should now move on to a
more precise understanding of its impact on humans. The reports, published in various journals in recent weeks, add new detail to the
theory of climate change and by implication cast contrarians in a more desperate light. To be clear: there's nothing wrong with
doubting climate change; but doubts based on ignorance, a political bias or fossil fuel lobbying don't help. The basics, well known,
are that rising greenhouse gas emissions are almost certainly responsible for raising global average surface temperatures (by about
0.17 degrees Celsius a decade from 1980-2010), in turn leading to sea level rise (of about 2.3 millimetres a year from 2005-2010) and
probably causing more frequent bouts of extreme heatwaves and possibly more erratic rainfall. Vast uncertainties remain about the
risk of runaway warming, and the urgency: for example, about what level of greenhouse gas emissions will cause how much sea level
rise this century. The latest studies suggest firmer evidence for a human fingerprint, for example showing that pollution is largely
responsible for a slow cycle in sea surface temperatures in the last century. Recent studies also cast more light on trends, for example
showing that the world has seen hotter years since 1998 (previously held by some as a record); and presenting firmer forecasts for
2050. And others show lessons from the end of the last Ice Age: for example that rises in carbon dioxide preceded (and, by
implication, caused) warming; and that sea levels at one point were rising by several metres a century. None of these are individually
particular clinchers - the problem was already clear - but collectively they pin down uncertainty seized on by sceptics. Climate
science was under a cloud after a 'climategate' scandal of scientists' emails leaked in 2009 was used by sceptics to suggest that they
had deliberately manipulated data - allegations rejected by several public enquiries. And a major UN panel report made a couple of
factual errors, most notably saying that all Himalayan glaciers may melt by 2035, which seemed a typographical error meant to read
2350. In retrospect, it's incredible that these cast doubt on the scientific theory. Like any theory, climate change is based on
probabilities and observations couched in error margins and difficult to prove conclusively. It's complicated by the poor understanding
of runaway effects which could make the planet all but unrecognisable - in warming, desertification and sea level rise - over the next
few centuries, distracting from a cool view. Observations alone of rising temperatures, seas and extreme heatwaves in the past century
are enough to demonstrate the problem, coupled with the lack of a plausible, alternative explanation to rising man-made carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions. On Wednesday, scientists showed in an article published in the journal Nature that rising CO2 preceded
warming at the end of the last ice age. Previously, only Antarctic temperature data had been used, which appeared to show rising CO2
following temperature rather than the other way round. Those older results had suggested a complex effect involving warming oceans,
rising CO2 and melting ice which together tipped the world out of an Ice Age 20,000 years ago. Now the role of CO2 in driving the
global climate change seems clearer. Separately, scientists publishing in Nature estimated sea levels were rising by about 4 metres a
century at one point around 15,000 years ago. Examining the Earth's more recent history, scientists from Britain's Met Office Hadley
Centre showed this week how a new understanding of the impact of pollution on cloud formation explained a slow temperature cycle
previously blamed on ocean currents. They said models could now explain an Atlantic sea surface cooling in the 1970s, and
subsequent warming as clean air laws took effect. Various phases of the cycle are linked with droughts in parts of Africa and the
Amazon, as well as hurricane activity. Two weeks ago, publishing in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from several institutes
estimated warming in the range of 1.4-3 degrees Celsius by 2050 (compared with 1961-1990 levels), a higher upper range than
previously found using comprehensive, complex climate models. Also two weeks ago, scientists from Britain's Climatic Research Unit
(CRU) published updated temperature data including observations from more than 450 additional weather stations from the Arctic made newly available by Russia and Canada. They showed that 2005 and 2010 were the hottest years in a temperature record dating
back to around 1850. Previously CRU had said 1998 was the hottest year, leading some sceptics to claim 'no global warming this
century', to dismiss the urgency of the problem. On the contrary, the basics of climate change are now understood and serious doubt is
left only in the minds of those who cultivate it. Climate science can now pin down the big uncertainties, about regional impacts, sea
level rise and runaway effects, and help to put to work a response.
4. They are wrongall lines of inquiry prove that warming is real, bad, and that we must act now
Dr. Peter H. Gleick, Director, Pacific Institute, Not Going Away: Americas Energy Security, Jobs and Climate Challenges,
Testimony before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, 12-1-10,
www.pacinst.org/publications/testimony/gleick_testimony_climate_strategies.pdf, accessed 6-19-12.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that
the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of
evidence and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover,
there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the
environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather
events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems
throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades. If we are
to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. In addition,
adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already unavoidable.
12
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Topshelf [contd]

5. Warming is real and human-caused
James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Game Over for the Climate, NEW YORK TIMES, 5
912, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html, accessed 6-10-12.
If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only
to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to
encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground. The global warming signal is now louder
than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would happen by now in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers
have increased noticeably. We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in
Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events they were caused by human-induced climate
change. We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate
conducive to human life. But add too much, as we are doing now, and temperatures will inevitably rise too high. This is not the
result of natural variability, as some argue. The earth is currently in the part of its long-term orbit cycle where temperatures
would normally be cooling. But they are rising and its because we are forcing them higher with fossil fuel emissions. The
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years.
The tar sands contain enough carbon 240 gigatons to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close cousin of tar sands found mainly
in the United States, contains at least an additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of
finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. a
level that would, as earths history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control.
6. The evidence for warming is overwhelmingmultiple changes in natural systems prove that we are
correct
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary for Policymakers, CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: IMPACTS,
ADAPTATION AND VULNERABILITY. CONTRIBUTION OF WORKNG GROUP II TO THE FOURTH ASSESSMENT
REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, ed. M.L. Parry et al., 2007, p. 8-9.
Recent studies have allowed a broader and more confident assessment of the relationship between observed warming and
impacts than was made in the Third Assessment. That Assessment concluded that there is high confidence3 that recent
regional changes in temperature have had discernible impacts on many physical and biological systems. From the current
Assessment we conclude the following. With regard to changes in snow, ice and frozen ground (including permafrost),4 there
is high confidence that natural systems are affected. Examples are: enlargement and increased numbers of glacial lakes [1.3];
increasing ground instability in permafrost regions, and rock avalanches in mountain regions [1.3]; changes in some Arctic
and Antarctic ecosystems, including those in sea-ice biomes, and also predators high in the food chain [1.3, 4.4, 15.4]. Based
on growing evidence, there is high confidence that the following effects on hydrological systems are occurring: increased
runoff and earlier spring peak discharge in many glacier- and snow-fed rivers [1.3]; warming of lakes and rivers in many
regions, with effects on thermal structure and water quality [1.3]. There is very high confidence, based on more evidence from
a wider range of species, that recent warming is strongly affecting terrestrial biological systems, including such changes as:
earlier timing of spring events, such as leaf-unfolding, bird migration and egg-laying [1.3]; poleward and upward shifts in
ranges in plant and animal species [1.3, 8.2, 14.2]. Based on satellite observations since the early 1980s, there is high
confidence that there has been a trend in many regions towards earlier greening5 of vegetation in the spring linked to longer
thermal growing seasons due to recent warming [1.3, 14.2]. There is high confidence, based on substantial new evidence, that
observed changes in marine and freshwater biological systems are associated with rising water temperatures, as well as related
changes in ice cover, salinity, oxygen levels and circulation [1.3]. These include: shifts in ranges and changes in algal,
plankton and fish abundance in high-latitude oceans [1.3]; increases in algal and zooplankton abundance in high-latitude and
high-altitude lakes [1.3]; range changes and earlier migrations of fish in rivers [1.3]. The uptake of anthropogenic carbon
since 1750 has led to the ocean becoming more acidic, with an average decrease in pH of 0.1 units [IPCC Working Group I
Fourth Assessment]. However, the effects of observed ocean acidification on the marine biosphere are as yet undocumented
[1.3].
13
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Consensus

1. Warming is realevery major national science academy agrees
John F. Kerry U.S. Senator, On Eve of Rio+20, An Honest Assessment of Climate Change Challenge, CONGRESSIONAL
DOCUMENTS AND PUBLICATIONS, 61912, lexis.
Every major national science academy in the world has reported that global warming is real. It is nothing less than shocking
when people in a position of authority can just say--without documentation, without accepted scientific research, without peer
reviewed analysis--just stand up and say that there isn't enough evidence because it suits their political purposes to serve some
interest that doesn't want to change the status quo. Facts that beg for an unprecedented public response are met with
unsubstantiated, even totally contradicted denial. And those who deny have never, ever met their de minimus responsibility to
provide some scientific answer to what, if not human behavior, is causing the increase in greenhouse gas particulates and how,
if not by curbing greenhouse gases, we will address this crisis. In fact, when one measures the effect of taking action versus not
taking action, the naysayers' case is even more confounding.
2. Naysayers are wrongdisproven by overwhelming evidence contained in 6000 studies

Frankly, those who look for any excuse to continue challenging the science have a fundamental responsibility that they have
never fulfilled: Prove us wrong or stand down. Prove that the pollution we put in the atmosphere is not having the harmful
effect we know it is. Tell us where the gases go and what they do. Pony up one single, cogent, legitimate, scholarly analysis.
Prove that the ocean isn't actually rising; prove that the ice caps aren't melting, that deserts aren't expanding. And prove that
human beings have nothing to do with any of it. And by the way--good luck in the effort! Because there are over 6,000 peerreviewed articles, all of which document clearly and irrefutably the ways in which mankind is contributing to this problem.
Sure we know the naysayers have their two-bit scientists who trade in doubt and misdirection about things like sun spots and
clouds. But there's not a single credible scientist that will argue climate change isn't happening. In fact, even the naysayers are
starting to come to their senses. Just this year, a well-known climate skeptic, Dr. Richard Mueller, released a series of reports
that were funded in part by the Koch brothers. Dr. Mueller thought his results would show something different than all of the
other climate studies. Think he found what the Koch brothers were looking for? Here's Dr. Mueller in his own words: "You
should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer." Bottom line: his studies found what all other credible climate studies have
been telling us for decades--that global warming is real. And if you just stop and look around for a moment, you'll see that its
effects are everywhere: floods and droughts, pathogens and disease, species and habitat loss, and sea level rise and storm surge
that threaten our cities and coastlines. No continent is escaping unscathed: Increasing ground instability in permafrost regions,
increasing avalanches in mountainous zones, warmer and drier conditions in the Sahelian region of Africa leading to a
shortened growing season, and coral bleaching events in the Great Barrier Reef.
3. Warming is real98% of qualified scientists say so

Tom Mueller, The Indisputable Truth of Man-Made Climate Change, TELEGRAPH JOURNAL, 21612, p. A9.
Climate change scepticism has been discredited and debunked, according to the world's premier scientific journal, Proceedings
of the Natural Academy of Sciences. Ninety-eight per cent of qualified experts confirm that anthropogenic, or man-made,
climate change is real. The authors of this publication define "expert" as those scientists who publish in peer-reviewed
professional journals. According to Proceedings, those rare dissenting sceptics, unconvinced of man-made climate change, are
substantially lacking in qualifications compared to convinced researchers. Gullible journalists throwing their lot with this
miniscule residue of "expert-opinion" has provided a petro-funded denial-machine with enough material to create much public
confusion. Unfortunately, the American Christian right also jumped on board holus-bolus; until recently that is.
4. Warming is realscientific consensus proves

Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Testimony before the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Power, 61912, lexis.
Climate change represents one of the gravest threats posed to humans and it is essential that the United States and other nations
significantly reduce their industrial carbon and other pollutants responsible for it. The United States and other nations are
already experiencing many of the climate change impacts scientists have warned us about, including warming temperatures,
severe drought, massive rainfall and floods, and other extreme weather events. In 2010 the National Academy of Sciences
determined that global warming is real, and human induced: There is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple
lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities.
While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly
and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. The United States
Global Change Research Program, primarily written under President George W. Bush, determined that "global warming is
unequivocal and primarily human-induced." It further states that climate related impacts are visible now and will continue to
grow.
14
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Consensus [contd]

5. Every major organization agrees that warming is real
3. Every major international scientific organization working in the areas of geophysics, climate, geology, biology, chemistry,
physics, ecology, atmospheric sciences, and meteorology agrees that humans are changing the climate. This includes every
single National Academy of Sciences, including of course, the US NAS. (See the attached list.) Conversely, no scientific body
of national or international standing rejects the findings of human-induced effects on global warming. Ignoring the massive
weight of this consensus is irresponsible.
6. Consensus says its real and human-caused

There is broad scientific consensus that Earth's climate is warming rapidly and at an accelerating rate. Human activities,
primarily the burning of fossil fuels, are very likely (>90% probability) to be the main cause of this warming. Climate-sensitive
changes in ecosystems are already being observed, and fundamental, potentially irreversible, ecological changes may occur in
the coming decades. Conservative environmental estimates of the impact of climate changes that are already in process indicate
that they will result in numerous health effects to children. Anticipated direct health consequences of climate change include
injury and death from extreme weather events and natural disasters, increases in climate-sensitive infectious diseases, increases
in air pollutionrelated illness, and more heat-related, potentially fatal, illness. Within all of these categories, children have
increased vulnerability compared with other groups.
7. Overwhelming scientific consensus proves that warming is truetheir authors are stooges of fossil
fuels industries
Mary Christina Wood, Professor, Law, University of Oregon, Natures Trust: A Legal, Political and Moral Frame for Global
Warming, BOSTON COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS LAW REVIEW v. 34, 2007, p. 587-589.
These are not the voices of Chicken Little and Henny Penny. If someone dismisses climate warming to you as "sky is falling"
kind of talk, go back and read the book Chicken Little and see if you can find any intelligent comparison between mounting
atmospheric heat-trapping gases and an acorn falling on a little chicken's head. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report in February 2007, stating that climate change is "unequivocal." A second report was
issued in draft form in March 2007, discussing the catastrophic impacts of unchecked global warming. These United Nations
(U.N.) reports compile the conclusions of more than 1200 authors and 2500 expert reviewers, reflecting scientific expertise
from more than 130 countries. To be sure, there are those few global warming "contrarians" dismissing the threat, but before
you place the future of your children in their hands, check out their affiliations with the fossil fuel industry. When the U.N.
report came out in February ending any debate on whether global warming existed, the Exxon-funded American Enterprise
Institute responded with an ad offering $ 10,000 to any scientist who could refute it. Let us think about a logical way to process
these contrarian views. If several doctors diagnosed your child with life-threatening bacterial meningitis, you would likely not
waste time going back to debate the germ theory of medicine with them. You would start the antibiotics and hope or pray for
the best. The urgent warnings coming from all branches of science are intended to focus society on reaching a decision, now.
8. Warming is real and human-causedscientific consensus proves

Dr. Jonathan Pershing, Director, Climate, Energy and Pollution Program, World Resources Institute, Testimony before Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 11-8-07, lexis.
The Earth is warming, primarily due to human activities. The fossil fuels that have led to huge increases in human productivity
and great improvements in human well- being, together with significant deforestation, have been the most important causes of
global warming. The buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) is accelerating, and unless we act very
soon to control emissions warming, will rise to very dangerous levels during our children's lifetimes. In February 2007, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - the official science process endorsed and supported by the world's
governments and in which the United States was an active participant) released its most recent report. The report states that it is
"unequivocal" that Earth's climate is warming, and confirms that the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and
methane, two important GHGs, "exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years." Further, the IPCC concludes that
it is now "very likely" (greater than 90% probability) that GHG emissions from human activities have caused "most of the
observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century."
15
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--CO2 Causes

1. CO2 causes warmingend of last ice age proves
SPACE DAILY, Confirming Carbons Climate Effects, 42512, lexis.
Harvard scientists are helping to paint the fullest picture yet of how a handful of factors, particularly world-wide increases in
atmospheric carbon dioxide, combined to end the last ice age approximately 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. As described in a
paper published in Nature, researchers compiled ice and sedimentary core samples collected from dozens of locations around
the world, and found evidence that while changes in Earth's orbit may have touched off a warming trend, increases in CO2
played a far more important role in pushing the planet out of the ice age. "Orbital changes are the pacemaker. They're the
trigger, but they don't get you too far," lead author Jeremy Shakun, a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Earth and Planetary
Science Shakun, said. "Our study shows that CO2 was a much more important factor, and was really driving worldwide
warming during the last deglaciation." Though scientists have known for many years, based on studies of Antarctic ice cores,
that deglaciations over the last million years and spikes in CO2 were connected, establishing a clear cause-and-effect
relationship between CO2 and global warming from the geologic record has remained difficult, Shakun said.
2. CO2 closely tracks with temperaturesrecent ice core data proves

SPACE DAILY, Confirming Carbons Climate Effects, 42512, lexis.
Many climate scientists have addressed the criticism and shown that the lag between temperature and CO2 increases means that
greenhouse gases were an amplifier, rather than trigger, of past climate change, but Shakun and his colleagues saw a larger
problem - while CO2 measurements taken from air bubbles in the ice cores reflect levels throughout the global atmosphere,
temperatures recorded in the ice only reflect local Antarctic conditions.
To get a more accurate picture of the relationship between global temperature and CO2, they synthesized dozens of core
samples - 80 in all - collected from around the world. "We have ice cores from Greenland, people have cored the sea floor all
around the world, they've cored lakes on the continents, and they have worked out temperature histories for all these sites,"
Shakun said. "Putting all of these records together into a reconstruction of global temperature shows a beautiful correlation
with rising CO2 at the end of the ice age. Even more interesting, while CO2 trails Antarctic warming, it actually precedes
global temperature change, which is what you would expect if CO2 is causing the warming. "The previous science clearly said
that CO2 had something to do with warming," Shakun added. "It has gone up and down in tandem with the ice ages, so it is
clearly involved. If it was an amplifier, the question was how big of an amplifier? Does it explain a lot of climate change, or
was it a small piece, and other factors were more important? I think this research really points a strong finger at the idea that
CO2 was a major player." Armed with that evidence, Shakun and colleagues were able to sketch out how a series of factors
aligned that eventually led to a worldwide warming trend and the end of the ice age.
3. CO2 drives climate change--post-Ice Age warming proves

Miguel Llanos, "Study Aims to Settle Climate Battle Over Temperatures, CO2," MSNBC, 4--4--12,
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/04/11021276-study-aims-to-settle-climate-battle-over-temperatures-co2?lite,
accessed 4-9-12.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, the study concluded that during the end of the last Ice Age, some 12,000 years
ago, global temperatures rose after carbon dioxide levels started to rise. Earlier data using temperature records from Antarctic
ice cores indicated that temperatures rose before C02 took off -- raising questions in the minds of some about how CO2 could
then be blamed for warming, either then or over the last century, when emissions from manmade sources have skyrocketed. For
the new study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, researchers reconstructed temperature records from ice
and soil cores at 79 other sites around the world and from around the same time period. "That would end the argument," lead
author Jeremy Shakun, a Harvard researcher, told msnbc.com. "It doesn't hold up." Changes in Earth's orbit are thought to have
triggered the warming trend by causing ice sheets to melt, but the researchers said the new study suggests C02 played a far
more important role -- with C02 previously locked up under sea ice escaping out to add to the existing level.
16
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Feedbacks

1. Warming risks permafrost melt, releasing huge quantities of methane and exacerbating warming
And to make matters worse, temperatures are likely to increase exponentially in the coming years. Because the environment is
a closed system, the more conditions change, the faster they change. As the ice and permafrost melts, methane plumes under
the surface have begun venting into the atmosphere. During a survey last summer of the East Siberian Arctic seas, a team of
scientists encountered a high density of plumes--some more than a kilometer across--emitting methane into the atmosphere at
concentrations up to 100 times higher than normal. If that process continues, we're in real trouble since methane is a potent
greenhouse gas: over a period of 100 years, it has a warming potential roughly 25 times greater than CO2. In part, we may
become the victims of vicious feedback cycles in our climate system. Cycles associated with less cloud cover, changes in
aerosols, peatlands, soils, and Arctic ice cover can all lead to accelerated climate change. One study estimated that thawing
permafrost may turn the Arctic from a carbon sink--a place that stores carbon--to a carbon source by the mid-2020s, releasing
100 billion tons of carbon by 2100. What does that mean? One hundred billion tons of carbon is about equal to the amount of
CO2 that would be released worldwide from ten years of burning fossil fuels. That's the future, folks--and it's bleak if we don't
act.
2. Warming will be worst in the Arctic, melting the permafrost

Justin Gillis, Peril Within Melting Permafrost, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, 121911, p. 2.
But mainstream scientists, while hoping the breakdown of permafrost will indeed be slow, reject that argument. They say the
climate was reasonably stable for the past 10,000 years or so, during the period when human civilization arose. Now, as people
burn immense amounts of fossil fuels, the planet's temperature is rising, and the Arctic is warming twice as fast. That, scientists
say, puts the remaining permafrost deposits at risk. For several decades, researchers have been monitoring permafrost
temperatures in hundreds of boreholes across the north. They have occasionally decreased in some regions for as long as a
decade, but the overall trend has been a relentless rise, with temperatures now increasing fastest in the most northerly areas.
Thawing has been most notable at the southern margins. Across huge areas, including much of central Alaska, permafrost is
hovering just below the freezing point and is expected to start thawing in earnest as soon as the 2020s. In northern Alaska and
northern Siberia, where temperatures are still well below freezing, experts say it should take longer. ''Even in a greenhousewarmed world, it will still get cold and dark in the Arctic in the winter,'' said Mark Serreze, director of the snow and ice data
center in Colorado.
3. Amount of carbon in permafrost swamps the quantities already in the atmosphere

Scientists need better inventories of the ancient carbon. The best estimate so far was published in 2009 by a Canadian scientist,
Charles Tarnocai, and some colleagues. They found about 1.7 trillion tons of carbon in soils of the northern regions, about 88
percent of it locked in permafrost. That is about two and a half times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The leading
French scientist Philippe Ciais wrote then that he was stunned by the estimate, a large upward revision from previous numbers.
''If, in a warmer world, bacteria decompose organic soil matter faster, releasing carbon dioxide,'' Dr. Ciais wrote, ''this will set
up a positive feedback loop, speeding up global warming.''
17
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Humans Are to Blame

1. Human behavior is responsible for climate change--emissions are accelerating, we need to act
James Hansen, Goddard Institute, NASA, with 17 co-authors, "Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to
Protect Young People and Nature," submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2012,
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/submitted_Hansen_etal.pdf, accessed 9-7-12.
Humanity is now the dominant force driving changes of Earth's atmospheric composition and thus future climate (1). The
principal climate forcing is carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel emissions, much of which will remain in the atmosphere for
millennia (1, 2). The climate response to this forcing and society's response to climate change are complicated by the system's
inertia, mainly due to the ocean and the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. This inertia causes climate to appear to
respond slowly to this human-made forcing, but further long-lasting responses may be locked in. We use Earths measured
energy imbalance and paleoclimate data, along with simple, accurate representations of the global carbon cycle and
temperature, to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on young
people, future generations, and nature. We find that global CO2 emissions reduction of about 6%/year is needed, along with
massive reforestation. Governments have recognized the need to limit emissions to avoid dangerous humanmade climate
change, as formalized in the Framework Convention on Climate Change (3), but only a few nations have made substantial
progress in reducing emissions. The stark reality (4) is that global emissions are accelerating and new efforts are underway to
massively expand fossil fuel extraction, by oil drilling to increasing ocean depths, into the Arctic, and onto environmentally
fragile public lands; squeezing of oil from tar sands and tar shale; hydrofracking to expand extraction of natural gas; and
increased mining of coal via mechanized longwall mining and mountain-top removal.
2. Humans are to blameresponsible for carbon increases, natural causes cant explain the data,
increased temps in lower atmosphere
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Global Warming FAQ, 71409,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-warming-faq.html, accessed 3-23-12.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: it is a greater than a 90
percent certainty that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities have caused most of the observed increase in
globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century. We all know that warmingand coolinghas happened in the
past, and long before humans were around. Many factors (called climate drivers) can influence Earths climatesuch as
changes in the suns intensity and volcanic eruptions, as well as heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. So how do scientists
know that todays warming is primarily caused by humans putting too much carbon in the atmosphere when we burn coal, oil,
and gas or cut down forests? There are human fingerprints on carbon overload. When humans burn coal, oil and gas (fossil
fuels) to generate electricity or drive our cars, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat. A carbon
molecule that comes from fossil fuels and deforestation is lighter than the combined signal of those from other sources. As
scientists measure the weight of carbon in the atmosphere over time they see a clear increase in the lighter molecules from
fossil fuel and deforestation sources that correspond closely to the known trend in emissions. Natural changes alone cant
explain the temperature changes weve seen. For a computer model to accurately project the future climate, scientists must first
ensure that it accurately reproduces observed temperature changes. When the models include only recorded natural climate
driverssuch as the suns intensitythe models cannot accurately reproduce the observed warming of the past half century.
When human-induced climate drivers are also included in the models, then they accurately capture recent temperature increases
in the atmosphere and in the oceans. [4][5][6] When all the natural and human-induced climate drivers are compared to one
another, the dramatic accumulation of carbon from human sources is by far the largest climate change driver over the past half
century. Lower-level atmospherewhich contains the carbon loadis expanding. The boundary between the lower
atmosphere (troposphere) and the higher atmosphere (stratosphere) has shifted upward in recent decades. See the ozone FAQ
for a figure illustrating the layers of the atmosphere. [6][7][8]This boundary has likely changed because heat-trapping gases
accumulate in the lower atmosphere and that atmospheric layer expands as it heats up (much like warming the air in a balloon).
And because less heat is escaping into the higher atmosphere, it is likely cooling. This differential would not occur if the sun
was the sole climate driver, as solar changes would warm both atmospheric layers, and certainly would not have warmed one
while cooling the other.
18
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Humans Are to Blame [contd]

3. Human activities are responsible for the spike in CO2 concentrations
Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Science and Impacts, CLIMATE CHANGE 101, 111, p. 2-3.
Greenhouse Gas Levels Rising. In 2009, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) released the most up-to-date
and comprehensive report currently available about the impacts of climate change in the United States.10 The report says that
average global concentrations of the three main greenhouse gasesCO2, CH4, and N2Oare rising because of human
activities. Since pre-industrial times, CO2 has increased by 40 percent, CH4 by 148 percent, and N2O by 18 percent. CO2 is
the principal gas contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Many human activities produce CO2; the burning of coal, oil,
and natural gas account for about 80 percent of human-caused CO2 emissions. Most of the remaining 20 percent comes from
changes in the land surface, primarily deforestation. Trees, like all living organisms, are made mostly of carbon; when forests
are burned to clear land, the carbon in the trees is released as CO2. The USGCRP report says that the current trajectory of
rising GHG concentrations is pushing the climate into uncharted territory. CO2 levels are much higher today than at any other
time in at least 800,000 years. Through all those millennia, there has been a clear correlation between CO2 concentrations and
global temperatures (see Figure 3), adding geological support for the strong connection between changes in the strength of the
greenhouse effect and the earths surface temperature. Scientists are certain that the burning of fossil fuels is the main source of
the recent spike in CO2 in the atmosphere. Multiple, independent lines of evidence clearly link human actions to increased
GHG concentrations.11 Moreover, there is strong evidence that this human-induced rise in atmospheric GHGs is the main
reason that the Earth has been warming in recent decades. The USGCRP report says, The global warming of the past 50 years
is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human fingerprints also have been identified in many other
aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences draws the same conclusion: Many lines of evidence support the conclusion that most
of the observed warming since the start of the 20th century, and especially the last several decades, can be attributed to human
activities.
19
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Indicators

1. Warming is real--indicators prove
The fallacy of this logic emerged in recent years as numerous impacts of global warming became apparent. Summer sea ice
cover in the Arctic plummeted in 2007 and 2011 to an area 40 percent less than a few decades earlier and Arctic sea ice
thickness declined a factor of four faster than simulated in IPCC climate models (4). The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
began to shed ice at a rate, now several hundred cubic kilometers per year, which is continuing to accelerate (5, 6). Mountain
glaciers are receding rapidly all around the world with effects on seasonal freshwater availability of major rivers (7, 8). The
hot dry subtropical climate belts have expanded as the troposphere has warmed and the stratosphere cooled (9-11), probably
contributing to observed increases in the area and intensity of wildfires (12). The abundance of reef-building corals is
decreasing at a rate of 0.5-2%/year, at least in part due to ocean warming and acidification caused by rising dissolved CO2
(13-15). More than half of all wild species have shown significant changes in where they live and in the timing of major life
events (16, 17). Mega-heatwaves, such as those in the Moscow area in 2010 and Texas in 2011, have become more
widespread with the increase demonstrably linked to global warming (18). In recognition of observed growing climate
impacts while global warming is less than 1C, reassessment of the dangerous level of warming is needed. Earth's
paleoclimate history provides a valuable tool for that purpose.
2. Warming is realrecent heat waves prove

Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, WORLD ON EDGE, 2011, p. 46.
Within the United States, numerous cities on the East Coast suffered through the hottest June to August on record, including
New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. After a relatively cool summer in Los Angeles, the temperature there on September
27 reached an all-time high of 113 degrees before the official thermometer broke. At a nearby site, however, the thermometer
survived to register 119 degrees, a record for the region. What U.S. climate data show us is that as the earth has warmed, record
highs are now twice as likely as record lows.5 The pattern of more-intense heat waves, more-powerful storms, and moredestructive flooding is consistent with what climate models project will happen as the earths temperature rises. The worst heat
wave in Russian history and the worst flooding in Pakistans history are the kind of extreme events we can expect to see more
of if we continue with business as usual. James Hansen, the U.S. governments leading climate scientist, asks, Would these
events have occurred if atmospheric carbon dioxide had remained at its pre-industrial level of 280 ppm [parts per million]?
The answer, he says, is almost certainly not.
3. Warming is real and human-causedmultiple indicators prove

1. The science of climate change is clear and convincing that climate change is happening, happening rapidly, and happening
because of human activities. Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory
experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Based on these lines of evidence, the science of
climate change is compelling and strong, and has been for over two decades. That science tells us that emissions of greenhouse
gases from human activities not only will change the climate, but are already changing the climate. The evidence is now
incontrovertible, even if a small minority cannot accept it. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific
process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial scientists build reputations and gain
recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is
wrong and that there is a better explanation. Thats what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But no one who argues
against the science of climate change has ever provided an alternative scientific theory that adequately satisfies the observable
evidence or conforms to our understanding of physics, chemistry, and climate dynamics. The science tells us and has been
telling us for over two decades that: The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our
atmosphere. Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities,
especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Natural causes always play a role in changing Earths climate, but are
now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes. Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at
speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle.
Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic. And many other changes are seen to be happening.
The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, human health, our food and
water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
20
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--IPCC

1. Warming is real, large, and human causedIPCC report proves
Richard C. Levin, President, Yale University, Statement before Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, CQ
CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 4-3-08, lexis.
Let me begin by noting that there is no longer any doubt that we have a problem. The Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded last year that the evidence of global warming is "unequivocal." 1 The
Panel, consisting of 2500 leading climate scientists from around the world, determined with "very high confidence that the net
effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming."2 And it concluded that "most of the observed increase in
globally- averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG
[greenhouse gas] concentrations."3 The Panel concluded that, in the absence of corrective measures, global temperatures are
likely to rise between 1 and 6 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, with the best estimates ranging between 2 and 4
degrees. Even a 1- degree increase in temperature will limit fresh water availability and cause coastal flooding in much of the
world, but, as the Panel noted, economic, social, and environmental damages and dislocation will become much more
consequential if global temperatures increase by more than 2 degrees.
2. IPCC findings prove that warming is real and human caused

Robert W. Corell, The Heinz Center, The Science of Climate Change, GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: NATIONAL
SECURITY IMPLICATIONS, ed. C. Pumphrey, May 2008, p. 51-52.
Let me finish by saying a few things about the key findings of the IPCC. These were released in February 2007. First, the Panel
concluded that Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a
result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values. The global increases in carbon dioxide
concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily
due to agriculture. The documentation is solid. Over the course of a 10,000 year period, things remained pretty stable. The last
100-150 years witnessed a pretty dramatic change. Second, Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident
from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising
global mean sea level. Note the use by the Panel of words like unequivocal which means 90 percent certain or better. Third,
Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed
increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. This also means that there is a 90 percent likelihood. The Report
documented several long-term changes in climate: The global average temperature trend over 19062005 is 0.74C (1.3F),
increasing to 0.2C (0.36F) per decade over the last 3 decades; Global average sea level rose 0.17 meters (6.7 inches) over the
20th century; Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres.
21
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Solar Variability

1. Changes in solar output cannot account for observed temperature changes
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Global Warming FAQ, 71409,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-warming-faq.html, accessed 3-23-12.
The sun is the source of most of the energy that drives the biological and physical processes in the world around usin oceans
and on land it fuels plant growth that forms the base of the food chain, and in the atmosphere it warms air which drives our
weather. The rate of energy coming from the sun changes slightly day to day. Over many millennia in the Earth-Sun orbital
relationship can change the geographical distribution of the suns energy over the Earths surface. It has been suggested that
changes in solar output might affect our climateboth directly, by changing the rate of solar heating of the Earth and
atmosphere, and indirectly, by changing cloud forming processes. Over the time-scale of millions of years the change in solar
intensity is a critical factor influencing climate (e.g., ice ages). However, changes in solar heating rate over the last century
cannot account for the magnitude and distribution of the rise in global mean temperature during that time period and there is no
convincing evidence for significant indirect influences on our climate due to twentieth century changes in solar output.
2. Humans have five times greater impact on climate than does solar output
Robin McKie, Global Warming: The Final Verdict, THE GUARDIAN, 1-22-07,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0122-06.htm, accessed 6-19-12.
Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are 'likely' to occur this century. Its latest report, based on
sophisticated computer models and more detailed observations of snow cover loss, sea level rises and the spread of deserts, is
far more robust and confident. Now the panel writes of changes as 'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'. And in a specific
rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural variation in the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change, the panel says
mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the climate than any fluctuations in solar radiation. We are
the masters of our own destruction, in short. There is some comfort, however. The panel believes the Gulf Stream will go on
bathing Britain with its warm waters for the next 100 years. Some researchers have said it could be disrupted by cold waters
pouring off Greenland's melting ice sheets, plunging western Europe into a mini Ice Age, as depicted in the disaster film The
Day After Tomorrow.
3. Even if solar variability is real, observed warming is driven by greenhouse gas emissions
Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change (SEG), CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE: AVOIDING THE
UNMANAGEABLE AND MANAGING THE UNAVOIDABLE, ed. R.M. Bierbaum, J.P. Holdren, M.C. MacCracken, R.H.
Moss & P. H. Raven, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Sigma Xi & UN Foundation, 2007,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2007/0227segreport.pdf, accessed 6-19-12.
The recent temperature history of the Earth has resulted from a complex interaction of human warming and cooling influences
with natural variability that arises from volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in the amount of energy reaching the Earth from the
Sun, and internal climate-system oscillations associated with energy transfers among atmosphere, oceans, and ice. These
complexities notwithstanding, it is increasingly clear that the dominant influence on the global-average surface temperature
since 1970 has been the warming influence from rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, most importantly
CO2. Worldwide thermometer records with adequate coverage to determine an average surface temperature extend back to
1860, and they yield a mid-range estimate of about 0.75C for the increase between 1860 and 2000.6 For the period prior to
1860, average surface temperatures must be inferred from indirect indicators derived from the study of ice cores, tree rings,
sediments, and the like. A recent review of these temperature reconstructions by the U.S. National Academies suggests that
natural variability was more important than any net effect of human influences in the period from 1750 to 1860 and that, taken
together, the available reconstructions do not show any meaningful difference between the temperature of 1750 and that of
1860 (NRC, 2006). Thus, we may take 0.75C as a reasonable estimate of the temperature increase over the whole period from
1750 to 2000.
22
Mitigatoin Justified: Climate Change Real--Source Indicts

1. Deniers are simply wrongthey do not have a credible argument,, uncertainty also cuts in our
direction
2. Despite continued efforts on the part of a small group of climate skeptics and deniers to mislead, misrepresent, and misuse
the science, our understanding of human-caused climate change continues to strengthen and improve. Here, in a nutshell, is the
best argument against global climate change: There isn't one. There is nothing remotely identified in recent efforts to discredit
climate science that changes these fundamental conclusions about climate change. Every recent independent review supports
the message of my first point. A recent letter from 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences summarizes this
issue and is attached as an addendum to this testimony.1 Climate change deniers have been trying hard to confuse the public
and policy makers about climate change. But their claims about climate science and what we see in the world around us are
based on ideology and bad science, not reality. Those few extreme policy makers and pundits who continue to deny the realities
of climate change often point to "uncertainty" in the observations, models, and climate system itself that make perfect
predictions impossible. Of course, climate scientists also talk about uncertainty all of the time -- it is a characteristic of the
science, not an excuse for politicians to avoid taking action. What those who deny the reality of climate change don't
acknowledge, in an example of selective one-sided argumentation, is that uncertainty cuts both ways. While there is always a
non-zero possibility that climate changes will fall on the less severe end of the scale, there is a comparable possibility that
climate changes will be far worse than we expect, with far more serious consequences to the planet.
2. Peer-reviewed data is overwhelmingly in favor of warmingtheir evidence comes from misguided

media efforts to balance coverage
John Lanchester, contributing editor, Warmer, Warmer, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, 3-2207,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2007/0322warmer.htm, accessed 6-19-12.
This policy has been remarkably effective. While the peer-reviewed science on global warming is overwhelming a 2004
survey in Science showed that of the 928 peer-reviewed papers on the subject, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus
position the balance in the media has been split almost 50-50 between the scientific evidence on the one hand and sceptics
on the other. On Monbiots account, the BBC has recently woken up to the way in which it was fooled by these people, which
is good news if it is true; but the corporation has hitherto been weak-minded about its reporting of climate change. The
ideology of balance has led it to include the other side of a debate which has, among scientists, only one side; a recent
highlight was an appearance by Nigel Lawson on Newsnight, arguing, or arguing, as follows: the whole science is extremely
uncertain that is well known to anybody who has studied it. The problem with balance is partly a problem with the way
science is reported. Balance works, sort of, as a way of discussing politics in a two-party system. (Though it has to be said
that the remorseless polarisation, whereby I say yah because you said boo, is one main reason for the decreased interest in party
politics.) Since the climate debate has been polarised on left-right lines in the US, it has seemed appropriate to the media to
treat it as a polarised issue, one on which there are two schools of thought, which, in respect of the science, it isnt: there is one
school of thought, and a few nutters. (Parenthetically, its not too hard to imagine a world in which the conservative parties
were more in favour of conservation, and environmentalism in general was a cause of the right. David Cameron is clearly
trying to remake this connection in the UK, in the belief that this is the main issue where he can clearly and definitively
distinguish himself from New Labour. The option isnt available to the Republicans, since they abandoned science in favour of
the Christianist right and the environment in favour of Big Oil, which may be one reason why, notwithstanding the shift in the
evidence, a poll of Congressional Republicans found that only 13 per cent of them thought it proven beyond a reasonable
doubt that the earth is warming because of man-made problems.) The way the issue is reported reflects the fact that there are
people who want to believe in global warming, and wanted to do so right from the start, before the evidence had accumulated
to the point where it was no longer an issue of belief. Similarly, there are plenty of people who did not want to believe in manmade global warming, and who are continuing to refuse to believe in it even though the balance of the evidence has changed.
But we cant afford to be distracted from the factual position either by the people who want it to be true or the people who want
it not to be, and there is an urgent requirement in the public arena for the issue to be considered now as one of plain fact.
23
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Temperatures

1. Warming is real--recent temperature trends prove
Bill McKibben, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," ROLLING STONE, 7--19--12,
www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719, accessed 9-6-12.
If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are
some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That
followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of
the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number
considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe. Meteorologists reported that this spring was the warmest ever
recorded for our nation in fact, it crushed the old record by so much that it represented the "largest temperature departure
from average of any season on record." The same week, Saudi authorities reported that it had rained in Mecca despite a
temperature of 109 degrees, the hottest downpour in the planet's history.
2. Warming is proven by temperature record--will cause massive damage

William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor, Economics, Yale University, "World Warms Up for Real," KHALEEJ TIMES, 4--9-12, www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=/data/opinion/2012/April/opinion_April34.xml&section=opinion,
accessed 4-9-12.
One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly
volatile. The presence of short-term volatility requires looking at long-term trends. A useful analogy is the stock market.
Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade, which is true, it follows that theres
no upward trend. Here again, an examination of the long-term data quickly shows this to be incorrect. The last decade of
temperature and stock market data are not representative of longer-term trends. The finding that global temperatures are rising
over the last century-plus is among the most robust findings of climate science and statistics. The question here is whether
emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will cause net damages, now and in the future. This question has been studied
extensively. The most recent thorough survey by the leading scholar in this field, Richard Tol, finds a wide range of damages,
particularly if warming is greater than two degrees Centigrade. Major areas of concern are sea-level rise, more intense
hurricanes, losses of species and ecosystems, acidification of the oceans, as well as threats to the natural and cultural heritage
of the planet.
3. The rate of temperature increase is accelerating

Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Global Thermometer Still Climbing, Climate Science Update, 110,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-thermometer-still-climbing.html, accessed 3-2312.
It is clear that the Earths climate is changing, largely due to human activity. Over the last 25 years, Earths global average
temperature has been increasing at more than twice the rate of the last century. In fact, nine of the warmest years on record
have occurred in just the last 10 years.[1], [2] This warming has been accompanied by a decrease in very cold days and nights
and an increase in extremely hot days and warm nights. Additionally, the oceans reached their highest recorded temperature in
the summer of 2009. Oceans have absorbed much more heat from global warming than the air at the Earths surface because
water is much better at retaining heat.
4. Warming is real-spike in record high temperatures

Daniel G. Huber and Jay Gulledge, PhD, Extreme Weather & Climate Change: Understanding the Link and Managing the
Risk, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 1211, p. 4.
Record daytime and nighttime high temperatures have been increasing on a global scale. In the United States today, a record
high temperature is twice as likely to be broken as a record low, and nighttime temperature records show a strong upward trend
(Fig. 2). By contrast, record highs and lows were about equally likely in the 1950s (Fig. 3). This trend shows that the risk of
heat waves is increasing over time, consistent with the results of global climate models that are forced by rising atmospheric
greenhouse gas concentrations.35 Indeed, the observed heat wave intensities in the early 21st century already exceed the worstcase projections of climate models. Moreover, the distribution of observed temperatures is wider than the temperature range
produced by climate models, suggesting that models may underestimate the rising risk extreme heat as warming proceeds.
24
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Answers to "Uncertainty"

1. Benefits of action are enormous (green jobs, better environment) even if warming turns out to be false
Just think about it: If the proponents of action were somehow incorrect, contrary to all that science declares, but nevertheless we
proceeded to reduce carbon and other gases released into the atmosphere, what is the worst that would happen? Well, under that
scenario the "worst" will be more jobs; the opening of a whole new $6 trillion dollar energy market with a more sustainable policy; a
healthier population because of cleaner air and reduced expenditure on health care because of environmentally induced disease; an
improved outlook for the oceans and ecosystems affected by pollution falling to earth and sea; and surely, greater security for our
country because of less dependence on foreign sources of energy and a stronger economy. That's the worst that will happen.
2. Uncertainty is a reason to actclimate change might be worse than we expect

Emissions Through Emissions Trading, TULANE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW JOURNAL v. 17, Summer 2004, p. 297-298.
Nevertheless, there are several reasons why the prudent position is to pursue some preventative measures now. Uncertainties can cut
both ways. They can result in even greater, more devastating impacts. Climate change may not be linear, gradual, and manageable.
There may be climate tipping points where the next increment of climate change produces dramatic, nonlinear, disruptive,
unforeseeable, and unmanageable results. Recent studies, some of which have been commissioned by the George W. Bush
administration, including the National Academy of Science's Committee on the Science of Climate Change, which issued a report in
2001 that generally endorsed the main conclusions of the UN-sponsored research on climate change, and a December 2001 National
Academy of Sciences report that concluded that climate changes could occur with startling speed, provide compelling cases for
precautionary action. Reducing the threat of climate change can also produce other economic, environmental, and equity benefits.
Pollution prevention measures make economic sense, and investments in energy efficiency, conservation, cleaner fuels, and other
actions that reduce wastes contribute to a dynamic, growing, efficient, and ecologically sustainable economy independent of climate
stabilization goals.
3. Claims of uncertainty do not de-justify actionwe are certain that warming is happening and acting
now will help mitigate the worst impacts
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Certainty vs. Uncertainty, 62110,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/certainty-vs-uncertainty.html, accessed 3-23-12.
Uncertainty is ubiquitous in our daily lives. We are uncertain about where to go to college, when and if to get married, who will play
in the World Series, and so on. To most of us, uncertainty means not knowing. To scientists, however, uncertainty is how well
something is known. And, therein lies an important difference, especially when trying to understand what is known about climate
change. In science, there's often not absolute certainty. But, research reduces uncertainty. In many cases, theories have been tested
and analyzed and examined so thoroughly that their chance of being wrong is infinitesimal. Other times, uncertainties linger despite
lengthy research. In those cases, scientists make it their job to explain how well something is known. When gaps in knowledge exist,
scientists qualify the evidence to ensure others don't form conclusions that go beyond what is known. Even though it may seem
counterintuitive, scientists like to point out the level of uncertainty. Why? Because they want to be as transparent as possible and it
shows how well certain phenomena are understood. Decision makers in our society use scientific input all the time. But they could
make a critically wrong choice if the unknowns aren't taken into account. For instance, city planners could build a levee too low or not
evacuate enough coastal communities along an expected landfall zone of a hurricane if uncertainty is understated. For these reasons,
uncertainty plays a key role in informing public policy. Taking into account the many sources of scientific understanding, climate
scientists have sought to provide decision-makers with careful language regarding uncertainty. A "very likely" outcome, for example,
is one that has a greater than 90 percent chance of occurring. Climate data or model projections in which we have "very high
confidence" have at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct. However, in this culture of transparency where climate scientists
describe degrees of certainty and confidence in their findings, climate change deniers have linked less than complete certainty with not
knowing anything. The truth is, scientists know a great deal about climate change. We have learned, for example, that the burning of
fossil fuels and the clearing of forests release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. There is no uncertainty about this. We have
learned that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat through the greenhouse effect. Again, there is no
uncertainty about this. Earth is warming because these gasses are being released faster than they can be absorbed by natural processes.
It is very likely (greater than 90 percent probability) that human activities are the main reason for the world's temperature increase in
the past 50 years. Scientists know with very high confidence, or even greater certainty, that: * Human-induced warming influences
physical and biological systems throughout the world * Sea levels are rising * Glaciers and permafrost are shrinking * Oceans are
becoming more acidic * Ranges of plants and animals are shifting Scientists are uncertain, however, about how much global warming
will occur in the future (between 2.1 degrees and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100). They are also uncertain how soon the summer sea
ice habitat where the ringed seal lives will disappear. Curiously, much of this uncertainty has to do withare you ready?humans.
The choices we make in the next decade, or so, to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gasses could prevent catastrophic climate change.
So, what's the bottom line? Science has learned much about climate change. Science tells us what is more or less likely to be true. We
know that acting now to deeply reduce heat-trapping emissions will limit the scope and severity of further impacts and that is
virtually certain.
25
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Agriculture

1. Warming-induced decrease in food production risks civilizational collapse
Ironically, the two countries that are planning to build most of the new coal-fired power plants, China and India, are precisely
the ones whose food security is most massively threatened by the carbon emitted from burning coal. It is now in their interest to
try and save their mountain glaciers by quickly shifting energy investment from coal-fired power plants into energy efficiency,
wind farms, solar thermal power plants, and geothermal power plants.40 We know from studying earlier civilizations that
declined and collapsed that shrinking harvests often were responsible. For the Sumerians, it was rising salt concentrations in the
soil that lowered wheat and barley yields and eventually brought down this remarkable early civilization. For us, it is rising
carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere that are raising the global temperature, which ultimately could shrink grain
harvests and bring down our global civilization.
2. Rising temperatures undermine food securitythreaten agricultural output

The effects of high temperatures on food security are scary. Agriculture as it exists today has evolved over 11,000 years of
rather remarkable climate stability. As a result, world agriculture has evolved to maximize productivity within this climatic
regime. With the earths climate changing, agriculture will increasingly be out of sync with the climate system that shaped it.
When temperatures soar during the growing season, grain yields fall. Crop ecologists use a rule of thumb that for each 1degree-Celsius rise in temperature above the optimum during the growing season, we can expect a 10- percent decline in grain
yields.9 Among other things, temperature affects photosynthesis. In a study of local ecosystem sustainability, Mohan Wali and
his colleagues at Ohio State University noted that as temperature rises, photosynthetic activity in plants increases until the
temperature reaches 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The rate of photosynthesis then plateaus until the temperature hits 95 degrees,
whereupon it begins to decline. At 104 degrees, photosynthesis ceases entirely.
3. High temps undermine food productionthreaten pollination of vital crops

Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, WORLD ON EDGE, 2011, p. 47-48.
The most vulnerable part of a plants life cycle is the pollination period. Of the worlds three food staples rice, wheat, and
corncorn is particularly vulnerable to heat stress. In order for corn to reproduce, pollen must fall from the tassel to the strands
of silk that emerge from the end of each ear of corn. Each of these silk strands is attached to a kernel site on the cob. If the
kernel is to develop, a grain of pollen must fall on the silk strand and then journey to the kernel site. When temperatures are
uncommonly high, the silk strands quickly dry out and turn brown, unable to play their role in the fertilization process. The
effects of temperature on rice pollination have been studied in detail in the Philippines. Scientists there report that the
pollination of rice falls from 100 percent at 93 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly zero at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to crop
failure.11
4. Warming is causing a global food crisismust act now to solve

Office of Senator Bob Casey, Casey Introduces Resolution Urging the Senate to Acknowledge Global Warming Contributes
to Global Food Crisis, CONGRESSIONAL DOCUMENTS AND PUBLICATIONS, 6-5-08, lexis.
As the United States Senate debates the global warming bill, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) today introduced an amendment
to the bill to urge the Senate to acknowledge that reduced crop harvests and resulting food shortages are another potential
impact of global warming. The shortage of crops and increased costs of staples like wheat and rice are causing food riots and
civil unrest in some countries around the world. "The longer we wait to address the problem of global warming, the more
severe floods and drought conditions become that can threaten crop harvests around the world," said Senator Casey. "This
global food crisis has left millions hungry. We must act now to stop the effects of global warming; not only is this a
humanitarian crisis, it is a threat to our national security." Senator Casey has been an early and strong supporter of the effort to
address the critical problem of global warming. He has also focused on the national security implications of global warming as
well as the new opportunities and jobs that can be created by new "green" technologies. Global warming is predicted to
increase malnutrition as well as the number of people affected by heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts. The resolution
urges the United States to address the serious issue of global warming in a timely manner because of the harmful impacts
global warming can have on global crop harvests and resulting food security crises. In May, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) released a report acknowledging the impact that global warming could have on crop disasters.
26
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Agriculture [contd]

5. Warming causes a linear drop in grain production--10% for ever 1c of warming
The Military Advisory Board, NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE, CNA Corporation, 2007, p.
15.
Access to vital resources, primarily food and water, can be an additional causative factor of conflicts, a number of which are playing
out today in Africa. Probably the best known is the conflict in Darfur between herders and farmers. Long periods of drought resulted
in the loss of both farmland and grazing land to the desert. The failure of their grazing lands compelled the nomads to migrate
southward in search of water and herding ground, and that in turn led to conflict with the farming tribes occupying those lands.
Coupled with population growth, tribal, ethnic, and religious differences, the competition for land turned violent. Probably more than
any other recent conflict, Darfur provides a case study of how existing marginal situations can be exacerbated beyond the tipping point
by climate-related factors. It also shows how lack of essential resources threatens not only individuals and their communities but also
the region and the international community at large. Worldwide food production will be affected by climate change in a variety of
ways. Crop ecologists estimate that for every 1.8F rise in temperature above historical norms, grain production will drop 10 percent.
Most of the worlds growth in food demand is occurring on the Indian subcontinent and in sub-Saharan Africa, areas already facing
food shortages. Over the coming decades, these areas are expected to become hotter and drier
6. Climate change will prevent us from feeding a growing population, risking environmental decay and
conflict
Ian Sample, journalist, Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Population Growth Strip Fertile Land, GUARDIAN, 831-07, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45332.html, accessed 9-4-12.
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile
land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday. To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will
have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said. But in
many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade
soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing. Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and
environmental destruction, the scientists fear. The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed
forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme
poverty by 2015. The researchers will use the meeting to call on countries to impose strict farming guidelines to ensure that soils are
not degraded so badly they cannot recover. "Policy changes that result in improved conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration
of degraded land are fundamental to humanity's future livelihood," said Zafar Adeel, director of the international network on water,
environment and health at the UN University in Toronto and co-organiser of the meeting. "This is an urgent task as the quality of land
for food production, as well as water storage, is fundamental to future peace. Securing food and reducing poverty ... can have a strong
impact on efforts to curb the flow of people, environmental refugees, inside countries as well as across national borders," he added.
7. Warming empirically decreases cereal (wheat and corn) productionnew research proves
Steven Connor, Worlds Most Important Crops Hit by Global Warming Effects, THE INDEPENDENT, 3-19-07,
Global warming over the past quarter century has led to a fall in the yield of some of the most important food crops in the world,
according to one of the first scientific studies of how climate change has affected cereal crops. Rising temperatures between 1981 and
2002 caused a loss in production of wheat, corn and barley that amounted in effect to some 40 million tons a year - equivalent to
annual losses of some 2.6bn. Although these numbers are not large compared to the world-wide production of cereal crops, scientists
warned that the findings demonstrated how climate change was already having an impact on the global production of staple foods.
"Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future, but this study shows that warming over the past
two decades has already had real effects on global food supply," said Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford,
California. The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analysed yields of cereals from around the world
during a period when average temperatures rose by about 0.7C between 1980 and 2002 - although the rise was even higher in certain
crop-growing regions of the world. There was a clear trend, showing the cereal crops were suffering from lower yields during a time
when agricultural technology, including the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, became more intensive. The study's co-author,
David Lobell of America's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said that the observed fall in cereal yields could be
clearly linked with increased temperatures during the period covered by the study. "Though the impacts are relatively small compared
to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate that negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at
the global scale are already occurring," Dr Lobell said. The two scientists analysed six of the most widely grown crops in the world wheat, rice, maize, soybeans, barley and sorghum. Production of these crops accounts for more than 40 per cent of the land in the
world used for crops, 55 per cent of the non-meat calories in food and more than 70 per cent of animal feed. They also analysed
rainfall and average temperatures for the major growing regions and compared them against the crop yield figures of the Food and
Agriculture Organisation for the period 1961 to 2002. "To do this, we assumed that farmers have not yet adapted to climate change,
for example by selecting new crop varieties to deal with climate change," Dr Lobell said. "If they have been adapting, something that
is very difficult to measure, then the effects of warming may have been lower," he said. The study revealed a simple relationship
between temperature and crop yields, with a fall of between 3 and 5 per cent for every 0.5C increase in average temperatures, the
scientists said.
27
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Biodiversity

1. Warming is the over-riding threat to biodiversity--risks impoverishing the biosphere
Biodiversity is affected by many agents including overharvesting, introduction of exotic species, land use changes, nitrogen
fertilization, and direct effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on plant ecophysiology (17). However, easily discernible effects
on animals, plants, and insects arising from rapid global warming in the past three decades have exposed the overriding role of
climate change. A sudden widespread decline of frogs, with extinction of entire mountain-restricted species attributed to
global warming (81, 82), provided a dramatic awakening. There are multiple causes of the detailed processes involved in
global amphibian declines and extinctions (83, 84), but there is agreement that global warming is a key contributor and
portends a planetary-scale mass extinction in the making unless humanity takes prompt action to stabilize climate while also
fighting biodiversity's other threats (85). Mountain-restricted and polar-restricted species are particularly vulnerable. As
isotherms move up the mountainside and poleward, so does the climate zone in which a given species can survive. If global
warming continues unabated, many of these species will be effectively pushed off the planet. There are already reductions in
the population and health of Arctic species in the southern parts of the Arctic, Antarctic species in the northern parts of the
Antarctic, and alpine species worldwide (17). A critical factor for survival of some Arctic species is retention of all-year sea
ice. Continued growth of fossil fuel emissions will cause loss of all Arctic summer sea ice within several decades. In
contrast, the scenario in Fig.5a, with global warming peaking just over 1C and then declining slowly, should allow summer
sea ice to survive and then gradually increase to levels representative of recent decades. The threat to species survival is not
limited to mountain and polar species. Plant and animal distributions are a reflection of the regional climates to which they are
adapted. Although species attempt to migrate in response to climate change, their paths may be blocked by humanconstructed
obstacles or natural barriers such as coast lines. As the shift of climate zones becomes comparable to the range of some
species, less mobile species can be driven to extinction. Because of extensive species interdependencies, this can lead to mass
extinctions. IPCC (74) reviewed studies relevant to estimating eventual extinctions. They estimate that if global warming
exceeds 1.6C above preindustrial, 9-31 percent of species will be committed to extinction. With global warming of 2.9C, an
estimated 21-52 percent of species will be committed to extinction. Mass extinctions occurred several times in Earth's history
(86), often in conjunction with rapid climate change. New species evolved over millions of years, but those time scales are
almost beyond human comprehension. If we drive many species to extinction we will leave a more desolate planet for our
children, grandchildren, and more generations than we can imagine.
2. Climate change crushes biodiversity

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), THE ENERGY REPORT: 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY BY 2050, 2011, p. 20.
Climate change threatens to undo everything that conservation organizations like WWF have achieved over the last halfcentury. Polar bears may make the headlines, but in reality very few species will be unaffected by a changing climate. Many
species could become extinct. Even entire ecosystems such as coral reefs, mountain habitats, and large blocks of tropical
rainforests such as the Amazon could completely disappear. Many plants and animals that have adapted to their environment
over millions of years are vulnerable to even slight changes in temperature and rainfall. Warming and acidifying seas threaten
coral reefs and krill the basis of the marine food chain in many parts of the world. Large mammals like whales and elephants
may be forced to travel further in search of food, leaving the safety of the protected areas that WWF and others have fought so
hard to secure. As part of the interwoven web of life, humans will not be immune to the consequences of a changing climate.
3. Rapid warming risks extinction--species loss, inability to adapt

Louise Gray, "Climate Change Could Happen Must Faster than Previously Thought," THE TELEGRAPH, 1--14--11,
www.countercurrents.org/gray140111.htm, accessed 6-19-12.
Humans are in danger of making large parts of the Earth uninhabitable for thousands of years because of man made climate
change, according to new evidence based on geological records. The US study predicted that if society continues burning
fossil fuels at the current rate, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could rise from the current level of 390 parts per million
(ppm) to 1,000 by the end of this century. The last time the world had such high levels of carbon dioxide temperatures were on
average 29F(16C) above pre-industrial levels. Evidence has been found of crocodiles and palm trees at the Poles and only small
mammals were able to survive. Jeffrey Kiehl, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), who carried out the
study, said the Earth could return to such temperatures over hundreds or even thousands of years. But unlike last time, when it
happened over millions of years, temperatures will rise too fast for species to adapt and change. In the short term he said
temperatures could rise by more than 10.8F (6C) by the end of the century, which will also wipe out species. "This is
happening at such a rate how will species, including humans, respond? The implications for the biosphere is of great concern."
28
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Biodiversity [contd]

4. Warming causes species lossprocess has already begun
Seth Borenstein, Pace of Global Warming Causes Alarm, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11-21-06,
Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of
hundreds of research studies contends. These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists
because they are occurring so rapidly. At least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape
the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other
cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears, are in deep trouble. "We are finally seeing species going
extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's
real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening." Her review of 866 scientific studies is summed up in the
journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. Parmesan reports seeing trends of animal populations moving
northward if they can, of species adapting slightly because of climate change, of plants blooming earlier, and of an increase in
pests and parasites. Parmesan and others have been predicting such changes for years, but even she was surprised to find
evidence that it's already happening; she expected it would be another decade away. Just five years ago biologists, though not
complacent, believed the harmful biological effects of global warming were much farther down the road, said Douglas
Futuyma, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. "I feel as though we are
staring crisis in the face," Futuyma said. "It's not just down the road somewhere. It is just hurtling toward us. Anyone who is 10
years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time that they are 50 or 60."
5. Warming will overwhelm ecosystem resiliency, threatening many species

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary for Policymakers, CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: IMPACTS,
ADAPTATION AND VULNERABILITY. CONTRIBUTION OF WORKNG GROUP II TO THE FOURTH ASSESSMENT
REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, ed. M.L. Parry et al., 2007, p. 11.
The resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this century by an unprecedented combination of climate change,
associated disturbances (e.g., flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification), and other global change drivers (e.g.,
landuse change, pollution, over-exploitation of resources). ** N [4.1 to 4.6] Over the course of this century, net carbon uptake
by terrestrial ecosystems is likely to peak before mid-century and then weaken or even reverse,11 thus amplifying climate
change. ** N [4.ES, F4.2] Approximately 20-30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk
of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C. * N [4.4, T4.1] For increases in global average
temperature exceeding 1.5-2.5C and in concomitant atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, there are projected to be
major changes in ecosystem structure and function, species ecological interactions, and species geographical ranges, with
predominantly negative consequences for biodiversity, and ecosystem goods and services e.g., water and food supply. ** N
[4.4] The progressive acidification of oceans due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is expected to have negative
impacts on marine shell-forming organisms (e.g., corals) and their dependent species. *
6. Warming may cause extinction of half of all species

Alok Jha, journalist, Warming Could Wipe Out Half of All Species, GUARDIAN, 10-24-07,
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/24/4782/, accessed 9-4-12.
Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a
study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the worlds species could be wiped out. Scientists at the
University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m
years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earths
temperatures are in a greenhouse climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during
cooler icehouse conditions, biodiversity increased. The results, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earths temperature due to man-made climate change could have a similar
effect on biodiversity. Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist at the University of York and one of the authors of the research
paper, said: Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil
record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with
the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase.
29
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Coral

1. Coral is vulnerable to warming and acidification--key to biodiversity
Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem, often described as the rainforests of the ocean. Over a million
species, most not yet described (87), are estimated to populate coral reef ecosystems generating crucial ecosystem services for
at least 500 million people in tropical coastal areas. These ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the combined effects of ocean
acidification and warming. Acidification arises as the ocean absorbs CO2, producing carbonic acid (88). Geochemical
records show that ocean pH is already outside its range of the past several million years (89, 90). Warming causes coral
bleaching, as overheated coral expel symbiotic algae and become vulnerable to disease and mortality (91). Coral bleaching
and slowing of coral calcification already are causing mass mortalities, increased coral disease, and reduced reef carbonate
accretion, thus disrupting coral reef ecosystem health (14, 92). Local human-made stresses add to the global warming and
acidification effects, all of these driving a contraction of 1-2% per year in the abundance of reef-building corals (13). Loss of
the three-dimensional coral reef frameworks has consequences for the millions of species that depend on them. Loss of these
frameworks also has consequences for the important roles that coral reefs play in supporting fisheries and protecting coastlines
from wave stress. Consequences of lost coral reefs can be economically devastating for many nations, especially in
combination with other impacts such as sea level rise and intensification of storms.
2. Warming threatens coral with extinctionrecent government report proves

Allison Winter, Corals Risk Extinction Due to Climate Change NOAA, GREENWIRE, 41612, lexis.
More than 50 coral species in U.S. waters are likely to go extinct by 2100 if policy and technology remain the same, according
to a new report from federal scientists. Ocean warming, disease and ocean acidification are the most significant threats posing
extinction risks, the experts conclude in a new "status review" of 82 coral species the government is considering for protection
under the Endangered Species Act. The scientists put human-driven climate change squarely at the center: The experts cite
anthropogenic releases of carbon dioxide as a key driver of oceans warming and absorbing more carbon dioxide, which makes
waters more acidic. "The combined direct and indirect effects of rising temperature, including increased incidence of disease
and ocean acidification, both resulting primarily from anthropogenic increases in atmospheric CO2, are likely to represent the
greatest risks of extinction to all or most of the candidate coral species over the next century," the report from the National
Marine Fisheries Service says. Seven federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National
Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey worked on the report, which also underwent independent peer review. The "status
review" is part of the federal government's process to determine whether the 82 coral species merit protection under the
Endangered Species Act. Federal officials expect to make a decision by the end of this year, according to NOAA. The
government does not usually release such reports while considering a listing, but NOAA officials said they wanted to share it
as part of the "engagement process" so the agency's decisionmaking would be more transparent and open. Of the species under
review, 46 are "more likely than not" to face extinction by 2100, while 10 are "likely," the report states. But the authors also
note that "the overall uncertainty was high" in their predictions, given limited science on corals and uncertainty how they might
adapt. The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the government in 2009 to protect 83 coral species it considered in
jeopardy. Last year, NMFS said it would consider protections for all but one of the species. It is the only large, multiple-species
listing under NMFS review, and the agency describes it as "the most complex ESA listing process NOAA Fisheries has ever
undertaken."
3. Warming destroys coral reefs--bleaching

There is almost total consensus among experts that the earths climate is changing as a result of the build-up of greenhouse
gases. The IPCC (involving over 3,000 of the worlds experts) has come out with clear conclusions as to the reality of this
phenomenon. One does not have to look further than the collective academy of scientists worldwide to see the string (of)
statements on this worrying change to the earths atmosphere. There is broad scientific consensus that coral reefs are heavily
affected by the activities of man and there are significant global influences that can make reefs more vulnerable such as global
warming...It is highly likely that coral bleaching has been exacerbated by global warming.
30
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Drought

1. Warming will turn one-third of the planet into desert
Michael McCarthy, journalist, The Century of Drought, INDEPENDENT, 10-4-06,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45270.html, accessed 9-4-12.
One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100, say climate experts in the most dire warning yet of the effects of global
warming Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century
because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain's leading climate scientists. Extreme drought, in which
agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the planet, according to the study from the Met Office's Hadley
Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. It is one of the most dire forecasts so far of the potential effects of rising
temperatures around the world - yet it may be an underestimation, the scientists involved said yesterday. The findings, released
at the Climate Clinic at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, drew astonished and dismayed reactions from aid
agencies and development specialists, who fear that the poor of developing countries will be worst hit. "This is genuinely
terrifying," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid. "It is a death sentence for many millions of people. It will mean migration
off the land at levels we have not seen before, and at levels poor countries cannot cope with."
2. Warming will make drought more severe, threatening millions of people

One of Britain's leading experts on the effects of climate change on the developing countries, Andrew Simms from the New
Economics Foundation, said: "There's almost no aspect of life in the developing countries that these predictions don't
undermine - the ability to grow food, the ability to have a safe sanitation system, the availability of water. For hundreds of
millions of people for whom getting through the day is already a struggle, this is going to push them over the precipice." The
findings represent the first time that the threat of increased drought from climate change has been quantified with a
supercomputer climate model such as the one operated by the Hadley Centre. Their impact is likely to even greater because the
findings may be an underestimate. The study did not include potential effects on drought from global-warming-induced
changes to the Earth's carbon cycle. In one unpublished Met Office study, when the carbon cycle effects are included, future
drought is even worse. The results are regarded as most valid at the global level, but the clear implication is that the parts of
the world already stricken by drought, such as Africa, will be the places where the projected increase will have the most severe
effects. The study, by Eleanor Burke and two Hadley Centre colleagues, models how a measure of drought known as the
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) is likely to increase globally during the coming century with predicted changes in
rainfall and heat around the world because of climate change. It shows the PDSI figure for moderate drought, currently at 25
per cent of the Earth's surface, rising to 50 per cent by 2100, the figure for severe drought, currently at about 8 per cent, rising
to 40 cent, and the figure for extreme drought, currently 3 per cent, rising to 30 per cent.
3. Models prove that warming will increase frequency and intensity of droughts
German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), WORLD IN TRANSITIONCLIMATE CHANGE AS A
SECURITY RISK, Earthscan, London, 1--08, p. 59.
With regard to precipitation, it is not just annual or seasonal amounts that are of concern, but also extreme weather events such
as periods of drought and unusually intense rainfall. Both the data and the model calculations reveal a trend where an
increasing share of annual rainfall is concentrated in such intense precipitation events (in other words occurring over a few
days), accompanied by a simultaneous increase in the duration of periods without rainfall. This tendency increases both the risk
of floods and the frequency of periods of drought. Based on one model scenario, Figure 5.1-5 shows the regions where a major
increase in the risk of drought due to longer periods of dry weather is likely. Again, the regions most implicated in this are the
Mediterranean area, southern Africa and Brazil, where drought also extends into the Amazon region. Another aspect of the
drought is revealed (based on another model) by the projected dynamics of the climatic water balance (Fig. 5.1-6.). In most
continental regions, even in areas where precipitation increases in absolute terms, the climatic water balance declines. There is
thus less water available for human use, because the increase in evaporation exceeds the increase in precipitation.
31
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Economy

1. Warming risks devastating the economymultiple studies prove
The fact is, unmitigated climate change is wreaking havoc on economies--and it will only get worse unless we act. Just ask
Professor Frank Ackerman, a prominent economist at Tufts University. He found that inaction in the face of climate change
could cost the American economy more than 3.6 percent of GDP--or $3.8 trillion annually--by the end of the century. And he's
not alone. Harvard economist Joseph Aldy estimates that if temperatures push past the 2 degrees Celsius benchmark to 2.5
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the annual damages could amount to one to two percent of world GDP by 2100-and as high as two to four percent of world GDP if we push above four degrees Celsius. Developing countries will face similar
costs. According to a major international initiative on "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity," developing countries
will spend an estimated $70 to $100 billion a year from 2010 to 2050 just to adapt to a two degrees Celsius change in global
temperatures, with the majority spent on protecting infrastructure and coastal zones, managing the water supply and protecting
against the effects of floods. The "grow now, clean later" approach is no longer viable--if it ever was. Before you know it, one
quarter of the world's land surface will bear the marks of soil erosion, salinization, nutrient depletion and desertification.
Imagine what this will do to agricultural productivity and water supplies. Another way of looking at this is to consider not the
costs, but the economic benefits of keeping our ecosystems intact. Back in 2005, the World Bank estimated the total value of
the world's natural assets to be $44 trillion. The countries that manage their forests, agricultural lands, energy and minerals and
other natural assets well will be economic leaders in the 21st century. They'll be able to reap the benefits of ecosystem services
like coral reefs, which provide
2. Warming undermines global economic developmentdestruction of capital, loss of workers, risking

economic crisis
German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), WORLD IN TRANSITIONCLIMATE CHANGE AS A SECURITY
RISK, Earthscan, London, 1--08, p. 170-171.
Climate change alters the conditions for regional production processes and supply infrastructures, e.g. by causing regional water
scarcity or variability in water availability (Section 6.2), drought and declining soil productivity (Section 6.3), or storms and flooding
of coastal locations and infrastructures (Section 6.4). These climate impacts force companies to relocate, either spontaneously or at
best on a planned basis, and lead to the closure of production sites. People abandon their home regions in coastal or arid regions
because under the changed climatic conditions, they no longer have adequate employment and income generation opportunities, or
perhaps even because their previous living and working environment has become hostile to life (Section 6.5). Climate change thus
leads to the destruction and devaluation of economic capital as well as the loss of skilled and productive workers through
environmentally induced migration and an increase in climate- induced diseases and malnutrition. Furthermore, economic resources
which would normally be channeled directly into the production process instead have to be spent on adaptation measures, e.g.
preparing for extreme events, or on reconstruction or the delivery of additional health services. The impairment of international trade
routes as a result of changed climatic conditions may also mean that the benefits and growth stimuli resulting from the ongoing
international division of labour are capitalized on to a lesser extent. The impacts outlined above contribute each according to their
form and intensity to a slowing of economic growth processes and/or the stagnation of or even a drop in the affected countries gross
domestic product (GDP). These negative economic impacts may initially be offset in some regions by the limited economic benefits of
changed climatic conditions, such as more moderate temperatures and increased precipitation, which could prove advantageous for
some sectors of agriculture, for example. Technological innovations could also reduce the economic pressure of adaptation and
stimulate growth. From a global perspective, however, these regionally limited effects will not compensate for the overall negative
trend. Rather, the drops in growth and prosperity are likely to be very substantial if climate change continues unabated and causes
greatly intensified climate impacts. In terms of the range of economic impacts, which may even include global economic crisis (Stern,
2006), a key factor is the importance of the worst affected regions in global economic relations. It is notable that the developing
countries would bear the main burden of the impacts of climate change, yet play a relatively insignificant role in the global economy.
However, the major newly industrializing countries such as China and India will become ever more important economic players in the
coming decades, also as trade partners for the export-oriented industrialized countries (Section 4.3.2; Goldman Sachs, 2003) and
these countries are highly exposed to the threat of major climate impacts (Chapter 5 and Sections 7.4, 7.6, 7.7 and 7.10). Significant
impairment of the global economy is therefore a distinct possibility. Another factor of relevance in terms of avoiding global economic
crisis is the level at which stabilization of the concentration of greenhouse gases can be achieved and therefore which climate
impacts are likely to be felt in the global economy. According to Stern (2006), inaction in climate policy and the consequent unabated
climate change would put global GDP on a far lower development pathway, costing between 5 per cent and 20 per cent of annual
global GDP now and into the future, compared with a hypothetical development pathway without climate impacts (Kemfert and
Schumacher, 2005; Stern, 2006). Even though comparisons with the world economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s (Stern, 2006)
appear overstated, it is nonetheless the case that any inaction or delay in pursuing resolute and ambitious climate protection policies
will jeopardize the growth prospects of the newly industrializing/developing countries and the industrialized countries alike. This in
turn will steadily reduce the economic scope for action at both national and international level on urgent challenges such as poverty
reduction, demographic change, control of major diseases, growing energy and resource scarcity, and environmental protection.
32
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Economy [contd]

3. Even modest warming will substantially cut global GDP
Estimations of the overall economic costs of climate change vary considerably depending on the assumptions regarding the
future and the methodological parameters used (e.g. climate sensitivity, discount rate and regional aggregation). Most models
nevertheless come to the conclusion that an increase of just a few degrees Celsius could result in a global loss of welfare in the
order of several per cent of global GDP (IPCC, 2007b).
4. Climate change will decreases global economic growthmultiple mechanisms

Risks for global economic development: Climate change will alter the conditions for regional production processes and supply
infrastructures. Regional water scarcity will impede the development of irrigated agriculture and other water-intensive sectors.
Drought and soil degradation will result in a drop in agricultural yields. More frequent extreme events such as storms and
flooding put industrial sites and the transport, supply and production infrastructures in coastal regions at risk, forcing
companies to relocate or close production sites. Depending on the type and intensity of the climate impacts, this could have a
significant and adverse effect on the global economy. Unabated climate change is likely to result in substantially reduced rates
of growth. This will increasingly limit the economic scope, at national and international level, to address the urgent challenges
associated with the Millennium Development Goals.
5. Failure to act on warming will destroy our economy

BOSTON GLOBE, staff editorial, Getting Warmer on Emissions, 6-2-08, p. A14.
Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, lent his name to the bill
because he sees the threat to national security posed by the failure to address global warming. Others value the support the bill
would provide to restore and protect natural resources threatened by climate change. That is the strength of this bill and
Markey's - both take a broad-based approach to the challenge that climate change presents to this country and the world. "If
you don't take action on climate change," former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has said, "you can be sure that our
economies will go down the drain in the next 30 years." Three years ago, the Senate rejected a weaker global warming bill on
the grounds, in part, that it might cause gasoline and utility prices to climb. Since then, the costs of both have skyrocketed, and
the country is no closer to making a substantial shift away from fossil fuels. Passage of this bill with a filibuster-proof majority
would start that historic change.
6. Failure to act on warming risks enormous economic losses

Bob Keefe, journalist, Heated Debate Likely Over Bill to Cut Carbon, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6-1-08, p.
5F.
Proponents say that if the United States doesn't quickly curb greenhouse gas emissions, the economic impact could be even
worse. "We still have the opportunity to avoid damage [from global warming], but our window of opportunity is running out,"
said Dan Lashof, global warming specialist at the environmental group National Resources Defense Council. "What we need is
a comprehensive national [strategy]." In its own study, the NRDC predicts real estate losses, higher energy and water costs and
other global warming-related problems could result in $3.8 trillion in economic losses by the end of the century if the
Lieberman-Warner legislation isn't passed.
33
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Environment

1. Warming risks massive ecosystem damageevidence from previous die-offs proves
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES NEWS, The Relationship between Extreme Global Warming and Earth's Past Mass
Extinction Events, 112211, lexis.
Climate scientists study the underlying causes behind previous mass extinction events to gain a better understanding of what
may happen due to existing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and rising global temperatures. It's been speculated that if all
fossil fuels are burned up until the 22nd century, global temperatures will rise by as much as 10 degree Celsius. If that happens,
it would be similar to what occurred during the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event in the Cenozoic era.
During the PETM event, Earth's surface temperature rose by around 6 to 8 degree Celsius. The rise in temperature led to
permanent, irreparable changes in the world's ecosystems. For example, the PETM event caused the mass extinction of seabased protozoa known as benthic foraminifera. Although certain land-based mammal species were also wiped out, in their
place new mammal species appeared (like primates and horses). There are several possibilities being studied as to what caused
the PETM event. These include volcanic eruptions on a massive global scale, a forced increase in temperature due to Earth's
orbit, an abrupt release of methane gas into the atmosphere and deep ocean heat circulation. Another extreme global warming
event that occurred during the Cambrian period has been coined "hyperwarming" by Dr. Ed Landing, a state paleontologist and
paleontology curator at the New York State Museum. Evidence points to an explosion that occurred in the Cambrian period,
which led to a rapid rate of evolution and mass extinction of several species. "By process of elimination, primary causes of
mass extinctions are linked in various ways to the carbon cycle in general and ocean chemistry in particular with clear
association with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels," revealed a study entitled "Mass extinctions and ocean acidification:
biological constraints on geological dilemmas" by J. E. N. Veron. On a similar note, "... the higher the level, the greater the risk
that a vicious circle of global warming could be unleashed, inflicting potentially irreversible damage to Earth's climate system,"
reported Breitbart.
2. Warming risks massive ecosystem disruptionsmultiple mechanisms

WEEKLY BLITZ, Global WarmingNew Challenges before the World, 81811, lexis.
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface, air and oceans and its projected
continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 0.18 degree C during the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human activity such as fossil
fuel burning and deforestation are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth
century. IPCC report indicates that global surface temperature will probably rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 degree C during the 21st
century. Increasing global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation,
probably including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with
the Arctic region being particularly affected. Other likely effects include shrinkage of the Amazon rainforest and Boreal
forests, increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions and changes in agricultural yields.
3. Climate change is so damaging to the environment that it threatens extinctionU.N. report proves
Martin Hodgson, journalist, Environmental Failures Put Humanity at Risk, GUARDIAN, 10-26-07,
www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2007/1026risk.htm, accessed 6-19-12.
The future of humanity has been put at risk by a failure to address environmental problems including climate change, species
extinction and a growing human population, according to a new UN report. In a sweeping audit of the world's environmental
wellbeing, the study by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that governments are still failing to recognise the
seriousness of major environmental issues. The study, involving more than 1,400 scientists, found that human consumption had
far outstripped available resources. Each person on Earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the
planet can supply, it finds. Meanwhile, biodiversity is seriously threatened by the impact of human activities: 30% of
amphibians, 23% of mammals and 12% of birds are under threat of extinction, while one in 10 of the world's large rivers runs
dry every year before it reaches the sea. The report - entitled Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development reviews progress made since a similar study in 1987 which laid the groundwork for studying environmental issues affecting the
planet. Since the 1987 study, Our Common Future, the global response "has in some cases been courageous and inspiring,"
said the environment programme's executive director Achim Steiner. The international community has cut ozone-damaging
chemicals, negotiated the Kyoto protocol and other international environmental treaties and supported a rise in protected areas
which cover 12% of the world. "But all too often [the response] has been slow and at a pace and scale that fails to respond to or
recognise the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet," Mr. Steiner said. "The
systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of
economies is being challenged - and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay," he said. Cli
34
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Environment [contd]

4. Climate change is the greatest environmental threat we face
Stephanie Meeks, Acting President & CEO, The Nature Conservancy, Testimony Before House Select Committee on Energy
Dependence and Global Warming, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 2-14-08, lexis.
Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge that our society faces today. Every acre of land and mile of coast
protected by The Nature Conservancy will be affected by climate change. Climate change is already stressing human and
natural systems in a way that menaces natural economies, human economies, people and biodiversity. Prompt action to address
this threat is essential to minimize future harm to nature and to the social and economic fabric of our communities. Aware of
this urgency, The Nature Conservancy has undertaken projects around the world to demonstrate effective solutions to climate
change. Our on-the-ground conservation work includes five large-scale REDD projects in Belize, Bolivia and Brazil that have
reduced and continue to reduce emissions from deforestation while protecting almost 1.8 million acres of species-rich forest
land while bringing benefits to local communities.
5. Warming increases the risk of deadly, abrupt, and irreversible changes in climate and ecosystems
2007, p. 53-54.
Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of
the climate change. {WGII 12.6, 19.3, 19.4, SPM} Abrupt climate change on decadal time scales is normally thought of as
involving ocean circulation changes. In addition on longer time scales, ice sheet and ecosystem changes may also play a role. If
a large-scale abrupt climate change were to occur, its impact could be quite high (see Topic 5.2). {WGI 8.7, 10.3, 10.7; WGII
4.4, 19.3} Partial loss of ice sheets on polar land and/or the thermal expansion of seawater over very long time scales could
imply metres of sea level rise, major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river
deltas and low-lying islands. Current models project that such changes would occur over very long time scales (millennial) if a
global temperature increase of 1.9 to 4.6C (relative to pre-industrial) were to be sustained. Rapid sea level rise on century time
scales cannot be excluded. {SYR 3.2.3; WGI 6.4, 10.7; WGII 19.3, SPM} Climate change is likely to lead to some irreversible
impacts. There is medium confidence that approximately 20 to 30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk
of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5 to 2.5C (relative to 1980-1999). As global average
temperature increase exceeds about 3.5C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40 to 70% of species assessed)
around the globe. {WGII 4.4, Figure SPM.2} Based on current model simulations, it is very likely that the meridional
overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st century; nevertheless temperatures in the
region are projected to increase. It is very unlikely that the MOC will undergo a large abrupt transition during the 21stcentury.
Longer-term changes in the MOC cannot be assessed with confidence. {WGI 10.3, 10.7; WGII Figure, Table TS.5, SPM.2}
Impacts of large-scale and persistent changes in the MOC are likely to include changes in marine ecosystem productivity,
fisheries, ocean CO2 uptake, oceanic oxygen concentrations and terrestrial vegetation. Changes in terrestrial and ocean CO2
uptake may feed back on the climate system. {WGII 12.6, 19.3, Figure SPM.2}
35
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (General)

1. Action to address climate change is necessary--the most vulnerable are most at risk
Rev. Paul Mayer, co-founder, Climate Crisis Coalition, "Climate Control: A Moral Issue," THE HILL, 2--29--12,
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/213395-rev-paul-mayer-co-founder-climate-crisis-coalition-,
accessed 9-7-12.
The motivating principles of our campaign are simple and are embedded in the collective consciousness of the faithful
worldwide. First, nearly every religion agrees it is morally wrong for one group or individual to cause others unjustifiable
suffering and death. As such, we are duty bound to minimize the harm that unmitigated climate change will bring to those
directly affected by the breakdown of the social, economic, and ecological systems. In addition, we must honor our moral
obligation for equity and justice. Now and in the future, low-income people, communities of color, indigenous peoples, women
and children and others who have contributed little to climate change will bear a disproportionate burden of its negative
impacts. Shifting to a sustainable and renewable energy-driven economy will both protect these vulnerable populations and
create millions of jobs. Finally, we all share a responsibility to protect the Earth, the source of all life. Nearly all the worlds
religions and spiritual traditions proclaim that humans must be the Earths stewards. Continuing to disrupt the climate that is
the cornerstone of all life, and to squander the extraordinary abundance of life, diversity and beauty of the planet, is a moral
failure of the first order.
2. Climate change threatens all of us--particularly our most vulnerable communities

Maxine Burkett, Associate Professor, Law, University of Colorado, Just Solutions to Climate change: A Climate Justice
Proposal for a Domestic Clean Development Mechanism, BUFFALO LAW REVIEW v. 56, April 2008, p. 173-174.
The unparalleled scale of impact the climate crisis has had, and will continue to have, on the globe has been forecasted for
almost a century. Most recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that the warming of the
climate system is "unequivocal." With this warming comes the threat of more extreme weather, including more intense and
longer droughts than have already been observed, heavy precipitation including increased intensity of tropical cyclones, and hot
extremes and heat waves. While these changes sound merely inconvenient and perhaps costly, they have been described by the
IPCC Chairman, without hyperbole, as dangers that risk "the ability of the human race to survive." In the short term, these
extremes will risk the survival of communities that are ill-equipped to adapt to warming as they struggle to moderate and cope
with its consequences.
3. Warming is a moral issue--disproportionately hurts Africa

Joe DeCapua, "Putting Planet First in Climate Change Talks," VOICE OF AMERICA NEWS, 12--6--11, npg.
At the U.N. climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, there's a call to view the issue as a moral imperative. The man
who's called South Africa's green bishop says caring for the earth should take priority. "Climate change is a moral issue and it
must be met by the moral principles of justice, equity, compassion, love. And that we've got to really realize, that we've got to
put the wellbeing of the planet and people before our financial considerations," said retired Anglican Bishop Geoff Davies,
coordinator of the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute. Worse on the continent The United Nations
reports no other continent will be struck by climate change as severely as Africa. The global forecast calls for a two degree
Celsius rise in temperatures in the coming years. But the U.N. says they could rise higher in Africa -- possibly three degrees
Celsius or more by 2050. Dryer subtropical regions could warm more than wetter areas. "We in Africa are particularly
concerned because the scientists are now saying that African average temperatures will increase twice as much as the global
average. Already our temperatures have gone up 0.8 and we know the huge disruption of climate change already," said Davies.
Cut emissions now. He said if African temperatures do increase by twice the global average the effects will be "catastrophic."
He called on the world's major polluters to take strong measures now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "For the United
States to say, well, we'll start reducing emissions in a few years' time -- that's millions of tons of carbon that will still be poured
into the atmosphere for the next 100 years. We can't bring that carbon back here. But we equally challenge the new polluting
countries -- China, India, ourselves, South Africa," he said.
36
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (General) [contd]

4. Addressing warming is as great a moral imperative as ending slavery
Michael McCarthy, "Global Warming Issue 'on Par with Slavery'," INDEPENDENT, 4--7--12,
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-issue-on-par-with-slavery-7624916.html, accessed
4-9-12.
Dealing with climate change is a moral issue on a par with ending slavery, the world's most celebrated climate scientist, James
Hansen, of Nasa, believes. Dr Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, will be making the slavery
comparison in his acceptance speech for the Edinburgh Medal next Tuesday, when he will also be calling for a global tax on all
carbon emissions. Nothing less will do, he will argue, so urgent is the challenge which climate change presents for future
generations. The Edinburgh Medal is awarded each year to scientists and technological experts judged to have made a
significant contribution to the understanding and well-being of humanity. Widely thought of as "the father of global warming"
his dramatic alert about climate change in US Senate hearings in July 1988 put the issue on the world agenda Dr Hansen is
now one of the most outspoken advocates of drastic climate action. He said last year he thought climate sceptics were winning
the global warming argument with the public. In his acceptance speech, he will argue that an immediate worldwide carbon tax
is needed to force cuts in fossil fuel use, and that current generations have an over-riding moral duty to their children and
grandchildren to act now.
5. Climate change worst affects the worlds poor, locking them into poverty and reversing development
gains
Gains made in human development in Africa may be reversed if climate change is not checked, the UN now warns. A
document published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says the increasing global warming, threatening
to average more than two degrees centigrade before the end of the century, may compromise gains made in developing
countries, mainly African states. It provides a stark account of the threat posed by global warming and argues that the world is
drifting towards a 'tipping point' "that could lock the world's poorest countries and their poorest citizens on a downward spiral".
If this happens, the document warns, it will leave hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water scarcity, ecological threats
and a loss of livelihoods. "Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with
no responsibility for the current ecological debt, who face the immediate and most severe human costs," says UNDP
administrator Kemal Dervis after the launch of the Human Development 2007/08 entitled: Fighting Climate Change: Human
Solidarity in a Divided World.
6. Impact of warming is understated, is a one-way ticket to poverty

Up to 332 million people in coastal and low lying areas also face displacement through flooding and tropical storm activity. In
fact, more than 70 million Bangladeshis, 22 million Vietnamese, and six million Egyptians could be affected by global
warming-related flooding, considering the typography of the areas. Despite the evidence showing that all is not well, the
authors of the report argue that the human costs of climate change have been understated. The researchers involved in the
publishing of the document say that climate shocks, such as droughts, floods and storms, which will become more frequent and
intense with climate change, are already among the most powerful drivers of poverty and inequality-and global warming will
strengthen the impacts. "For millions of people, these are events that offer a one-way ticket to poverty and long-run cycles of
disadvantage," say the researchers.
7. Warming is an act of aggression by the rich against the poor

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), staff, STRATEGIC SURVEY v. 107 n. 1, September 2007, pp. 33-84
Arguments about taking responsibility for remedial action have by themselves the potential to cause considerable international
tension. At the African Union summit in January 2007, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called global warming 'an act of
aggression by the rich against the poor'. Because rapidly growing China and India are already huge producers of greenhouse
gases, there will be tremendous pressure from the West on them to take expensive counter-measures - but they are likely to
respond that the West created the problem, and that they have the right to the same economic benefits that Western countries
obtained while doing so. Such views may complicate efforts to negotiate, implement and enforce a mitigation regime.
37
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (General) [contd]

8. Climate change hurts poor people the most, confounds efforts to eliminate global poverty
Jim Lyons, Vice President, Policy and Communication, Oxfam America, Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 1-24-08, lexis.
We have come to see climate change as one of the greatest challenges to our efforts to promote sustainable development and
reduce global poverty. In our operations spanning Africa, Latin America, East Asia and the United States itself, our staff and
partners are already responding to the serious impacts of climate change, from increasingly severe weather events to water
scarcity. Ninety-seven percent of all natural disaster-related deaths already take place in developing countries, and the estimates
of climate change's contribution to worsening conditions are disturbing. By mid-century, more than a billion people will face
water shortages and hunger, including 600 million in Africa alone. Weather extremes, food and water scarcity, and climaterelated public health threats are projected to displace between 150 million and one billion people as climate change unfolds. As
the science indicates, poor and vulnerable communities around the world will increasingly bear the brunt of the consequences
of global warming, threatening the lives of millions of people and potentially undermining global stability and security. Oxfam
is committed to addressing both the causes of climate change and the consequences for those least able to adapt to its impacts.
These impacts, and the resulting increases in global poverty, will undermine global stability and security.
9. Climate change undermines our ability to meet development objectives

http://www.unfoundation.org/files/pdf/2007/SEG_Report.pdf, accessed 9-4-12.
Challenging as the objective of the UNFCCC is, it is becoming more and more clear that the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), which are the world communitys blueprint for moving towards a sustainable, just world during
this decade and beyond, are becoming more difficult to achieve as a result of human-induced climate change; the situation, if
not addressed, is likely to worsen over coming decades. The MDGs are intended, among other aims, to: eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger; reduce child mortality; combat human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome
(HIV/AIDS), malaria, and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for
development. People who are poor, hungry, deprived of water, and living a life that is uncertain from one day to the next can
improve their lot only in conditions of environmental sustainability and against a background of social justice. As the climate
changes, the higher latitudes will warm more than lower latitudes, some regions will experience more frequent and intense
storms, and low-lying coastal communities worldwide will be flooded as sea level rises. Some regions will become drier as
evaporation speeds up, others wetter as total precipitation increases. Climate change is expected to have a widespread negative
effect on water resources, natural ecosystems, coastal communities and infrastructure, air and water quality, biodiversity,
coastal fisheries, parks and preserves, forestry, human health, agriculture and food production, and other factors that support
economic performance and human well-being around the world. The impacts on society are expected to differ greatly
depending on regional and local cultural practices, engineering infrastructure, farming customs, governments, natural
resources, population, public health conditions, financial resources, scientific and technological capability, and socioeconomic
systems. Nonetheless, such significant climate disruptions are thus likely to curtail opportunities to meet the MDGs for
generations to come. Only by mitigating the effects of climate change and finding new, achievable ways to adapt to them can
the world find stability and prosperity.
10. Warming will hurt poor people the most, undermine development goals
Elizabeth Burleson, LLM, London School of Economics, Multilateral Climate change Mitigation, UNIVERSITY OF SAN
FRANCISCO LW REVIEW v. 41, Winter 2007, p. 373-374.
THE EARTH'S CLIMATE is a public good. A single country does not benefit from investing in climate protection unless
doing so becomes a collective effort. Society's inability to reach consensus on climate change mitigation has resulted in the
tragedy of the commons. Humanity was able to overcome a similar crisis through an international cooperative effort to reduce
the ozone hole. International chlorofluorocarbon protocols addressed the over-exploitation of the global commons. As Tom
Tietenberg notes, "the atmosphere is but one of many commons and climate change is but one example of over-exploitation of
the commons." The World Bank predicts warmer temperatures, more variable precipitation, and an increased incidence of
extreme climatic events. When coupled with sea level rise, this will adversely impact agriculture, water resources, human
settlements, human health, and ecological systems and will undermine economic development and the ability to achieve many
of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The World Bank goes on to point out that the poorest individuals in the most
vulnerable countries face the greatest danger with the least ability to adapt.
38
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Agriculture)

1. Even small warming will devastate agricultural production in the southIndia can lose nearly 20% of
its harvest
ASSOCIATED PRESS, staff, Extreme Weather: A Global Problem, 8-7-07,
Even a small increase in temperatures, said Jacques Diouf, head of the Food and Agricultural Organization, could push down
crop yields in the world's southern regions, even as agricultural productivity goes up in the north. A greater frequency of
droughts and floods, one of the hallmarks of climate change, the agency added, could be particularly bad for agriculture. "Rainfed agriculture in marginal areas in semi-arid and sub-humid regions is mostly at risk," Diouf said. "India could lose 125
million tons of its rain-fed cereal production - equivalent to 18 percent of its total production." That is a sign of the steep
human and economic impact of extreme weather in India.
2. Warming will devastate agriculture in many southern nations, including those that already have food
problems
Wolfgang Sachs, Climate Change and Human Rights, WDEV SPECIAL REPORT 1, 2007,
www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2007/07climatehumanrights.pdf, accessed 5-20-08.
Furthermore, climate change will leave its imprint on the conditions for food production across the globe. In temperate zones,
small increases in temperature might boost yields for some cereals, while larger changes are likely to decrease yields. In most
tropical and subtropical regions, potential yields are projected to diminish with most increases in temperature. For instance,
damage to the world's major crops begins when daytime temperatures climb above 30C during flowering. For rice, wheat, and
maize, grain yields are likely to decline by 10% for every one degree C increase over 30C (Halweil, 2005). If, in addition,
there is also a large decrease in rainfall in subtropical and tropical dryland/rainfed systems, crop yields would be even more
adversely affected. In tropical agricultural areas, yields of some crops are expected to decrease even with minimal increases in
temperature (IPCC, 200l). In sum, 20-40 poor and food-insecure countries, with a projected population in 2080 in the range of
1-3 billion, may lose on average 10-20% of their production potential in cereals due to climate change (Fischer et al., 2002).
Moreover, it is expected that the income of poor farmers will decline with a warming of 1.5-2C above preindustrial levels.
(Hare, 2003). In fragile rural areas, such a change will aggravate the fate of people that derive their livelihood from direct
access to forest, grasslands, and water courses. In developed countries crop production, in contrast, is likely to benefit from
climate change at least initially, compensating for the declines projected for developing countries. Thus while global
production appears stable, regional differences in crop production are likely to grow stronger through time, leading to a
significant polarization of effects, with substantial increases in the risk of hunger amongst the poorer nations, especially under
scenarios of greater inequality (Parry et al., 2004). Declines in food production will most likely hit regions where many people
are already undernourished, notably Africa.
3. Warming destroys agriculture in the lower latitudes, increasing famine risks

SECURITY RISK, Earthscan, London, 1--08, p. 94=95.
The repercussions of climate change on food production will vary enormously from region to region. According to the SRES
scenarios (IPCC, 2000), warming of around 1.52.5 C compared with preindustrial levels can be expected by the middle of the
century in the event that climate policy measures do not work. By the end of the century depending on human actions
warming of over 6 C (compared with 1990) is possible (IPCC, 2007a), adding another 0.5 C to express the figure in
comparison with preindustrial temperatures. Generally it is in lower latitudes that food production is most severely threatened
by global warming, particularly through loss of cereal harvests and insufficient adaptive capacities (IPCC, 2007b). In lower
latitudes, even warming of 2 C (compared with the pre-industrial level) can be expected to increase food insecurity (Hare,
2006). Under these conditions, there is likely to be a significant increase in the numbers of people threatened by famines in
some developing regions of the world (Pilardeaux, 2004). In contrast, many but not all regions in middle and higher latitudes
can initially expect an increase in agricultural production to result from warming of between 1 and 3 C (henceforth always in
relation to 1990). Once the mean global temperature warms by 24 C, agricultural productivity is likely to decline worldwide.
Finally, a temperature rise of 4 C or more can be expected to have major negative impacts on global agriculture (IPCC,
2007b).
39
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Agriculture) [contd]

4. Warming will cause a massive decrease in cereal production throughout the developing world
According to a study by IIASA (quoted in FAO, 2005c), climate change in developing countries will result in an increase in
drylands and areas under water stress by 2080. In Africa, 1.1 thousand million hectares of arable land under cultivation only
afford crops a relatively short growth phase of less than 120 days per year. As a result of climate change, this area could
expand by 58 per cent which would equate to another 5090 million hectares of arable land in Africa. The IIASA study
assumes a simultaneous 11 per cent decline in the area of rain-fed farming regions, with a consequent drop in cereal
production. The study concludes that as a result of climate change, 65 developing countries which accounted for more than half
of the world population in 1995 would lose a cereal production potential of some 280 million tonnes. In India, for example, the
IIASA model suggests that 125 million tonnes of cereal production potential would be wiped out. This is equivalent to 18 per
cent of Indias current rain-fed cereal production. China, in contrast, would have the potential to increase rain-fed cereal
production by 15 per cent (24 million tonnes) compared with its current level (FAO, 2005c). The majority of sources agree that
other winner regions will be North America, northern Europe, the Russian Federation and East Asia (FAO, 2005c) but not all
authors share this optimistic appraisal (Long et al., 2006; Stern, 2006).
5. Warming hurts southern agriculturerainfall shifts

Andrew C. Revkin, journalist, Poor nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms, NEW YORK TIMES, 4-1-07,
Scientists say it has become increasingly clear that worldwide precipitation is shifting away from the equator and toward the
poles. That will nourish crops in warming regions like Canada and Siberia while parching countries like Malawi in subSaharan Africa which are already prone to drought. While rich countries are hardly immune from drought and flooding,
their wealth will largely insulate them from harm, at least for the next generation or two, many experts say. Cities in Texas,
California and Australia are already building or planning desalination plants, for example. And federal studies have shown that
desalination can work far from the sea, purifying water from brackish aquifers deep in the ground in places like New Mexico.
40
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Children)

1. Warming causes serious health problems, children are particularly vulnerable--malnutrition, heath
deaths, ozone-related morbidity
Human Health. Climate change causes a variety of human health impacts, with children especially vulnerable. These include
food shortages, polluted air, and contaminated or scarce supplies of water, along with an expanding area of vectors causing
infectious diseases and more intensely allergenic plants. World health experts have concluded with "very high confidence"
that climate change already contributes to the global burden of disease and premature death (74). IPCC (74) projects the
following trends, if CO2 emissions and global warming continue to increase, where only trends assigned very high confidence
or high confidence are included: (i) increased malnutrition and consequent disorders, including those related to child growth
and development, (ii) increased death, disease and injuries from heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts, (iii) increased
cardio-respiratory morbidity and mortality associated with ground-level ozone. While IPCC also projects fewer deaths from
cold, this positive effect is far outweighed by the negative ones. With the growing awareness of the consequences of humancaused climate change, adults and children especially are susceptible to a range of anxiety and depressive disorders. Children
cannot avoid hearing that the window of opportunity to act in time to avoid dramatic climate impacts is closing, and that their
future and that of other species is at stake. While the psychological health of our children needs to be protected, denial of the
truth exposes them to even greater risk.
2. Climate change will kill up to 250,000 children every year

This is also particularly clear with regard to the impact of climate change on human health. Already in the year 2000, climate
change was estimated to be responsible for 0.3 per cent of deaths (150,000 people) worldwide (IPCC, 2007b). In 2100, some
165,000250,000 more children may die than would be the case in a world without climate change (Stern, 2006). At global
level, moreover, it is projected that, as temperatures rise, so too will detrimental impacts on health resulting from
undernourishment, disease and injury. Causes for this include heat waves, floods, storms, fires and drought. Higher
atmospheric concentrations of ozone and allergens, for example, could give rise to cardiovascular diseases (IPCC, 2007b). In
addition, climate change will bring about an expansion of malaria into previously uninfected areas. It is possible that the
incidence of malaria will increase overall. Scientists are still discussing the quantitative evidence in this regard, because the
spread of malaria also depends on a large number of factors unrelated to climate (IPCC, 2007b).
41
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Domestic Communities of Color)

1. Climate change is particularly dangerous for vulnerable communities--abrupt changes
Proposal for a Domestic Clean Development Mechanism, BUFFALO LAW REVIEW v. 56, April 2008, p. 176.
Particularly frightening to those communities least able to adapt to climate change, is the great possibility that continued
greenhouse gas emissions will trigger an abrupt climate surprise. The evidence supporting the urgency of climate change,
generally, is based on fairly linear data points and does not - in fact, cannot - take into account an abrupt shift in climate
patterns due to feedback loops that are difficult to model. The result of such a shift could be significant regional cooling or
warming, widespread droughts, shifts in hurricane frequency, or flood regimes that could occur in as little as a decade, yielding
very rapid, large-scale impacts on ecosystems and human health and welfare. Regional changes in climate are particularly
dangerous because of the challenges and risks they pose in a modern world marked by increasing population and limited
resources.
2. Communities of color are disproporationately affected by the impacts of climate changeeconomic

downturns, unemployment, natural disasters, etc
The EJ communities will also, of course, be subject to the more general and commonly cited negative effects of climate
change; and, further aggravating these outcomes, the dire economic forecasts for the globe will be felt acutely by EJ
communities. The environmental risks these communities disproportionately suffer, mentioned just above, acquire a more
dangerous hue when income is taken into account. A report by noted economist Sir Nicholas Stern warns that unless urgent
action is taken, the planet faces an economic calamity on the scale of the Great Depression and the world wars. Using formal
economic models, Stern suggests that climate change will produce "market failure on the greatest scale the world has seen,"
which should lead the world to grave concern. This is particularly relevant to EJ communities, as the first and most severe
effects of economic downturn are borne by the poor. Less obvious climate change risks include increases in the costs of energy
and food, employment restructuring within and across industries, and impacts on the uninsured. With respect to costs of basic
goods, increases will come with clear, attendant disadvantages, as these costs already represent a large proportion of the
budgets for the poor and of-color. Employment restructuring, including layoffs and hiring freezes, with the "last hired, first
fired" phenomenon, will certainly worsen the economic damage of global warming caused to individuals, families, and
communities. Finally, warming will hit the uninsured hardest. At present, of the tens of millions of Americans who are without
health insurance, for example, the rate for people of color is twice that for whites. Natural disasters in EJ communities are
particularly fierce, as many of the communities' residents are often renters, without renter's insurance, and lack savings to
recover from disasters. Additionally, low-income earners typically are without the resources to compensate for the lack of
insurance. These factors, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be critically important as
education, health care, prevention initiatives, and infrastructure and economic development directly shape the health of
populations. Existing conditions suggest troubling, substantial impacts on domestic populations.
3. Climate change will disproportionately hurt communities of color in North America

As Rajendra Pachauri stated at the release of the April 2007 IPCC report on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, "the
poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit." North
America is set to experience more severe storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. The coasts, similar to
those worldwide, will be inundated by rising sea levels. There are, consequently, many serious public health and welfare
implications for environmental justice (EJ) communities due to global warming.
42
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Domestic Communities of Color)

[contd]
4. Climate change will significantly increase the number of heat-related deaths among people of color in
urban areas
While all risks will affect the low-income earners more acutely, risks that will undoubtedly yield disproportionate adverse
impact are the consequences of heat extremes. Increased temperatures with the attendant extreme weather events are widely
accepted consequences of global warming. Heat stress has already been a public health nightmare for the poor and of-color. As
an example, older black males living alone with poor health status suffered a disproportionate share of excess fatalities after the
1996 heat wave in Chicago. Such a result is not exclusive to Chicago's black males. A study of the fifteen largest U.S. cities
found that "climate change would lead to more heat-related deaths in the inner city. Due to demographics and social factors,
people of color would be more likely to die in a heat wave and to suffer more from heat-related stress and illness." A study of
heat-related deaths in St. Louis, as an example, showed that non-whites were twice as likely as whites to die as a result of heat
waves.
5. Climate change will exacerbate asthma problems among communities of color

Mortality rates due to pollution-related respiratory illnesses will also unevenly affect EJ communities. Asthma prevalence,
hospitalization, and mortality, for example, are three times higher among minorities than among whites. And these disparities
exist even after controlling for income. Climate scientists have already found that smog, and associated health risks like
asthma, are "very likely to increase with temperature, especially in the North-eastern United States, where many areas currently
experience ozone levels that exceed [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)] Clean Air Act standards on hot summer days."
6. Katrina proves that communities of color are far more negatively affected by climate change-induced
natural disasters
Here is where the capacity to adapt to climate change becomes central and a uniquely engaging point for climate justice.
Katrina laid bare the truism that some are more equal than others. Low-income and of-color Americans are more likely to be
underserved by government and private relief agencies before, during, and after environmental disasters. A disaster is more
devastating to the poor, and the aftermath of that event constitutes a "second disaster," in which failures of social infrastructure
vis-a-vis the underprivileged are blatant and equally, if not more, devastating. In addition to the great tangible losses, including
greater problems with homelessness, the poor and people of color experience unique psychological impacts. In particular,
elderly African-Americans experience slower "psychosocial recovery" as compared to their white counterparts, partly due to
economic restraints. A well-established consequence of climate change is that the gulf and east coast states will continue to
experience the bulk of the impact. An ability to adapt to the inevitable risks of climate change, as a lesson from Katrina and the
second disaster phenomenon, will be a crucial determinant of the depth of that risk.
43
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Global South)

1. The effects of people disproportionately hurt people from low-income countries
Jane Lampman, "Ethical Questions Add New Twist to Climate-Change Debate," CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 11--9-06, p. 14.
Recent news on global warming is not encouraging: * Concentrations of human-caused carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
reached the highest levels ever recorded last year, says a World Meteorological Organization report issued Nov. 3. * Another
greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, also posted a record in 2005. * Not only summer but also winter sea ice in the Arctic has
retreated in a pronounced way, says a recent NASA study. * A global recession is a probable outcome if rapid action on climate
change is not pursued, says a major report released last week by the British government. As delegates meet in Africa this week
for a United Nations conference on climate change, they aim to set targets for dramatic cuts in fossil-fuel emissions beyond
those set by the Kyoto protocol for 2012, and grapple with how to allocate those cuts. Yet the big economies of the United
States, China, and India are not part of the Kyoto treaty. These efforts call not only for the best scientific data and economic
analyses, but also for explicit consideration of the ethical issues involved, says a multinational group of climate change,
development, and ethical research organizations. To make its case to delegates and policymakers, the group released a white
paper on the ethical issues in Nairobi on Nov 8. "Climate change not only raises ethical questions, but the most profound ones literally matters of life and death, who's going to survive, the fate of nation states, obligations of one nation to another, of the
rich and the poor," and who is to be involved in the decisions, says Donald Brown, coordinator of the Collaborative Program
on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change (EDCC). It is widely recognized that damage from climate change is affecting
the poorer countries - those least able to manage it - the hardest. Rising sea levels, for example, may devastate large portions of
Bangladesh, the Nile delta, the southeastern coast of Asia, and many Pacific islands.
2. Climate change already kills 160,000 people in a year in the global south
INDEPENDENT, "A Modest Proposal to Save the Planet," 5--27--04, p. 2+.
The World Health Organisation blames climate change for at least 160,000 Third World deaths last year. Tony Blair admitted
that climate change was "probably the most important issue that we face as a global community". The message is clear.
Doubting the imminence of significant global warming may once have been an intellectually defensible position. It isn't now.
Decisions must be taken as a matter of urgency. We cannot rely on optimism. We need to think beyond energy efficiency and
renewable energy, towards ideas of social and institutional reform and personal changes that require much lower energy use.
Yet government action is only scratching the surface, and current policies on transport and growth can only make things worse.
We are on the road to ecological Armageddon, with little apparent thought for the effects on the current population, let alone
those who follow.
3. Consensus says that global warming will be devastating for the worlds poor people
Arthur Max, journalist, Climate Report: Poor Will Suffer Most, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4-6-07,
The world faces increased hunger and water shortages in the poorest countries, massive floods and avalanches in Asia, and
species extinction unless nations adapt to climate change and halt its progress, according to a report approved Friday by an
international conference on global warming. Agreement came after an all-night session during which key sections were deleted
from the draft and scientists angrily confronted government negotiators who they feared were watering down their findings. "It
has been a complex exercise," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several
scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but, in the end, agreed to compromises. However,
some scientists vowed never to take part in the process again. Five days of negotiations reached a climax when the delegates
removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees, and
in a tussle over the level of scientific reliability attached to key statements. There was little doubt about the science, which was
based on 29,000 sets of data, much of it collected in the last five years. "For the first time we are not just arm-waving with
models," Martin Perry, who conducted the grueling negotiations, told reporters. The United States, China and Saudi Arabia
raised many of the objections to the phrasing, often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections.
The final IPCC report is the clearest and most comprehensive scientific statement to date on the impact of global warming
mainly caused by man-induced carbon dioxide pollution. "The poorest of the poor in the world and this includes poor
people in prosperous societies are going to be the worst hit," Pachauri said. "People who are poor are least able to adapt to
climate change." The report said up to 30 percent of species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 3.6
degrees above the average in the 1980s and 1990s. Areas in drought will become even more dry, adding to the risks of hunger
and disease, it said. The world will face heightened threats of flooding, severe storms and the erosion of coastlines. "This is a
glimpse into an apocalyptic future," the Greenpeace environmental group said of the final report. Without action to curb carbon
emissions, man's livable habitat will shrink starkly, said Stephen Schneider, a Stanford scientist who was one of the authors.
"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad
idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting."
44
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (Global South) [contd]

4. Warming will have an enormously disparate impact, particularly threatens people in the global south
The bitter consequences resulting from climate change - in particular several decades from now - will spread across the globe,
albeit in varying degrees. Even rich countries in temperate zones are not able to shield themselves against adverse impacts, as
the 25,000 deaths caused by heat waves in Europe in the summer of 2003 have dramatically shown. Yet researchers converge
on the general assumption that developing countries are most at risk of climate change, with damage at even low levels of
warming and increasing rapidly with rising temperature (IPCC, 2001). Countries - and regions within countries - are
disproportionately affected for basically two reasons: higher impacts and higher vulnerability. As indicated above, adverse
impacts of climate change are likely to be more concentrated in areas of Africa, South America, and Asia. Impact profiles
differ according to kind of impact and geography, but water stress and flooding, declining agricultural productivity and
weakening ecosystem services, crop pests and human diseases are more likely to occur in subtropical and tropical countries, in
coastal areas, and in arid and semi-arid agricultural areas. Higher vulnerability, however, derives from the fact that in many
places at risk a great number of people already live under fragile conditions, economically and health wise. The ability to
prepare for and to cope with threats varies widely according to income and living conditions. The impact of a hurricane in
Orissa, for example, may be much more severe than the impact of a similar hurricane in Florida. Likewise, in 1999 there were
two to three times more disaster events reported in the US than in India or Bangladesh, but there were 14 times and 34 times
more deaths in India and in Bangladesh than in the US (UNEP, 2002). Wealth, technology, and infrastructure facilitate
adaptation and the ability to cope. The poor generally tend to have much lower coping capacities; they are more exposed to
disasters, drought, desertification, and slow economic decline.
45
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Equity (War)

1. Warming exacerbates the rich/poor gapincreases the risk of conflict
Alister Doyle, Global Warming Could Spur 21st Century Conflicts, REUTERS, 4-16-07,
Even so, a report to be released on Monday by a group of 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals will look at how changing
global climate may present serious threats to U.S. national security and to American armed forces at home and abroad. A
study by the worlds top climate scientists on April 6 warned that climate change could cause water shortages and hunger for
millions of people, mainly in Africa and Asia. In turn, that could bring migrations and spread disease. Environmental
problems should be included as part of an expanded concept of security, said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for
International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. Bogardi said global warming could worsen the divide between rich
and poor. The April 6 U.N. report said nations such as Canada, Russia and many in Europe might get some benefits from
moderate climate change, such as higher crop yields. Countries such as India and China, and Africa are likely to be the losers.
This creates a further imbalance of resources and standards of living that could trigger conflict, he said. And climate
refugees may be unable to go home, for instance if deserts expand in sub-Saharan Africa. People living on island states such as
Tuvalu in the Pacific risk seeing their homes disappear below the waves if seas rise. Political refugees, by contrast, can return if
a dictator is toppled. And environmental damage could also be a source of terrorism. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
accused the United States in 2002 of destroying nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in
history.
2. Resentment over disparate impact/cause of warming will undermine international cooperation,

multilateralism
SECURITY RISK, Earthscan, London, 1--08, p. 171-173.
Beside todays industrialized countries, the major ascendant economies whose emissions have also increasing substantially
since the end of the 20th century, notably China but also India, Brazil and Indonesia, could also be called to account by the
majority of developing countries in future (Box 8.3-1), even though their per capita emissions are still well below those of the
industrialized countries (Table 8.3-2). Distributional conflicts over compensation payments are likely to play an increasingly
important role in relations between these groups of countries as well. Against this background, it is clear that a key line of
conflict in global politics in the 21st century would therefore divide the main drivers of climate change and the poor countries
most affected by it, and that this line of conflict will not only divide North and South but will also have a South-South
dimension. Based on a detailed analysis of the various greenhouse gas emissions, a more differentiated separation into main
drivers and affected countries may be appropriate among the industrialized countries too. However, in view of the
development of North-South relations in the past and the ongoing prosperity gap, such considerations will be of secondary
importance for the conflicts that can be anticipated. There are many signs that the most powerful nations within the
international system will come under very strong pressure to justify their actions in the face of accelerating climate change.
Instead of safeguarding stability, security, a balance of interests and multilateralism based on justice, the global and regional
leading powers would be perceived as being the main drivers of climate change and therefore as drivers of international
instability and global distributional conflicts. The opportunities to establish a functioning global governance architecture
therefore decrease with rising global temperatures, bringing a global problem to light: While climate change can only be curbed
effectively through international cooperation, the bases for constructive multilateralism will themselves be eroded as the world
gets progressively hotter.
3. Unchecked climate change risks conflictdisputes between victims and polluters

Risks of growing international distributional conflicts between the main drivers of climate change and those most affected:
Climate change is mainly caused by the industrialized and newly industrializing countries. The major differences in the per
capita emissions of industrialized and developing/ newly industrializing countries are increasingly regarded as an equity gap,
especially as the rising costs of climate change are mainly being borne by the developing countries. The greater the damage and
the burden of adaptation in the South, the more intensive the distributional conflicts between the main drivers of climate change
and those most affected will become. The worst affected countries are likely to invoke the polluter pays principle, so
international controversy over a global compensation regime for climate change will probably intensify. Beside todays
industrialized countries, the major ascendant economies whose emissions are increasing substantially, notably China but also
India and Brazil, for example, will also be called to account by the developing countries in future. A key line of conflict in
global politics in the 21st century would therefore divide not only the industrialized and the developing countries, but also the
rapidly growing newly industrializing countries and the poorer developing countries. The international community is illprepared at present for this type of distributional conflict.
46
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Extreme Weather

1. Warming increases extreme weather of all forms--is already being observed
Climate Extremes. Extremes of the hydrologic cycle are expected to intensify in a warmer world. A warmer atmosphere
holds more moisture, so heavy rains become more intense, bringing more frequent and intense flooding. Higher temperatures,
on the other hand, increase evaporation and intensify droughts, as does expansion of the subtropics with global warming.
Heat waves lasting for weeks have a devastating impact on human health: the European heat wave of summer 2003 caused
over 70,000 excess deaths (93). This heat record for Europe was surpassed already in 2010 (94). The number of extreme heat
waves has increased several-fold due to global warming (18, 95) and will be multiplied further if temperatures continue to
rise. IPCC reports (2, 74) confirm that precipitation has generally increased over land poleward of the subtropics and
decreased at lower latitudes. Unusually heavy precipitation events have increased in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia
and Australia. Droughts are more common, especially in the tropics and subtropics. Glaciers are in near-global retreat (74).
Loss of glaciers can degrade the supply of fresh water to millions of people (7). Increased winter snowfall with a warmer
moister atmosphere will tend to increase spring flooding but leave rivers drier during the driest months.
2. Warming drives extreme weather events

Daniel G. Huber and Jay Gulledge, PhD, Extreme Weather & Climate Change: Understanding the Link and Managing the
Risk, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 1211, p. 4.
When averaged together, changing climate extremes can be traced to rising global temperatures, increases in the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere, and changes in atmospheric circulation. Warmer temperatures directly influence heat waves and
increase the moisture available in the atmosphere to supply extreme precipitation events. Expanding sub-tropical deserts
swelling out from the equator are creating larger areas of sinking, dry air, thus expanding the area of land that is subject to
drought.37 The expansion of this sub-tropical circulation pattern also is increasing heat transport from the tropics to the Arctic
and pushing mid-latitude storm tracks, along with their rainfall, to higher latitudes.
3. Warming increases extreme weather, magnifying the negative effects of warming

2007, p. 65.
Risks of extreme weather events. Responses to some recent extreme climate events reveal higher levels of vulnerability in both
developing and developed countries than was assessed in the TAR. There is now higher confidence in the projected increases in
droughts, heat waves and floods, as well as their adverse impacts. As summarised in Table 3.2, increases in drought, heat
waves and floods are projected in many regions and would have mostly adverse impacts, including increased water stress and
wild fire frequency, adverse effects on food production, adverse health effects, increased flood risk and extreme high sea level,
and damage to infrastructure. {SYR 3.2, 3.3, Table 3.2; WGI 10.3, Table SPM.2; WGII 1.3, 5.4, 7.1, 7.5, 8.2, 12.6, 19.3, Table
19.1, Table SPM.1}
4. Even though weather is variable, warming will still increase the incidence of extreme weather events
It is never possible directly to attribute to global warming a particular weather event like Hurricane Katrina, which hit
Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, or the 2003 heatwave in Europe which cost more than 30,000 lives and over $13 bn.
Weather is constantly subject - regardless of global warming - to variation, whether random or based on cycles lasting years or
decades. Natural fluctuations in global circulation patterns such as El Nino produce cycles and extremes in regional weather
and climate. However, as the mean global temperature rises, theory and models predict an increase in both the frequency and
severity of extreme weather events - heatwaves, cold snaps, hurricanes, heavy rains, floods and droughts. Researchers at the
UK government's Hadley Centre for Climate Change and Oxford University estimate that global warming has already doubled
the chance of a heatwave in Europe like the one in 2003. By 2050, the 2003 European heatwave could be a normal summer,
with more severe heatwaves also occurring with greater frequency.
47
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Future Generations

1. Warming is real and human caused--need to act to protect future generations
Global warming due to human-made gases, mainly CO2, is already 0.8C and deleterious climate impacts are growing
worldwide. More warming is "in the pipeline" because Earth is out of energy balance, with absorbed solar energy exceeding
planetary heat radiation. Maintaining a climate that resembles the Holocene, the world of relatively stable climate and
shorelines in which civilization developed, requires rapidly reducing fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Such a scenario is
economically manageable and has multiple benefits for humanity and other species. Yet fossil fuel extraction is expanding,
including highly carbon-intensive sources that can push the climate system beyond tipping points such that amplifying
feedbacks drive further climate change beyond humanity's control. This situation raises profound moral issues in that young
people, future generations, and nature, with no possibility of protecting their future well-being, will bear the principal
consequences of actions and inactions of today's adults.
2. We have an ethical obligation to act--impact on future generations

Severin Carrell, "Nasa Scientist: Climate Change Is a Moral Issue on a Par with Slavery," GUARDIAN, 4--6--12,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/06/nasa-scientist-climate-change, accessed 9-7-12.
Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a "great moral issue" on a par with slavery, according to
the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen. He argues that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for
society in future is an "injustice of one generation to others". Hansen, who will next Tuesday be awarded the prestigious
Edinburgh Medal for his contribution to science, will also in his acceptance speech call for a worldwide tax on all carbon
emissions. In his lecture, Hansen will argue that the challenge facing future generations from climate change is so urgent that a
flat-rate global tax is needed to force immediate cuts in fossil fuel use. Ahead of receiving the award which has previously
been given to Sir David Attenborough, the ecologist James Lovelock, and the economist Amartya Sen Hansen told the
Guardian that the latest climate models had shown the planet was on the brink of an emergency. He said humanity faces
repeated natural disasters from extreme weather events which would affect large areas of the planet. "The situation we're
creating for young people and future generations is that we're handing them a climate system which is potentially out of their
control," he said. "We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will
have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction."
3. We have an overwhelming obligation to future generations, must act

Federico Mayor, The Rights of Future Generations, UNESCO COURIER, May 1996, p. 36.
For the first time in the history of humanity, awareness of the global impact of our actions - starting with the effects our
population numbers have on the environment - compels us to do all we can to avoid causing irreparable environmental damage
and preventing future generations from exercising all or some of their rights. Because of this risk we must act before it is too
late and correct trends which might otherwise lead to incalculable problems. We must observe, anticipate, and prevent.
Prevention is not just an option. It is an unavoidable obligation, an ethical imperative. We must act in good time. We must look
ahead and try to see the shape of our common destiny. We must never lapse into fatalism. UNESCO's Constitution has
entrusted us with a unique task: to be the conscience of humanity. This task includes consideration for those who will follow in
our footsteps, those who have yet to be born.
4. Our actions must respect the rights of future generations

But we must go further. We must recognize and guarantee the rights of future generations. Probably the most striking example
of a possible threat to those rights is that of pollution and its attendant hazards, especially in relation to choices concerning
nuclear energy - an issue which is rarely as simple and cut-and-dried as it is presented to the general public. The political,
economic or financial interests that favour particular solutions must never be allowed to overshadow the interests of future
generations. In cases where the foreseeable consequences of investment will extend far beyond the present, it is worth
considering whether an impact study should not be made of the consequences of the various options on offer over a fifty-year
period, the span of two generations. In fact there is little doubt that several of the rights of future generations are affected: the
right to life and to the conservation of the human genome, the right to development and to individual and collective fulfillment,
and the right to an ecologically balanced environment. These are indeed human rights, that is, universal and universally
recognized values which are a legitimate cause of concern for the international community as a whole. This is a far cry from
rights regarded merely as legally protected vested interests.
48
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Future Generations [contd]

5. We have an obligation to leave a habitable planet for future generations
Which rights of future generations should be recognized? It has often been correctly pointed out that all the rights set forth in
the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration can be condensed into a single one: the right to live in dignity, which is indeed
the sum of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The same synthesis could probably be applied to the rights of
future generations, with the added dimension of the continuity of human life, i.e., guaranteeing the right to live in dignity on an
earth that is habitable. This brings us back to the preoccupation with the environment which will probably, with hindsight, be
seen as the major qualitative change that has occurred in the twentieth century. However, it is preferable, if only for educational
and legal reasons, to consider the rights of future generations on an individual basis. First of all, the exemption of persons
belonging to future generations from all individual responsibility for the crimes of earlier generations should be regarded as a
human right. I have long believed, to put it bluntly, that history kills and that accordingly we are in duty bound to "disarm
history", since it is axiomatic that future generations cannot continue to shoulder the burden of the crimes, actual or alleged, of
their forebears. Make no mistake: this has nothing to do with the moral responsibility which each person, each community and
each nation must assume in complete freedom, but concerns legal responsibility, with its attendant criminal and civil
consequences.
6. Warming threatens intergenerational equityundermines lives of future generations

At the time of the Rio Conference, it had already become clear that climate change is far from being just an ecological issue; it
is also an issue of equity. In particular, climate change was identified as an issue of intergenerational equity. It became
ominously clear to observers that global warming, since it modifies important parameters of the ecology of the planet, such as
sea levels or weather patterns, will affect the relations between present and future generations. Today's generation, by filling up
the absorptive capacity of the atmosphere, lives at the expense of tomorrow's generation.
7. Warming threatens intragenerational equity and human rights

At the same time, it came to the fore that the use of fossil fuels not only affects inter-generational equity, but also
intragenerational equity, i.e., the relations between nations and social groups within a generation. Who will be allowed to reap
the benefits from fossil fuel combustion? Who will have to carry the burden of emission abatement? Equity within a generation
has at least two dimensions (Wuppertal Institut, 2005). First, it implies the fair distribution of burdens and benefits of fossil fuel
use among nations. Secondly, however, it also implies the universal protection of human dignity by securing the fundamental
rights of every human person to water, food, housing, and health. The present article will focus on the latter dimension; it will
explore the links between human rights and climate change, without, however, losing sight of the broader framework of equity
in climate politics.
8. Unchecked global warming risks rendering the earth uninhabitable

INDEPENDENT, "A Modest Proposal to Save the Planet," 5--27--04, p. 2+.
Climate change is the most serious environmental threat the human race has ever faced; perhaps the most serious threat of any
kind. The dangers can hardly be exaggerated. Within 100 years, temperatures could rise by 6C worldwide. Much of the earth's
surface could become uninhabitable, and most species could be wiped out. In the UK, over the next 50 years, we will
experience hotter, drier summers, warmer, wetter winters and rising sea-levels. In most of our lifetimes, millions of British
people will be at high risk from flooding; there will be thousands of deaths from excessive summer temperatures; diseases from
warmer regions will become established; and patterns of agriculture and business will have to change for ever. This is not the
view of alarmists, but the considered opinion of the overwhelming majority of international climate scientists. It is
acknowledged by most governments and their advisers. Last month, government-funded scientists at the University of
Washington in Seattle made the key admission that the troposphere is indeed warming at 0.2C per decade - precisely as
predicted by the main global-warming models. The UK Government's chief scientist warned the same month that if global
warming continues unchecked, by the end of this century Antarctica is likely to be the only habitable continent.
49
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (General)

1. Warming will seriously degrade public healthmultiple reasons
Jason Koebler, Expert: Climate Change Will Increasingly Become Global Health Issue, USNEWS, 6512, lexis.
Previously just the worry of climate scientists, environmentalists, doomsday prognosticators, and gas-price watchers, climate
change is starting to worry some others-- public health specialists, who say that global warming could affect large swaths of
the population. In a paper published in the journal PLoS Medicine Tuesday, a group of European public health experts write
that climate change could alter "patterns of physical activity and food availability, and in some cases [bring] direct physical
harm." Slight temperature increases could also change disease distribution in colder regions and make hotter regions less
hospitable to humans. "Certain subgroups are at more risk--mainly the young, the old, and the poor," says Peter Byass, director
of the Umea Centre for Global Health Research in Sweden. "The middle age and wealthy will be better off. It's a crude way of
looking at it, but it's not so far off the mark." That means more prevalence of diseases that affect the poor, such as malaria and
dengue fever, and heat stroke in drought-afflicted areas. For years, scientists have warned about more extreme hurricanes and
weather patterns, but until recently, not much emphasis was put on less noticeable changes. "I don't think there's a big gang of
global health experts saying [climate change] is unimportant," he says. "But I don't think people have been making the
connections that need to be made between public health and climate change." Byass' paper isn't the first time health officials
have pondered the human toll of climate change. In March, a group of doctors suggested that the incidence of asthma and other
lung respiratory illnesses could increase, due to longer pollen seasons and increasing ranges of disease-causing molds and
mosquitoes. "At this point, we might not be able to stop climate change, but we can be a bit prepared as to what the
consequences might be," he says. It's something people in his field are increasingly worried about. At last year's "Durban
Climate Meeting," a United Nations convention to discuss climate change, people focused on health issues had their say. The
unpredictability of climate change--there are many models of what might happen over the next century--makes Byass' and his
colleagues' jobs much harder, he says. "I think it's pretty clear that things won't stay the same, so we can talk about the what-ifs
of different climate change [theories], but it's hard to say for sure what will happen," he says.
2. Warming will harm the health of millions of peoplemultiple triggers

2007, p. 48.
Health: The health status of millions of people is projected to be affected through, for example, increases in malnutrition;
increased deaths, diseases and injury due to extreme weather events; increased burden of diarrhoeal diseases; increased
frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases due to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone in urban areas related to climate
change; and the altered spatial distribution of some infectious diseases. {WGI 7.4, Box 7.4; WGII 8.ES, 8.2, 8.4, SPM}
Climate change is projected to bring some benefits in temperate areas, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure, and some
mixed effects such as changes in range and transmission potential of malaria in Africa. Overall it is expected that benefits will
be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures, especially in developing countries. {WGII 8.4, 8.7, 8ES,
SPM} Critically important will be factors that directly shape the health of populations such as education, health care, public
health initiatives, and infrastructure and economic development. {WGII 8.3, SPM
3. Warming threatens human healthwater-borne disease, malnutrition, vector diseases

Finally, as public health depends to a large extent on safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter, climate change is
bound to have a range of health effects (McMichael et al., 2003). On the first level, a shortage of freshwater caused by climate
change will increase risks of water-borne disease, just as shortage of food will increase the risk of malnutrition. On the second
level, climate change, via both a shift in background climate conditions and changes in regional climatic variability, will affect
the spatial and seasonal patterns of the potential transmission of various vector-borne infectious diseases. With global warming,
it is expected that there will be an increase in the geographic range of potential transmission of malaria and dengue - two vector
borne infections, each of which currently affects 40- 50% of the world population. A rise in temperatures, for example, would
result in an increased prevalence of malaria in higher altitudes and latitudes. Within their present ranges, these and many other
infectious diseases would tend to increase in incidence and seasonality, although decreases would occur for some infectious
diseases in some areas. The human-induced warming that the world is now experiencing is already causing 150,000 deaths and
5 million incidents of disease each year from additional malaria and diarrhoea, mostly in the poorest nations (Patz et al., 2005).
50
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (Malaria)

1. Warming will spread malaria throughout Africa
The Military Advisory Board, NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE, CNA Corporation,
2007, p. 22.
Severe and widespread continental health issues complicate an already extremely volatile environment. Climate change will
have both direct and indirect impacts on many diseases endemic to Africa such as malaria and dengue fever. Increases in
temperature can expand the latitude and altitude ranges for malaria, and flooding from sea level rise or severe weather events
can increase the population of malaria vectors. For example, a temperature rise of 2F can bring a malaria epidemic to Kenya.
Excessive flooding is also conducive to the spread of cholera.
2. Warming will spread malaria and dengue throughout Asia

2007, p. 27.
Climate change is expected to increase the geographic range of infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and
schistosomiasis and increase the risk of water-borne disease. Climate projections indicate the Asia/Pacific region as a whole is
likely to become warmer and wetter in the coming decades, creating conditions more conducive to disease vectors such as
mosquitoes. With the exception of east central China and the highlands of west China, much of the Asia/Pacific region is
exposed to malaria and dengue or has conditions suitable for their spread. This region will continue to be a hot spot for these
diseases in the decades ahead, with certain regions becoming more prone to epidemics.
51
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Health (Vector-Borne Disease)

1. Warming increases the risk of diseases transferring from animals to humans, and a massive epidemic
Richard A. Matthew, UC-Irvine, A Threat Assessment, GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: NATIONAL SECURITY
IMPLICATIONS, ed. C. Pumphrey, May 2008, p. 64.
But overall, the expected downside massively outweighs any predicted upside. The menu of likely threats includes severe
weather events, changes in the food supply, massive flooding, and dramatic changes in microbial activity that will lead to the
spread of infectious disease. Indeed, many analysts believe that we are very close to a global pandemic. They anticipate a
transfer of disease from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom that will be highly virulent. A lot of these transfers have
taken place in the past 3 decades because environmental conditions are changing and because people are being forced into
marginal environments where they come into close contact with pathogens with which they have not had any contact in the
past.
2. Warming accelerates the spread of disease vectors

Beth Daley, journalist, Disease Threat Cited in Global Warming, COMMONDREAMS.ORG, 6-21-02,
The report notes that many regions, including New England, could be losing one of their best defenses against disease: cold
weather. Every fall, mosquitoes that may be carrying the deadly West Nile virus, for example, are killed off before they
multiply and spread the disease too widely. But as global warming heats up the Earth, even by minute degrees, disease-carrying
organisms may regenerate faster or go into new areas where populations may have little or no natural resistance. ''It's possible
that the time that it takes for [a disease-carrying organism] population to double might be halved with a single degree or half
degree of warming,'' said Rick Ostfeld, an animal ecologist at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., one of
authors. ''What we found were striking patterns of climate warming and spread of disease, and greater incidence of disease.''
The report notes that with increased temperature, mosquitoes that carry the dengue virus bite more often. Slime mold grows
faster on eelgrass. Parasites that attach to butterflies gather in greater density.
3. Warming significantly exacerbates disease spread-redistribution of bacteria, exposure to new

populations
Jia-Rui Chong, Global Warming: Enough to Make You Sick, LOS ANGELES TIMES, 2-25-07,
As scientists later determined, the culprit was not just the bacterium, but the warming that allowed it to proliferate. "This was
probably the best example to date of how global climate change is changing the importation of infectious diseases," said Dr.
Joe McLaughlin, acting chief of epidemiology at the Alaska Division of Public Health, who published a study on the outbreak.
The spread of human disease has become one of the most worrisome subplots in the story of global warming. Incremental
temperature changes have begun to redraw the distribution of bacteria, insects and plants, exposing new populations to diseases
that they have never seen before. A report from the World Health Organization estimated that in 2000 about 154,000 deaths
around the world could be attributed to disease outbreaks and other conditions sparked by climate change. The temperature
change has been small, about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 150 years, but it has been enough to alter disease patterns
across the globe. In Sweden, fewer winter days below 10 degrees and more summer days above 50 degrees have encouraged
the northward movement of ticks, which has coincided with an increase in cases of tick-borne encephalitis since the 1980s.
Researchers have found that poison ivy has grown more potent and lush because of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In Africa, mosquitoes have been slowly inching up the slopes around Mt. Kenya, bringing malaria to high villages that had
never been exposed before. "It's going to get very warm," said Andrew Githeko, a vector biologist who heads the Climate and
Human Health Research Unit at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kisumu. "That's going to mean a huge difference to
malaria."
52
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Human Rights

1. Warming threatens fundamental human rights
Climate perturbations are likely to be superimposed on economic insecurity. As a consequence, climate impacts are at times
likely to aggravate the living conditions of people up to a point where their basic rights are in jeopardy. It is for this reason that
climate impacts may turn into a matter of human rights. As people already living at the edge see themselves pushed over into
disaster, climate effects may trigger an infringement upon economic and social human rights. This is not to say that climate
related threats (hurricanes or heat waves, for instance) to human physical integrity under conditions of greater affluence may
not constitute a human rights violation as well, but they are going to be more occasional and less structural in terms of their
occurrence, just as they are going to be more accidental and less predictable in terms of their location. Impacts in poorer
regions, in contrast, often add to an already structurally precarious livelihood situation; it is the compounded effect of economic
insecurity and climate stress for large numbers of people that centres around the question of how much climate change should
be allowed into a human rights issue.
2. Warmings negative effects will threaten the human rights of millions of people
Laura MacInnis, Climate Change Threatens Human Rights of Millions: UN, REUTERS, 2-20-08,
GENEVA - Climate change threatens the human rights of millions of people who are at risk of losing access to housing, food
and clean water unless governments intervene early to counter its effects, experts said on Tuesday. At a conference on climate
change and migration, United Nations officials said rising sea levels and intense storms, droughts and floods could force scores
of people from their homes and off their lands some permanently. Global warming and extreme weather conditions may
have calamitous consequences for the human rights of millions of people, said Kyung-wha Kang, the U.N. deputy high
commissioner for human rights. Ultimately climate change may affect the very right to life of various individuals, she said,
pointing to threats of hunger, malnutrition, exposure to disease and lost livelihoods, particularly in poor rural areas dependent
on fertile soil. Kang, a South Korean, said countries had an obligation to prevent and address some of the direst consequences
that climate change may reap on human rights.
3. Climate change undermines human rights, undermine legitimacy of states that are key to the regime
The risk to human rights and the industrialized countries legitimacy as global governance actors: Unabated climate change
could threaten livelihoods, erode human security and thus contribute to the violation of human rights. Against the backdrop of
rising temperatures, growing awareness of social climate impacts and inadequate climate change mitigation efforts, the CO2emitting industrialized countries and, in future, buoyant economies such as China could increasingly be accused of knowingly
causing human rights violations, or at least doing so in de facto terms. The international human rights discourse in the United
Nations is therefore also likely to focus in future on the threat that climate impacts pose to human rights. Unabated climate
change could thus plunge the industrialized countries in particular into crises of legitimacy and limit their international scope
for action.
53
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Human Rights [contd]

4. Warming undermines human securitywill drive an increase in human rights violations
The divisions in global politics, outlined above, are likely to be amplified by a further combination of factors. The conflict
constellations described in Chapter 6, which could be initiated and reinforced by climate change, ultimately undermine
fundamental human rights: Food security and access to drinking water could be challenged by the impacts of climate change in
affected countries and regions, destruction caused by rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions could put peoples
livelihoods at risk, and all this could trigger strong environmentally induced migration. Unabated climate change could threaten
natural life-support systems, erode human security and thus contribute to the violation of human rights. The main drivers of
climate change are the CO2- emitting industrialized countries, but increasingly the major newly industrializing countries as
well (Section 8.3.3). Against the backdrop of rising global temperatures, growing awareness of the direct impacts of climate
change on societies and inadequate mitigation efforts, these countries could increasingly be accused of knowingly causing
human rights violations, or at least doing so in de facto terms. This could lead to a permanent shift in focus in the international
human rights discourse. Whereas today, the democratic industrialized countries castigate the violation of human rights by
unjust regimes, these countries themselves could with good reason find themselves in the dock in future, put there by the
developing countries that are acutely affected by climate change and by international human rights organizations. Future
human rights debates in the United Nations are likely to focus not only on the classic disputes about the violation of human
dignity by authoritarian governments, but also on the threat to human rights resulting from climate impacts, especially as it is
now recognised that human rights guarantees also entail certain active obligations. This includes, for example, the
responsibility to protect, which makes it incumbent on states to take appropriate protective measures in the event of a threat to
human rights. Unabated climate change could thus plunge the industrialized countries in particular into crises of legitimacy and
limit their international scope for action. It is very possible that these crises of legitimacy vis--vis the rest of the world could
also trigger internal crises of legitimacy in the democratic industrial societies themselves. The correlations outlined above
would also shift the parameters in international development policy and research. Over the last two decades, the view which
has prevailed in development research is that the success and failure of development processes in developing countries have
been influenced primarily by endogenous factors and actors. In the context of advancing climate change, however, this view
may need to be reappraised. One factor which must be considered in this context is that the drivers of climate change are
permanently impairing many developing countries development prospects. The political responsibility for the development
crises in the South would then no longer be mainly attributable to bad governance in the poor countries. With rising
temperatures, those countries which were once regarded as models for democracy, human rights protection and economic
development would instead be regarded as being jointly responsible for global instability, insecurity and the destruction of
economic potential. The G7 countries, which, as a value-based community of the worlds leading democracies, claim to be
controlling the fortunes of the world not only in their own but also in the global interest, would jeopardize their own credibility
the important basis of their international capacity to act.
54
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Mass Death

1. Unchecked warming risks destruction of the planet
Steve Connor, journalist, Hawking Warns: We Must Recognize the Catastrophic Dangers of Climate Change,
INDEPENDNET, 1-18-07, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45293.html, accessed 9-4-12.
Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the
Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said. Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear
age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it. He was speaking at the
Royal Society in London yesterday at a conference organised by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which has decided to move
the minute hand of its "Doomsday Clock" forward to five minutes to midnight to reflect the increased dangers faced by the
world. Scientists devised the clock in 1947 as a way of expressing to the public the risk of nuclear conflagration following the
use of the atomic weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. "As we stand at the
brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change, scientists have a special responsibility, once again,
to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces," Professor Hawking said. "As scientists, we
understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and
technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. "As citizens of the world, we have a
duty to share that knowledge. We have a duty, as well, to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day,
and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to
prevent further climate change.
2. Warming risks massive species loss (fifty percent) and huge rises in sea levelrenders earth
uninhabitable
Warming, BOSTON COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS LAW REVIEW v. 34, 2007, p. 583-584.
If we do nothing to curb carbon emissions, we will commit ourselves to a future that most Americans cannot even imagine. Jim
Hansen, the leading climate scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), presents the ten degree
Fahrenheit scenario: it will send fifty percent or more species into extinction. That is equivalent to the mass extinction that
occurred fifty-five million years ago. In his words, "Life will survive, but it will do so on a transformed planet." A mere fivedegree Fahrenheit temperature increase may cause an eighty foot rise in sea level. Hansen points out: "In that case, the United
States would lose most East Coast cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami; indeed, practically the
entire state of Florida would be under water. Fifty million people in the U.S. live below that sea level." I could go on detailing
on how climate crisis will affect the lives of every human on Earth. What I have mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg--a
phrase on its way out. British commentator Mark Lynas, author of High Tide, summarizes the Earth's situation this way: "Let
me put it simply: if we go on emitting greenhouse gases at anything like the current rate, most of the surface of the globe will
be rendered uninhabitable within the lifetimes of most readers of this article."
55
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Migration

1. Warming risks displacing millions of people
Kristina Stefanova, "Rising Sea Levles in Pacific Create Wave of Migrants," WASHINGTON TIMES, 4--19--09, p. A1.
Rising sea levels blamed on climate change are taking a toll on island nations in the South Pacific, with the world's first climate
refugees beginning a migration that is likely to continue for decades to come. Inhabitants of parts of New Guinea and Tuvalu
have already been forced to move from low-lying areas. New Zealand has agreed to accept migrants from Tuvalu, which
experts think will be completely submerged by the middle of the century. Canada is funding the relocation of residents from
parts of Vanuatu affected by global warming. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
warned in a recent report that the Pacific region is particularly vulnerable. It warned of coastal communities already being
inundated by rising seas, the loss of wetlands and coral bleaching, as well as an increase in disease and heat-related mortality
resulting from climate change. "Communities all over the Pacific are alarmed at coastal erosion and the advancing sea levels,"
said Diane McFadzien, the South Pacific's regional climate change coordinator with the World Wildlife Fund. "We are already
seeing signs of whole villages having to relocate ... or important cultural sites such as burial grounds in Fiji being eroded" The
Pacific islands comprise 22 nations with 7 million residents The rising sea and eroding beaches caused the recent forced
displacement of the people of the Carteret Islands, about 70 miles northeast of Papua New Guinea. The islands' 2,500 residents
are moving to one of Papua New Guinea's larger towns, Bougainville. Extreme weather has increased in frequency and ferocity
in recent years in Papua New Guinea. A flood in Oro Province in November 2007 killed 70 people and destroyed nearly all
roads and bridges. In the Indian Ocean, the Maldives, a chain of 1,200 islands and coral atolls that sits about 6 feet above sea
level, has long been a favorite honeymoon destination. Estimates released at the Copenhagen International Climate Congress in
February say the sea could swallow most or all of the islands by the year 2100. The world's first climate refugees are thought to
be the 500,000 inhabitants of Bhola Island in Bangladesh, who were left homeless after half of the island became permanently
flooded in 2005. Inhabitants of another island in the Bay of Bengal, Kutubdia, are now homeless after the island lost almost 4
square miles of land, shrinking it from its original size of almost 10 square miles, according to the Equity and Justice Working
Group, an environmental organization. The group recently said that some 30 million people in 19 of 64 districts along the
southern coastline of Bangladesh have already been exposed to extreme weather, rising sea levels and river erosion. Equity's
estimates are more dire than the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which estimates that 22
million people in Bangladesh will be forced from their homes by 2050 because of climate change. A migration of such
magnitude can have real-life implications for national budgets, international law and immigration policies.
2. Warming will result in large numbers of climate migrants

Michael Werz, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress and Laura Conley, graduate student, International Relations,
University of Chicago, CLIMATE CHANGE, MIGRATION, AND CONFLICT: ADDRESSING COMPLEX CRISIS
SCENARIOS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, 112, p. 3-4.
Migration adds another layer of complexity to the scenario. In the 21st century the world could see substantial numbers of
climate migrantspeople displaced by either the slow or sudden onset of the effects of climate change. The United Nations
recent Human Development Report stated that, worldwide, there are already an estimated 700 million internal migrantsthose
leaving their homes within their own countriesa number that includes people whose migration is related to climate change
and environmental factors. Overall migration across national borders is already at approximately 214 million people
worldwide,6 with estimates of up to 20 million displaced in 2008 alone because of a rising sea level, desertification, and
flooding.7 One expert, Oli Brown of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, predicts a tenfold increase in the
current number of internally displaced persons and international refugees by 2050.8 It is important to acknowledge that there is
no consensus on this estimate. In fact there is major disagreement among experts about how to identify climate as a causal
factor in internal and international migration. But even though the root causes of human mobility are not always easy to
decipher, the policy challenges posed by that movement are real. A 2009 report by the International Organization for Migration
produced in cooperation with the United Nations University and the Climate Change, Environment and Migration Alliance
cites numbers that range from 200 million to 1 billion migrants from climate change alone, by 2050, arguing that
environmental drivers of migration are often coupled with economic, social and developmental factors that can accelerate and
to a certain extent mask the impact of climate change. The report also notes that migration can result from different
environmental factors, among them gradual environmental degradation (including desertification, soil and coastal erosion) and
natural disasters (such as earthquakes, floods or tropical storms). (See box on page 15 for a more detailed definition of climate
migrants.) Clearly, then, climate change is expected to aggravate many existing migratory pressures around the world. Indeed
associated extreme weather events resulting in drought, floods, and disease are projected to increase the number of sudden
humanitarian crises and disasters in areas least able to cope, such as those already mired in poverty or prone to conflict.
56
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Migration [contd]

3. Warming will exacerbate existing migration problems, substantially increasing the risk of conflict
Migration is already a major and largely unresolved international policy challenge. Refugee flows in Africa are both the cause
and the effect of spiralling violent conflicts. The European Unions impotence in dealing with African refugees and its failure
to develop effective instruments to prevent migration are obvious. The US, meanwhile, is massively reinforcing its
fortifications along its border with Mexico in order to limit the influx of illegal economic migrants. Migration and refugees
from poor countries are politically sensitive and controversial issues in the industrialized countries, as the heated debates in
Germany in the early 1990s, which led to the tightening up of asylum law, and the rise of xenophobic movements and parties in
Europe illustrate very clearly. There are many signs that the problem of migration will intensify worldwide as a result of
climate change and its social impacts. Growing numbers of people will be affected, and the number of migration hotspots
around the world will also increase. The associated conflict potential is considerable: Environmental migrants are currently
not provided for in international law, so people displaced as a result of climate change impacts have no formal rights. Conflicts
can be expected between the countries which cause climate change and those affected by it, with key issues being the extent to
which refugee and migration flows are genuinely triggered by rising global temperatures or by other environmental damage
resulting from actions at national level. Disputes over compensation payments and the financing of systems to manage refugee
crises will increase and in line with the polluter pays principle, the industrialized countries will have to face up to their
responsibilities. The controversy over the development of international regimes to clarify which countries must admit climate
refugees in future is likely to worsen political tensions. If global temperatures continue to rise unabated, migration could
become one of the major fields of conflict in international politics in future.
4. Warming causes mass migrations--creates tensions that could spur conflict

2007, p. 16-18.
The reasons for mass migrations are very complex. However, when water or food supplies shift or when conditions otherwise
deteriorate (as from sea level rise, for example), people will likely move to find more favorable conditions. Although climate
change may force migrations of workers due to economic conditions, the greatest concern will be movement of asylum seekers
and refugees who due to ecological devastation become settlers: By 2025, 40 percent of the worlds population will be living
in countries experiencing significant water shortages. Over the course of this century, sea level rise could potentially cause the
displacement of tens of millions of people from low-lying areas such as Bangladesh. Migrations in themselves do not
necessarily have negative effects, although taken in the context of global climate change a net benefit is highly unlikely. Three
types of migration patterns occur. Some migrations take place within countries, adding to a nations political stress, causing
economic upheavalpositive and negativeand distracting from other issues. As a developed nation, the U.S. was able to
absorb the displacement of people from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina without suffering economic or
political collapse, but not without considerable turmoil. Some migrations cross international borders. Environmental
degradation can fuel migrations in less developed countries, and these migrations can lead to international political conflict. For
example, the large migration from Bangladesh to India in the second half of the last century was due largely to loss of arable
land, among other environmental factors. This affected the economy and political situation in the regions of India that absorbed
most of this population shift and resulted in violence between natives and migrants. A third form of migration involves not only
crossing international borders but moving across vast regions while doing so. Since the 1960s, Europe has experienced this
kind of south to north migration, with an influx of immigrants from Africa and Asia. The shift in demographics has created
racial and religious tensions in many European countries, as evidenced in the 2005 civil unrest in France.
5. Climate change spurs migration from Africa to Europe

2007, p. 22.
More than 30 percent of the worlds refugees and displaced persons are African. Within the last decade, severe food shortages
affected twenty-five African countries and placed as many as 200 million people on the verge of calamity. Expected future
climate change will exacerbate this problem. The Sahara desert is spreading, and the sub-Saharan region is expected to suffer
reduced precipitation. As climate changes and agricultural patterns are disrupted, the geopolitics of the future will increasingly
be the politics of scarcity. Potential rainfall decreases in North Africa would likely exacerbate the problem of migration to
Europe. Reduced rainfall and increasing desertification of the sub-Saharan region will likely also result in migrations to
Europe, as well as migrations within the African continent.
57
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Moral Considerations

1. We must act--is the moral equivalent of ending slavery
Now 70, Hansen is regarded as one of the most influential figures in climate science; the creator of one of the first global
climate models, his pioneering role in warning about global warming is frequently cited by climate campaigners such as former
US vice president Al Gore and in earlier science prizes, including the $1m Dan David prize. He has been arrested more than
once for his role in protests against coal energy. Hansen will argue in his lecture that current generations have an over-riding
moral duty to their children and grandchildren to take immediate action. Describing this as an issue of inter-generational justice
on a par with ending slavery, Hansen said: "Our parents didn't know that they were causing a problem for future generations
but we can only pretend we don't know because the science is now crystal clear. "We understand the carbon cycle: the CO2 we
put in the air will stay in surface reservoirs and won't go back into the solid earth for millennia. What the Earth's history tells us
is that there's a limit on how much we can put in the air without guaranteeing disastrous consequences for future generations.
We cannot pretend that we did not know."
2. Climate change is the moral issue of the 21st century--we must act
Dr. James Hansen, NASA, "Obama's Second Change on the Predominant Moral Issue of this Century," HUFFINGTON POST,
4--5--10, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567.html, accessed 9-7-12.
President Obama, finally, took a get-involved get-tough approach to negotiations on health care legislation and the arms control
treaty with Russia -- with success. Could this be the turn-around for what might still be a great presidency? The predominant
moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change, comparable to Nazism faced by Churchill in the 20th
century and slavery faced by Lincoln in the 19th century. Our fossil fuel addiction, if unabated, threatens our children and
grandchildren, and most species on the planet. Yet the president, addressing climate in the State of the Union, was at his goodguy worst, leading with "I know that there are those who disagree..." with the scientific evidence. This weak entre, almost
legitimizing denialists, was predictably greeted by cheers and hoots from well-oiled coal-fired Congressmen. The president was
embarrassed and his supporters cringed. This is not the 17th century, when "beliefs" trumped science, forcing Galileo to recant
his understanding of the solar system. The president should unequivocally support the climate science community, which is
under politically orchestrated assault on the legitimacy of its scientific assessments. If he needs reassurance or cover, the
president can ask for a prompt report from the National Academy of Sciences, established by Abraham Lincoln for advice on
technical issues. Why face the difficult truth presented by the climate science? Why not use the president's tack: just talk about
the need for clean energy and energy independence? Because that approach leads to wrong policies, ineffectual legislation
larded with giveaways to special interests, such as the Waxman-Markey bill in the House and the bills being considered now in
the Senate. The fundamental requirement for solving our fossil fuel addiction and moving to a clean energy future is a rising
price on carbon emissions. Otherwise, if we refuse to make fossil fuels pay for their damage to human health, the environment,
and our children's future, fossil fuels will remain the cheapest energy and we will squeeze every drop from tar sands, oil shale,
pristine lands, and offshore areas.
3. Religious groups are united in arguing that we need to act on climate change
Dr. James Hansen, NASA, "Obama's Second Change on the Predominant Moral Issue of this Century," HUFFINGTON POST,
4--5--10, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567.html, accessed 9-7-12.
Religions across the spectrum -- Catholics, Jews, Mainline Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, and Evangelicals -- are united in
seeing climate change as a moral and ethical challenge. The Religious Coalition on Creation Care is working with the Citizen's
Climate Lobby, the Price Carbon Campaign, and economists at the Carbon Tax Center to help promote this honest and
effective energy and climate policy. The public, if well-informed, can be expected to support this policy. But so far Congress
has been steamrolled by special interests. Congressional leaders add giveaways in their bills to attract industry support and
specific votes. The best of the lot, the Cantwell-Collins bill, returns 75 percent of the revenue to the public. But it is still a capand-trade scheme, and its low carbon price and offset-type projects create little incentive for clean energy and would have only
small impact on carbon emissions.
58
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Multiwarrant

1. Warming threatens biodiversity, economy
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), THE ENERGY REPORT: 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY BY 2050, 2011, p. 16.
Global warming threatens the fragile balance of our planets ecosystems, and could consign a quarter of all species to
extinction. The loss of ecological services from forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems will also have huge economic
implications.The costs of adapting to climate change will be colossal: a recent report suggests that by 2030, the world may need
to spend more than 200 billion a year on measures such as building flood defences, transporting water for agriculture and
rebuilding infrastructure affected by climate change.To avoid devastating consequences, we must keep eventual global
warming below 1.5C compared to pre-Industrial temperatures. To have a chance of doing that, global greenhouse gas
emissions need to start falling within the next five years, and we need to cut them by at least 80 per cent globally by 2050 (from
1990 levels) and even further beyond that date.
2. Warming causes sea level rise, disease spread, mass extinctions

Additional anticipated effects include sea level rise of 0.18 to 0.59 meters in 2090-2100 relative to 1980-1999, repercussions to
agriculture, reductions in the ozone layer, increasingly intense hurricanes and extreme weather events, lowering of ocean pH,
oxygen depletion in the oceans, and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, as well as Lyme disease,
hantavirus infections, bubonic plague, and cholera. One study predicts 18% to 35% of a sample of 1,103 animal and plant
species would be extinct by 2050, based on future climate projections. However, few mechanistic studies have documented
extinctions due to recent climate change and one study suggests that projected rates of extinction are uncertain.
3. The world is warming and will grow worsewill cause a huge number of potential problems
The world is warming, and the climate is changing. Temperatures are rising in all seasons and over land and in the ocean.
Heavy rainfall is occurring more frequently, exacerbating flooding, while the higher temperatures are amplifying evaporation,
depressing soil moisture, and intensifying droughts. Sea ice is retreating from shorelines around the Arctic, and glaciers are
melting rapidly in the Alps, Alaska, and Greenland, as well as in low-latitude mountain ranges around the world. Sea level is
rising, and the rate of rise is apparently increasing. Projections indicate that much greater climate change lies ahead. The
impacts of the changing climate on the environment and society will be pervasive and complex. Already, the ranges of animal
and plant species are shifting poleward and to higher elevations. Increasing populations and development in coastal cities and
communities are increasing the vulnerability of society to sea level rise and intense storms, and global warming appears to be
increasing storm intensity. Greater climate change will significantly disrupt the distribution of natural and managed ecosystems
on which society relies. Agricultural zones and food production will shift, with the potential for more food production being
dependent on the ability to control increasingly favorable conditions for weeds and pests. The magnitude and seasonal
availability of water resources will change in many regions in ways that exacerbate shortages. Sea-level rise will continue to
erode coastlines and threaten low-lying islands. More frequent, longer-lasting, and more intense heat waves will cause many
more deaths unless actions are taken to reduce vulnerability. In many locations, conditions more favorable for mosquitoes and
other disease vectors will intensify and spread the threat of infectious diseases, requiring greater protection and eradication
efforts. The close coupling of indigenous cultures and traditions to the timing and pattern of natures exquisite web of life will
be disrupted as changes occur in the timing of migrations, the life cycles of plants and animals, and the populations of sensitive
species.
59
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Multiwarrant [contd]

4. Warming will cause a laundry list of problems
Climate change is advancing rapidly. Without resolute counteraction, a global increase in temperature of 27 C relative to preindustrial levels can be expected to occur by 2100. This will cause more frequent and more severe extreme weather events such
as heavy rains, drought, heat waves and storms. There is also a danger of tropical cyclones not only becoming stronger but also
occurring with greater frequency in extratropical regions. At the same time, sea levels are continuing to rise. These direct
impacts of climate change will have far-reaching effects upon societies and the lives of people around the world. If climate
change continues unabated, agricultural yields will decline significantly in many regions of the world, especially Africa and
South Asia, and poverty will grow accordingly; drought will make it difficult for many millions of people worldwide to gain
access to clean drinking water; extreme weather events will continue to gain destructive force and may confront governments
and societies with major issues of adaptation, for instance in Central America, but also on the east coasts of China and India.
Many states that are already weak and fragile will be faced with additional environmental stress. Comprehensive changes in
biogeophysical conditions will jeopardize the livelihood bases of people in the particularly affected regions of the world and
will trigger migration. The present report examines whether the emerging trends may contribute in the future to a
destabilization of societies, regions or even the whole international system.
5. Climate change risks war, terrorism, and slavery, while threatening democracy
Richard Haas, President, Council on Foreign Relations, Testimony before House Select committee on Energy Independence
and Global Warming, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 4-18-07, lexis.
Should climate change be treated as a national security matter? The short and clear answer is "yes." Countries are unlikely to
go to war over levels of greenhouse gas emissions, but they may well go to war over the results of climate change, including
water shortages and large-scale human migration. Climate change, by contributing to disease, extreme weather, challenges
from insects that attack both food production and people, water shortages, and the loss of arable land, will also contribute to
state failure, which in turn provides opportunities for activities such as terrorism, illegal drugs, and slavery that exploit
"sovereignty deficits." Development, democracy, and life itself will not thrive amidst such conditions.
6. Global warming threatens our societymultiple mechanisms

Emissions Through Emissions Trading, TULANE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW JOURNAL v. 17, Summer 2004, p. 267-268.
The widespread agreement among scientists that the buildup of carbon and other emissions from human activity will result in
disruptive and perhaps even catastrophic changes to the earth's climate has led to international environmental agreements that
promise to begin to reduce the threat. These agreements are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions that accumulate in the
atmosphere and cause warming beyond the natural greenhouse effect that is essential for life on earth. The threat of global
warming is not the gradual increase in temperatures in and of itself. In fact, global warming may produce some benefits in
northern regions, such as longer growing seasons and milder weather. Rather, the greater fear is that changes in climate will
wreak havoc in some regions by increasing the intensity of heat waves, droughts, and storms; produce warming trends that
harm agriculture and biodiversity; stimulate the spread of disease; cause the melting of glaciers and rise of sea level in coastal
areas; and result in a host of other problems.
60
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Ocean Acidification

1. Oceans are acidifying rapidly, killing off coral and fish
Deborah Zabarenko, Oceans Acidic Shift May Be Fastest in 300 mln Years, CLIMATE SPECTATOR, 3212, lexis.
The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more
rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday. Looking
back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change,
researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science. Quickly
acidifying seawater eats away at coral reefs, which provide habitat for other animals and plants, and makes it harder for
mussels and oysters to form protective shells. It can also interfere with small organisms that feed commercial fish like salmon.
The phenomenon has been a top concern of Jane Lubchenco, the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, who has conducted demonstrations about acidification during hearings in the U.S. Congress. Oceans get more
acidic when more carbon gets into the atmosphere. In pre-industrial times, that occurred periodically in natural pulses of carbon
that also pushed up global temperatures, the scientists wrote. Human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, have
increased the level of atmospheric carbon to 392 parts per million from about 280 parts per million at the start of the industrial
revolution. Carbon dioxide is one of several heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming.
2. CO2 causes acidification, risks mass oceanic destruction

Increased atmospheric CO2 increases the amount of CO2 dissolved in the oceans. CO2 dissolved in the ocean reacts with water
to form carbonic acid, resulting in ocean acidification. Ocean surface pH is estimated to have decreased from 8.25 near the
beginning of the industrial era to 8.14 by 2004, and is projected to decrease by a further 0.14 to 0.5 units by 2100 as the ocean
absorbs more CO2. Since organisms and ecosystems are adapted to a narrow range of pH, this raises extinction concerns,
directly driven by increased atmospheric CO2, that could disrupt food webs and impact human societies that depend on marine
ecosystem services.
3. Acidification causes massive die-offshistoric record proves

Deborah Zabarenko, Oceans Acidic Shift May Be Fastest in 300 mln Years, CLIMATE SPECTATOR, 3212, lexis.
To figure out what ocean acidification might have done in the prehistoric past, 21 researchers from the United States, the
United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain reviewed studies of the geological record going back 300 million years,
looking for signs of climate disruption. Those indications of climate change included mass extinction events, where substantial
percentages of living things on Earth died off, such as the giant asteroid strike thought to have killed the dinosaurs some 65
million years ago. The events that seemed similar to what is happening now included mass extinctions about 252 million and
201 million years ago, as well as the warming period 56 million years in the past. The researchers reckoned the 5,000-year hot
spell 56 million years ago, likely due to factors like massive volcanism, was the closest parallel to current conditions at any
time in the 300 million years. To detect that, they looked at a layer of brown mud buried under the Southern Ocean off
Antarctica. Sandwiched between layers of white plankton fossils, the brown mud indicated an ocean so acidic that the plankton
fossils from that particular 5,000-year period dissolved into muck. During that span, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere
doubled and average temperatures rose by 10.8 degrees F (6 degrees C), the researchers said. The oceans became more acidic
by about 0.4 unit on the 14-point pH scale over that 5,000-year period, the researchers said.
4. CO2 emissions acidify the oceansthreaten many species

Earth Institute, Columbia University, Ocean Acidification Rate May Be Unprecedented, 3112,
http://www.countercurrents.org/cuei020312.htm, accessed 3-23-12.
The worlds oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major
extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in
Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time
period. What were doing today really stands out, said lead author Brbel Hnisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia
Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped
outnew species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may
lose organisms we care aboutcoral reefs, oysters, salmon. The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon
dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate
shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and
some plankton need for reef and shell-building.
61
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Plankton

1. Warming kills plankton, risking a runaway greenhouse effectdisrupts vital nutrient mixing
Steve Connor, Warmer Seas Will Wipe Out Plankton, Source of Ocean Life, THE INDEPENDENT, 1-19-06,
The microscopic plants that underpin all life in the oceans are likely to be destroyed by global warming, a study has found.
Scientists have discovered a way that the vital plankton of the oceans can be starved of nutrients as a result of the seas getting
warmer. They believe the findings have catastrophic implications for the entire marine habitat, which ultimately relies on
plankton at the base of the food chain. The study is also potentially devastating because it has thrown up a new "positive
feedback" mechanism that could result in more carbon dioxide ending up in the atmosphere to cause a runaway greenhouse
effect. Scientists led by Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam have calculated that global warming, which is causing
the temperature of the sea surface to rise, will also interfere with the vital upward movement of nutrients from the deep sea.
These nutrients, containing nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, are vital food for phytoplankton. If the supply is interrupted the
plants die off, which prevents them from absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. "Global warming of the surface
layers of the oceans reduces the upward transport of nutrients into the surface layers. This generates chaos among the
plankton," the professor said. The sea is one of nature's "carbon sinks", which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
and deposits the carbon in a long-term store - dissolved in the ocean or deposited as organic waste on the seabed. The vast
quantities of phytoplankton in the oceans absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. When the organisms die they fall to the
seabed, carrying their store of carbon with them, where it stays for many thousands of years - thereby helping to counter global
warming. "Plankton... forms the basis of the marine food web. Moreover, phytoplankton consumes the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide during photosynthesis," Professor Huisman said. "Uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton across the vast expanses
of the oceans reduces the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere." Warmer surface water caused by global warming
causes greater temperature stratification, with warm surface layers sitting on deeper, colder layers, to prevent mixing of
nutrients. Professor Huisman shows in a study published in Nature that warmer sea surfaces will deliver a potentially
devastating blow to the supply of deep-sea nutrients for phytoplankton.
2. Loss of plankton exacerbates warmingremoves oceans as a carbon sink

His computer model of the impact was tested on real measurements made in the Pacific Ocean, where sea surface temperatures
tend to be higher than in other parts of the world. He found that his computer predictions of how nutrient movement would be
interrupted were accurate. "A larger temperature difference between two water layers implies less mixing of chemicals
between these water layers," he said. "Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans, owing to climate change, strengthens
the stratification and thereby reduces the upward mixing of nutrients." Scientists had believed phytoplankton, which survives
best at depths of about 100 metres, is largely stable and immune from the impact of global warming. "This model prediction
was rather unexpected," Professor Huisman said. "Reduced stability of the plankton, caused by global warming of the oceans,
may result in a decline of oceanic production and reduced sequestration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the oceans."
3. Loss of plankton destroys all marine life, seriously exacerbates warming

Microscopic plankton comes in animal and plant forms. The plants are known as phytoplankton. They lie at the base of the
marine food chain because they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into organic carbon - food for everything else. Smaller
animals such as shrimp-like krill feed on plankton and are themselves eaten by larger organisms, from small fish to the biggest
whales. Without phytoplankton, the oceans would soon because marine deserts. Phytoplankton are also important because of
the role they play in the carbon cycle, which determines how much carbon dioxide - the most important greenhouse gas - ends
up in the atmosphere to cause global warming. Huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which dissolves in the
oceans, are absorbed by phytoplankton and converted to organic carbon. When the phytoplankton die, their shells and bodies
sink to the seabed, carrying this carbon with them. Phytoplankton therefore acts as a carbon "sink" which takes carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in long-term stores that can remain undisturbed for thousands of years. If the
growth of phytoplankton is interrupted by global warming, this ability to act as a buffer against global warming is also affected
- leading to a much-feared positive feedback.
62
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Runaway Greenhouse

1. Failure to act now risks runaway warming
Bill McKibben, Scholar in Residence, Middlebury College, Civilizations Last Chance, LOS ANGELES TIMES, 5-11-08,
www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,4443965.story, accessed 9-4-12.
All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth. There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point
most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several
coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity
wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate
evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that
we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may
already be behind us. So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you
don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're
lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and
knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front. In this case, though, it's worse than that
because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal,
quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two
decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast. And suddenly the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent
greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. It appears that we've managed to
warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it
have begun to bubble forth. And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car; and
Americans are buying TVs the size of windshields, which suck juice ever faster. Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that if
we didn't act, there was trouble coming. He didn't just say that if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be
better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His phrase was: "if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that
on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with
ever-more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees
than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the
atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto protocol, which was already in doubt because of
its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.) We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now the
planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected
80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks
are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind. And we have, at best, a few years to shortcircuit them -- to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on
behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration,
at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the
next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." In the next two or three years, the nations of
the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto accord (which, for the record, has never been approved
by the United States -- the only industrial nation that has failed to do so). When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are
supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty -- a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed
the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2. If we did everything right, Hansen says, we could see carbon
emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century
was out, we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner
screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.
3. Arctic melt risks a massive methane release

Steve Connor, Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Plumes of Methane: Climate Feedback catastrophe? THE
INDEPENDENT, 121411, http://www.countercurrents.org/connor141211.htm, accessed 3-23-12.
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost,
which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. One of the
greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire
region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere
leading to rapid and severe climate change. Dr Semiletov's team published a study in 2010 estimating that the methane
emissions from this region were about eight million tonnes a year, but the latest expedition suggests this is a significant
underestimate of the phenomenon.
63
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Runaway Greenhouse [contd]

3. Permafrost melt risks warming runawaymassive CO2 and methane releases
Experts have long known that northern lands were a storehouse of frozen carbon, locked up in the form of leaves, roots and
other organic matter trapped in icy soil - a mix that, when thawed, can produce methane, which is far more potent than carbon
dioxide at warming the planet. But they have been stunned in recent years to realize just how much organic debris is there. A
recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the
Northern Hemisphere, contains twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. Temperatures are warming across much of that
region, primarily, scientists believe, because of the rapid human release of greenhouse gases, which trap more of the sun's heat.
Permafrost is warming, too. Some has already thawed, and other signs are emerging that the frozen carbon may be
destabilizing. ''It's like broccoli in your freezer,'' said Kevin Schaefer, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in
Boulder, Colorado. ''As long as the broccoli stays in the freezer, it's going to be O.K. But once you take it out of the freezer and
put it in the fridge, it will thaw out and eventually decay.'' If a substantial amount of the carbon should enter the atmosphere, it
would intensify the warming of the planet. An especially worrisome possibility is that a significant proportion will emerge not
as carbon dioxide, the gas that usually forms when organic material breaks down, but as methane, produced when the
breakdown occurs in lakes or wetlands. The potential for large new methane emissions in the Arctic is one of the biggest wild
cards in climate science. Scientists have declared permafrost research to be an urgent priority. The U.S. Department of Energy
and the European Union recently committed to new projects aimed at understanding the situation, and the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration is considering doing so. But researchers say the money and people devoted to the problem are still
minimal compared with the risk.
4. Warming risks permafrost methane release and a deadly positive feedback loop
Seth Borenstein, Scientists Find New Global Warming Time Bomb, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9-7-06,
Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously
thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb. Methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful
than carbon dioxide - is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being
published today in the journal Nature. The findings are based on new, more accurate measuring techniques. The effects can
be huge, said lead author Katey Walter of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks said. Its coming out a lot and theres a lot
more to come out. Scientists worry about a global warming vicious cycle that was not part of their already gloomy climate
forecast: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that has been continuously frozen for thousands of years. Thawed
permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the
greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost and so on. The higher the temperature gets, the more permafrost
we melt, the more tendency it is to become a more vicious cycle, said Chris Field, director of global ecology at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, who was not part of the study. Thats the thing that is scary about this whole thing. There are lots
of mechanisms that tend to be self-perpetuating and relatively few that tend to shut it off.
5. Permafrost methane release has yet to start, but we are on the brink
Seth Borenstein, Scientists Find New Global Warming Time Bomb, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9-7-06,
The permafrost issue has caused a quiet buzz of concern among climate scientists and geologists. Specialists in Arctic climate
are coming up with research plans to study the permafrost effect, which is not well understood or observed, said Robert Corell,
chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a study group of 300 scientists. Its kind of like a slow-motion time
bomb, said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the study in Science.
Most of the yedoma is in little-studied areas of northern and eastern Siberia. What makes that permafrost special is that much
of it lies under lakes; the carbon below gets released as methane. Carbon beneath dry permafrost is released as carbon dioxide.
Using special underwater bubble traps, Walter and her colleagues found giant hot spots of bubbling methane that were never
measured before because they were hard to reach. I dont think it can be easily stopped; wed really have to have major
cooling for it to stop, Walter said. Scientists arent quite sure whether methane or carbon dioxide is worse. Methane is far
more powerful in trapping heat, but only lasts about a decade before it dissipates into carbon dioxide and other chemicals.
Carbon dioxide traps heat for about a century. The bottom line is its better if it stays frozen in the ground, Schuur said.
But were getting to the point where its going more and more into the atmosphere. Vladimir Romanovsky, geophysics
professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said he thinks the big methane or carbon dioxide release hasnt started yet,
but its coming. In Alaska and Canada - which have far less permafrost than Siberia - its closer to happening, he said. Already,
the Alaskan permafrost is reaching the thawing point in many areas.
64
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change--Sea Level Rise

1. Warming will increase sea levels--only uncertainty is about the timing
Expected human-caused sea level rise is controversial because predictions focus on sea level rise at a specific time, 2100.
Prediction of sea level on a given date is inherently difficult, because it depends on how rapidly non-linear ice sheet
disintegration begins. Focus on a single date also encourages people to take the estimated result as an indication of what
humanity faces, thus failing to emphasize that the likely rate of sea level rise immediately after 2100 will be far larger than
within the 21st century, if CO2 emissions continue to increase. Most recent estimates of sea level rise by 2100 have been of
the order of 1m, notably higher than estimates in earlier assessments (74), and it also has been argued (74, 75) that continued
business-as-usual CO2 emissions could cause multi-meter sea level rise this century. In Supplementary Material we discuss
and provide references for estimated sea level rise and for observational evidence about changing ice sheet conditions. The
important point is that the uncertainty is not about whether continued rapid CO2 emissions would cause large sea level rise it
is about how soon the large changes would begin. If all or most fossil fuels are burned, the carbon will remain in the climate
system for many centuries, in which case multi-meter sea level rise is practically certain. Such a sea level rise would create
hundreds of millions of global warming refugees from highly-populated low-lying areas, thus likely causing major
international conflicts.
2. Warming risks significant sea level rise

Rising Sea Levels: An "Invisible Tsunami" Here's another "postcard from the edge": rising sea levels. You'll recall that some
senators in the state legislature in North Carolina don't think it's much of a problem. Well, let's take a look at the evidence. Our
best studies predict a higher sea level rise than previously projected. With the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone,
global sea levels could rise by as much as 3.26 meters in the coming years. And the Pacific and Atlantic coasts may be in for a
25 percent increase above average levels by century's end. In all, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet has the potential to
raise global sea level by about seven meters, and the ice sheets of Antarctica have the potential to contribute to 60 meters of sea
level rise. Think about what this means. As the New York Times reported in March, some 3.7 million Americans living within
a few feet of high tide are at risk from the rising sea. So all you state senators out there, listen up: The effects of climate change
will spare no one--from Tampa to Asheville, from Sausalito to Staten Island, all coastal communities are vulnerable. Benjamin
Strauss, co-author of a smart new study on topographic vulnerability, said it best: "Sea level rise is like an invisible tsunami,
building force while we do almost nothing...We have a closing window of time to prevent the worst by preparing for higher
seas." I think that's exactly right--and it's why, in cities like Boston, officials are actively planning for how to manage 100-year
floods that are now arriving every twenty years in the face of a global sea level rise of three to six feet by 2100. So, we can pass
legislation at the state level to ban planning for sea level rise. It might be easy politics, but it's not smart politics in terms of
protecting our country. Just ask those living in Tuvalu and the low-lying nation of Kiribati. Think they could use some advance
planning to deal with the "King" tides that may soon drown out life on their shores? You bet. But instead of learning from
them, we've succumbed to the siren call of short-term interests. One resident of Tuvalu poignantly asked: "What will happen to
us in 10 years' time?" I wish I could allay her fears. I wish I could tell her that the climate challenge would only be limited to
occasional sea level rise, and that--naturally, surely--the King tides would recede. Raging Floods and Water Scarcity But the
truth is much more harrowing. From Veracruz to Songkhla Province in Thailand, floods are devastating crops and stealing
away opportunities for millions. On my travels, I've seen children orphaned by raging floodwaters, families deprived of basic
necessities like food, clean drinking water and medicine. I've also seen the ways in which climatic changes interact with
conflict, food insecurity and water scarcity. Think of Darfur and tensions over arable land. Think of drought in Syria and its
impact on farmers in southern Dara'a. Think of water scarcity in Yemen--and the list goes on. These are the "invisible
tsunamis" that Benjamin Strauss spoke of. They develop slowly, quietly, determinately. And they devastate communities just
as surely as they renew our sense of urgency about the costs of inaction.
65
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Terrorism

1. Warming increases disease, migration, terror risks
2007, p. 44.
Projected climate change poses a serious threat to Americas national security. Potential threats to the nations security require
careful study and prudent planning to counter and mitigate potential detrimental outcomes. Based on the evidence presented,
the Military Advisory Board concluded that it is appropriate to focus on the serious consequences to our national security that
are likely from unmitigated climate change. In already-weakened states, extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level
rise, retreating glaciers, and the rapid spread of life-threatening diseases will themselves have likely effects: increased
migrations, further weakened and failed states, expanded ungoverned spaces, exacerbated underlying conditions that terrorist
groups seek to exploit, and increased internal conflicts. In developed countries, these conditions threaten to disrupt economic
trade and introduce new security challenges, such as increased spread of infectious disease and increased immigration. Overall,
climate change has the potential to disrupt our way of life and force changes in how we keep ourselves safe and secure by
adding a new hostile and stressing factor into the national and international security environment.
2. Warming causes terrorism--social stresses

2007, p. 16.
Many developing countries do not have the government and social infrastructures in place to cope with the types of stressors
that could be brought on by global climate change. When a government can no longer deliver services to its people, ensure
domestic order, and protect the nations borders from invasion, conditions are ripe for turmoil, extremism and terrorism to fill
the vacuum. Lebanons experience with the terrorist group Hezbollah and the Brazilian governments attempts to reign in the
slum gang First Capital Command are both examples of how the central governments inability to provide basic services has
led to strengthening of these extra-governmental entities.
3. Warming undermines the war on terrorlack of action fuels anti-U.S. sentiment, fosters conditions
that increase terror support
Kent Hughes Butt, U.S. Army War College, Climate Change: Complicating the Struggle Against Extremist Ideology,
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS, ed. C. Pumphrey, May 2008, p. 134-135.
Climate change is affecting the efforts of the United States to combat the global insurgency and its underlying extremist
ideologies in two ways: First, it provides a strategic communication windfall for the insurgency, allowing extremists and critics
of the United States to claim that the United States does not care about the welfare of other countries. These countries, they say,
must struggle with the rising energy costs and global warming that directly result from the high U.S. per capita consumption of
energy resources. Second, climate change is complicating the ability of countries to meet the needs of their people, thus
enhancing the appeal of extremist ideology by creating underlying conditions terrorists may exploit.
66
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (General)

1. Warming increases war risks--multiple triggers
Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, Testimony before the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, 3--30--11,
www.nrdc.org/energy/files/dlovaas_transportation_20110330.pdf, accessed 4-9-12.
Apart from economic impacts, our oil dependence poses a national security concern for strategic military and defense reasons.
Oil consumption by the transportation sector is a major source of heat-trapping pollution, accounting for approximately onethird of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to the numerous environmental impacts, climate change carries
worrisome security implications. An increasing number of security experts at CNA Corporation, the Center for Strategic and
International Studies as well as the Defense Department have identified climate change as a challenge to the nation. CNA
describes a threat multiplier effect due to climate change whereby regions of the world that are already stressed due to poor
social, economic and/or political conditions risk degenerating into disaster and/or civil war zones with additional stress due to
the unpredictable impacts of climate change. Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries are particularly susceptible to such a
scenario. As CNA sums up: Economic and environmental conditions in already fragile areas will further erode as food
production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large populations move in search of
resources. Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal
conflicts, extremism, and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies.
2. Warming increases war risksresource fights

Pew Center on Global Climate Change National Security Implications of Global Climate Change, 809, p. 1.
America faces a shifting strategic landscape in which rising demand for natural resources (e.g., fossil energy, water, food)
increasingly drives national priorities and shapes international relationships.3 Since climate change affects the distribution and
availability of critical natural resources, it can act as a threat multiplier by causing mass migrations and exacerbating
conditions that can lead to social unrest and armed conflict. Today, drought, thirst, and hunger are exacerbating the conflicts
and humanitarian disasters in Darfur and Somalia, and climate change portends more situations like these.4 The United States
is the leading international peace broker and provider of development assistance and humanitarian relief. Climate change is
likely to generate many more natural disasters, forcing the U.S. military and its civilian leadership to make ever more difficult
strategic decisions about where, for what purposes, and with what tradeoffs U.S. military assets will be deployed.5 As is the
case today, America will not be able to help everyone. Those most adversely affected could come to resent the imposition of
climate change. As the worlds largest historical emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the United States is likely to be the
chief target of resentment.6 For example, al-Qaeda leaders have cited global warming repeatedly in propaganda intended to
foment anti-American sentiment.
3. Warming threatens national securitymultiple conflict triggers

SCENARIOS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, 112, p. 1.
As these ill effects progress they will have serious implications for U.S. national security interests as well as global stability
extending from the sustainability of coastal military installations to the stability of nations that lack the resources, good
governance, and resiliency needed to respond to the many adverse consequences of climate change. And as these effects
accelerate, the stress will impact human migration and conflict around the world. It is difficult to fully understand the detailed
causes of migration and economic and political instability, but the growing evidence of links between climate change,
migration, and conflict raise plenty of reasons for concern. This is why its time to start thinking about new and comprehensive
answers to multifaceted crisis scenarios brought on or worsened by global climate change. As Achim Steiner, executive
director of the U.N. Environment Program, argues, The question we must continuously ask ourselves in the face of scientific
complexity and uncertainty, but also growing evidence of climate change, is at what point precaution, common sense or
prudent risk management demands action.2 In the coming decades climate change will increasingly threaten humanitys
shared interests and collective security in many parts of the world, disproportionately affecting the globes least developed
countries.
67
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (General) [contd]

4. Climate change will spur conflictmultiple triggers
The impact of climate change has to be taken into account in almost every field of policy, on both the national and international
level. Discussion of the threat it poses has tended to be from an environmental and human-security perspective. But the security
dimension will come increasingly to the forefront as countries begin to see falls in available resources and economic vitality,
increased stress on their armed forces, greater instability in regions of strategic import, increases in ethnic rivalries, and a
widening gap between rich and poor. Climate change is at the heart of both national and collective security. In the next few
decades, unavoidable warming due to past greenhouse-gas emissions and the necessary lead time for mitigation will lead to a
world where current security concerns are multiplied and intensified under the influence of the changing climate. Fundamental
environmental issues of food, water and energy security ultimately lie behind many present security concerns, and climate
change will magnify all three. Action taken by individual nations and by the international community in the next few years will
determine whether the second half of the century will see catastrophic climate change, increasing rivalry, instability, human
tragedy and war; or an easing of and adjustment to climate change, with an international order increasingly rooted in
cooperation and convergence.
5. Climate change amplifies conflict triggers: (1) political instability; (2) weak governance; (3) economy;
(4) demographics; (5) regional spillover
Climate change amplifies mechanisms which lead to insecurity and violence Political instability and conflicts Societies in
transition from authoritarian to democratic systems are especially vulnerable to crises and conflicts. Climate change will affect
many of these countries, putting them under additional pressure to adapt their societies during such phases of transition. This
linkage could be significant for many African countries, for example, as well as for China. Weak governance structures and
conflicts Violent conflicts are a very frequent feature of weak and fragile states, of which there are currently about 30, and
which are characterized by the permanent weakening or even the dissolution of their state structures. The impacts of climate
change will particularly affect those regions of the world in which states with weak steering and problem-solving capacities
already predominate. Climate change could thus lead to the further proliferation of weak and fragile statehood and increase the
probability of violent conflicts occurring. Economic performance and tendency to violence Empirical studies show that poor
countries are far more prone to conflict than affluent societies. Climate change will result in tangible economic costs for
developing countries in particular: a drop in agricultural yields, extreme weather events and migratory movements can all
impede economic development. Climate change can thus reinforce obstacles to development and heighten poverty, thereby
increasing the risk of conflicts occurring in these societies. Demographics and conflict Wherever high population growth and
density, resource scarcity (farmland, water) and a low level of economic development occur in tandem, there is an increased
risk of conflict. In many countries and regions which are already affected by high population growth and density as well as
poverty, climate change will exacerbate resource scarcity and thus heighten the risk of conflict. Spillover risk in conflict
regions Conflicts which are initially limited to local or national level often destabilize neighbour countries, e.g. through refugee
flows, arms trafficking or combatant withdrawal. Conflicts thus have a spillover effect. The social impacts of climate change
can transcend borders, thereby swiftly expanding the geographical extent of crisis and conflict regions.
68
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (Africa)

1. Warming destabilizes Africa--resulting instability strains the U.S. Military
2007, p. 20.
Reductions in soil moisture and further loss of arable land may be the most significant of the projected impacts of climate
change in Africa. At the same time, extreme weather events are likely to increase. These expected changes portend reduced
supplies of potable water and food production in key areas. Such changes will add significantly to existing tensions and can
facilitate weakened governance, economic collapses, massive human migrations, and potential conflicts. In Somalia, for
example, alternating droughts and floods led to migrations of varying size and speed and prolonged the instability on which
warlords capitalized. AFRICA Increased political instability in Africa potentially adds additional security requirements for the
U.S. in a number of ways. Stability operations, ranging from humanitarian direct delivery of goods and the protection of relief
workers, to the establishment of a stable and reconstructed state, can place heavy demands on the U.S. military. While the
nature of future stability operations is a matter of speculation, historically some stability operations have involved significant
military operations and casualties. Political instability also makes access to African trade and resources, on which the U.S. is
reliant for both military and civilian uses, a riskier proposition.
2. Africa stability key to oil supply, fighting terrorism

2007, p. 20.
Africas importance to U.S. national security can no longer be ignored. Indeed, with the recent establishment of a U.S. African
Command, the U.S. has underscored Africas strategic importance. Its weak governments and the rising presence of terrorist
groups make Africa important to the fight against terrorism. Moreover, Africa is also of strategic value to the U.S. as a supplier
of energy; by 2015, it will supply 25 to 40 percent of our oil, and it will also be a supplier of strategic minerals such as chrome,
platinum, and manganese.
3. Africa instability risks genocide and terrorism

2007, p. 20-22.
Africa is increasingly crucial in the ongoing battle against civil strife, genocide, and terrorism. Numerous African countries and
regions already suffer from varying degrees of famine and civil strife. Darfur, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Angola, Nigeria,
Cameroon, Western Saharaall have been hit hard by tensions that can be traced in part to environmental causes. Struggles
that appear to be tribal, sectarian, or nationalist in nature are often triggered by reduced water supplies or reductions in
agricultural productivity. The challenges Africa will face as a result of climate change may be massive, and could present
serious threats to even the most stable of governments. Many African nations can best be described as failed states, and many
African regions are largely ungoverned by civil institutions. When the conditions for failed states increaseas they most likely
will over the coming decadesthe chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide, and the growth of terrorism.
69
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (Failed States)

1. Warming is a national security threatfailed and fragile states
Francesco Femia and Caitlin E. Werrell, Climate Change and Security 101: Why the U.S. National Security Establishment
Takes Climate Change Seriously, Center for Climate and Security, 42512,
http://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/climate-and-security-101_why-the-u-s-national-security-establishmenttakes-climate-change-seriously1.pdf, accessed 4-29-12.
Lastly, climate change can exacerbate the social, economic and environmental stresses that plague fragile states, thus
heightening the probability of populations fleeing to other countries, or turning to terrorism and piracy. For example, Somalia
and the broader Horn of Africa is in the grip of an extended drought that is likely attributable to climate change. This drought,
coupled with other factors such as poor or nonexistent governance, has in the past led to widespread famine. As populations
become more and more destitute, the probability that they flee en masse to other countries (if they have the means), or join
terrorist enterprises like the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab, increases. In short, climate change threatens to make fragile states
even more fragile, which can lead to the potential for violence directed either at the United States, or its partners and allies in
these key regions. This concern is so acute that the U.S. Department of Defense, through its Minerva Initiative, is investing
considerable resources to map the security implications of climate change in Africa.
2. Warming undermines national securitythreat of failed states

SCENARIOS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, 112, p. 2.
Climate change also poses distinct challenges to U.S. national security. Recent intelligence reports and war games, including
some conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense, conclude that over the next two or three decades, vulnerable regions
(particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia) will face the prospect of food shortages, water
crises, and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change. These developments could demand U.S., European, and
international humanitarian relief or military responses, often the delivery vehicle for aid in crisis situations.
3. Unchecked climate change will expand the number of failed/fragile states, increasing conflict risks and
spiralling instability
In light of current knowledge about the social impacts of climate change, WBGU identifies the following six key threats to
international security and stability which will arise if climate change mitigation fails: 1. Possible increase in the number of
weak and fragile states as a result of climate change: Weak and fragile states have inadequate capacities to guarantee the core
functions of the state, notably the states monopoly on the use of force, and therefore already pose a major challenge for the
international community. So far, however, the international community has failed to summon the political will or provide the
necessary financial resources to support the long-term stabilization of these countries. Moreover, the impacts of unabated
climate change would hit these countries especially hard, further limiting and eventually overstretching their problem-solving
capacities. Conflict constellations may also be mutually reinforcing, e.g. if they extend beyond the directly affected region
through environmental migration and thus destabilize other neighbouring states. This could ultimately lead to the emergence of
failing subregions consisting of several simultaneously overstretched states, creating black holes in world politics that are
characterized by the collapse of law and public order, i.e. the pillars of security and stability. It is uncertain at present whether,
against the backdrop of more intensive climate impacts, the international community would be able to curb this erosion process
effectively.
4. Warming causes refugees, increasing state failure and corresponding ethnic war and terrorism risks
Competition for resources and loss of livelihoods could cause large increases in numbers of migrants, refugees and internally
displaced persons, creating humanitarian crises. In countries already at risk from conflict or from political, environmental and
economic stress, there will be an increased danger of conflict and state failure. Conflict and state failure caused in part by
climate change will itself make adaptation to and mitigation of climate change more difficult, as state institutions are likely to
be unable to implement measures, and international non- governmental organisations may not be able to operate in such
conditions. State failures will also increase internal ethnic rivalries and create breeding grounds and safe havens for terrorist
networks.
70
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--War (Failed States) [contd]

5. Warming will exacerbate the problems of weak statesoverwhelms national problem-solving
capacities
Weak and failing states already pose a major challenge to international security policy (Section 4.2). This view is endorsed by
the European Security Strategy, which highlights the links between state failure, cross-border civil wars, transnational terrorism
and trafficking in humans and weapons (EU, 2003). So far, however, the international community has failed to summon the
political will or the necessary financial resources to safeguard lasting stability in the worlds 30 or so fragile states. Whats
more, the mechanisms available through development cooperation and military policy to deal with the problem of weak states
are contentious in both conceptual and political terms, although the concern about the threat that state failure poses to regional
and global stability is widely shared. The impacts of climate change, such as the threat of food crises, water scarcity, extreme
weather events and ensuing migration, will expose many of the already weak states, especially in southern Africa, to additional
pressure to adapt (Fig. 8.1-2b). However, climate change could overstretch countries problem solving capacities in other
regions of the world too: Hurricanes gaining in destructive force as a result of rising global temperatures could overwhelm the
economic capacities of states and societies, especially in Central America (Section 7.8). Protracted droughts or even a
collapse of the Amazon rainforest (Sections 5.3.4 and 7.10) would present northern Brazil and neighbouring regions in Latin
America with unprecedented challenges and heighten the distributional conflicts between the poor Amazon regions and
relatively affluent southern Brazil. From the mid 21st century onwards, sea-level rise could confront the farming regions of
the Ganges Delta home to as many as 200 million people with grave socio-economic problems. The melting of the
glaciers in the Andean and Himalayan regions would jeopardize water supply and trigger agricultural crises. The risk that
economic capacities, political systems and societies will be overstretched by climate change therefore increases as the climate
problem intensifies. As the effects of climate change do not stop at national borders, failing subregions could emerge,
consisting of several simultaneously overstretched states. The international community should thus be prepared for a situation
in which the global problem of weak and overstretched states will become even more pressing in future if climate change is not
stopped in time. A proliferation of fragile states is unlikely to trigger major military conflicts; rather, it will cause the diffuse
erosion of international stability and security and the spread of failing regions. The unstable peripheries of the international
system could expand, with a widening of the black holes in world politics that are characterized by the collapse of law and
public order, i.e. the pillars of security and stability. There is no sign, at present, that the international community would have
the capacity to halt this process of erosion effectively if climate impacts intensify. Climate change therefore triggers and
amplifies international insecurity and widening instabilities by overstretching the capacities of states. This overstretch is
relevant to global climate change mitigation in economic terms as well: Relatively low mitigation costs presuppose that costeffective mitigation options can be implemented in developing and newly industrializing countries as well. However, with the
proliferation of state fragility, some countries are facing the loss of the institutional structures that would enable them to carry
out mitigation measures efficiently and effectively in the global interest.
6. Warming has multiple effects that undermine social stability, increasing the risk of war
Types of conflict constellation The second finding of WBGUs analysis is that global climate change could lead to food crises,
freshwater shortages, extreme weather events with massive destructive force, and increased migration in the various regions of
the world (Chapter 6). The conflict constellations analysed by WBGU show that unabated climate change will increase human
vulnerability, worsen poverty and thus heighten societies susceptibility to crises and conflicts. The specific threats will depend
on the dynamics of climate change, local environmental conditions and the affected societies and actors crisis management
capacities. The present report identifies examples of regions that will be especially hard hit (Chapter 7) and outlines appropriate
responses to the various conflict constellations.
71
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Water

1. Warming increases water shortagesglacial melt, shift in rainfall
Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Science and Impacts, CLIMATE CHANGE 101, 111, p. 5-6.
Altered Availability and Quality. Warmer temperatures threaten the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people who
depend on water from the seasonal melting of mountain ice and snow in several ways: by increasing the amount of seasonal
melt from glaciers and snowpack, by increasing the amount of precipitation that falls as rain instead of snow, and by altering
the timing of snowmelt. In the near term, the melting of mountain ice and snow may cause flooding; in the long term, the loss
of these frozen water reserves will significantly reduce the water available for humans, agriculture, and energy production.
Earlier snowmelt brings other impacts. Western states have experienced a six-fold increase in the amount of land burned by
wildfires over the past three decades because snowmelt has occurred earlier and summers are longer and drier.23 Climate
change will affect the quality of drinking water and impact public health. As sea level rises, saltwater will infiltrate coastal
freshwater resources. Flooding and heavy rainfall may overwhelm local water infrastructure and increase the level of sediment
and contaminants in the water supply.24 Increased rainfall could also wash more agricultural fertilizer and municipal sewage
into coastal waters, creating more low-oxygen dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.25
2. Warming increases number and intensity of both droughts and floods

Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Science and Impacts, CLIMATE CHANGE 101, 111, p. 5.
Climate change will alter the quantity and quality of available fresh water and increase the frequency and duration of floods,
droughts, and heavy precipitation events. Although climate change will affect different regions in different ways, it is generally
expected that dry regions of the world will get drier and wet regions will get wetter. More Floods and Droughts. A number of
factors are expected to contribute to more frequent floods. More frequent heavy rain events will result in more flooding.
Coastal regions will also be at risk from sea level rise and increased storm intensity. While some regions will suffer from
having too much water, others will suffer from having too little. Diminished water resources are expected in semi-arid regions,
like the western United States, where water shortages often already pose challenges. Areas affected by drought are also
expected to increase. As the atmosphere becomes warmer, it can hold more water, increasing the length of time between rain
events and the amount of rainfall in an individual event. As a result, areas where the average annual rainfall increases may also
experience more frequent and longer droughts.
3. Warming contributes to global water crises, risking war

Thalif Deen, journalist, Climate Change Depending World Water Crisis, INTER PRESS SERVICE, 3-19-08,
www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/climate/2008/0319deepwater.htm, accessed 9-4-12.
When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his
primary focus was not on the impending global economic recession but on the world's growing water crisis. "A shortage of
water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future," he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and
leaders from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. "Population growth will make the problem
worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon,"
he warned. Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, says the lack of safe drinking
water for over 1.0 billion people worldwide, and the lack of safe sanitation for over 2.5 billion, "is an acute and devastating
humanitarian crisis." "But this is a crisis of management, not a water crisis per se, because it is caused by a chronic lack of
funding and inadequate understanding of the need for sanitation and good hygiene at the local level," Berntell told IPS.
4. Warming risks Mideast water wars

2007, p. 30.
Climate change has the potential to exacerbate tensions over water as precipitation patterns change, declining by as much as 60
percent in some areas. In addition, the region already suffers from fragile governments and infrastructures, and as a result is
susceptible to natural disasters. Overlaying this is a long history of animosity among countries and religious groups. With most
of the worlds oil being in the Middle East and the industrialized and industrializing nations competing for this resource, the
potential for escalating tensions, economic disruption, and armed conflict is great.
72
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Water

5. Warming risks massive water shortages
2007, p. 14-15.
Adequate supplies of fresh water for drinking, irrigation, and sanitation are the most basic prerequisite for human habitation.
Changes in rainfall, snowfall, snowmelt, and glacial melt have significant effects on fresh water supplies, and climate change is
likely to affect all of those things. In some areas of the Middle East, tensions over water already exist. Mountain glaciers are an
especially threatened source of fresh water. A modest rise in temperature of about 2 to 4F in mountainous regions can
dramatically alter the precipitation mix by increasing the share falling as rain while decreasing the share falling as snow. The
result is more flooding during the rainy season, a shrinking snow/ice mass, and less snowmelt to feed rivers during the dry
season. Forty percent of the worlds population derives at least half of its drinking water from the summer melt of mountain
glaciers, but these glaciers are shrinking and some could disappear within decades. Several of Asias major riversthe Indus,
Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yelloworiginate in the Himalayas. If the massive snow/ice sheet in the Himalayasthe
third-largest ice sheet in the world, after those in Antarctic and Greenlandcontinues to melt, it will dramatically reduce the
water supply of much of Asia. Most countries in the Middle East and northern Africa are already considered water scarce, and
the International Water Resource Management Institute projects that by 2025, Pakistan, South Africa, and large parts of India
and China will also be water scarce. To put this in perspective: the U.S. would have to suffer a decrease in water supply that
produces an 80 percent decrease in per capita water consumption to reach the United Nations definition of water scarce.
These projections do not factor in climate change, which is expected to exacerbate water problems in many areas.
6. Warming will cause water shortages throughout Asia--glacier losses

2007, p. 24-27.
By 2050, regions dependent on glacial melting for water may face serious consequences. Asia, where hundreds of millions of
people rely on waters from vanishing glaciers on the Tibetan plateau, could be among the hardest hit regions. Climate change
has the potential to exacerbate water resource stresses in most regions of Asia. Most countries in Asia will experience
substantial declines in agricultural productivity because of higher temperatures and more variable rainfall patterns. Net cereal
production in South Asia, for example, is projected to decline by 4 to 10 percent by the end of this century under the most
conservative climate change projections. But the problem isnt just water scarcity too much water can also be a problem. By
2050, snow melting in the high Himalayas and increased precipitation across northern India are likely to produce flooding,
especially in catchments on the western side of the Himalayas, in northern India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
7. Warming will exacerbate water shortages throughout the middle east

2007, p. 30.
In this region, water resources are a critical issue; throughout history, cultures here have flourished around particular water
sources. With the population explosion underway, water will become even more critical. Of the countries in the Middle East,
only Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have abundant fresh water resources. Roughly two-thirds of the Arab world depends on sources
outside their borders for water. The most direct effect of climate change to be felt in the Middle East will be a reduction in
precipitation. But the change will not be uniform across the region. The flows of the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers are likely to be
reduced, leading to significant water stress in Israel and Jordan, where water demand already exceeds supply. Exacerbation of
water shortages in those two countries and in Oman, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq are likely to threaten conventional crop production,
and salinization of coastal aquifers could further threaten agriculture in those regions.
73
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "Adaptation"

1. Poor countries lack the resources to effectively adapt
The developed world is better able than developing countries to adapt to the consequences of climate change. Poorer nations
tend to be more closely dependent on climate-sensitive resources and less able to afford or implement adaptation measures. In
developing countries, poor farmers will see their income drop on average, both in real terms and relative to wealthier sectors, in
the next few decades - though some will see an improvement relative to urban populations as food prices increase.
2. We are close to many negative impacts, adaptation is limited because its costs will increase
The environmental and societal impacts of climate change will be of many types, affecting many of societys most vital
interests. The terrestrial and marine ecosystems that comprise the Earths environment and provide innumerable ecological
services to society will be dramatically altered as the atmospheric CO2 concentration rises and the climate shifts. The
availability of water will change, affecting both natural and human systems. Coastal communities will be under increasing
threat from rising sea level and intensification of storms and higher storm surges. Human health will increasingly be affected
by increased incidence of heat waves, intensified air pollution, more powerful storms, higher flood levels, and the spread of
warmer, wetter conditions conducive to disease vectors and pathogens. With many impacts already evident from the limited
amount of global warming to date, significantly increased human impacts seem inevitable as the climatic disruption grows.
Adaptation will be increasingly important, as discussed in Chapter 3 of this report, but the inescapable reality is that the costs
of adaptation will grow and its effectiveness will diminish as the magnitude of the climatic disruption increases.
74
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "CO2 Fertilization"

1. Field findings show that any CO2-induced yield increases are much lower than predicted, is cancelled
out by climate change
SECURITY RISK, Earthscan, London, January 2008, p. 66-67,
As plants require CO2 for photosynthesis, it was initially assumed that, physiologically, an increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration would have a major, direct positive effect on carbon fixation (the CO2 fertilization effect; see e.g. Cure and
Acock, 1986; Stockle et al., 1992). While numerous greenhouse-based experiments in the 1980s confirmed the fertilizing effect
of increased CO2 concentrations on crop growth (Cure and Acock, 1986), in the open field, plants adapt to the higher CO2
concentrations. The opening of leaf stomata, plants mechanism for gas exchange of CO2 and water with the atmosphere, is
restricted to reduce water loss. Production increases thus tend to be lower, generally below 30 per cent (Kroner, 2006).
Experimental application of CO2 gas to crops in open-field production has shown, for example, that grain yields increase by a
mere 11 per cent on average instead of the expected 2325 per cent (Long et al., 2006). The fertilizer effect appears to be much
weaker than hitherto assumed in the case of rice, wheat and soybeans, and there is little or no effect on millet and maize. These
findings are borne out in the case of woodlands too (Norby et al., 2005; Asshoff et al., 2006). Consequently, in global terms,
the CO2 fertilizer effect will compensate to a much lesser extent than previously assumed for the declines in crop yields that
are expected as a result of rising temperatures (and concomitant increase in transpiration losses) and decreasing soil moisture
(Parry et al., 2004). The fertilizer effect, moreover, may be completely absent in the event of major climate change.
2. Even with full fertilization effects, cereal production will decline significantly
The impact of global warming will vary significantly among and within regions of the globe and its precise likely effect can
only be properly considered through analysis of the different regional impacts. Projections of regional impacts are less robust
than the global perspective due to limitations of the models, but important trends can be discerned. In the broadest terms, the
carrying capacity - the population that can be supported by available resources and infrastructure - of tropical and sub-tropical
regions will drop, while higher latitudes will see smaller declines in carrying capacity and, at least initially, even some potential
benefits. The precise impacts are hard to predict. For example, higher levels of CO2 can actually increase yields of wheat and
rice (but not maize) if there are small temperature rises, other things being equal - a phenomenon called 'CO2 fertilisation'. This
effect, which is not fully understood, is an important variable in assessing climate change impacts. Recent findings indicate the
effect may be lower in the field than in the laboratory, and any increase in yield may be offset by a decline in the food value of
the crops, increases in pests and disease, declines in pollinating insects, and extreme weather events and pollution. Regardless
of this effect, global rises in temperature will still produce a net decline in the world's cereal production, and will affect lowlatitude, developing countries more than high-latitude, developed countries. Even taking CO2 fertilisation into account, 65
countries are likely to lose over 15% of their agricultural output by 2100, and the gap between developed and developing
countries will be greater. Efforts to adapt to changing climate, such as shifting planting dates and changing crop varieties, are
also more effective at higher latitudes.
3. CO2 fertilization increases wildfire riskadditional growth of vulnerable brush

In addition to significantly affecting the natural environment and the provision of ecological goods and services on which
society depends, climate change will have direct consequences for society and its built systems. The altered timing, flow rates,
and temperatures of rivers will require adjustments in the management and location of water-supply systems to meet future
demand, especially because higher temperatures are very likely to increase the demand for water during lengthened warm
seasons. An additional impact of the higher CO2 concentration will be to enhance growth of vegetation in regions that dry out
in the summer, leading to more rapid accumulation of the types and amounts of biomass that are susceptible to wildfire (e.g.,
chaparral).
75
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "CO2 Fertilization" [contd]

4. Warming will overwhelm the short-term benefits of fertilizationhigh temperatures, precipitation
shifts
Soil Moisture: The higher CO2 concentration will generally improve the efficiency of water use by many types of plants,
especially important crops (and, unfortunately, weeds). This is likely to increase agricultural productivity in some regions over
the next few decades, quite probably benefiting those in the most fertile areas by extending their productivity advantage as
compared to farmers now dealing with marginal soil and climatic conditions. However, as climate continues to change, the
beneficial effects of warming are likely to be overwhelmed by hotter and drier conditions. In some areas, the potentially
adverse effects on agriculture of higher summer temperatures and more intermittent precipitation can likely be offset by
shifting planting dates and increasing reliance on irrigation, even though this may be made more difficult by changes in the
amounts and timing of river flows. Farmers who now grow niche products (e.g., cool-summer crops or crops tied to nighttime
minimum temperatures), however, will increasingly be forced to try to compete with the much larger farms producing warmsummer crops on better land, and their failures are likely to devastate the present fragile economies of their rural regions.
5. Warming will turn one-third of the planet into desert

www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/2006/1004droughtcentury.htm, accessed 6-19-12.
One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100, say climate experts in the most dire warning yet of the effects of global
warming Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century
because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain's leading climate scientists. Extreme drought, in which
agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the planet, according to the study from the Met Office's Hadley
Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. It is one of the most dire forecasts so far of the potential effects of rising
temperatures around the world - yet it may be an underestimation, the scientists involved said yesterday. The findings, released
at the Climate Clinic at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, drew astonished and dismayed reactions from aid
agencies and development specialists, who fear that the poor of developing countries will be worst hit. "This is genuinely
terrifying," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid. "It is a death sentence for many millions of people. It will mean migration
off the land at levels we have not seen before, and at levels poor countries cannot cope with."
6. Warming exacerbates erosion, decreasing ag production

SECURITY RISK, Earthscan, London, January 1--08, p. 69.
Erosion by wind and water is already a major problem, and one that will be aggravated by rising temperatures and a resulting
increase in aridity. Where land use has eliminated the dense vegetation cover, thus exposing the soil directly to the effects of
the weather, e.g. following forest clearing or overgrazing, desiccation facilitates rapid erosion of the surface layer of soil. With
loss of the fertile topsoil, including as a result of landslides that occur due to lack of vegetation cover, nutrients vital for plant
growth are lost, and this in turn leads to reduced agricultural productivity. Often, this process of erosion also entails compaction
and encrustation of the soil surface. This further reduces the water-carrying capacity of the soil and accelerates soil degradation
even more (Schlesinger et al., 1990; Oldeman et al., 1991; Oldeman, 1992). For this reason, erosion is given particular attention
as a factor when considering climate change. Wind erosion is already a typical phenomenon in semi-arid and arid zones. It
occurs on the fringes of most deserts, where the sparse plant cover is highly sensitive to overgrazing and arable soils are
particularly prone to desiccation (e.g. the Sahel region). But the west coast of South America, the Mediterranean region, the
Middle East, India and north-eastern China are also affected by wind erosion (USDA, 1998). It can therefore be assumed that
susceptibility to soil degradation due to erosion will increase further in future in tandem with higher air temperatures
worldwide.
76
Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Bad--Answers to "Ice Age"

1. Ice age concerns dont justify future emissionsrisks runaway warming from permafrost melt
PERISCOPE POST, Human Carbon Emissions Have Averted Ice Age, Say Scientists, But Global Warming Dangers
Remain, 1912, npg.
No cause for celebration. Anyone who uses the research to suggest there's nothing wrong with rising carbon emissions is
missing the point, Dr Luke Skinner, one of the lead researchers, told the BBC: "Where we're going is not maintaining our
currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold
climate. The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can't cope with that."
Permafrost woes. The research comes not long after scientists expressed concern over the potential effect of melting
permafrost, which contains carbon, on the level of greenhouse gases in the environment: "As the frost melts, that carbon will
enter the atmosphere, most of it as carbon dioxide, but some of it transformed by bacteria into methane, an even more powerful
heat-trapping greenhouse gas. That, in turn, will warm the planet further," wrote Brad Plumer for The Washington Post. Plumer
pointed out that scientists are unsure as to the consequences of melting permafrost, but that the overall message is gloomy:
"The state of permafrost research offers one piece of evidence that current climate-change predictions seem to be overly
optimistic."
2. Ice age claims are ridiculouswarming creates immediate short-term problems, would not have to
worry about an ice age for 1500 years
Norbert Cunningham, Its Getting hotter, the Ice Age Will Have to Wait, TIMES & TRANSCRIPT, 11112, p. D6.
Now here's something perverse: those who deny global warming is a problem sometimes cite a 1999 essay by Sir Fred Hoyle
and Chandra Wickramasinghe - top rate astronomers, not climate change scientists - in which they argued that an ice age would
be much more disastrous for humanity and food supplies than a warmer Earth, hence we should be working on ways to increase
greenhouse gases. That's perverse! Did they not notice we are having no problem getting the carbon dioxide up there now? And
they're proposing a solution to a problem that won't exist for, at minimum 1,500 years while ignoring today's crisis (which also
includes massive disruption of food production). The reality I've no idea what motivated Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Wickramasinghe,
but it's a rather odd approach at best. It's likely true an ice age would be worse, but so what? It's not our problem, warming is
our problem. Nor does the pair seem to distinguish between a planet with good growing conditions and the super hot planet that
sees prime farmland turn to sand dunes. Sand or ice -- neither prospect is appealing or particularly good for humanity as we
know it today. Meanwhile, zip up before venturing out today. The last word Here is James Lovelock: "Geological change
usually takes thousands of years to happen but we are seeing the climate changing not just in our lifetimes but also year by
year."
3. Warming induced ice age would kills billions, destroy civilization within a few years
Thom Hartmann, author, How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age, COMMON DREAMS, 1-30-04,
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0130-11.htm, accessed 5-2-08.
If the Great Conveyor Belt, which includes the Gulf Stream, were to stop flowing today, the result would be sudden and
dramatic. Winter would set in for the eastern half of North America and all of Europe and Siberia, and never go away. Within
three years, those regions would become uninhabitable and nearly two billion humans would starve, freeze to death, or have to
relocate. Civilization as we know it probably couldn't withstand the impact of such a crushing blow. And, incredibly, the Great
Conveyor Belt has hesitated a few times in the past decade. As William H. Calvin points out in one of the best books available
on this topic ("A Brain For All Seasons: human evolution & abrupt climate change"): ".the abrupt cooling in the last warm
period shows that a flip can occur in situations much like the present one. What could possibly halt the salt-conveyor belt that
brings tropical heat so much farther north and limits the formation of ice sheets? Oceanographers are busy studying present-day
failures of annual flushing, which give some perspective on the catastrophic failures of the past. "In the Labrador Sea, flushing
failed during the 1970s, was strong again by 1990, and is now declining. In the Greenland Sea over the 1980s salt sinking
declined by 80 percent. Obviously, local failures can occur without catastrophe - it's a question of how often and how
widespread the failures are - but the present state of decline is not very reassuring." Most scientists involved in research on this
topic agree that the culprit is global warming, melting the icebergs on Greenland and the Arctic icepack and thus flushing cold,
fresh water down into the Greenland Sea from the north. When a critical threshold is reached, the climate will suddenly switch
to an ice age that could last minimally 700 or so years, and maximally over 100,000 years. And when might that threshold be
reached? Nobody knows - the action of the Great Conveyor Belt in defining ice ages was discovered only in the last decade.
Preliminary computer models and scientists willing to speculate suggest the switch could flip as early as next year, or it may be
generations from now. It may be wobbling right now, producing the extremes of weather we've seen in the past few years.
What's almost certain is that if nothing is done about global warming, it will happen sooner rather than later.
77
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Carbon Tax

1. The only way to solve is to internalize the costs of carbon
Most proposed schemes to artificially restore Earth's energy balance aim to reduce solar heating, e.g., by maintaining a haze of
stratospheric particles that reflect sunlight to space. Such attempts to mask one pollutant with another pollutant almost
inevitably would have unintended consequences. Moreover, schemes that do not remove CO2 would not avert ocean
acidification. The implication is that the world must move expeditiously to carbon-free energies and energy efficiency,
leaving most remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Yet transition to a postfossil fuel world of clean energies will not occur as
long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized and do not pay their costs
to society. Air and water pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use have high costs in human health, food production, and
natural ecosystems, costs borne by the public. Huge costs of climate change and ocean acidification also are borne by the
public, especially young people and future generations. Thus the essential underlying policy, albeit not sufficient, is for
emissions of CO2 to come with a price that allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy use. The
price should rise over decades to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust their lifestyles and investments to minimize
costs. The right price for carbon and the best mechanism for carbon pricing are more matters of practicality than of economic
theory. Economic analyses indicate that a carbon price fully incorporating environmental and climate damage would be high
(96). The cost of climate change is uncertain to a factor of 10 or more and could be as high as ~$1000/tCO2 (97). While the
imposition of such a high price on carbon emissions is outside the realm of short-term political feasibility, a price of that
magnitude is not required to engender a large change in emissions trajectory.
2. A progressive global carbon tax is the best way to address warming

Hansen said his proposal for a global carbon tax was based on the latest analysis of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and their
impact on global temperatures and weather patterns. He has co-authored a scientific paper with 17 other experts, including
climate scientists, biologists and economists, which calls for an immediate 6% annual cut in CO2 emissions, and a substantial
growth in global forest cover, to avoid catastrophic climate change by the end of the century. The paper, which has passed peer
review and is in the final stages of publication by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argues that
a global levy on fossil fuels is the strongest tool for forcing energy firms and consumers to switch quickly to zero carbon and
green energy sources. In larger countries, that would include nuclear power. Under this proposal, the carbon levy would
increase year on year, with the tax income paid directly back to the public as a dividend, shared equally, rather than put into
government coffers. Because the tax would greatly increase the cost of fossil fuel energy, consumers relying on green or low
carbon sources of power would benefit the most as this dividend would come on top of cheaper fuel bills. It would promote a
dramatic increase in the investment and development of low-carbon energy sources and technologies.
78
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Economy

1. Failure to address climate change/energy means even bigger financial crises will hit us
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN (ret.), Member Military Advisory Board, CNA, Testimony before the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee, 7-30-09,
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=1909f092-e750-4b29-b526-378ee5db1423,
accessed 5-2-10.
This Board has produced two reports, the first in April, 2007 and the latest in May of this year, focused on the very topic of this
hearing. The first examined the national security threats of climate change, and the most recent analyzed the national security
threats of Americas current and future energy posture. Before I get to the details of these reports, I have to acknowledge the
elephant in the room. We are in the midst of the most serious global financial crisis of our lifetimes. After a year of examining
our nations energy use, it is clear to all members of our military board that our economic, energy, climate change and national
security challenges are intertwined and co-dependent. Our past pattern of energy use is responsible, in no small measure, for
our economic situation today. If we do not adequately address our nations growing energy demand and climate change now, in
wise and visionary ways, future financial crises will most certainly dwarf this one.
2. Green shift will be the biggest economic driver--will spur jobs across the economy
Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, 8-6-09, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=05e60846-bf0e-4972-a23e7b2d61455e57, accessed 9-5-12.
3. We can create jobs while we achieve the emissions targets. Building a low-carbon economy can be a major perhaps the
major economic driver for the U.S. economy over the next few decades. Thats because behind every low-carbon solution is a
long supply chain brimming with American jobs. A pioneering set of studies by researchers at Duke University has laid this out
in detail. As the Duke studies show, low-carbon solutions from energy-efficient windows to carbon capture and storage will
spawn new jobs in mining, component manufacturing, final product manufacturing, design, engineering, construction,
marketing, and sales.
79
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Fossil Fuel Transition

1. We must start a transition away from fossil fuels now
We conclude that initiation of phase-out of fossil fuel emissions is urgent. For example, if emission reductions begin this year
the required rate of decline is 6%/year to restore Earth's energy balance, and thus approximately stabilize climate, by the end
of this century. If emissions reductions had begun in 2005, the required rate was 3%/year. If reductions are delayed until
2020, the required reductions are 15%/year. And these scenarios all assume a massive 100 GtC reforestation program,
essentially restoring biospheric carbon content to its natural level. The implication is that we must transition rapidly to a postfossil fuel world of clean energies. This transition will not occur as long as fossil fuels remain the cheapest energy in a system
that does not incorporate the full cost of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized, and because they
do not pay their costs to society. The high costs to human health, food production, and natural ecosystems of air and water
pollution caused by fossil fuel extraction and use are borne by the public. Similarly, costs of climate change and ocean
acidification will be borne by the public, especially by young people and future generations. Thus the essential underlying
policy is for emissions of CO2 to come with a price that allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy
use. The price should rise over decades to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust their lifestyles and investments to
minimize costs.
2. We need to phase out fossil fuels--devastating climate change is inevitable otherwise

Fossil fuel emissions to date are a small fraction of potential emissions from known reserves and potentially recoverable
resources (Fig. P1). Although there are uncertainties in reserves and resources, ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and continuing
technological advances ensure that more and more of these fuels will be economically recoverable. Burning all fossil fuels
would create a very different planet than the one that humanity knows. The paleoclimate record and ongoing climate change
make it clear that the climate system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including
ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial fraction of species on the planet,
and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes. Initiation of phase-out of fossil fuel emissions is urgent. CO2 from
fossil fuel use stays in the surface climate system for millennia. Thus continued high emissions would leave young people
and future generations with an enormous clean-up job. The task of extracting CO2 from the air is so great that success is
uncertain at best, raising the likelihood of a spiral into climate catastrophes and efforts to "geo-engineer" restoration of
planetary energy balance.
3. No need to defend fossil fuel interests--they are systematically undermining the planet's health
Sharon Abercrombie, "Climate Change Articles See Crisis as Moral Issue," NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, 8--2--12,
http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/climate-change-articles-see-crisis-moral-issue, accessed 9-7-12.
Two recent thought-provoking articles regarding climate change are well worth reading and pondering, so I am posting them
here. Both see the crisis as being fundamentally a moral issue. The first is by Bill McKibben, a longtime environmental writer
and founder of 350.org, the activist group working to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. He examines "the terrifying new math
around global warming" in the latest issue of Rolling Stone in a 6,000-word article that looks at the greed and crookedness of
fossil-fuel corporations and how their stranglehold on the economy continues to rule despite environmental activists' efforts.
"Climate change operates on a geological scale and time frame, but it is not an impersonal force of nature: the more carefully
you do the math, the more thoroughly you realize that this is, at bottom a moral issue; we have met the enemy and they is
Shell," he writes. "If enough people come to understand the cold, mathematical truth -- that the fossil-fuel industry is
systematically undermining the planet's physical systems -- it might weaken it enough to matter politically."
80
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Must Act Now

1. We need to act now before we reach the point of no return
Anyone who worries whether this is the right moment to tackle climate change should understand: We can't afford not to act
now. It is now that the most critical trends and facts all point in the wrong direction. The CO2 emissions that cause climate
change grew at a rate four times faster in the first decade of this new century than they did in the 1990s. Several years ago, the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a series of projections for global emissions, based on likely energy
and land use patterns. Today, our emissions have actually moved beyond the worst case scenarios predicted by all of the
models of the IPCC! Meanwhile, our oceans and forests, which act as natural repositories, are losing their ability to absorb
carbon dioxide. This means that the effects of climate change are being felt stronger than expected, faster than expected. The
plain fact is that there isn't a nation on the planet that has escaped the steady onslaught of climate change. When the desert is
creeping into East Africa, and ever more scarce resources push farmers and herders into deadly conflict, then that is a matter of
shared security for all of us. When the people of the Maldives are forced to abandon a place they've called home for hundreds
of years--it's a stain on our collective conscience, and a moral challenge to each of us. When our own grandchildren risk
growing up a world we can't recognize and don't want to, in the long shadow of a global failure to cooperate, then--clearly,
urgently, profoundly--we all need to do better.
2. Delay only makes things worse

4. The nation now faces only three options -- mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. That is to say we can only (1) work to
reduce the severity of future climate change through efforts to cut or mitigate emissions of greenhouse pollutants; (2) work to
adapt to unavoidable climatic change already locked into the system; and (3) suffer the consequences of changing climate. The
only question is how much of each option we do. We are now faced with unavoidable climate changes because we (the world)
have delayed too long to implement policies to reduce greenhouse gas emission. The impacts of unavoidable climate change
are going to be significant and will grow in extent and severity the longer we continue to delay efforts to reduce greenhouse
gases. In fact, it appears that many of our estimates of the rate of climate change have been too low, not too high, and climate
changes are happening faster than expected. As a result, in twenty more years, the Earth will be even hotter, sea levels will be
higher and rising faster, water and food resources will be increasingly stressed, extinction rates will accelerate, and our forced
expenditures for climate adaptation will be far, far greater than they would otherwise have been if efforts to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions had been implemented earlier.
3. Warming is real and happening nowmust act immediately if we are to avert catastrophe
Global climate change, driven largely by the combustion of fossil fuels and by deforestation, is a growing threat to human wellbeing in developing and industrialized nations alike. Significant harm from climate change is already occurring, and further
damages are a certainty. The challenge now is to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe. There is still a good
chance of succeeding in this, and of doing so by means that create economic opportunities that are greater than the costs and
that advance rather than impede other societal goals. But seizing this chance requires an immediate and major acceleration of
efforts on two fronts: mitigation measures (such as reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and black soot) to prevent the
degree of climate change from becoming unmanageable; and adaptation measures (such as building dikes and adjusting
agricultural practices) to reduce the harm from climate change that proves unavoidable.
81
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Must Act Now [contd]

4. Must drastically cut emissions within next 10 years to avoid critical climate tipping points
giving us so little time. It is because we have already pumped so much carbon into it that we are likely nearing a "tipping point"
that will trigger irreversible dynamics. After that tipping point, our subsequent carbon reductions, no matter how impressive,
will not thwart long-term catastrophe. Let me be clear. I do not mean to imply that all climate catastrophes will visit us on
January 1 of Year Eleven from now. The tipping point concept means this: if we continue business as usual, then at some point
within this coming decade, and probably sooner rather than later, we will effectively place a lock on the door of our heating
greenhouse and throw out the key. Our children and future generations are trapped in that greenhouse with rising temperatures,
and they will have no way to get out. This ten-year action window we are now looking through means that, if we pour
resources into the wrong strategy, we will not have time to go back and chart another course before this tipping point has come
and gone.
5. Delay means a crash finishwill have to cut emissions at twice the rate as if we acted now
Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council, Testimony before Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection, CQ
This goal is ambitious, but achievable. It can be done through an annual rate of emissions reductions that ramps up to about a
4% reduction per year. (See Figure 2.) But if we delay and emissions continue to grow at or near the business-as-usual
trajectory for another 10 years, the job will become much harder. In such a case, the annual emission reduction rate needed to
stay on the 450 ppm path would double to 8% per year. In short, a slow start means a crash finish, with steeper and more
disruptive cuts in emissions required for each year of delay.
6. Must act now: (1) harder to act in future; (2) most certain way to avoid the negative effects
Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council, Testimony before Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection, CQ
Climate scientists warn us that we must act now to begin making serious emission reductions if we are to avoid truly dangerous
global warming pollution concentrations. Because carbon dioxide and some other global warming pollutants can remain in the
atmosphere for many decades, centuries, or even longer, the climate change impacts from pollution released today will
continue throughout the 21st century and beyond. Failure to pursue significant reductions in global warming pollution now will
make the job much harder in the future both the job of stabilizing atmospheric pollution concentrations and the job of avoiding
the worst impacts of a climate gone haywire.
82
Mitigatoin Justified: Succeeds--Survival Ethics Justifies

1. The only ethical approach is to limit resource consumption to sustainable levels--the alternative is the
ultimate moral evil
Herschel Elliott, Associate Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, University of Florida and Richard D. Lamm, Professor, University
of Denver, A Moral Code for a Finite World, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT v. 14 n. 3, Spring 2004,
www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1403/article_1223.shtml, accessed 9-6-12.
Most important, the ethics of the commons must prevent a downward spiral to scarcity. One of its first principles is that the
human population much reach and maintain a stable state a state in which population growth does not slowly but inexorably
diminish the quality of, and even the prospect for, human life. Another principle is that human exploitation of natural resources
must remain safely below the maximum levels that a healthy and resilient ecosystem can sustain. A third is the provision of a
margin of safety that prevents natural disasters like storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions from causing
unsupportable scarcity. Not to limit human behavior in accordance with those principles would be not only myopic, but also
ultimately a moral failure. To let excess human fertility or excess demand for material goods and services cause a shortage of
natural resources is as immoral as theft and murder, and for the same reasons. They deprive others of their property, the fruits
of their labors, their quality of life, or even their lives. The ethics of the commons is a pragmatic ethics. It denies the illusion
that human moral behavior occurs in a never-never land, where human rights and duties remain unchanging, and scarcity can
never cancel moral duties. It does not allow a priori moral arguments to dictate behavior that must inevitably become extinct. It
accepts the necessity of constraints on both production and reproduction. As we learn how best to protect the current and future
health of the earth's ecosystems, the ethics of the commons can steadily make human life more worth living. As populations
increase and environments deteriorate, the moral laws that humans have relied on for so long can no longer solve the most
pressing problems of the modern world. Human rights are an inadequate and inappropriate basis on which to distribute scarce
resources, and we must propose and debate new ethical principles.
2. Moral codes and human rights make no sense in the face of our doom--scarcity and its implications for
our collective survival come first
Herschel Elliott, Associate Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, University of Florida and Richard D. Lamm, Professor, University of
Denver, A Moral Code for a Finite World, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT v. 14 n. 3, Spring 2004,
www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1403/article_1223.shtml, accessed 9-6-12.
We have described not a world that we want to see, but one that we fear might come to be. Humans cannot have a moral duty to
deliver the impossible, or to supply something if the act of supplying it harms the ecosystem to the point where life on earth becomes
unsustainable. Moral codes, no matter how logical and well reasoned, and human rights, no matter how compassionate, must make
sense within the limitations of the ecosystem; we cannot disregard the factual consequences of our ethics. If acting morally
compromises the ecosystem, then moral behavior must be rethought. Ethics cannot demand a level of resource use that the ecosystem
cannot tolerate. The consequences of human behavior change as the population grows. Most human activities have a point of moral
reversal, before which they may cause great benefit and little harm, but after which they may cause so much harm as to overwhelm
their benefits. Here are a few representative examples, the first of which is often cited when considering Garrett Hardin's work: * In a
nearly empty lifeboat, rescuing a drowning shipwreck victim causes benefit -- It saves the life of the victim, and it adds another person
to help manage the boat. But in a lifeboat loaded to the gunwales, rescuing another victim makes the boat sink and causes only harm -Everyone drowns. * When the number of cars on a road is small, travel by private car is a great convenience to all. But as the cars
multiply, a point of reversal occurs -- The road now contains so many cars that such travel is inconvenient. The number of private cars
may increase to the point where everyone comes to a halt. Thus, in some conditions, car travel benefits all. In other conditions, car
travel makes it impossible for anyone to move. It can also pump so much carbon monoxide into the atmosphere that it alters the
world's climate. * Economic growth can be beneficial when land, fuel, water, and other needed resources are abundant. But it becomes
harmful when those resources become scarce, or even when exploitation causes ecological collapse. Every finite environment has a
turning point, at which further economic growth would produce so much trash and pollution that it would change from producing
benefit to causing harm. After that point is reached, additional growth only increases scarcity and decreases overall productivity. In
conditions of scarcity, economic growth has a negative impact. * Every environment is finite. Technology can extend but not
eliminate limits. An acre of land can support only a few mature sugar maples; only so many radishes can grow in a five-foot row of
dirt. Similar constraints operate in human affairs. When the population in any environment is small and natural resources plentiful,
every additional person increases the welfare of all. As more and more people are added, they need increasingly to exploit the finite
resources of the environment. At a certain point, the members of an increasing population become so crowded that they stop
benefiting each other; by damaging the environment that supports everyone, by limiting the space available to each person, and by
increasing the amount of waste and pollution, their activity begins to cause harm. That is, population growth changes from good to
bad. And if the population continues to expand, its material demands may so severely damage the environment as to cause a tragedy of
the commons - the collapse of both environment and society. Those cases illustrate the fact that many activities are right - morally
justified - when only a limited number of people do them. The same activities become wrong immoral when populations increase, and
more and more resources are exploited.
83
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--450ppm Target

1. Even a 2 degree temperature increase would be a disaster
Bill McKibben, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," ROLLING STONE, 7--19--12,
www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719, accessed 9-6-12.
The accord did contain one important number, however. In Paragraph 1, it formally recognized "the scientific view that the
increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius." And in the very next paragraph, it declared that "we
agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required... so as to hold the increase in global temperature below two degrees
Celsius." By insisting on two degrees about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit the accord ratified positions taken earlier in 2009 by the
G8, and the so-called Major Economies Forum. It was as conventional as conventional wisdom gets. The number first gained
prominence, in fact, at a 1995 climate conference chaired by Angela Merkel, then the German minister of the environment and
now the center-right chancellor of the nation. Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just
under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the
Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere
over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many
scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target. "Any number much above one degree involves a
gamble," writes Kerry Emanuel of MIT, a leading authority on hurricanes, "and the odds become less and less favorable as the
temperature goes up." Thomas Lovejoy, once the World Bank's chief biodiversity adviser, puts it like this: "If we're seeing
what we're seeing today at 0.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much." NASA scientist James Hansen, the planet's
most prominent climatologist, is even blunter: "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two
degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." At the Copenhagen summit, a spokesman for small island
nations warned that many would not survive a two-degree rise: "Some countries will flat-out disappear." When delegates from
developing nations were warned that two degrees would represent a "suicide pact" for drought-stricken Africa, many of them
started chanting, "One degree, one Africa."
2. Failure to act now guarantees devastating climate change

Dr. James Hansen, NASA, "Why We Can't Wait," THE NATION, 5--7--07, p. 13.
The Energy Department says that were going to continue to put more and more CO2 in the atmosphere each yearnot just
additional CO2 but more than we put in the year before. If we do follow that path, even for another ten years , it guarantees
that we will have dramatic climate changes that produce what I would call a different planetone without sea ice in the
Arctic; with worldwide, repeated coastal tragedies associated with storms and a continuously rising sea level; and with
regional disruptions due to freshwater shortages and shifting climatic zones.
3. We must cut emissions else we risk crossing dangerous tipping points

Tipping points help define the dangerous level of global warming, even though their nonlinear nature inhibits accurate
predictability of temporal details of collapse. Assessment of tipping point threats is aided by the combination of paleoclimate
records defining a quasi-equilibrium response to climate change and observations of ongoing dynamical responses to current
global warming. Ice sheets and sea level are a prime example. Paleoclimate data indicate that 1C global warming above
preindustrial levels (to the Eemian level) is likely to cause eventual sea level rise of several meters and 2C (early Pliocene
level) could cause eventual sea level rise as great as 15-25 m (29-32). Satellite measurements of Earth's gravity field reveal
that Greenland and Antarctica are losing mass and the rate of loss has accelerated since measurements began in 2002 (5, 6),
even though global temperature has barely risen above the Holocene temperature range in which the ice sheets have been
stable for millennia. Methane hydrates have been implicated by paleoclimate data as a likely principal mechanism in several
rapid global warmings (68, 69). This appears to have occurred as a powerful feedback amplifying a natural warming trend
(68-70), (see Supporting Information). Global warming of 2C, amplified at high latitudes, would commit large areas of
permafrost to thawing and might destabilize methane hydrates in ocean sediments. Global warming to date is at most a few
tenths of a degree above the prior Holocene range. Impacts on ice sheets and permafrost carbon are small so far, suggesting
that these feedbacks may not be a major factor if global warming, now about 0.8C, reaches a maximum of only ~1C and
then recedes, as in the scenario of Figs. 4A and 5A. In contrast, the scenarios that reach 2C or even 1.5C global warming via
only fast feedbacks appear to be exceedingly dangerous. These scenarios run a high risk of the slow feedbacks coming into
play in major ways. However, we lack knowledge of how fast the slow feedbacks would occur, and thus which generations
would suffer the greatest consequences. The available information suggests that humanity faces a dichotomy of possible
futures. Either we achieve a scenario with declining emissions, preserving a planetary climate resembling the Holocene, or
the climate is likely to pass tipping points with amplifying feedbacks that assure transition to a very different planet with both
foreseeable and unforeseen consequences.
84
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--450ppm Target [contd]

4. We are near the tipping point--need to act
James Hansen, Director, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, "Tipping Point: Perspective of a Climatologist," 20082009 STATE OF THE WILD, 2008, p. 7-8.
Our home planet is dangerously near a tipping point at which human-made greenhouse gases reach a level where major climate
changes can proceed mostly under their own momentum. Warming will shift climatic zones by intensifying the hydrologic
cycle, affecting freshwater availability and human health. We will see repeated coastal tragedies associated with storms and
continuously rising sea levels. The implications are profound, and the only resolution is for humans to move to a fundamentally
different energy pathway within a decade. Otherwise, it will be too late for one-third of the worlds animal and plant species
and millions of the most vulnerable members of our own species. We may be able to preserve the remarkable planet on which
civilization developed, but it will not be easy: special interests are resistant to change and have inordinate power in our
governments, especially in the United States. Understanding the nature and causes of climate change is essential to crafting
solutions to our current crisis.
5. We must act now--are near the point of no return on dangerous positive feedbacks
James Hansen, Director, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, "Tipping Point: Perspective of a Climatologist," 20082009 STATE OF THE WILD, 2008, p. 9 .
he warming that has already occurred, the positive feedbacks that have been set in motion, and the additional warming in the
pipeline together have brought us to the precipice of a planetary tipping point. We are at the tipping point because the climate
state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and much of
Greenlands ice. Little additional forcing is needed to trigger these feedbacks and magnify global warming. If we go over the
edge, we will transition to an environment far outside the range that has been experienced by humanity, and there will be no
return within any foreseeable future generation. Casualties would include more than the loss of indigenous ways of life in the
Arctic and swamping of coastal cities. An intensified hydrologic cycle will produce both greater floods and greater droughts. In
the US, the semiarid states from central Texas through Oklahoma and both Dakotas would become more drought-prone and ill
suited for agriculture, people, and current wildlife. Africa would see a great expansion of dry areas, particularly southern
Africa. Large populations in Asia and South America would lose their primary dry season freshwater source as glaciers
disappear. A major casualty in all this will be wildlife.
6. Need to check CO2 levels at 450ppmrisk massive impacts otherwise

Scientists have warned that anything above 450ppm--a warming of two degrees Celsius--could lead to severe, widespread and
irreversible harm to human life on this planet. When concentrations of other greenhouse gases, like methane and black carbon,
are factored into the equation, the analysis suggests that stabilizing concentrations around 400ppm of "equivalent carbon
dioxide" would give us about an 80 percent chance of avoiding a two degree Fahrenheit increase above present average global
temperature. Considering what a two degree Fahrenheit increase could mean, scientists prefer not to take their chances. James
Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has done the math. His analysis shows that we need to be
shooting for a stabilization level of 350ppm to increase our chances of avoiding a two degree Fahrenheit increase. That's a
target we've obviously already exceeded. If we don't slam on the breaks now, we could be headed for a global temperature
increase of two to four degrees Celsius by century's end, and greater warming after that.
7. Need to keep atmospheric carbon below 450ppm to avoid the worst impacts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), ELECTRIFICATION OF THE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM, MIT Energy
Initiative Symposium, 4810, p. 21-22.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that an increase in atmospheric CO2 to 550 parts per million (ppm)
would result in a three-degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures.28 The impacts of this warming, while debated,
would likely include sea level rises; loss of habitat; the potential extinction of many species; volatile and extreme weather;
increased drought, related fires, and hurricanes; the loss of agricultural output; human displacement; and the concurrent global
security risks. Limiting emissions to 550 ppm would require emissions to peak before 2030.29 The IPCC recommends that the
international community acts to keep GHG emissions below the 450 ppm carbon equivalent. Two-thirds of this reduction
would need to occur in non-OECD countries. Meeting this emissions level would require major changes in the transportation
sector, including more efficient cars and low-carbon fuels.
85
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--450ppm Target [contd]

8. Must act now for effective abatement, to avoid worst impacts of climate changeneed immediate
action to hit 450ppm target, failure to act now risks crash emissions cuts in the future
David Hawkins, Director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Testimony before Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 11-13-07, lexis.
On October 24th NRDC President Frances Beinecke testified before the Subcommittee on Public and Consumer Solutions to
Global Warming and Wildlife Protection on America's Climate Security Act (ACSA). In her testimony she stated that the time
for action on global warming is now. Climate scientists warn us that we must act now to begin making serious emission
reductions if we are to avoid truly dangerous global warming pollution concentrations. Failure to pursue significant reductions
in global warming pollution very soon will make the job much harder in the future both the job of stabilizing atmospheric
pollution concentrations and the job of avoiding the worst impacts of climate chaos. A growing body of scientific research
indicates that we face extreme dangers to human health, economic well-being, and the ecosystems on which we depend if
global average temperatures are allowed to increase by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit from today's levels. We have good
prospects of staying below this temperature increase if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other global warming gases are
kept from exceeding 450 ppm CO2- equivalent and then rapidly reduced. To make this possible requires immediate steps to
reduce global emissions over the next several decades, including action to halt U.S. emissions growth within the next few years
and then cut emissions by approximately 80% by mid-Century. This goal is ambitious, but achievable. It can be done through
an annual rate of emissions reductions that ramps up to about a 4% reduction per year. But if we delay and emissions continue
to grow at or near the business-as-usual trajectory for another 10 years, the job will become much harder. In such a case, the
annual emission reduction rate needed to stay on the 450 ppm path would double to 8% per year. In short, a slow start means a
crash finish, with steeper and more disruptive cuts in emissions required for each year of delay, or if insufficient action is taken
a seriously disrupted climate.
9. Need to stabilize co2 concentrations at 450ppm to avoid irreversible species loss and other
environmental impacts
Glen Prickett, Senior Vice President, Business and U.S. Government Relations, Conservation International, Testimony before
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 1-24-08, lexis.
Human-induced global climate change1--upsetting the balance of nature - is the greatest threat to our long-term health and
security. The IPCC's fourth assessment report documents impacts that are already occurring and will worsen in coming
decades. Sea level rise and warming of the oceans subject coastal areas to flooding and more intense storms. Changes in
climate, particularly rainfall patterns, threaten food security in some of the world's poorest regions. Expanded ranges for
infectious diseases worsen public health crises. As these incidents escalate, they will tax global humanitarian efforts and scarce
funding sources, as well as threaten global security and diplomatic relations. A large and expanding body of scientific evidence
indicates that biological and ecological systems may be among the most sensitive to climate change. CI believes that stabilizing
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at or below 450 ppmv2 is crucial in order to restrict temperature
increases to less than 2oC above pre-industrial levels. Limiting climate change to this degree will help avoid significant risk of
intolerable environmental disruptions and irreversible species loss. Every day we postpone reductions in CO2 emissions and
maintain current trends, we increase the need for more costly and restrictive emissions reductions.
10. 450ppm target is most likely to avoid negative effects on poor nations
Jim Lyons, Vice President, Policy and Communication, Oxfam America, Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 1-24-08, lexis.
Oxfam agrees with the many countries that advocated at Bali for emissions levels that would be consistent with keeping total
warming as far as possible below 2 degrees C/3.6 degrees F above pre-industrial levels and that total emissions levels should
reflect that global warming threshold. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports indicate that the impacts
of climate change, and the needs of developing countries to adapt to climate impacts, are likely to be much more severe beyond
that threshold. Unfortunately, the United States said repeatedly, to the consternation of many other countries, that it did not
want to "prejudge" the outcome of a post-2012 agreement. by including total emissions objectives.
86
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "Coercion Objections"

1. No right is a priori--our claims about scarcity must come first because they attack the foundation of
their ethics
Herschel Elliott, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, University of Florida, A General Statement on the Tragedy of the
Commons, 2--26--97. Available from the World Wide Web at: http://dieoff.org/page121.htm, accessed 9-6-12.
The second is a corollary of the first. Most people in the Western world hold a serious moral misconception which must be
discarded. Having been brought up or educated under the formative influence of a monotheistic religion, they commonly
believe, without question, examination, or discussion, that the ideals and principles of moral behavior can be justified nonempirically, that is by reason or a priori thought. As a result, moral claims are treated as if they were like the conclusion of
geometric proof whose truth is a matter of a logical necessity that empirical data cannot refute. However, the tragedy of the
commons shows the absurdity of this claim. Because most human rights, laws, and freedoms are contingent on the ability of the
Earth's ecosystems to support them, most cannot be universal, necessary, and unconditional. And no a priori arguments -- no
appeals to reason, to conscience, to God's Word, or to the logic of moral language -- can make them so. Indeed none of the
human-centered obligations of a priori ethical theories can curb the inbuilt, positive feedback mechanisms which are now
causing the ever greater impoverishment of the world's ecosystems. And none can be adjusted to meet the holistic needs of the
Earth's evolving biosystem. These are the inherent defects which prove the belief must be abandoned that a priori reasoning can
determine, for all time, the ideals and principles of ethics as well as the nature of justice itself.
2. Coercive restraint and responsibility to the environment must be the foundation of our new ethics
Specifically, the tragedy of the commons demonstrates that all behavior which is either morally permissible or morally required
is system-sensitive whenever it involves the use of land or the transfer of matter or energy. That is, it is conditional on the size
of the human population and the availability of material resources. The more general statement of Hardin's tragedy of the
commons which follows is divided into five sections. In the first, the theoretic nature of Hardin's argument is emphasized. In
the second, several of Hardin's original assumptions are shown to be restrictive and unnecessary. The third offers four general
premises which seem empirically certain. The fourth gives a general statement of the human causes of the breakdown of the
commons. It demonstrates the same inbuilt contradiction between what benefits the individual or the human species and what is
necessary to the welfare of the whole. The fifth part concerns ethical theory. It shows that the first necessary condition for
acceptable moral behavior is to avoid the tragedy of the commons. Inevitably, meeting this goal requires holistic or coerced
restraint in order to assure that people never fail to live within the narrow limits of the land and resource use which the Earth's
biosystem can sustain. Thus people's first moral duty is to live as responsible and sustaining members of the world's
community of living things.
3. Failure to accept limits on human behavior is itself unethical

The author conducts a simple-seeming thought experiment in which he proves that any ethics is mistaken if it allows a growing
population steadily to increase its exploitation of the ecosystem which supports it. Such an ethics is incoherent because it leads
to the destruction of the biological resources on which survival depends; it lets people act in ways that make all further ethical
behavior impossible. The essay in which this fundamental flaw in modern Western moral thinking is demonstrated is Garrett
Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968). Activists in environmental causes as well as professionals in ethics have long
applauded Hardin's essay. But then they go on to ignore its central thesis. They accept the environmental goals and then, acting
as if the essay had never been written, recommend behavior which will cause the environmental commons to collapse.
Consequently Hardin's refutation of traditional moral thinking still seems to be not understood. And the need remains to give
the tragedy of the commons a more general statement -- one which can clarify its revolutionary character, one which can
convince a wide public of the correctness of its method and principles.
87
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "Transition Costs"

1. Costs of meeting emissions targets will be minimal--most exhaustive study proves
2. We can achieve these emissions targets at low cost. The most authoritative study of the House legislation, by the EPA,
shows that even ignoring the costs of doing nothing, which are very large the bills annual cost to the average household
will be just $80 to $111 (in present value). Thats just 22 to 30 cents a day for the average American family less than the cost
of a postage stamp. To put it another way, its about a dime a day per person. And because of special protections for lowincome families, the lowest quintile of households will actually see a small net benefit from the bill. Perhaps even more
notably, the EPA analysis projects that under H.R. 2454, consumers will actually save money on their utility bills in the short
run (through the year 2020), compared to business as usual. Thats because even as the bill will keep household energy prices
low, it contains other provisions to help boost energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption.
2. Is a ton of "low hanging fruit" that can be used to cheaply meet emissions targets
And study after study shows there are readily available tools to achieve emissions reductions at modest cost. One of the most
powerful is energy efficiency. McKinsey & Companys latest analysis, for example, focuses solely on energy efficiency
measures and finds that we could achieve the required reductions by 2020 solely through energy efficiency measures, at low
or even no net cost. Part of the low cost is because good program design lets you get the biggest bang for the buck. A new
Duke University policy brief released this week found that just 1.3% of all U.S. manufacturers emit enough GHGs to be
included under the threshold of 25,000 tons specified in ACES. Yet that 1.3%
3. Overwhelming evidence shows that we can meet proposed emissions cuts

1. Overwhelming evidence shows that we can meet 2020 emissions targets. The bill recently passed by the House, H.R. 2454,
and similar bills in the Senate, have been analyzed by many different sets of economists and engineers. Using different models
and different assumptions, these studies all reach the same conclusion: we can reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17%,
20%, or more by 2020, as compared to 2005 emissions. One of the most powerful tools for reducing emissions is also the most
familiar: energy efficiency.
88
Mitigation Justified: Succeeds--Answers to "We Are Not Responsible / Sunstein"

1. Our current generation actually is largely responsible for the emissions
Daniel A. Farber, Professor, Law, University of Calilfornia, Berkeley, "The Case for Climate Compensation: Justice for
Climate Change Victims in a Complex World," UTAH LAW REVIEW, 2008, p. 396.
Thus, to think of harmful CO<2> emissions as only a historical phenomenon, unconnected with the lives of current-day
Americans, is clearly mistaken. Roughly one-quarter of Americans were alive during the entire post-1950 period in which
three-quarters of the emissions took place. Because of age, they are also likely to have higher assets and income than younger
Americans, and hence would probably bear an even larger share of the tax burden. Eighty percent of Americans were alive
during the more recent (post-1990) period in which the dangers of global warming were already acknowledged, when roughly a
quarter of the emissions took place. Certainly, in many contexts, holding the present generation accountable for past wrongs is
problematic: While injustice has a long life, remedy has a short one; and the general case for complete repair, through
monetized reparations, diminishes quickly over time and across generations, especially when the injurers have departed the
scene, and given that reparations are in competition with the other claimants on scarce social resources. But this attrition
problem does not seem severe in the context of climate change, given the relatively recent vintage of most emissions and the
relatively small scale of the compensatory payments relative to U.S. wealth.
2. As individuals, we should be held responsible for the bad actions of our government
Daniel A. Farber, Professor, Law, University of Calilfornia, Berkeley, "The Case for Climate Compensation: Justice for
Climate Change Victims in a Complex World," UTAH LAW REVIEW, 2008, p. 398.
The short-run benefits received by many Americans of ignoring climate change are clear. As consumers, millions of Americans
have had the benefit of cheap gasoline and low mileage standards, allowing them to drive SUVs, pick-up trucks, and other
vehicles that produce unduly high greenhouse emissions. They obtain electrical power from cheap coal rather than more
expensive renewable sources. In the meantime, major American corporations have profited - American automobile companies
from low mileage standards, as well as American coal companies and oil companies from high sales. Americans who own
stock in these corporations, or whose pension plans own stock, have correspondingly benefited. As we have already seen, these
benefits were derived from actions that a reasonable person knew or should have known were harmful to others (at least since
1990). Short-term personal advantages, understandably enough, outweighed harms to others that were actually larger but were
harder to perceive because they were longer term and diffuse. This does not seem to be a difficult case in which to apply the
concept of unjust enrichment. It is also relevant that Americans had the capacity to limit these harms, not only as consumers
but also as citizens. The United States government has stood virtually alone among industrialized countries in opposing serious
action on climate change. In a democracy, voters must bear some of the responsibility for the actions of their governments. It is
true that any individual voter has little power considered in isolation, but that "little" is not zero (otherwise the cumulative
power of all voters would also be zero, since a hundred million times zero is still zero). Moreover, as citizens, they were
engaged in a collective activity of governance from which they hoped to benefit and on average did receive substantial benefits
such as protection from foreign threats. Holding citizens responsible for their pro rata share is not unreasonable.
3. We can shape the tax so that it does not overburden less-culpable members of wealthy societies
differentiated responsibility does not derail the need to act
Daniel A. Farber, Professor, Law, University of Calilfornia, Berkeley, "The Case for Climate Compensation: Justice for Climate
Change Victims in a Complex World," UTAH LAW REVIEW, 2008, p. 399.
In an ideal world, we could fashion a remedy that was responsive to differences in individual responsibility. We could imagine
assessing retroactive taxes for past owners of gas guzzlers or high penalties for past oil executives. Alternatively, we might impose
even higher taxes for inhabitants of states or congressional districts whose representatives resisted emissions regulation or for states
with histories of high per capita energy consumption. We could have citizens fill out elaborate questionnaires about their past
connections with energy companies, their use of home insulation, what cars they drove and how many miles, whether they supported
environmental groups or pro-environmental candidates or the reverse. Thus, if imprecision is the problem, we can imagine
mechanisms to target responsibility more precisely. Notably, climate justice skeptics do not champion these mechanisms, and for good
reason: the mechanisms are probably outside the range of political possibility, and they might well have transaction costs that exceed
their value anyway. In the real world, we have to be content with a degree of mismatch. In assessing the seriousness of the mismatch,
we have to consider the magnitude of the burden that climate compensation would place on individual Americans. Properly tailored
measures of liability would place a significant burden on Americans, clearly less than the cost of the Iraq war. A practical system of
compensation is not likely to be nearly so comprehensive, and is likely to translate into a more modest per capita expenditure. It does
not seem fatal to a compensatory scheme that some burden is placed on a minority that ideally would be left alone. Moreover, if we
take the simplest route and provide compensation through the normal taxation and budgeting process, the tax system itself provides
some degree of tailoring. Because more affluent taxpayers pay larger income taxes, the burden falls most heavily on individuals who
are most likely to have had high levels of energy consumption or to have benefited from owning stock in corporations that were
themselves responsible for high energy use. The costs of improving on this degree of tailoring do not seem worth the added expense.
89
Mitigation Not Justified: Topshelf

1. Energy poverty means emissions cuts will hurt the worlds poor
James Inhofe, U.S. Senator, HOT & COLD MEDIA SPIN CYCLE: A CHALLENGE TO JOURNALISTS WHO COVER
GLOBAL WARMING, 9-25-06, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=56dd129de40a-4bad-abd9-68c808e8809e, accessed 9-4-12.
Once again, symbolism does not solve a climate crisis. But this symbolism may be hiding a dark side. While greenhouse gas
limiting proposals may cost the industrialized West trillions of dollars, it is the effect on the developing worlds poor that is
being lost in this debate. The Kyoto Protocols post 2012 agenda which mandates that the developing world be subjected to
restrictions on greenhouse gases could have the potential to severely restrict development in regions of the world like Africa,
Asia and South America -- where some of the Earths most energy-deprived people currently reside. Expanding basic
necessities like running water and electricity in the developing world are seen by many in the green movement as a threat to the
planets health that must be avoided. Energy poverty equals a life of back-breaking poverty and premature death. If we allow
scientifically unfounded fears of global warming to influence policy makers to restrict future energy production and the
creation of basic infrastructure in the developing world -- billions of people will continue to suffer. Last week my committee
heard testimony from Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who was once a committed left-wing environmentalist until he
realized that so much of what that movement preached was based on bad science. Lomborg wrote a book called The Skeptical
Environmentalist and has organized some of the worlds top Nobel Laureates to form the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus
which ranked the worlds most pressing problems.
2. Economic growth will allow us to solve the problems caused by warming

Indur Goklany, PhD., Misled on Climate change: How the UN IPCC (and others) Exaggerate the Impacts of Global
Warming, POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 1211, 12.
the world of 2100 is as richand warmas the more extreme scenarios suppose, the problems of poverty that warming would
exacerbate (i.e. low agricultural productivity, hunger, malnutrition, malaria and other vector-borne diseases) ought to be
reduced, if not eliminated, by 2100. Research shows that deaths from malaria and other vector-borne diseases is cut down to
insignificant numbers when a societys annual per capita income reaches about $3,100.23 Therefore, even under the poorest
scenario (A2), developing countries should be free of malaria well before 2100, even assuming no technological change in the
interim. Similarly, if the average net GDP per capita in 2100 for developing countries is between $10,000 and $62,000, and
technologies become more cost-effective as they have been doing over the past several centuries, then their farmers would be
able to afford technologies that are unaffordable today (e.g., precision agriculture) as well as new technologies that should
come on line by then (e.g., drought-resistant seeds).24 But, since impact assessments generally fail to fully account for
increases in economic development and technological change, they substantially overestimate future net damages from global
warming. It may be argued that the high levels of economic development depicted in Figure 6 are unlikely. But if thats the
case, then economic growth used to drive the IPCCs scenarios are equally unlikely, which necessarily means that the estimates
of emissions, temperature increases, and impacts and damages of GW projected by the IPCC are also overestimates.
3. Growth is key to innovationany policy that hurts the economy will undermine emergence of new
energy technologies
Kevin Book, Senior Vice President, Energy Policy, Oil and Alternative Energy, FBR Capital Markets Corp., Testimony before
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 11-15-07, lexis.
Inventions born of necessity may be ingenious, but they are likely to be undercapitalized. By contrast, innovation and
profligacy often live in the same zip code, if not necessarily under the same roof. New technologies to address global climate
change are going to require more investment dollars, not less. Stable economies encourage wealthy enterprises to invest in
research and development towards new transformational technologies, as well as evolutionary improvements to existing
processes. This may explain past U.S. leadership in energy and environmental technologies: not just because laws established
new pollution controls, but also because, once rules were in place, the nation's rare, if not unique, combination of efficient
markets, open society and economic prowess enabled new pollution control technologies to emerge from corporate laboratories
and basement inventors alike. It is possible that plain old Yankee ingenuity might really be a lucky accident, but I believe it
comes from a synergy among related and supporting industries that form what Harvard business scholar Michael Porter would
call our "national advantage". This means that policies that raise the operating costs of industrial innovators enough to cause a
recession could deprive the U.S. and the world of emissions control technologies made possible, ironically, by the same wealth
and stability that inure energy end-users to the price signals that encourage conservation.
90
Mitigation Not Justified: Topshelf [contd]

4. Technology is the best way to address the issue, thrives in a pro-growth economy
Margo Thorning, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, American Council for Capital Formation, Testimony
before Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 11-8-07, lexis.
Technology development and deployment offers the most efficient and effective way to reduce GHG emissions and a strong
economy tends to pull through capital investment faster. There are only two ways to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use
- use less fossil fuel or develop technologies to use energy more efficiently to capture emissions or to substitute for fossil
energy. There is an abundance of economic literature demonstrating the relationship between energy use and economic growth,
as well as the negative impacts of curtailing energy use. Over the long-term, new technologies offer the most promise for
affecting GHG emission rates and atmospheric concentration levels.
5. People should not be held accountable for the failures of their governments
Eric A. Posner, Professor, Law, University of Chicago and Cass R. Sunstein, Professor, Political Science, University of
Chicago, "Climate Change Justice," GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL v. 96, 6--08, p. 1601.
Even if one could conclude that the U.S. government behaved negligently, it may not follow that the American people should
be held responsible for their government's failures. The government itself does not have its own money to pay the remedy; it
can only tax Americans. To justify such a tax, one would need to conclude that Americans behaved culpably by electing or
tolerating a government that failed to take actions that might have conferred benefits on the rest of the world of greater value
than their costs. There is a strong impulse to blame members of the public for the failures of their political system. In some
cases, the impulse is warranted, but in others, the impulse should be resisted. The last example of such a policy was the war
guilt clause, of the Versailles Treaty, which held Germany formally responsible for World War I and required Germany to pay
massive reparations to France and other countries. Germans resented this clause, and conventional wisdom holds that their
resentment fed the rise of Nazism. After World War II, the strategy shifted; rather than holding "Germany" responsible for
World War II, the allies sought to hold the individuals responsible for German policy responsible--these individuals were tried
at Nuremberg and elsewhere, where defendants were given a chance to defend themselves. The shift from collective to
individual responsibility was a major legacy of World War II, reflected today in the proliferation of international criminal
tribunals that try individuals, not nations. To be sure, no one is accusing the American government or its citizens of committing
crimes. But the question remains whether Americans should be blamed, in corrective justice terms, for allowing their
government to do so little about greenhouse gas emissions. It is one thing to blame individual Americans for excessive
greenhouse gas emissions; it is quite another to blame Americans for the failure of their government to adopt strict greenhouse
gas reduction policies. It is certainly plausible to think that voting for politicians who adopt bad policies, or failing to vote for
politicians who adopt good policies, is not morally wrong except in extreme or unusual cases. Recall in this connection that
even if Americans had demanded that their government act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, the effect
of unilateral reductions on climate change would be very small.
6. Emissions reductions are a sub-optimal way to help poor people--other avenues are superior
We shall raise serious questions about both accounts here. Rejecting international Paretianism, we agree that in many domains,
resources should be redistributed from rich nations and rich people to poor nations and poor people. Such redistribution might
well increase aggregate social welfare, since a dollar is worth more to a poor person than to a wealthy one; prominent
nonwelfarist arguments also favor such redistribution. But significant greenhouse gas reductions are a crude and somewhat
puzzling way of attempting to achieve redistributive goals. The arc of human history suggests that in the future, people are
likely to be much wealthier than people are now. Why should wealthy countries give money to future poor people, rather than
to current poor people? In any case, nations are not people; they are collections of people. Redistribution from wealthy
countries to poor countries is hardly the same as redistribution from wealthy people to poor people. For one thing, many poor
people in some countries will benefit from global warming, to the extent that agricultural productivity will increase and to the
extent that they will suffer less from extremes of cold. For another thing, poor people in wealthy countries may well pay a large
part of the bill for emissions reductions; a stiff tax on carbon emissions would come down especially hard on the poor. The
upshot is that if wealthy people in wealthy nations want to help poor people in poor nations, emissions reductions are unlikely
to be the best means by which they might to do so. Our puzzle, then, is why distributive justice is taken to require wealthy
nations to help poor ones in the context of climate change, when wealthy nations are not being asked to help poor ones in areas
in which the argument for help is significantly stronger.
91
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Consensus Answers

1. Consensus claims are overblowngrowing number of prominent skeptics deny warming theories
Claude Allegre Jr., former director, Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris, along with over a dozen other
scientists, Climate Change Heretics Refute Carbon Dangers, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2112 p. 14+.
In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global
warming are needed. In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of Barack Obama in the last
election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society with a letter that begins: ``I did not renew (my membership)
because I cannot live with the (APS policy) statement: `The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring. If no
mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and
human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to
discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global
warming is incontrovertible?'' In spite of a multi-decade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing
amounts of the ``pollutant'' carbon dioxide will destroy civilisation, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share
Giaever's opinions. And the number of scientific ``heretics'' is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of
stubborn scientific facts.
2. Funding availability means there is a pro-warming bias in the literature

John McLean, Fallacies About Global Warming, Science & Public Policy Institute, 9--07,
http://mclean.ch/climate/SPPI_AGW_fallacies.pdf, accessed 9-5-12.
This fallacy is closely related to the previous discussion of consensus, but here the impact is an indirect consequence of a
dominant opinion. Funding for scientific research has moved towards being determined by consensus, because where public
monies are concerned the issue ultimately comes back to an opinion as to whether the research is likely to be fruitful. Prior to
the last 20 or 30 years, research was driven principally by scientific curiosity. That science research funding has now become
results-oriented has had a dramatic, negative impact on the usefulness of many scientific results. For, ironically, pursuing
science that is thought by politician to be important or in the public interest often results in science accomplishments that
are conformist and fashionable rather than independent and truly useful. Targeting of useful research strongly constricts the
range of scientific papers that are produced. A general perception may arise that few scientists disagree with the dominant
opinion, whereas the reality may be that papers that reject the popular opinion are difficult to find simply because of the weight
of funding, and hence the research effort, that is tailored towards the conventional wisdom. Science generally progresses by
advancing on the work that has gone before, and the usual practice is to cite several existing papers to establish the basis for
one's work. Again the dominance of papers that adhere to a conventional wisdom can put major obstacles in the way of the
emergence of any counter-paradigm.
3. Publicity, funding needs make scientists biased towards warming bad camp
Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Is Global Warming Always Bad, APPLE DAILY, November 11--3--04,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/is-global-warming-always-bad, accessed 9-5-12.
Perhaps because there's little incentive for scientists to do anything but emphasize the negative and the destructive. Alarming
news often leads to government funding, funding generates research, and research is the key to scientists' professional
advancement. Good news threatens that arrangement. This is the reality that all scientists confront: every issue, be it global
warming, cancer or AIDS, competes with other issues for a limited amount of government research funding. And, here in
Washington, no one ever received a major research grant by stating that his or her particular issue might not be such a problem
after all.
92
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--CO2 Not to Blame

1. There is no evidence to show that CO2 causes climate change
Bryan Leland, electrical engineer and founder, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, Temperature Records Say Warming
Not Happening, DOMINION POST, 61612, p. 11.
Studies of sunspot cycles strongly support imminent global cooling. They show that a long sunspot cycle is always followed by
cooling. The last cycle lasted 12.5 years and the previous one, 9.5 years. This tells us that about 1 degree of cooling is to be
expected during the current cycle. Dr Jim Renwick and Dr David Wratt, of Niwa, who are lead authors for the IPCC, have
corresponded with me and appear to accept that the world has not warmed for about 10 years. It appears they do not know why
the world is failing to warm in line with the model predictions. Yet they still tell the Government that man-made global
warming is real and dangerous. Instead of publicly admitting that the world has not warmed as predicted, they divert the
discussion to other effects that, they claim, demonstrate warming. But the temperature records say it isn't happening. The only
rational conclusion is that there is no convincing evidence supporting the hypothesis that man-made carbon dioxide causes
dangerous global warming. CO2 is a harmless gas that promotes plant growth and reduces desertification.
2. Temperature drives CO2 levels, not the reverse

Ian Plimer, Professor, Mining Geology, University of Adelaide, The Climate Change Myth, BUSINESS WORLD, 125
11, lexis.
For more than 80 per cent of time, the planet has been warmer than now. Life did not fry and die. It thrived. Ice is a rare rock
on planet Earth. During the Earth's history, there have been six great ice ages and each of these ice ages started when the
atmospheric CO2 content was higher than now, showing that CO2 in the past has not driven global warming. Why should it
drive global warming now when the atmospheric CO2 content is relatively low? During ice ages, there are alternating
glaciations and interglacials. We are currently in an ice age that started 34 million years ago. The last few interglacials have
been warmer than the current interglacial. Ice cores show that temperature increases some 800 years before CO2 increases,
hence temperature drives the release of CO2 from the oceans into the atmosphere. This is the inverse of the current populist
view that CO2 drives global warming.
3. New models show that higher CO2 levels will have far fewer effects than the IPCC has predicted
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES NEWS, Climate Change Not so Extreme, Based on New Model, 112511, lexis.
Climate change has always been the topic of heated debate with scientists and experts, even skeptics, persuading the other side
of facts and data of what the future will be. But arguably, more often than not, climate change believes win the debate that the
threat is here and can affect the future of the world. However, some scientists who believe in climate change found that the
threat might not that be great. According to Andreas Schmittner, an Oregon State University researcher and lead author of the
study, global warming from the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some studies,
citing the research done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007. Schmittner noted that many
previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 to present. But when reconstructing sea and land
surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age, 21,000 years ago, and compare it with climate model simulations of that
period, there is a difference in result. With this in mind and using it in their models, researchers said that the results implied less
probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought.
93
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Feedbacks

1. Feedbacks are negative, prevent warming
NIPCC, Nongovernment International Panel on Climate Change, CLIMATE CHANGE RECONSIDERED, Craig Idso, S. Fred
Singer, Warren Anderson, J.Scott Armstrong, Dennis Avery, Franco Battaglia, Robert Carter, Piers Corbyn, Richard Courtney,
Joseph dAleo, Don Easterbrook, Fred Goldberg, Vicent Gray, Williams Gray, Kesten Green, Kenneth Haapala, David Hagen,
Richard Alan Keen, Adhav Khandekar, William Kininmonth, Hans Labohm, Anthony Lupo, Howard Maccabee, M.Michael
MOgil, Christopher Monckton, Lubos Motl, Stephen Murgatroyd, Nicola Scafetta, Harrison Schmitt, Tom Segalstad, George
Taylor, Dick Thoenes, Anton Uriarte Gerd Weber, 2009, p. 3.
Chapter 2. Feedback Factors and Radiative Forcing Scientific research suggests the model-derived temperature sensitivity of
the earth accepted by the IPCC is too large. Corrected feedbacks in the climate system could reduce climate sensitivity to
values that are an order of magnitude smaller. Scientists may have discovered a connection between cloud creation and sea
surface temperature in the tropics that creates a thermostat-like control that automatically vents excess heat into space. If
confirmed, this could totally compensate for the warming influence of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions experienced to date, as
well as all those that are anticipated to occur in the future. The IPCC dramatically underestimates the total cooling effect of
aerosols. Studies have found their radiative effect is comparable to or larger than the temperature forcing caused by all the
increase in greenhouse gas concentrations recorded since pre-industrial times. Higher temperatures are known to increase
emissions of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) from the worlds oceans, which increases the albedo of marine stratus clouds, which has a
cooling effect. Iodocompoundscreated by marine algae function as cloud condensation nuclei, which help create new
clouds that reflect more incoming solar radiation back to space and thereby cool the planet. As the airs CO2 contentand
possibly its temperaturecontinues to rise, plants emit greater amounts of carbonyl sulfide gas, which eventually makes its
way into the stratosphere, where it is transformed into solar-radiation-reflecting sulfate aerosol particles, which have a cooling
effect. As CO2 enrichment enhances biological growth, atmospheric levels of biosols rise, many of which function as cloud
condensation nuclei. Increased cloudiness diffuses light, which stimulates plant growth and transfers more fixed carbon into
plant and soil storage reservoirs. Since agriculture accounts for almost half of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in some
countries, there is concern that enhanced plant growth due to CO2 enrichment might increase the amount and warming effect of
this greenhouse gas. But field research shows that N2O emissions fall as CO2 concentrations and temperatures rise, indicating
this is actually another negative climate feedback. Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas. An enhanced CO2 environment
has been shown to have neither positive nor negative consequences on atmospheric methane concentrations. Higher
temperatures have been shown to result in reduced methane release from peatbeds. Methane emissions from cattle have been
reduced considerably by altering diet, immunization, and genetic selection.
2. New satellite research indicates that clouds are a net-negative feedback

John R. Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science & Nobel Prize Winner, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Testimony
before Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, 11-14-07,
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/ChristyJR_CST_071114_written.pdf, accessed 6-19-12.
In another example, I was a co-author on a publication led by my UA-Huntsville colleague Dr. Roy Spencer in which he used
some terrific satellite data to discover that the greenhouse effect of clouds evidently behaves in a way that naturally mitigates
warming rather than reinforcing it. We found that as the tropical atmosphere warms through heating related to rainfall, that the
types of clouds that trap heat in the atmosphere shrink in coverage, allowing more heat to escape to space and cooling to ensue.
This is an apparently strong negative feedback in the climate and has powerful implications because it indicates the climate
might react differently to increasing greenhouse gases than current theory predicts.
94
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Funding Bias

1. Pro-warming evidence is tainted by moneylooking for research grants
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexed that the American Physical
Society, from which Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to
remove the word ``incontrovertible'' from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to
start is the old question ``cui bono?'' Or the modern update, ``Follow the money''. Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to
many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also
offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the
political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived
very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
2. Money corrupts the pro-warming research base

Dr. William Happer, The Truth About Greenhouse Gases, George C. Marshall Institute, 52311,
www.marshall.org/article.php?id=953, accessed 6-19-12.
Funding for climate studies is second only to funding for biological sciences. Large academic empires, prizes, elections to
honorary societies, fellowships, and other perquisites go to those researchers whose results may help save the planet. Every
day we read about some real or contrived environmental or ecological effect proven to arise from global warming. The total
of such claimed effects now runs in the hundreds, all the alleged result of an unexceptional century-long warming of less than 1
degree Celsius. Government subsidies, loan guarantees, and captive customers go to green companies. Carbon-tax revenues
flow to governments. As the great Russian poet Pushkin said in his novella Dubrovsky, If there happens to be a trough, there
will be pigs. Any doubt about apocalyptic climate scenarios could remove many troughs.
3. Pro-warming science is taintedgovernment money, editorial bias in major journals

Bob Carter, palaeoclimatolgist, James Cook University, Money Corrupts the Peer Review Process, NATIONAL POST, 6
1512, p. FP13.
Scientific knowledge, then, is always in a state of flux. Much though bureaucrats and politicians may dislike the thought, there
is simply no such thing as "settled science," peer-reviewed or otherwise. During the latter part of the 20th century, Western
governments started channeling large amounts of research money into favoured scientific fields, prime among them globalwarming research. This money has a corrupting influence, not least on the peer-review process. Many scientific journals,
including prestigious internationally acclaimed ones, have now become captured by insider groups of leading researchers in
particular fields. Researchers who act as editors of journals then select referees from within a closed circle of scientists who
work in the same field and share similar views. The Climategate email leak in 2009 revealed for all to see that this cancerous
process is at an advanced stage of development in climate science. A worldwide network of leading climate researchers were
revealed to be actively influencing editors and referees to approve for publication only research that supported the IPCC's
alarmist view of global warming, and to prevent the publication of alternative or opposing views.
4. Pro-warming science is taintedfunding, internal pressure

Kenny Hodgart, Chop and Change, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, 51312, p. 28+.
May is no longer its president but the 352-year-old society - which acts as an adviser to the British government - continues to
castigate sceptical viewpoints and pressure media not to give them coverage. Climatologists who are sceptical of the AGW
orthodoxy say they find it difficult to attract funding for research. The late atmospheric scientist Reid Bryson put it like this:
"There is a lot of money to be made in this ... If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and
a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh, global warming, yes, yes carbon dioxide.'" Worse, there have been
reports of intimidation. Ian Plimer, an Australian geologist and author of the sceptical book Heaven and Earth, has had to
endure demonstrations outside his home, while others say colleagues who have doubts remain silent because they fear reprisals
or for the security of their jobs.
95
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Indicators

1. Best indicators prove that there is no warming
Richard Alan Keen, adhav Khandekar, William Kininmonth, Hans Labohm, Anthony Lupo, Howard Maccabee, M.Michael
Chapter 4. Observations: Glaciers, Sea Ice, Precipitation, and Sea Level Glaciers around the world are continuously
advancing and retreating, with a general pattern of retreat since the end of the Little Ice Age. There is no evidence of a
increased rate of melting overall since CO2 levels rose above their pre-industrial levels, suggesting CO2 is not responsible for
glaciers melting. Sea ice area and extent have continued to increase around Antarctica over the past few decades. Evidence
shows that much of the reported thinning of Arctic sea ice that occurred in the 1990s was a natural consequence of changes in
ice dynamics caused by an atmospheric regime shift, of which there have been several in decades past and will likely be several
in the decades to come, totally irrespective of past or future changes in the airs CO2 content. The Arctic appears to have
recovered from its 2007 decline. Global studies of precipitation trends show no net increase and no consistent trend with
CO2, contradicting climate model predictions that warming should cause increased precipitation. Research on Africa, the
Arctic, Asia, Europe, and North and South America all find no evidence of a significant impact on precipitation that could be
attributed to anthropogenic global warming. The cumulative discharge of the worlds rivers remained statistically unchanged
between 1951 and 2000, a finding that contradicts computer forecasts that a warmer world would cause large changes in global
streamflow characteristics. Droughts and floods have been found to be less frequent and severe during the Current Warm
Period than during past periods when temperatures were even higher than they are today. The results of several research
studies argue strongly against claims that CO2-induced global warming would cause catastrophic disintegration of the
Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. In fact, in the case of Antarctica, they suggest just the oppositei.e., that CO2-induced
global warming would tend to buffer the world against such an outcome. The mean rate of global sea level rise has not
accelerated over the recent past. The determinants of sea level are poorly understood due to considerable uncertainty associated
with a number of basic parameters that are related to the water balance of the worlds oceans and the meltwater contribution of
Greenland and Antarctica. Until these uncertainties are satisfactorily resolved, we cannot be confident that short-lived changes
in global temperature
produce corresponding changes in sea level.
2. Multiple indicators show that there has been no recent warming

S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Why I Remain a Global-Warming
Skeptic, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11411, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3189, accessed 517-12.
Moreover, independent data using temperature proxiesvarious non-thermometer sources such as tree rings, ocean and lake
sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, and so onalso support an absence of warming between 1978 and 1997. Coral data also
show no pronounced warming trend of the sea surface, and there are good reasons to believe that reported sea-surface warming
is an artifact of thermometer measurements. The IPCCs 2007 Summary for Policy makers claims that Most of the observed
increase in global average [surface] temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely [90-99% sure] due to the observed
increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. While Mr. Muller now seems to agree that there has been such
global average warming since the mid-20th century, he nonetheless ended his op-ed by disclaiming that he knows the cause of
any temperature increase. Moreover, the Berkeley teams research paper comments: The human component of global
warming may be somewhat overestimated. I commend Mr. Muller and his team for their honesty and skepticism.
3. Indicators like ice levels and sea levels do not show warming
Others point to evidence that while some glaciers may be in retreat, others are not: there has been melting on the West
Antarctic ice sheet, for example, but some studies show icepacks on the rest of the continent - the other 90 per cent of it - are
growing. As for sea levels, they have been oscillating close to their current level for the past three centuries, claims Nils-Axel
Morner, a former head of the International Union for Quaternary Research. "Sea level has been rising for thousands of years
and continues at about one inch per decade," is Christy's assessment. "Since during the last warm interglacial period, 130,000
years ago, the sea level reached about five metres higher than [it is] today, you should expect present sea levels to continue to
rise until the next ice age."
96
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--IPCC Answers

1. IPCC is not crediblebiased, outlandish predictions prove
S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, The End of the IPCC, AMERICAN
THINKER, 21010, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2994, accessed 5-17-12.
The most recent IPCC report of 2007 predicted the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers within 25 years; the imminent
death of nearly half the Amazon rain forest; and major damage from stronger hurricanesall in contradiction to expert
opinions offered by its appointed reviewers, but ignored by IPCC editors for mostly ideological reasons. More scandalous even,
the IPCC based their lurid predictions on anecdotal, non-peer-reviewed sourcesnot at all in accord with its solemnly
announced principles and scientific standards. These events showed not only a general sloppiness of IPCC procedures but also
an extreme biasquite inappropriate to a supposedly impartial scientific survey. By themselves, they do not invalidate the
basic IPCC conclusionthat a warming in the latter half of the 20th century was human-caused, presumably by the rise of
greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Yet all of these missteps pale in comparison to ClimateGate, which calls into question
the very temperature data used by the IPCC's main policy result. As the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia
(UK) reveal, this IPCC conclusionthat Global Warming is anthropogenicis based on manipulated data and therefore
flawedas are demands for the control of CO2 emissions, like the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord. In my opinion,
ClimateGate is a much more serious issue than simply sloppiness and ideological distortion; ClimateGate suggests conspiracy
to commit fraud.
2. IPCC and others exaggerate the impactignore adaptation

Warming, POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 1211, ES.
It is frequently asserted that climate change could have devastating consequences for poor countries. Indeed, this assertion is
used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other organizations as one of the primary
justifications for imposing restrictions on human emissions of greenhouse gases. But there is an internal contradiction in the
IPCCs own claims. Indeed, the same highly influential report from the IPCC claims both that poor countries will fare terribly
and that they will be much better off than they are today. So, which is it? The apparent contradiction arises because of
inconsistencies in the way the IPCC assesses impacts. The process begins with various scenarios of future emissions. These
scenarios are themselves predicated on certain assumptions about the rate of economic growth and related technological
change. Under the IPCCs highest growth scenario, by 2100 GDP per capita in poor countries will be double the U.S.s 2006
level, even taking into account any negative impact of climate change. (By 2200, it will be triple.) Yet that very same scenario
is also the one that leads to the greatest rise in temperatureand is the one that has been used to justify all sorts of scare stories
about the impact of climate change on the poor. Under this highest growth scenario (known as A1FI), the poor will logically
have adopted, adapted and innovated all manner of new technologies, making them far better able to adapt to the future
climate. But these improvements in adaptive capacity are virtually ignored by most global warming impact assessments.
Consequently, the IPCCs impacts assessments systematically overestimate the negative impact of global warming, while
underestimating the positive impact.
3. IPCC is just engaged in fear-mongeringmembers have a vested interest in making us fearful

Professor John Christy, whose doctorate Trenberth supervised, is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society best known
for his development, along with a colleague, of the first successful satellite temperature-recording system. Far from denying
that human activity has had an impact on climate, he is nevertheless a critic of those who make catastrophic predictions.
"Basically, and I'm generalising here, the IPCC is not a collection of neutral scientific observers," he says from his office at the
University of Alabama, in the US. "It is rather a cast of self-selected players whose views can be counted on to generate a
product acceptable to governments which seek more control over energy policy and thus human opportunity. Many, not all, of
those who write the IPCC [reports] have a direct, vested interest in assuring a catastrophe is upon us to solidify their various
positions of authority and income, positions largely funded by the governments for whom they work." The world, he adds,
"always has catastrophes being promoted by various entities, and human-caused climate change is now fading because of lack
of evidence, and something else will take its place - world-wide economic destruction, Middle East turmoil, repressive
regimes."
97
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--IPCC Answers [contd]

4. IPCC unreliableseeks grants, isnt made up of climatologists
Alexander Cockburn, journalist, Who Are the Merchants of Fear? COUNTERPUNCH, May 12-13, 2007,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/05/12/who-are-the-merchants-of-fear/, accessed 9-5-12.
The footsoldiers in this alliance have been the grant-guzzling climate modelers and their Internationale, the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose collective scientific expertise is reverently invoked by all devotees of the
Greenhouse fearmongers' catechism. Aside from the fact that the graveyard of intellectual error is stuffed with the myriad
tombstones of "overwhelming scientific consensus", the IPCC has the usual army of functionaries and grant farmers, and the
merest sprinkling of actual scientists with the prime qualification of being climatologists or atmospheric physicists. To identify
either the government-funded climate modelers or their political shock troops, the IPCC's panelists, with scientific rigor and
objectivity is as unrealistic as detecting the same attributes in a craniologist financed by Lombroso studying a murderer's head
in a nineteenth-century prison for the criminally insane. The craniologist' fingers and calipers were programmed by the usual
incentives of stipends, grants and professional ego to find in the skull of that murderer ridges, bumps and depressions, each
meticulously equated with an ungovernable passion, an ethnic deficit or a mental derangement. The murderer's individual head
became a universal model, the particular promoted to an unassailable theory.
5. Cant trust the modelersare careerists, looking to line their own pockets
Alexander Cockburn, journalist, Who Are the Merchants of Fear? COUNTERPUNCH, May 12-13, 2007,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/05/12/who-are-the-merchants-of-fear/, accessed 9-5-12.
Man-made global warming theory is fed by pseudo quantitative predictions from climate-careerists working primarily off the
big, mega-computer General Circulation Models which include the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR),
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Department of Commerce's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab, a private GCM
which used to be at Oregon State before the University of Illinois lured the team away. There's another one at Livermore and
one in England, at Hadley. These are multi-billion dollar computer model programming bureaucracies as intent on selfpreservation and budgetary enhancement as cognate nuclear bureaucracies at Oakridge and Los Alamos. They are as unlikely
to develop models confuting the hypothesis of human-induced global warming as is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change to say the weather is possibly getting a little bit warmer but that there's no great cause for alarm and indeed some
reason for rejoicing, since this warming (whose natural causes I discussed in that recent column) gives us a longer growing
season and increased CO2, a potent plant fertiliser. Welcome global greening.
6. Many pro-warming scientists are looking to benefit themselveshighly biased

The Marshall Institute, staff, CLIMATE ISSUES & QUESTIONS, 2--08, www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/577.pdf, accessed 94-12.
Concerns about either the potential impacts of climate change or the economic impact of ill-conceived policies result in some
scientists entering the policy debate. Others, unfortunately, have entered the debate to advance political or economic agendas,
gain funding for research, or enhance their personal reputations. To the extent that the debate is carried out in the public policy
arena or media, the rigors of the scientific process are short-circuited. This state of affairs creates misunderstandings and
confusion over what we know about the climate system, past climate changes and their causes, human impacts on the climate
system and how human activities may affect future climate. Policy needs are better served by clarity and accuracy.
98
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Models

1. Models are not crediblemultiple reasons
Taylor, Dick Thoenes, Anton Uriarte Gerd Weber, 2009, p. 2-3.
Chapter 1. Global Climate Models and Their Limitations The IPCC places great confidence in the ability of general
circulation models (GCMs) to simulate future climate and attribute observed climate change to anthropogenic emissions of
greenhouse gases. The forecasts in the Fourth Assessment Report were not the outcome of validated scientific procedures. In
effect, they are the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. The IPCCs claim that
it is making projections rather than forecasts is not a plausible defense. Todays state-of-the-art climate models fail to
accurately simulate the physics of earths radiative energy balance, resulting in uncertainties as large as, or larger than, the
doubled CO2 forcing. A long list of major model imperfections prevents models from properly modeling cloud formation
and cloud-radiation interactions, resulting in large differences between model predictions and observations. Computer models
have failed to simulate even the correct sign of observed precipitation anomalies, such as the summer monsoon rainfall over the
Indian region. Yet it is understood that precipitation plays a major role in climate change.
2. Dont believe extreme weather claimsmodels lack resolution to make any valid predictions
Craig D. Idso PhD and Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, CARBON DIOXIDE AND EARTHS FUTURE: PURSUING THE
PRUDENT PATH, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2211, p. 16.
With respect to current climate model deficiencies, we note that correctly simulating future extreme weather phenomena such
as floods and droughts has proved an extremely difficult task. One reason for the lack of success in this area is inadequate
model resolution on both vertical and horizontal spatial scales, which forces climate modelers to parameterize the large-scale
effects of processes that occur on smaller scales than their models are capable of handling. This is particularly true of physical
processes such as cloud formation and cloud-radiation interactions. A good perspective on the cloud-climate conundrum was
provided by Randall et al. (2003), who stated at the outset of their review of the subject that the representation of cloud
processes in global atmospheric models has been recognized for decades as the source of much of the uncertainty surrounding
predictions of climate variability. However, and despite what they called the "best efforts" of the climate modeling
community, they had to acknowledge that "the problem remains largely unsolved. What is more, they suggested that at the
current rate of progress, cloud parameterization deficiencies will continue to plague us for many more decades into the future,
which has important implications for correctly predicting precipitation-related floods and drought.
3. IPCC is adjusting the model data to match its conclusions

S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics
a Bad Name, AMERICAN THINKER, 22912, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3263, accessed 517-12.
There are three things wrong with the IPCC argument. It depends very much on detailed and somewhat arbitrary choices of
model inputse.g., the properties and effects of atmospheric aerosols, and their temporal and geographic distribution. It also
makes arbitrary assumptions about clouds and water vapor, which produce the most important greenhouse forcings. One might
therefore say that the IPCCs evidence is nothing more than an exercise in curve-fitting. According to physicist Freeman
Dyson, the famous mathematician John von Neumann stated: Give me four adjustable parameters and I can fit an elephant.
Give me one more, and I can make his trunk wiggle. The second question: can the IPCC fit other climate records of
importance besides the reported global surface record? For example, can they fit northern and southern hemisphere
temperatures using the same assumptions in their models about aerosols, clouds, and water vapor? Can they fit the atmospheric
temperature record as obtained from satellites, and also from radiosondes carried in weather balloons? The IPCC report does
not show such results, and one therefore suspects that their curve-fitting exercise may not work, except with the global surface
record.
99
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Natural

1. Current temperature increases are only the result of recovery from the Little Ice Age
WESTERN MAIL, Rising Tempers Not Rising TemperaturesThats Whats Threatening Our Wellbeing, 92611, p. 15.
Most accept this. The problem comes with the next part of the theory which is that the global temperature increase is the fault of man,
and unless we take drastic steps immediately then we will face floods, droughts, disease, rising seas, and all other manner of Biblical
catastrophes. Those who question this idea are pilloried and even compared to Holocaust deniers. But, in light of the vast increases
in energy bills which we face as a result of an energy policy based on fears about global warming, we do have a right to raise some
questions. Firstly the rise in temperature which has taken place over the past 200 years is about 0.8C. Actually, even this is
questionable, but for now let us accept it. Throughout its 4.5 billion year history the Earth's average temperatures have always gone
up and down. Over the past 2,000 years we saw a warm period during the time of the Roman Empire, followed by a cold period, then
another warm period during the medieval era, then the so-called "little ice age" during the 1600s which we started to come out of at
about the time we began to industrialise. It is therefore reasonable to assume that some of the 0.8C rise is due to the warming that
would have taken place anyway as a result of the Earth coming out of a cool period. I think we should be told how much, but nobody
- not even the environmental experts in the House of Commons research library - seems to know.
2. Climate is naturally variable, is driven by factors far more powerful than humans
Ian Plimer, Professor, Mining Geology, University of Adelaide, The Climate Change Myth, BUSINESS WORLD, 12511,
lexis.
Climate has always changed, nothing we measure today is unusual. There are numerous climate cycles. In every 143 million years, our
solar system has a bad address. We get bombarded by cosmic radiation, low-level clouds form and the Earth cools. Every 100,000,
41,000 and 23,000 years the Earth's orbit changes such that we are closer to or further from the Sun, which pumps out variable
amounts of energy on 1,500-, 210-, 87- and 22-year cycles. It may come as a surprise to some that the great ball of heat and light in
the sky has driven climate change for the past 4,500 million years. This cannot be changed by humans. The main greenhouse gas is
water vapour, CO2 has a minor effect, yet, it helps keep Earth habitable. Evaporation and precipitation transfer atmospheric energy
and, with solar energy, have kept the planet habitable for thousands of millions of years. The oceans hold far more heat than the
atmosphere, and slight changes in ocean currents and temperature change climate and can be the driver of drought or rain. Such
cyclical ocean changes have been found recently in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. A lunar nodal tide every 18.6 years can
also push ocean water around and warm high latitude areas. The 1,500 terrestrial explosive volcanoes have slightly cooled the Earth
just after eruptions of aerosols and millions of submarine volcanoes add heat and CO2 to ocean waters. At times, a large submarine
bulge of molten rock can heat the oceans, release CO2 and methane and change ocean currents. At other times, continents can be at
different latitudes. For example, nearly 260 million years ago, India was attached to a great southern polar continent.
3. Solar variability explains temperature and climate change

Singer, Warren Anderson, J.Scott Armstrong, Dennis Avery, Franco Battaglia, Robert Carter, Piers Corbyn, Richard Courtney, Joseph
dAleo, Don Easterbrook, Fred Goldberg, Vicent Gray, Williams Gray, Kesten Green, Kenneth Haapala, David Hagen, Richard Alan
Keen, adhav Khandekar, William Kininmonth, Hans Labohm, Anthony Lupo, Howard Maccabee, M.Michael MOgil, Christopher
Monckton, Lubos Motl, Stephen Murgatroyd, Nicola Scafetta, Harrison Schmitt, Tom Segalstad, George Taylor, Dick Thoenes, Anton
Uriarte Gerd Weber, 2009, p. 5.
Chapter 5. Solar Variability and Climate Cycles The IPCC claims the radiative forcing due to changes in the solar output since 1750
is +0.12 Wm-2, an order of magnitude smaller than its estimated net anthropogenic forcing of +1.66 Wm-2. A large body of research
suggests that the IPCC has got it backwards, that it is the suns influence that is responsible for the lions share of climate change
during the past century and beyond. The total energy output of the sun changes by only 0.1 percent during the course of the solar
cycle, although larger changes may be possible over periods of centuries. On the other hand, the ultraviolet radiation from the sun can
change by several percent over the solar cycle as indeed noted by observing changes in stratospheric ozone. The largest changes,
however, occur in the intensity of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field. Reconstructions of ancient climates reveal a close
correlation between solar magnetic activity and solar irradiance (or brightness), on the one hand, and temperatures on earth, on the
other. Those correlations are much closer than the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature. Cosmic rays could provide
the mechanism by which changes in solar activity affect climate. During periods of greater solar magnetic activity, greater shielding of
the earth occurs, resulting in less cosmic rays penetrating to the lower atmosphere, resulting in fewer cloud condensation nuclei being
produced, resulting in fewer and less reflective low-level clouds occurring, which leads to more solar radiation being absorbed by the
surface of the earth, resulting (finally) in increasing near-surface air temperatures and global warming. Strong correlations between
solar variability and precipitation, droughts, floods, and monsoons have all been documented in locations around the world. Once
again, these correlations are much stronger than any relationship between these weather phenomena and CO2. The role of solar
activity in causing climate change is so complex that most theories of solar forcing must be considered to be as yet unproven. But it
would also be appropriate for climate scientists to admit the same about the role of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations in driving
recent global warming.
100
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Peer Review Answers

1. Peer review does nothing to prove whether the claims made in a scientific paper are accurate
1512, p. FP13.
The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has referred to its work as the gold standard, based on its
oft-made claim that it only surveys work published in peer-reviewed professional research papers. Interestingly, Albert
Einstein's famous 1905 paper on relativity was not peer-reviewed. It is therefore quite clear that peer review is not a
precondition for excellent, indeed epoch-making, scientific research. So what is a peer-reviewed (also termed refereed)
research paper? Peer-review is a technique of quality control for scientific papers that emerged slowly through the 20th
century, only achieving a dominant influence in science after the Second World War. The process works like this. A potential
scientific author conducts research, writes a paper on his or her results and submits the paper to a professional journal that
represents the specialist field of science in question. The editor of the journal then scan-reads the paper. Based upon his
knowledge of the contents of the paper, and of the activities of other scientists in the same research field, the editor selects
(usually) two persons, termed referees, to whom he sends the draft manuscript of the paper for review. Referees, who are
unpaid, differ in the amount of time and effort that they devote to their task of review. At one extreme a referee will criticize
and correct the writing of a paper in detail, including making comments on the scientific content; at the other extreme, a referee
may merely skim-read a paper, ignoring obvious mistakes in writing style or grammar, and make some general comments to
the editor about the scientific accuracy, or otherwise, of the draft paper. Neither type of referee, nor those who lie between,
pretend to check either the original data or the detailed statistical calculations (or, today, complex computer modelling) that
often form the kernel of a piece of modern scientific research. Each referee makes a recommendation to the editor as to whether
the paper should be published (usually with corrections) or rejected, the editor making the final decision regarding publication
based on this advice. In essence, then, peer-review is a technique of editorial quality control. That a scientific paper has been
peer-reviewed is absolutely no guarantee that the science it portrays is correct. Indeed, it is the very nature of scientific research
that nearly all scientific papers require later emendation, or reinterpretation, in the light of new discoveries or understanding.
2. Peer review proves nothingcan still back up bad data

1512, p. FP13.
Backed by this malfeasant system, leading researchers who support the IPCC's red-hot view of climate change endlessly
promulgate their alarmist recommendations as "based only upon peer-reviewed research papers," as if this were some
guarantee of quality or accuracy. Peer-review, of course, guarantees neither. What matters is not whether a scientific idea or
article has been peer-reviewed but whether the science described is right, i.e. accords with empirical evidence. So what about
the much-trumpeted, claimed "gold standard" of strict use of peer review papers by the IPCC? Well, this has been completely
exposed by Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise, who showed that an amazing 30% of the articles cited in the
definitive Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC were from non-peer-reviewed sources, including such writings as student
theses and environmental lobbyist reports. Therefore, the repetition of the "we only-use-peer-reviewed-information" mantra
that is so favoured by lobbying and government-captive scientific organizations signals not just scientific immaturity but also a
lack of confidence, or ability, to assess the scientific arguments about global warming on their own merits and against the
empirical evidence.
3. Consensus and peer review claims dont justify belief in warmingactually exclude critical thinking,
global warming theory is bunk
11, lexis.
Science is married to evidence. this evidence is from measurement, observation and experiment. Predictions from a computer
are not evidence, especially as computers can be programmed to give a desired answer. A conclusion is reached on the basis of
transparent and repeatable evidence. This can be tested with new independent evidence and needs to be in accord with previous
validated evidence. If a scientific conclusion is not in accord with evidence, it must be rejected. The theory that human
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) drive global warming can be tested and is shown to be contrary to validated geology, ice
core data and history. The theory should have been rejected decades ago, but there is too much money involved. To be a
scientist, one has to be sceptical, bow to no authority and be an independent thinker. The history of science shows that
consensus thinking has never made a great scientific discovery and only those that challenge popular paradigms have made
discoveries. Consensus is a tool of politics, not science. As a scientist for over 40 years, I have seen how the peer review
system supports fads and fashions and excludes contrary thinking.
101
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Peer Review Answers [contd]

4. Peer review does not prove truthreviewers have biases
The peer-review process was established for the benefit of editors who did not have good knowledge across all the fields that
their journals addressed. It provided a "sanity check" to avoid the risk of publishing papers which were so outlandish that the
journal would be ridiculed and lose its reputation. In principle this notion seems entirely reasonable, but it neglects certain
aspects of human nature, especially the tendency for reviewers to defend their own (earlier) papers, and indirectly their
reputations, against challengers. Peer review also ignores the strong tendency for papers that disagree with a popular
hypothesis, one the reviewer understands and perhaps supports, to receive a closer and often hostile scrutiny. Reviewers are
selected from practitioners in the field, but many scientific fields are so small that the reviewers will know the authors. The
reviewers may even have worked with the authors in the past or wish to work with them in future, so the objectivity of any
review is likely to be tainted by this association. Some journals now request that authors suggest appropriate reviewers but this
is a sure way to identify reviewers who will be favourable to certain propositions. It also follows that if the editor of a journal
wishes to reject a paper, then it will be sent to a reviewer who is likely to reject it, whereas a paper that the editor favours to be
published will be sent to a reviewer who is expected to be sympathetic. In 2002 the editor-in-chief of the journal "Science"
announced that there was no longer any doubt that human activity was changing climate, so what are the realistic chances of
this journal publishing a paper that suggests otherwise?
5. Peer review is not a check in a field as broad and complex as climate studies
The popular notion is that reviewers should be skilled in the relevant field, but a scientific field like climate change is so broad,
and encompasses so many sub disciplines, that it really requires the use of expert reviewers from many different fields. That
this is seldom undertaken explains why so many initially influential climate papers have later been found to be fundamentally
flawed. In theory, reviewers should be able to understand and replicate the processing used by the author(s). In practice,
climate science has numerous examples where authors of highly influential papers have refused to reveal their complete set of
data or the processing methods that they used. Even worse, the journals in question not only allowed this to happen, but have
subsequently defended the lack of disclosure when other researchers attempted to replicate the work.
102
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Temperatures

1. Lack of temperature increases in last 10 years disproves warminginvalidates the modes, shows
temperature variability is natural
Bryan Leland, electrical engineer and founder, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, Temperature Records Say Warming
Not Happening, DOMINION POST, 61612, p. 11.
Three is a widespread belief that the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations has caused the world to warm steadily. We are
constantly told that this warming will continue and it will be disastrous. Before we accept these statements we should analyse
the recent temperature records and the history of past climatic changes. "Climate change" - more properly referred to as "manmade global warming" - is based on an unproven hypothesis that man-made carbon dioxide causes global warming. The
evidence is that CO2 levels have increased steadily but there has been no significant warming of the world for the last 10 to 15
years. This proves that carbon dioxide does not cause dangerous warming. All the climate models supported by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted a steady rise in temperature of 2 degrees to 6 degrees per
century caused by increasing concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. They were wrong: all five leading
temperature records - both surface and satellite - show that temperatures over the last 10 to 15 years have been essentially
constant. The figure shows the temperature record from the Hadley Centre in Britain. It shows there has been no warming over
the past 10 years and an insignificant amount of warming over the past 15 years. CO2-driven warming happens immediately
and there is no mechanism that could delay the effect. It is claimed that lack of warming is due to "natural effects", yet none of
the IPCC scientists can explain exactly what these large natural causes are. If the models were any good, their predictions
would be accurate. According to the IPCC, ". . . the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible". Doesn't that
pretty much say it all? The alternative - and much simpler - explanation is that the climate has natural cycles and that we are
just over the peak of a cycle and, probably, at the beginning of a decline. Nicola Scafetta, a research scientist at Duke
University in the US, has analysed past climatic cycles and made a model that without any tuning has accurately replicated
temperature changes over the last 100 years. It also predicts that cooling is imminent. Don Easterbrook, at Western Washington
University in the US, and other scientists have carried out similar analyses with similar results. Most of these studies have been
ignored or dismissed by the scientists associated with the IPCC.
2. Have only seen very moderate warmingdisproves warming claims

James M. Taylor, J.D. and Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News, Temperatures Flat Despite Record Rise in
Emissions, CLIMATE CHANGE WEEKLY, 111111, http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/11/11/climatechange-weekly-temperatures-flat-despite-record-rise-emissions, accessed 5-17-12.
Rising carbon dioxide emissions might very well be a cause for strong concern if carbon dioxide emissions were the sole or
primary cause of global temperature changes and if the Earth were on the brink of a global warming crisis. The real-world
disconnect between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures is one of the factors that argues strongly against such a
scenario, however. Temperatures have risen merely 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius during the past third of a century and have not
risen at all during the past decade. Giving global warming activists the benefit of the doubt and assuming the recent pause in
global warming is merely a temporary condition, the Earth is still on a pace for less than 1 degree of warming during the
twenty-first century.
3. Any warming has been very modest-far below what has been predicted by models
Few disagree that there has been an overall warming - in the region of one degree at most since 1850 - but, according to
Christy, there is no universal agreement as to the quantitative magnitude of AGW relative to other factors. "There are many
studies which show that the climate system is not very sensitive to CO2," he says. "Mine, for example, have shown far less
warming than predicted by the models, a pattern of warming that is inconsistent with model projection and regional trends that
are not outside the range of natural variability. "In terms of global temperature trends, we now have a third of a century of bulk
atmospheric temperatures showing a modest 0.13 degrees per decade rate of rise - less than half that predicted by climate
models. In the past 15 years, the trend has been close to zero - the period in which warming was expected to have its fastest rate
due to the enhanced greenhouse effect."
103
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change False--Temperatures [contd]

4. No warmingsatellite data proves
S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Why I Remain a Global-Warming
Skeptic, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11411, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3189, accessed 517-12.
But the main reason that I am skeptical about the IPCC, and now the Berkeley, findings, is that they disagree with most every
other data source I can find. I confine this critique to the period between 1978 and 1997, thereby avoiding the Super El Nio of
1998 that had nothing to do with greenhouse gases or other human influences. Contrary to both global-warming theory and
climate models, data from weather satellites show no atmospheric temperature increase over this period, and neither do the
entirely independent radiosondes carried in weather balloons. The Berkeley study confined its findings to land temperatures as
recorded by weather stations. Yet oceans cover 71% of the earths surface, and the marine atmosphere shows no warming
trend. The absence of warming is in accord with the theory that climate is heavily impacted by solar variability, and agrees with
the solar data presented in a 2007 paper by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society
A.
5. Temperature is difficult to measure, amalgamate

Algird Leiga, PhD, Physical Chemistry, New York University, Case Is Not Closed on Man-Made Global Warming,
INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN, 61412, lexis.
In any discussion of man-made global warming it is essential to recognize there are two distinct considerations. First, is to find
out if the Earth is warming or cooling and by how much. The other is to correlate the data to a particular variable. To express
the temperature of the Earth by a single number is a challenge. On any given day the temperature varies by the hour, the season
and location. The ocean and land surface temperatures will differ from the atmosphere, and the temperature varies with
altitude. Nevertheless to simplify discussions a single yearly number defines whether the Earth is warming or cooling. Over the
last 20 years data show the temperature has varied by as much as a half-degree Celsius or as little as a tenth of a degree. Given
all the variables inherent in calculating Earth's yearly temperature, confidence limits for each date point would be helpful to
decide if the small observed changes are noise or a valid trend.
104
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Agriculture

1. Infrastructure investment can offset the alleged negative effects of climate change
Douglas Southgate, Professor, Ohio State University, Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture, POLICY STUDY n. 395,
Reason Foundation, 1111, p. 5.
In principle, it would be possible to compensate for productivity losses in agriculture, which are indicated by declining net
revenues. For example, it has been estimated that increased spending of $3 billion per year on rural roads and other
infrastructure would allow Sub-Saharan Africa to deal with the agricultural impacts of climate change. Likewise, declines in
average calorie availability and per-capita grain production in Asia could be avoided by increasing annual investment in
irrigation systems and other public works by $2.5 billion. The effects of climate change are expected to be milder in Latin
America and the Caribbean, so a little more than $1 billion spent each year on agricultural research, irrigation efficiency and
rural infrastructure should allow the region to cope.
2. R&D will solve any agriculture-related impacts of climate change

Dr. Indur Goklany, environment and development analyst, What to Do About Climate Change, POLICY ANALYSIS n. 609,
Cato Institute, 2508, p. 18.
An additional $5 billion annual investment in agricultural R&Dapproximately 15 percent of global funding of agricultural
research and development during the 1990sshould raise productivity sufficiently to more than compensate for the estimated
0.02 percent annual shortfall in productivity caused by climate change.74 As Table 2 shows, that should reduce the total
population at risk for hunger in the future significantly more than the largest estimated increase under any scenario for the
population at risk for hunger as a consequence of climate changeparticularly if the additional investment is targeted toward
solving developing countries current food and agricultural problems that might be exacerbated by warming.
3. Better crop varieties will protect yields

Current agricultural problems that could be exacerbated by warming and should be the focus of vulnerability-reduction
measures include growing crops in poor climatic or soil conditions (e.g., low-soil moisture in some areas, too much water in
others, or soils with high salinity, alkalinity, or acidity). Because of warming, such conditions could become more prevalent
and agriculture might have to expand into areas with poorer soils, or both. Actions focused on increasing agricultural
productivity under current marginal conditions would alleviate hunger in the future whether or not the climate changes.
Similarly, because both CO2 and temperatures will increase, crop varieties should be developed to take advantage of such
conditions. Progress on these approaches does not depend on improving our skill in forecasting location-specific details of
climate change impacts analyses. These focused adaptation measures should be complemented by development of higher-yield,
lower-impact crop varieties and improved agronomic practices so that more food is produced per unit acre. That would help
reduce hunger while providing numerous ancillary benefits for biodiversity and sustainable development
4. Technology is likely to solve any ag-related negative effects of warming

The study of agricultural productivity and hunger allows for increases in crop yield with economic growth due to greater usage
of fertilizer and irrigation in richer countries, and decreases in hunger due to economic growth, some secular (time-dependent)
increase in agricultural productivity, as well as some farm-level adaptations to deal with climate change. But these adaptations
are based on 1990s technologies, rather than technologies that would be available at the time for which impacts are estimated
(i.e., 2025, 2055 and 2085 in the FTA). Nor does the study account for any technologies developed to specifically cope with the
negative impacts of global warming or take advantage of any positive outcomes. But the potential for future technologies to
cope with climate change is large, especially if one considers bioengineered crops and precision agriculture.
105
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Agriculture [contd]

5. Successful adaptation will prevent any major increases in food prices
Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, Ohio State
University Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry, CIVIL SOCIETY REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE,
2007, p. 61.
In general, the costs of environmental change hinge on how people choose to adapt. In the agricultural and forestry sectors,
successful accommodation of global warming will not require central planning by governments. To the contrary, adaptation is
best accomplished by relying on the sort of decision-making that happens routinely in competitive and unregulated markets
decision-making that is decentralized and individualistic, yet coordinated because everyone faces the same prices for scarce
resources. Thanks largely to the adaptations that producers and consumers will make in the marketplace, global prices of farm
products will not be greatly affected if average temperatures rise by 1.0C to 4.0C during the 21st Century, as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is currently forecasting. With prices staying about the same, the main
economic consequence of global warming in the farm economy will be to raise or lower the values of agricultural land. Since
the 1990s, economists have investigated this consequence in the United States. Some of this research suggests that the
aggregate impact of global warming on land values will be negative. However, the expected magnitude is not all that great.
6. Farmers will have powerful incentives to adapt to climate change

2007, p. 63.
International trade would dampen the price adjustments resulting from these changes in agricultural land use. For example, a
larger wheat harvest, which on its own would drive down domestic prices of that commodity, would be accompanied in Russia
by increased wheat exports, which would push the domestic market value of that commodity back up. Russia would also
import more maize, which would restrain any increases in that products price. Actions taken on the demand side of the market
would also prevent relative prices from changing much. If for example maize became much more expensive while the market
value of wheat remained the same, then livestock producers would change the rations fed to cattle and other domestic animals.
As they did this, demand for maize would decline, hence bringing down its price, and demand for wheat would increase,
thereby putting upward pressure on its market value. Note that, even in the absence of a large swing in relative prices, farmers
face a strong incentive to adapt efficiently to climate change. Consider an individual who has been growing wheat in Iowa.
With per-hectare production falling and the ratio of maize prices to wheat prices not changing much, switching to the other
crop is attractive. Meanwhile, additional land is being sown to wheat at higher latitudes, in Russia. In each case, market forces
are promoting exactly the right response to a warmer environment.
106
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Biodiversity

1. Species will just migrate or adaptno large extinction risk
Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso and Craig Idso, Plant Responses to Significant and Rapid Global Warming, CO2 SCIENCE
MAGAZINE v. 15 n. 24, 61312, http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N24/EDIT.php, accessed 7-12-12.
In an impressive and enlightening review of the subject, Willis and MacDonald (2011) begin by noting that key research efforts
have focused on extinction scenarios derived from "a suite of predictive species distribution models (e.g., Guisan and Thuiller,
2005)" - which are most often referred to as bioclimatic envelope models - that "predict current and future range shifts and
estimate the distances and rates of movement required for species to track the changes in climate and move into suitable new
climate space." And they write that one of the most-cited studies of this type - that of Thomas et al. (2004) - "predicts that, on
the basis of mid-range climatic warming scenarios for 2050, up to 37% of plant species globally will be committed to
extinction owing to lack of suitable climate space." In contrast, the two researchers say that "biotic adaptation to climate
change has been considered much less frequently." This phenomenon - which is sometimes referred to as evolutionary
resilience - they describe as "the ability of populations to persist in their current location and to undergo evolutionary
adaptation in response to changing environmental conditions (Sgro et al., 2010)." And they note that this approach to the
subject "recognizes that ongoing change is the norm in nature and one of the dynamic processes that generates and maintains
biodiversity patterns and processes," citing MacDonald et al. (2008) and Willis et al. (2009). The aim of Willis and
MacDonald's review, therefore, was to examine the effects of significant and rapid warming on earth's plants during several
previous intervals of the planet's climatic history that were as warm as, or even warmer than, what climate alarmists typically
predict for the next century. These intervals included the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the Eocene climatic optimum,
the mid-Pliocene warm interval, the Eemian interglacial, and the Holocene. And it is important to note that this approach, in
contrast to the approach typically used by climate alarmists, relies on empirical (as opposed to theoretical) data-based (as
opposed to model-based), reconstructions (as opposed to projections) of the past (as opposed to the future). And what were the
primary findings of the two researchers? As they describe them, in their own words, "persistence and range shifts (migrations)
seem to have been the predominant terrestrial biotic response (mainly of plants) to warmer intervals in Earth's history," while
"the same responses also appear to have occurred during intervals of rapid climate change." In addition, they make a strong
point of noting that "evidence for global extinctions or extinctions resulting from reduction of population sizes on the scale
predicted for the next century owing to loss of suitable climate space (Thomas et al., 2004) is not apparent." In fact, they state
that sometimes an actual increase in local biodiversity is observed, the case for which we lay out in Section II (Physiological
Reasons for Rejecting the CO2-Induced Global Warming Extinction Hypothesis) of our Major Report The Specter of Species
Extinction: Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere? Read it and rejoice!
2. Warming does not pose a threat to speciesmultiple reasons

Chapter 8. Species Extinction The IPCC claims new evidence suggests that climate-driven extinctions and range retractions
are already widespread and the projected impacts on biodiversity are significant and of key relevance, since global losses in
biodiversity are irreversible (very high confidence). These claims are not supported by scientific research. The worlds
species have proven to be remarkably resilient to climate change. Most wild species are at least one million years old, which
means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles involving temperature changes on par with or greater than those
experienced in the twentieth century. The four known causes of extinctions are huge asteroids striking the planet, human
hunting, human agriculture, and the introduction of alien species (e.g., lamprey eels in the Great Lakes and pigs in Hawaii).
None of these causes are connected with either global temperatures or atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Real-world data
collected by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) show the rate of extinctions at the end of the twentieth
century was the lowest since the sixteenth centurydespite 150 years of rising world temperatures, growing populations, and
industrialization. Many, and probably most, of the worlds species benefited from rising temperatures in the twentieth century.
As long as the atmospheres CO2 concentration rises in tandem with its temperature, most plants will not need to migrate
toward cooler conditions, as their physiology will change in ways that make them better adapted to warmer conditions. Plants
will likely spread pole-ward in latitude and upward in elevation at the cold-limited boundaries of their ranges, thanks to longer
growing seasons and less frost, while their heat-limited boundaries will probably remain pretty much as they are now or shift
only slightly. Land animals also tend to migrate poleward and upward, to areas where cold temperatures prevented them from
going in the past. They follow earths plants, while the heat-limited boundaries of their ranges are often little affected, allowing
them to also expand their ranges.
107
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Biodiversity [contd]

3. Mass extinction claims are empirically invalidtemperature rise will cause very few extinctions
Another abrupt climate change scenario involves massive species extinctions as a result of climate change. For example, a
paper by Thomas, et al. studied 1,100 species with limited geographic range and concluded that a temperature rise of 0.8-1.7C
by 2050 would commit 18 percent of them to extinction. However, Thomas and his co-authors also report that climate change
was implicated in the extinction of only one species during the 20th century, when according to the IPCC, global average
temperature rose by 0.6C. Is it reasonable to assume that if a 0.6C temperature rise caused the extinction of only one species,
that a 0.8- 1.7C temperature rise will cause the extinction of 18 percent of the millions of species on Earth?126 We think not.
4. Is no hard evidence that warming threatens biodiversity of ecosystems

Sherwood B. and Craig D. Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change Carbon Dioxide and Global
Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion, 6--6--07,
http://co2science.org/education/reports/hansen/hansencritique.php, accessed 9-5-12.
Hansen writes that "continued business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions threaten many ecosystems," contending - even more
ominously - that "very little additional [climate] forcing is needed ... to cause the extermination of a large fraction of plant and
animal species." But where is the evidence for these claims? Hansen says that "animals and plants migrate as climate changes,"
and so they do, both upward in altitude and poleward in latitude; and he states that in response to global warming, "polar
species can be pushed off the planet [i.e., driven to extinction], as they have no place else to go," and that "life in alpine regions
... is similarly in danger of being pushed off the planet." But again, where is the evidence to support these contentions? In
searching Hansen's testimony and his "accepted for publication" manuscript on the subject, we could find no real-world support
for this aspect of his climate-alarmist thesis. What we did find was typically of the same nature as Hansen's own writings:
claims, contentions and opinions, but no hard evidence. Such is also the case with many peer-reviewed science journal articles
that promote the same philosophy, such as those of Root et al. (2003) and Parmesan and Yohe (2003). However, as we have
indicated in a major study of the topic that is archived on our website (Idso et al., 2003), even these studies have failed to
provide any hard data in support of their egregious extrapolations.
5. Warming wont cause plant shiftelevated co2 levels increase temperature tolerance
These observations, which are similar to what has been observed in many other plants, suggest that when the atmosphere's
temperature and CO2 concentration rise together (Cowling, 1999), the vast majority of earth's plants would likely not feel a
need (or only very little need) to migrate towards cooler regions of the globe. Any warming would obviously provide them an
opportunity to move into places that were previously too cold for them, but it would not force them to move, even at the hottest
extremes of their ranges; for as the planet warmed, the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration would work its biological
wonders, significantly increasing the temperatures at which most of earth's C3 plants - which comprise about 95% of the
planet's vegetation - function best, creating a situation where earth's plant life would actually "prefer" warmer conditions.
108
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Coral

1. CO2 increases calcification
Craig D. Idso, PhD, CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, AND CORAL REEFS: PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE, Center for
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 11209, p. 37.
There are several reasons for expecting a positive coral calcification response to CO2-enhanced symbiont photosynthesis. One
of the first mechanisms to come to mind is the opposite of the phenomenon that has been proffered as a cause of future declines
in coral calcification rates. This reverse phenomenon is the decrease in extracellular CO2 partial pressure in coral tissues that is
driven by the drawdown of aqueous CO2 caused by the photosynthetic process. With CO2 being removed from the water in
intimate contact with the coral host via its fixation by photosynthesis (which CO2 drawdown is of far greater significance to the
coral than the increase in the CO2 content of the surrounding bulk water that is affected by the ongoing rise in the airs CO2
content), the pH and calcium carbonate saturation state of the water immediately surrounding the coral host should rise
(Goreau, 1959), enhancing the corals calcification rate (Gattuso et al., 1999). And if hydrospheric CO2 enrichment stimulates
zooxanthellae photosynthesis to the same degree that atmospheric CO2 enrichment stimulates photosynthesis in terrestrial
plants, i.e., by 30 to 50% for a 300 ppm increase in CO2 concentration (Kimball, 1983; Idso 1992, Idso and Idso, 1994), this
phenomenon alone would more than compensate for the drop in the calcium carbonate saturation state of the bulk-water of the
worlds oceans produced by the ongoing rise in the airs CO2 content, which Gattuso et al. (1999) have calculated could lead to
a 15% reduction in coral calcification rate for a doubling of the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration.
2. CO2 increases coral photosynthesis

Craig D. Idso, PhD, CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, AND CORAL REEFS: PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE, Center for
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 11209, p. 40.
Many are the people who have predicted that rates of coral calcification, as well as the photosynthetic rates of their symbiotic
algae, will dramatically decline in response to what they typically refer to as an acidification of the world's oceans, as the
atmosphere's CO2 concentration continues to rise in the years, decades and centuries to come. As ever more pertinent evidence
accumulates, however, the true story appears to be just the opposite of what these acidification alarmists continue to tell us. We
begin with the recent study of Herfort et al. (2008), who note that an increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause an increase in the
abundance of HCO3- (bicarbonate) ions and dissolved CO2, and who report that several studies on marine plants have
observed "increased photosynthesis with higher than ambient DIC [dissolved inorganic carbon] concentrations," citing the
works of Gao et al. (1993b), Weis (1993), Beer and Rehnberg (1997), Marubini and Thake (1998), Mercado et al. (2001, 2003),
Herfort et al. (2002) and Zou et al. (2003). To further explore this subject, and to see what it might imply for coral calcification,
the three researchers employed a wide range of bicarbonate concentrations "to monitor the kinetics of bicarbonate use in both
photosynthesis and calcification in two reef-building corals, Porites porites and Acropora sp." This work revealed that additions
of HCO3- to synthetic seawater continued to increase the calcification rate of Porites porites until the bicarbonate concentration
exceeded three times that of seawater, while photosynthetic rates of the coral's symbiotic algae were stimulated by HCO3addition until they became saturated at twice the normal HCO3- concentration of seawater. Similar experiments conducted on
Indo-Pacific Acropora sp. showed that calcification and photosynthetic rates in these corals were enhanced to an even greater
extent, with calcification continuing to increase above a quadrupling of the HCO3- concentration and photosynthesis saturating
at triple the concentration of seawater. In addition, they monitored calcification rates of the Acropora sp. in the dark, and, in
their words, "although these were lower than in the light for a given HCO3- concentration, they still increased dramatically
with HCO3- addition, showing that calcification in this coral is light stimulated but not light dependent."
3. Coral will adapt to higher temperaturesstudies prove

With respect to corals adapting to greater warmth, Adjeroud et al. (2005) documented -- in a study of 13 islands in four of the
five archipelagoes of French Polynesia -- the effects of natural perturbations on various coral assemblages over the period
1992-2002, during which time the reefs were subjected to three major coral bleaching events (1994, 1998, 2002). Finding that
the impacts of the bleaching events were variable among the different study locations, and that an interannual survey of reef
communities at Tiahura, Moorea, showed that the mortality of coral colonies following a bleaching event was decreasing with
successive events, even if the latter have the same intensity (Adjeroud et al., 2002), they concluded that the spatial and
temporal variability of the impacts observed at several scales during the present and previous surveys may reflect an
acclimation and/or adaptation of local populations, such that coral colonies and/or their endosymbiotic zooxanthellae may be
phenotypically (acclimation) and possibly genotypically (adaptation) resistant to bleaching events, citing the work of Rowan
et al. (1997), Hoegh-Guldberg (1999), Kinzie et al. (2001) and Coles and Brown (2003) in support of this conclusion.
109
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Equity

1. Warming wont disproportionately hurt people in poor countriesfuture adaptive capacity will
increase
Warming, POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 1211, 19-20.
It is often argued that unless greenhouse gases are reduced forthwith, the resulting GW could have
severe, if not catastrophic, consequences for people in poor countries because they lack the economic and human resources to
cope with GWs consequences. But there are two major problems with this argument. First, although poor countries adaptive
capacity is low today, it does not follow that their ability to cope will be low forever. In fact, under the IPCCs warmest
scenario, which would increase globally averaged temperature by 4C relative to 1990, net GDP per capita in poor countries
(that is, after accounting for losses due to climate change per the Stern Reviews exaggerated estimates) will be double the
U.S.s 2006 level in 2100, and triple that in 2200. Thus developing countries should in the future be able to cope with climate
change substantially better than the U.S. does today. But these advances in adaptive capacity, which are virtually ignored by
most assessments of the impacts and damages from global warming, are the inevitable consequence of the assumptions built
into the IPCCs emissions scenarios. Hence the notion that countries that are currently poor will be unable to cope with GW
does not square with the basic assumptions that underpin the magnitude of emissions, global warming and its projected impacts
under the IPCC scenarios. Second, GW would for the most part not create new problems; rather, it would exacerbate some
existing problems in some locations (i.e. hunger, disease and extreme weather events). But it would also likely reduce other
problems (i.e. water shortages in some places).
2. Warming will help poor countries in some ways, better to let them grow economically
Thus, at least through 20852100, GW may relieve some of the problems that some poor countries face currently (e.g., water
shortage and habitat loss), while in other instances, the contribution of GW to the overall problem (e.g., cumulative mortality
from malaria, hunger and coastal flooding) would be substantially smaller than that of non-GW related factors. Notably,
economic development, one of the fundamental drivers of GW, would reduce mortality problems regardless of whether they
are due to GW or non-GW related factors (see Figure 4). Hence, lack of economic development would be a greater problem
than global warming, at least through 20852100. This reaffirms the story told by Figure 6, which shows that notwithstanding
global warming and despite egregiously overestimating the negative consequences of global warming while underestimating its
positive impacts, future net GDP per capita will be much higher than it is today under each scenario through at least 2200.
3. There is no evidence that warming is hurting people in poor countries

Despite claims that GW will reduce human well-being in poor countries, there is no evidence that this is actually happening.
Empirical trends show that by any objective climate-sensitive measure, human well-being in such countries has improved
remarkably over the last several decades. Specifically, agricultural productivity has increased; the proportion of people
suffering from chronic hunger has declined; the rate of extreme poverty has been more than halved; rates of death and disease
from malaria, other vector-borne diseases and extreme weather events have declined. Together, these improvements correspond
with life expectancy in poor countries more than doubling since 1900.
110
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Extreme Weather

1. Observed data show no threat from increased extreme weather
Most recently, Barredo (2010) published a paper entitled No upward trend in normalized windstorm losses in Europe: 19702008, which is probably all we need to say about it, while Sorell et al. (2010) documented the depositional history of the inner
Bay of Vilaine in south Brittany along the French Atlantic coast. Their work, with sediment cores, indicated that during ca.
880-1050 AD ... the influence of winter storminess was minimal, in accordance with the findings of Proctor et al. (2000) and
Meeker and Mayewski (2002). Thereafter, however, noting that the Medieval Warm Period is recognized as the warmest
period of the last two millennia (Mayewski et al., 2004; Moberg et al., 2005), they report that the upper successions of the
sediment cores mark the return to more energetic conditions in the Bay of Vilaine, with coarse sands and shelly sediments
sealing the medieval clay intervals, and they state that this shift most probably documents the transition from the Medieval
Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which led to the increased storminess both in the marine and continental ecosystems
(Lamb, 1979; Clarke and Rendell, 2009) that was associated with the formation of dune systems over a great variety of
coastal environments in northern Europe: Denmark (Aagaard et al., 2007; Clemmensen et al., 2007, 2009; Matthews and
Briffa, 2005), France (Meurisse et al., 2005), Netherlands (Jelgersma et al., 1995) and Scotland (Dawson et al., 2004a). In
considering all of the above findings, what does the future look like with respect to nearly all types of storms? Clearly, the
evidentiary scale tips far, far away from climate-alarmist scenes of "weather gone wild," as there are almost no historical data
that suggest that a warmer world experiences any more severe or more frequent storms than a colder world does. In fact, realworld data seem generally to suggest just the opposite.
2. There is no scientifically demonstrable link between warming and natural disasters

Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, Heritage Foundation,
Frequently Asked Questions About Global Warming, WEBMEMO n. 1403, 3-21-07,
www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/03/frequently-asked-questions-about-global-warming, accessed 9-5-12.
Q: Didn't global warming cause Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters? No. Natural disasters are just that, and occur
with or without global warming. Many activists have tried to link each natural disaster as it occurshurricanes, heat waves,
droughts, floods, wildfires, crop failures, disease outbreaks, and even snowstormsto global warming. Although the
theoretical link between warming and some natural disasters is plausible, the scientific evidence points away from anything
more than a small connection. There is no consistent long-term pattern in the frequency of these events. For example, while
Hurricane Katrina was part of a worse-than-average 2005 hurricane season, the 2006 hurricane season was an unusually weak
one.
3. Deaths from extreme weather are actually in declineclaims to contrary are media hype
Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change, staff, CIVIL SOCIETY REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE, 2007, p. 5.
Indeed, it has become commonplace for climate alarmists to use individual weather events cyclones, hurricanes, floods,
storms, droughts, and other phenomena as definitive evidence of present global warming. They warn that future planetary
warming will cause such events to become more frequent, more fierce, and thus cause more devastation and loss of life. In this
report, Indur Goklany analyses available US and global data regarding mortality and mortality rates from extreme weather
events, for a time period covering approximately the past century, up to 2007. His analysis indicates that: Aggregate mortality
and mortality rates due to extreme weather events are generally lower today than they used to be. Globally, mortality and
mortality rates have declined by 95 percent or more since the 1920s. (page 47) In the context of global deaths from all causes,
Goklany shows that while extreme weather-related events garnish plenty of attention worldwide because of their episodic and
telegenic nature, their contribution to the global mortality burden is only 0.030.06 percent. In summary, the data show that:
The average annual death toll for 20002006 due to all weather-related extreme events was 19,900. By contrast, the World
Health Organization estimates that in 2002, a total of 57.0 million people died worldwide from all causes, including 5.2 million
from other kinds of accidents. Out of these, road traffic was responsible for 1.2 million deaths, violence (other than war) for 0.6
million, and war for 0.2 million. (page 50). Thus, as a relative proportion of all deaths, the death toll from weather-related
extreme events is small. Goklany says: Based on current contributions [of extreme weather events] to the global mortality
burden, other public health issues outrank climate change.
111
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Forests

Adaptation will address any forestry impactsneed to avoid any protectionism for it to work
2007, p. 61.
On the whole, higher temperatures will promote tree growth, certainly in places which continue to receive adequate
precipitation. Risks of fire will increase as well, although probably not enough to affect timber supplies. Moreover, expected
trends in the forestry sector contradict a widely-held belief about the impacts of global warming, which is that developing
regions close to the equator will suffer more than affluent settings in temperate latitudes. To be specific, higher temperatures
are apt to accelerate a geographic shift that is already underway. As ever larger portions of the global timber supply are
obtained from sub-tropical plantations, where trees are grown and harvested in cycles lasting just 10 to 20 years, the share of
timber harvested from temperate and boreal forests will decrease. In the forestry sector no less than in agriculture, efficient
adaptation to global warming requires that protectionism be avoided. With or without global warming, the sectors
development depends on strong property rights, in developing countries as well as in affluent nations.
2. Warming wont collapse forestsactually promotes tree growth

2007, p. 66-67.
Significantly, the impacts of global warming on timber production are unlikely to be catastrophic, even in the absence of
human adaptation. At present, estimated impacts range from small and negative to large and positive. One reason why a
collapse is unlikely is that warmer conditions should promote tree growth, particularly in regions where there is enough
precipitation to offset the drying caused by higher temperatures. Also, higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere can fertilize
trees, provided that other nutrients and water are available. It is hardly surprising, then, that a recent survey of available studies
points to a recent acceleration of tree growth globally, in spite of forest decline in some regions (Boisvenue and Running,
2006). If global warming causes trees to grow faster, even without management, then supplies of timber will increase.
Consumers will benefit, as prices for wood products fall. Costs will mainly be localized confined to regions that experience
diminished tree growth but where producers will actually suffer more because of price declines. These conclusions have been
arrived at by a number of investigators (Joyce et al., 1995; Perez- Garcia, 1997; Sohngen and Mendelsohn, 1998; Sohngen et
al., 2001; Joyce et al., 2001; and Alig, Adams, and McCarl, 2001).
3. Any increases in forest fires are offset by current forest expansion

2007, p. 67.
Even if a linkage exists between global warming and forest fires, the effects on markets for wood products, while negative, are
not expected to be substantial. Inventories of standing timber around the world are huge. Also, extraction rates in temperate
latitudes, which are the main source of supply, are lower than growth rates, which means that timber stocks are accumulating.
As an example, standing timber in the United States, which currently amounts to 26 billion m3, is accumulating at an annual
rate of 672 million m3, or 2.6 percent. Since the 1950s, per-hectare volumes have increased by 0.6 percent per annum, from 56
m3 to around 79 m3, both because growth has exceeded extraction and because mortality has remained fairly low. Currently,
annual harvests and mortality are 448 million m3 and 168 million m3, respectively, which added together are less than yearly
accumulation, 672 million m3 (statistics on US forests from Smith et al., 2002). It is hard to argue that timber harvesting in the
United States is unsustainable. Indeed, the area burned every year might well have increased because there is now more to burn
for example, because of substantial growth in standing timber per hectare during recent decades.
112
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--General

1. Other issues are far greater threats to the environment than is climate change
Cato Institute, 2508, p. 22-23.
Climate change is not nownor is it likely to be for the foreseeable futurethe most important environmental problem facing
the globe, unless present-day problems such as hunger, water-related diseases, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, and
indoor air pollution are reduced drastically. Otherwise, with respect to human well-being, it will continue to be outranked by
these other problems and, with respect to environmental well-being, by habitat loss and other threats to biodiversity.
2. Cost of warming exaggeratedtech will allow us to adapt

The second major reason why future adaptive capacity has been underestimated (and the impacts of global warming
systematically overestimated) is that few impact studies consider secular technological change.25 Most assume that no new
technologies will come on line, although some do assume greater adoption of existing technologies with higher GDP per capita
and, much less frequently, a modest generic improvement in productivity. Such an assumption may have been appropriate
during the Medieval Warm Period, when the pace of technological change was slow, but nowadays technological change is fast
(as indicated in Figures 1 through 5) and, arguably, accelerating. It is unlikely that we will see a halt to technological change
unless so-called precautionary policies are instituted that count the costs of technology but ignore its benefits, as some
governments have already done for genetically modified crops and various pesticides.
3. Economic growth will solve the disease/health problems associated with warming
More recently, another study analyzed the sensitivity of deaths from malaria, diarrhea, schistosomiasis and dengue fever to
warming, economic development and other determinants of adaptive capacity through the year 2100. The results indicate,
unsurprisingly, that economic development alone could reduce mortality substantially. For malaria, for instance, deaths would
be eliminated before 2100 in a number of the more affluent sub-Saharan countries. This is a much more realistic assessment of
the impact of GW on malaria in a wealthier and more technologically advanced world than is the corresponding FTA study,
despite the latter being considered state-of-the-art during the preparation of the latest IPCC report. It is also more consistent
with long-term trends regarding the extent of malaria, which indicate that the P. falciparum malariathe most deadly kind
declined from 58% of the worlds land surface around 1900 to 30% by 2007.
4. Numerous studies show that there will be no catastrophic impacts from warming
Dr. Craig D. Idso, ESTIMATES OF GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE YEAR 2050: WILL WE PRODUCE
ENOUGH TO ADEQUATELY FEED THE WORLD, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 615
11, p. 4.
This is the question recently addressed in our Centers most recent major report: Carbon Dioxide and Earths Future: Pursuing
the Prudent Path. In it, we describe the findings of many hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies that analyzed real-world
data pertaining to the host of climate- and weather-related catastrophes predicted by the worlds climate alarmists to result from
rising global temperatures. The approach of most of these studies was to determine if there had been any increasing trends in
the predicted catastrophic phenomena over the past millennia or two, the course of the 20th century, or the past few decades,
when the worlds climate alarmists claim that the planet warmed at a rate and to a degree that they contend was unprecedented
over the past thousand or two years. And the common finding of all of this research was a resounding No!
113
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--General [contd]

5. Humans and ecosystems are highly resilient in face of temperature changeslittle risk of warminginduced catastrophe
Q: Is global warming catastrophic? Far from it. Given that the current upward trend in temperatures is not unprecedented, it
stands to reason that minor warming will not lead to unprecedented catastrophes, and scientific evidence confirms this.
According to recent research, the planet and its inhabitants are much more resilient to temperature variability than had been
previously assumed, and the warming over the last few decades has not been particularly harmful to humans or the
environment. Virtually all of the alarming rhetoric surrounding global warming is speculative and lies outside the scientific
consensus. In fact, several respected economists believe that any likely future warming would have benefits (such as increased
crop yields) that outweigh the modest adverse impacts in the U.S.
6. Dire predictions are based on models, which are themselves unreliable

before Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, 11--14--07, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG110shrg73849/html/CHRG-110shrg73849.htm, accessed 9-4-12.
The foundation of a climate science program must be a commitment to continuous and accurate observations. We must know
WHAT the climate is doing before we can understand WHY it does what it does. However, we now face the loss of satellite
and other observations critical to understanding the climate. The NRC Decadal Survey goals for satellite systems should be
pursued vigorously as well as support for other systems. The climate science program now has a large climate-modeling
component. However, based on limited studies, too much confidence in my view is placed in model projections. These
projections cannot reliably predict the climate on regional scales where we live and grow our food. The potential of billiondollar economic impacts of proposals designed to mitigate global warming are based on these models and some common
misunderstandings. Thus it is imperative that a Red Team approach be taken with climate model evaluation. Such teams,
independent from those with vested interests in the modeling industry, would evaluate models with a hard-nosed methodology
to inform Policymakers about model confidence from a different and scientifically defensible point of view.
114
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (General)

1. Multiple alternate causes overwhelm warmings effect on disease
So what are some of the non-climatic factors that impact the spread of vector-borne diseases of humans? Gage et al. list many
other global changes concurrently transforming the world, including increased economic globalization, the high speed of
international travel and transport of commercial goods, increased population growth, urbanization, civil unrest, displaced
refugee populations, water availability and management, and deforestation and other land-use changes, as well, we would add,
as the many different ways in which these phenomena are dealt with by different societies. Unfortunately, there is almost no
way to correctly incorporate such factors into models to correctly forecast disease incidence in the future. Therefore, in light of
the many complex phenomena that concurrently impact the spread of vector-borne diseases, it is clearly unjustified to claim
that any future warming of the globe will necessarily lead to a net increase in their global incidence, for just the opposite could
well be true, depending on the type and degree of a number of current and potential societal impacts on the world of nature, as
well as the diverse natures of the evolving states of the planets multiple human societies.
2. Public health will solve better than trying to limit CO2 emissions
As a consequence of the above observations, Dunn et al. conclude that even where disease richness is high, we might still
control prevalence, particularly if we spend money in those regions where current spending is low, prevalence is high and
populations are large. And lets be realistic about it: this approach is infinitely more likely to succeed in its worthy objectives
than is the nebulous idea (i.e., the wishful thinking) of changing the planets climate. And with all of the unanticipated
consequences of such an effort -- many of which may be assumed to be negative and are almost assured to occur with the
undertaking of such a huge and complex campaign -- we could well be better off to do nothing than to gamble all that the
human family has achieved over the millennia, fighting a war against something so ethereal as CO2-induced global warming.
3. Current warming has been accompanied by the greatest increase in human living standards ever
James Inhofe, U.S. Senator, HOT & COLD MEDIA SPIN CYCLE: A CHALLENGE TO JOURNALISTS WHO COVER
GLOBAL WARMING, 9-25-06, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=56dd129de40a-4bad-abd9-68c808e8809e, accessed 9-4-12.
The media have missed the big pieces of the puzzle when it comes to the Earths temperatures and mankinds carbon dioxide
(C02) emissions. It is very simplistic to feign horror and say the one degree Fahrenheit temperature increase during the 20th
century means we are all doomed. First of all, the one degree Fahrenheit rise coincided with the greatest advancement of living
standards, life expectancy, food production and human health in the history of our planet. So it is hard to argue that the global
warming we experienced in the 20th century was somehow negative or part of a catastrophic trend.
115
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (General) [contd]

4. Adaptation solves any heat death problemshistory proves
Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Urban Heat and Urban Legends, WASHINGTON TIMES, August 20,
2006, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/urban-heat-urban-legends, accessed 9-5-12.
According to news reports, the recent heat wave in California resulted in about 150 deaths. The United Nations'
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that global warming will exacerbate the problem dramatically, doubling
or tripling the number of heat-related fatalities in North American cities in the next decade. The UN is dead wrong, because it
assumes what climate researchers call the "Stupid People Hypothesis": that people will simply sit around and fry to death
without doing anything to beat the heat. Global warming or not, our cities are warming, and will continue to do so. Sprawling
masonry and blacktop retain heat, and the density of urban construction prevents wind from cooling it off. (Here in DC, there's
an additional warming effect: waste heat from all the money changing hands.) But heat and heat-related deaths are not
synonymous. In fact, in several refereed papers published in recent years, my Virginia colleague Robert Davis and I
demonstrated that heat-related deaths have, in aggregate, declined significantly as our cities have warmed. In fact, in a
statistical sense, we have completely engineered heat-related mortality out of several of our urban cores, particularly in eastern
cities like Philadelphia. Considering every decade of mortality data at once is misleading; examining it decade-by-decade is
more informative. When looked at sequentially, the data reveals a remarkable adaptation: as cities have warmed, the
"threshold" temperatures at which mortality begins to increase have also risenmore than the temperatures of the cities. For
example, in Philadelphia in the 1960s, mortality began to increase once the high temperature exceeded 83. In the 1970s, the
mortality threshold rose to the low 90s. In the last decade, there has been little evidence for any threshold at which mortality
increases. In other words, people have adapted to their changing climate. How? Instead of simmering, people buy air
conditioning. Every level of government warns of the danger of excessive exposure to heat, and people seek out cooler places.
Social adaptation can take place very quickly. In mid-July 1995, over 500 people died from an intense weekend heat wave in
Chicago. Research by University of Illinois climatologist Michael Palecki, published in the Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society in 2001, shows that a 1999 Chicago heat wave of comparable intensity resulted in only 15% as many
deaths.
5. People learn to adapt as heat waves become more common

Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Urban Heat and Urban Legends, WASHINGTON TIMES, August 20,
2006, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/urban-heat-urban-legends, accessed 9-5-12.
Clearly, people have adapted to the heat. The evidence shows that, the warmer the city, the more quickly its residents adapt.
Heat-related deaths are increasing in only one major American city: chilly Seattle. San Francisco and Los Angeles, two other
cities that are relatively cool in the summer compared to those to their east, show no change in mortality. As the UN's
climatologists should recognize, heat waves are dangerous when they are rare and unexpected, because people are unfamiliar
with them and slow to take appropriate actions to minimize their exposure. As heat waves become more common, we will
simply be better prepared for them and incorporate them into our daily lives and routinesjust as the people of Phoenix and
Dallas and Houston and New Orleans do, every summer day. Because they're not stupid.
116
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (Malaria)

1. Can cheaply adapt our way out of any malaria problems
The UN Millennium project reports that the global death toll from malaria could be reduced by 75 percent at a cost of $3
billion per year.72 Adaptations focused on reducing current vulnerabilities to malaria include measures targeted specifically at
malaria as well as measures that would generally enhance the capacity to respond to public health problems and deliver public
health services more effectively and efficiently. Malaria-specific measures include indoor residual (home) spraying with
insecticides, insecticide-treated bed nets, improved case management, more comprehensive antenatal care, and development of
safe, effective, and cheap vaccines and therapies. 73 Moreover, if these measures are even partly successful, they could further
reduce the likelihood of outbreaks because the risk of exposure would be lower. The posited expenditures may have to be
increased by the year 2085 to keep pace with the projected increase in the global population at risk from malaria in the absence
of climate change (see Table 7). I will assume based on the ratio of estimated deaths in 2085 to that in 1990 under the A2
scenario (the worst scenario for malaria) and rounding up to the nearest whole numberthat expenditures should be tripled,
regardless of the emission scenario, in order to reduce malaria deaths by 75 percent.
2. Malaria is a disease of poverty, not climatemultiple other factors explain any increases
Roger Bate, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute and Paul Reiter, Director, Insects and Infectious Diseases Unit,
Institut Pasteur, More Global Warming Nonsense, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4-10-08,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120778860618203531.html, accessed 9-5-12.
The concept of malaria as a "tropical" infection is nonsense. It is a disease of the poor. Alarmists in the richest countries peddle
the notion that the increase in malaria in poor countries is due to global warming and that this will eventually cause malaria to
spread to areas that were "previously malaria free." That's a misrepresentation of the facts and disingenuous when packaged
with opposition to the cheapest and best insecticide to combat malaria--DDT. It is true that malaria has been increasing at an
alarming rate in parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world. Scientists ascribe this increase to many factors, including
population growth, deforestation, rice cultivation in previously uncultivated upland marshes, clustering of populations around
these marshes, and large numbers of people who have fled their homes because of civil strife. The evolution of drug-resistant
parasites and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes, and the cessation of mosquito-control operations are also factors. Of course,
temperature is a factor in the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, and future incidence may be affected if the world's
climate continues to warm. But throughout history the most critical factors in the spread or eradication of disease has been
human behavior (shifting population centers, changing farming methods and the like) and living standards. Poverty has been
and remains the world's greatest killer. Serious scientists rarely engage in public quarrels. Alarmists are therefore often
unopposed in offering simplicity in place of complexity, ideology in place of scientific dialogue, and emotion in place of dry
perspective. The alarmists will likely steal the show on Capitol Hill today. But anyone truly worried about malaria in
impoverished countries would do well to focus on improving human living conditions, not the weather.
3. Malaria was once common in Europe and North Americawas eradicated with changes in land use,
DDT
Paul Reiter, Director, Insects and Infectious diseases Unit, Institut Pasteur and Roger Bate, Resident Fellow, American
Enterprise Institute, Testimony before Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 4-10-08
http://www.aei.org/files/2008/04/10/20080410_Bate_testimony.pdf, accessed 9-5-12.
The globalization of vectors and pathogens is indeed a serious problem, and one that will not go away. It is not new. The
yellow fever mosquito, and the yellow fever virus, were imported into North America from Africa during the slave trade. The
dengue virus is distributed throughout the tropics, and regularly jumps continents when infected passengers travel by air. West
Nile virus undoubtedly arrived in the New World in shipments of wild birds. Historically quarantines have prevented the
transmission of disease by passengers, but quarantine regulations do not give us any protection from mosquitoes. It may come
as a surprise that malaria was once common in most of Europe and North America. In parts of England, mortality from the
ague was comparable to that in sub-Saharan Africa today. Indeed, William Shakespeare, born at the start of the especially cold
period that climatologists call the Little Ice Age, was aware of the disease, as he mentions in eight of his plays. Malaria
disappeared from much of western Europe during the second half of the 19th century, mainly because of changes in agriculture,
living conditions, and a drop in the price of quinine, a cure for malaria still used today. However, in some regions it persisted
until the era of the insecticide DDT. Indeed, temperate Holland was not certified malaria-free by the WHO until 1970.
117
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Health (Vector-Borne Disease)

1. There is little evidence that warming is increasing the spread of disease
Alarmists claim that a rise in global temperatures will result in a dramatic increase in all sorts of diseases. The World Health
Organization even claims that human induced global warming is already killing at least 150,000 people per year, including
77,000 due to protein malnutrition, 47,000 due to diarrhoeal disease, and 27,000 due to malaria (explained in more detail by
Indur Goklany in this report, page 51). While it is true that many millions of people currently suffer from communicable
diseases, there is little if any substance to the claim that people are dying from these diseases as a result of climate change. Paul
Reiter observes: Two factors are key to the transmission of infectious diseases of humans: human ecology and human behavior.
When the cycle of transmission includes mosquitoes, ticks, rodents or other intermediaries, their ecology and behavior are also
critical. When multiple species are involved, the levels of complexity are even greater. Lastly, the virulence of the pathogen,
the susceptibility of its hosts and the immunity of the host populations can be critical at all levels. Climate and weather are
often invoked as the dominant parameters in transmission, but their true significance can only be assessed in the perspective of
this daunting complexity. (page 22)
2. Vector-borne diseases are attributable to poverty, not warming

With regard to enteric diseases, Reiter concludes that Human health is determined by a constellation of events and
circumstances. In the developing world, the main defects are in the social matrix: a scarcity of basic needs: shelter, food,
clothing, electricity, clean water, a safe living environment, education and access to healthcare. In wealthier countries, new and
challenging problems have arisen as a direct result of economic success. In both cases, straightforward strategies are available
to correct the problems, given suitable economic circumstances. (page 26) Vector-borne diseases such as malaria are essentially
diseases of poverty. Many of todays affluent countries once experienced levels of vector-borne diseases similar to those now
experienced by poor countries. In the fourteenth century, one-third of Europes population died from the Black Death, which
was spread by fleas that thrived on rats living in the sewers of medieval towns. Wealthy countries have largely eliminated such
diseases through a combination of environmental interventions (such as the use of pesticides and mechanized agriculture),
improved water and sewerage systems, improved human living conditions, and the development of vaccines and medicines.
3. Warming will not cause disease deathswould be driven by southern growth that actually solves
disease
There is an inconsistency in the forecasts of disease incidence produced by the IPCC. The scenarios in which the highest rates
of increase of disease are experienced are the same scenarios in which the world is assumed to warm the most as a result of
rapid increases in emissions of carbon dioxide. These increases in emissions result from rapid increases in economic activity
especially in poorer countries. Yet there is a very strong and robust relationship between average GDP per capita and life
expectancy at birth (Pritchett and Summers, 1996). This is especially true of GDP per capita at lower levels (see Figure 1),
where a small increase results in a comparatively large increase in life expectancy. The reason is that such increases in output
coincide with people accessing clean water, sanitation and other services that reduce the incidence of communicable diseases.
If economic growth did occur at the rates envisaged in the more extreme IPCC scenarios, it seems most unlikely that there will
be a substantial increase in mortality from communicable diseases; it is far more likely that the opposite would happen. Given
the strong relationship between GDP per capita and the prevention of communicable diseases, the main policy implication is
that societies and especially poorer societies should be structured in such a way as to increase rates of GDP per capita.
118
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Hurricanes

1. Storm projections should be held to a high degree of skepticismbased on models that do not
understand key tropical climates
Another abrupt climate change scenario involves massive species extinctions as a result of climate change. For 27. Will the
number of tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) increase and will they become more intense? It is well established that
tropical cyclones will not form unless the sea surface temperature in 26C (79F) or higher. However, tropical cyclone
formation depends on a parameter known as Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE), which is a function of both sea
surface temperature and atmospheric circulation. The atmosphere can either collect the energy available from the warm ocean,
leading to cyclone formation, or dissipate it, in which case a cyclone will not form. Since sea surface temperatures are often
above 26C, but tropical cyclones are relatively rare events, dissipative conditions predominate. The same parameter controls
tropical cyclone intensity. Projections that tropical cyclone intensity will increase in the future are based on regional climate
models embedded in global climate models. This technique creates general problems, based on the mathematical approach it
uses. It application to prediction of future tropical cyclones is even more problematic because the global climate models that
provide the boundary conditions for the regional models do a poor job of simulating tropical climate (see Question 18).
2. Ocean oscillations explain any recent spikes in hurricanes

Another abrupt climate change scenario involves massive species extinctions as a result of climate change. For The large
number of hurricanes and weaker tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons has been
attributed by some to an effect of human-induced climate change, but those claims are now known to have overstated the
linkage (or something similar). The atmospheric conditions that lead to cyclone formation are controlled by the cyclic
conditions in the various ocean basins. The positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which began in 1995, leads
to more hurricane formation (See Question 9 for more detail on the NAO and other cyclic climate phenomena). El Nio also
has an impact, suppressing hurricane formation in the North Atlantic. Compared with the 1970 1995 period, which was the
negative phase of the NAO, all years between 1995 and 2005 have had above average Atlantic hurricane activity except for
1997 and 2002, which were years with strong El Nios. Interestingly, there is a strong negative correlation between hurricane
activity in the North Atlantic and typhoon activity in the North Pacific; years with high hurricane activity tend to be years with
low typhoon activity, and globally the number of tropical cyclones tends to be fairly constant. This, too, argues that
atmospheric circulation is a far more important factor in tropical cyclone formation that sea surface temperature. The year
1997, which had strong El Nio activity and weak hurricane activity in the North Atlantic, saw the highest ever recorded
number of typhoons in the North Pacific. While this was the highest ever recorded number of typhoons, care must be taken in
interpreting this and other statistics for tropical cyclones. Prior to the satellite era, observation of these storms was incomplete.
They were reported only if they hit land or a ship encountered them and reported their occurrence.
3. Best models prove that hurricane activity will decrease in the long-term
Another abrupt climate change scenario involves massive species extinctions as a result of climate change. For William M.
Gray, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, is widely recognized for having developed the
best predictive model for hurricane formation in the North Atlantic. Sea surface temperature is a factor in Grays model, but not
the controlling factor. Gray compares two fifty-year periods: 1900-1949 and 1956-2005. Global average surface temperature
rose 0.4C (0.7F) between these two periods, an amount similar to the temperature rise since the 1970s, but there were fewer
named storms, hurricanes, or intense hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. during the 1956-2005 period than during the
earlier period. The explanation for this apparent contradiction lies in the complex way that heat is distributed in the North
Atlantic Ocean. Based in his analysis of the climate system, Gray predicts that the warming of the last thirty years will come to
an end in the next five to ten years and that global average surface temperatures will be lower twenty years from now than they
are today. There is also evidence of an approximately sixty-year cycle in the frequency of hurricanes in the North Atlantic,
thirty years of above average storm frequency followed by thirty years of below average storm frequency. On average, the
1930s to 1960s had more hurricanes per year than the 1960s to early 1990s. Indications are that North Atlantic hurricane
frequency increased starting in 1995. If projections of the cycle are correct, we can expect another ten to fifteen years of higher
than average numbers of hurricanes in the North Atlantic. This potential cycle raises further questions about WG Is
conclusion, since what appears to be a change in hurricane intensity could simply be part of a naturally occurring cycle.
119
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Ocean Acidification

1. Marine life will adapt to ocean acidificationrecent data proves
Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso, and Craig Idso, The Potential for Adaptive Evolution to Enable the World's Most Important
Calcifying Organism to Cope with Ocean Acidification, CO2 SCIENCE MAGAZINE v. 15 n. 28, 71112,
http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N28/EDIT.php, accessed 7-12-12.
In an important paper published in the May 2012 issue of Nature Geoscience, Lohbeck et al. write that "our present
understanding of the sensitivity of marine life to ocean acidification is based primarily on short-term experiments," which often
depict negative effects. However, they go on to say that phytoplanktonic species with short generation times "may be able to
respond to environmental alterations through adaptive evolution." And with this tantalizing possibility in mind, they studied, as
they describe it, "the ability of the world's single most important calcifying organism, the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi, to
evolve in response to ocean acidification in two 500-generation selection experiments." Working with freshly isolated
genotypes from Bergen, Norway, the three German researchers grew them in batch cultures over some 500 asexual generations
at three different atmospheric CO2 concentrations - ambient (400 ppm), medium (1100 ppm) and high (2200 ppm) - where the
medium CO2 treatment was chosen to represent the atmospheric CO2 level projected for the *-+beginning of the next century.
This they did in a multi-clone experiment designed to provide existing genetic variation that they said "would be readily
available to genotypic selection," as well as in a single-clone experiment that was initiated with one "haphazardly chosen
genotype," where evolutionary adaptation would obviously require new mutations. So what did they learn? Compared with
populations kept at ambient CO2 partial pressure, Lohbeck et al. found that those selected at increased CO2 levels "exhibited
higher growth rates, in both the single- and multi-clone experiment, when tested under ocean acidification conditions."
Calcification rates, on the other hand, were somewhat lower under CO2-enriched conditions in all cultures; but the research
team reports that they were "up to 50% higher in adapted [medium and high CO2] compared with non-adapted cultures." And
when all was said and done, they concluded that "contemporary evolution could help to maintain the functionality of microbial
processes at the base of marine food webs in the face of global change [our italics]." In other ruminations on their findings, the
marine biologists indicate that what they call the swift adaptation processes they observed may "have the potential to affect
food-web dynamics and biogeochemical cycles on timescales of a few years, thus surpassing predicted rates of ongoing global
change including ocean acidification." And they also note, in this regard, that "a recent study reports surprisingly high coccolith
mass in an E. huxleyi population off Chile in high-CO2 waters (Beaufort et al., 2011)," which observation is said by them to be
indicative of "across-population variation in calcification, in line with findings of rapid microevolution identified here."
2. Ocean acidification overblownmultiple studies prove

PRUDENT PATH, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2211, p. 105-106.
The chemistry aspect of the ocean acidification hypothesis is rather straightforward, but it is not as solid as many make it out to
be; and a number of respected researchers have published papers demonstrating that the drop in oceanic pH will not be nearly
as great as the IPCC and others predict it will be, nor that it will be as harmful as they claim it will be. Consider, for example,
the figure below, which shows historical and projected fossil fuel CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentrations out to
the year 2500, as calculated by NOAAs Pieter Tans (2009). As can be seen there, his analysis indicates that the airs CO2
concentration will peak well before 2100, and at only 500 ppm compared to the 800 ppm value predicted in one of the IPCCs
scenarios. And it is also worth noting that by the time the year 2500 rolls around, the atmospheres CO2 concentration actually
drops back down to about what it is today. When these emissions estimates are transformed into reductions of oceanic pH, it
can readily be seen in the following figure that Tans projected pH change at 2100 is far less than that of the IPCC. And Tans
analysis indicates a pH recovery to values near those of today by the year 2500, clearly suggesting that things are not the way
the worlds climate alarmists make them out to be, especially when it comes to anthropogenic CO2 emissions and their effects
on the airs CO2 content and oceanic pH values.
3. Their studies assume unrealistic conditions

In considering the experimental results that are archived there, the mean response suggests that ocean acidification may indeed
harm some organisms. However, it is critical to note that the vast majority of these experiments were performed under highly
unrealistic oceanic pH conditions that will never occur, rendering their findings meaningless in terms of what might possibly
happen in the real world. And as one examines the results over the more-likely-to-occur pH decline range, a vastly different
picture begins to appear.
120
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Precautionary Principle

1. Precautionary principle is terminally flawedcan never prove the non-existence of risk
Henry I. Miller, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, and Gregory Conko, Director of Food Safety Policy, Competitive
Enterprise Institute, THE FRANKENFOOD MYTH: HOW PROTEST AND POLITICS THREATEN THE BIOTECH
REVOLUTION, 2004, p. 82.
These kinds of actions by government officials illustrate a fundamental flaw of the precautionary principlescience can never
prove the complete absence of a risk. There is always the possibility that we just haven't yet gotten to the nth hypothetical risk
or to the nth dose or nth year of exposure, when the risk will finally be demonstrated. It is logically impossible to prove a
negative, and all activities pose some nonzero risk of adverse effects. 'Thus, precautionary rules that require innovators to
demonstrate the absence of some hypothesized cause-and-effect relationship create a standard that is impossible to meet. The
scientific method can only prove that things are dangerous, not that they are perfectly safe. Taken to its "logical" extreme, the
precautionary principle would mean that no action could ever be taken, because no assurance of absolute safety can ever be
given. When pressed, advocates of the precautionary principle acknowledge that a zero-risk standard cannot be met, and they
insist that they are not demanding one.36 Nevertheless, giving government institutions the sole and unchallengeable authority to
judge when this vague burden of proof is met creates a highly subjective standard of safety and allows biases and hidden
agendas (such as political ambition and trade protectionism) to creep into the decision-making process. Due to the ambiguous
nature of riskespecially in very low-risk situationsquestions about the safety of new products are often difficult to resolve
quantitatively.
2. Precautionary principle failswe tend to overestimate risk, and ignore benefits

Enterprise Institute, The Perils of Precaution, POLICY REVIEW, June/July 2001,
www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3476776.html, accessed 9-7-12.
Several subjective factors can cloud thinking about risks and influence how nonexperts view them. Studies of risk perception
have shown that people tend to overestimate risks that are unfamiliar, hard to understand, invisible, involuntary, and/or
potentially catastrophic and vice versa. Thus, they overestimate invisible threats such as electromagnetic radiation and
trace amounts of pesticides in foods, which inspire uncertainty and fear sometimes verging on superstition. Conversely, they
tend to underestimate risks the nature of which they consider to be clear and comprehensible, such as using a chain saw or
riding a motorcycle.
3. Precautionary principle fails in practicefails to properly balance risks

Enterprise Institute, The Perils of Precaution, POLICY REVIEW, June/July 2001,
www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3476776.html, accessed 9-7-12.
The FDA is not unique in this regard, of course. All regulatory agencies are subject to the same sorts of social and political
History offers compelling reasons to be cautious about societal risks, to be sure. These include the risk of incorrectly assuming
the absence of danger (false negatives), overlooking low probability but high impact events in risk assessments, the danger of
long latency periods before problems become apparent, and the lack of remediation methods in the event of an adverse event.
Conversely, there are compelling reasons to be wary of excessive precaution, including the risk of too eagerly detecting a
nonexistent danger (false positives), the financial cost of testing for or remediating low-risk problems, the opportunity costs of
forgoing net-beneficial activities, and the availability of a contingency regime in case of an adverse event. The challenge for
regulators is to balance these competing risk scenarios in a way that reduces overall harm to public health. This kind of risk
balancing is often conspicuously absent from precautionary regulation.
121
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Sea Level Rise

1. Sea levels change for lots of reasons that are not related to CO2
11, lexis.
Sea level has risen and fallen by up to 1,500 metres. In the current interglacial-glaciation cycles, sea level changes by 130
metres. Between 12,000 and 6,000 years ago, sea level rose 130 metres and maximum interglacial temperature and sea level
was 6,000 years ago. In many parts of the world, sea level has actually fallen. Further, not only does sea level rise and fall
rapidly, but the land level rises and falls. So to only focus on sea level changes from climate change is invalid. In areas where
there is sediment compaction (say, deltas), extraction of water, gas and oil from sediments and sedimentary rocks, sediment
loading by ice and rifting, the land level is falling. In areas that have been unloaded of ice (Scandinavia, for example),
undergoing intense weathering and erosion, continental and rift margins, areas undergoing compression (Maldives, volcanic
island chains) or areas of active coral atoll growth, the land level is rising. Sea level can change due to gravity, meteorological
effects, ice melting, water expansion and sea floor level changes. It is a very long bow to draw that human additions of CO2
warm the planet such that ice melts thereby raising sea level. Slight warming of ice at -40C will not cause melting. Further, ice
in both the Greenland and Antarctic basins flows uphill before it flows to the coast as a glacier. If we really want to worry
about the melting of ice sheets and sea level rise, we need to be concerned about the large volcanoes that sleep restlessly
underneath the Antarctic ice.
2. Infrastructure investments can protect against sea level rise

Cato Institute, 2508, p. 18-19.
According to estimates in the latest IPCC (2007) report, the annual cost of protecting against a sea level rise of about 0.66
meters in 2100equivalent to about 0.52 meters in 2085 compared with 0.34 meters under the warmest (A1FI) scenario
would vary from $2.6 to $10 billion during the 21st century.7 I will assume $10 billion for the purposes of this paper.
Governments could, moreover, discourage maladaptation by refusing to subsidize insurance and/or protective measures that
allow individuals to offload private risks to the broader public.
3. Even the IPCC concedes that any sea-level rise will be small
Q: Are we facing 20-foot sea level rise because of global warming? This is highly unlikely and not part of any scientific
consensus. In his book and documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore chose to focus on the catastrophic impacts of an 18 to
20 foot sea level rise, including numerous highly populated coastal areas falling into the sea. The recently released summary of
the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, however, estimates a sea level rise of only 7 to 23 inches
over the next century, and there are reasons to believe that even that may be overstating things.
4. Is no real sea level riseis an artifact of starting measurement during an unusual low point
Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion, 6-6-07,
Lombard et al. (2005) studied temperature-induced (thermosteric) sea-level change over the last 50 years using the global
ocean temperature data of Levitus et al. (2000) and Ishii et al. (2003). In doing so, they found thermosteric sea level variations
are dominated by decadal oscillations of earth's major ocean-atmosphere climatic perturbations (El Nio-Southern Oscillation,
Pacific Decadal Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation), and that thermosteric trends computed over 10-year windows
exhibit 20-year oscillations with positive values of 1 to 1.5 mm/year and negative values of -1 to -1.5 mm/year. Hence, over the
50 years for which global ocean temperature data exist, there has indeed been a rise in sea level due to the thermal expansion of
sea water, but only because the record begins at the bottom of a trough and ends at the top of a peak. Between these two points,
there are both higher and lower values, obscuring what might be implied if earlier data were available or what may be
suggested as more data are acquired. Noting further that sea level trends derived from Topex/Poseidon altimetry from 1993 to
2003 are "mainly caused by thermal expansion" and are "very likely a non-permanent feature," Lombard et al. conclude that
"we simply cannot extrapolate sea level into the past or the future using satellite altimetry alone." Thus, it is to long-term
coastal tide gauge records that we must turn for an evaluation of Hansen's claim that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating.
122
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Answers--Water / War

1. Climate change does not cause wars--driven by people's behavior, will be slow
James Jay Carafano, PhD and analyst, Heritage Foundation, "National Security Not a Good Argument for Global Warming
Legislation," WEBMEMO, 8309, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/08/National-Security-Not-a-Good-Argumentfor-Global-Warming-Legislation, accessed 6-3-11
Additionally, viewing climate change as a national security crisis makes little sense. The global climate has always been
changing. Adapting to these changes and human efforts to manage their surrounding environment is a permanent feature of
human competition. The environment does not cause wars--it is how humans respond to their environment that causes
conflicts. Thus, climate change does not necessarily ensure that there will be more or less conflict. For example, as the Arctic
ice melts and the environment becomes more benign, Arctic waters will become more available for fishing, mineral and energy
exploitation, and maritime transport. Nations will compete over these resources, but it is how they choose to compete--not the
change in the weather--that will determine whether war breaks out. Furthermore, any changes in the climate, for better or for
worse, will occur gradually over decades. Thus, there will be ample time to adjust national security and humanitarian assistance
instruments to accommodate future demands.
2. A wide variety of adaptation measures solve any water impacts

Although, as Table 3 shows, climate change could relieve water stress, there are many measures that would help societies cope
with present and future water stress regardless of their cause. Among them are institutional reforms to treat water as an
economic commodity by allowing market pricing and transferable property rights to water. Such reforms should stimulate
widespread adoption of existing but underused conservation technologies and lead to more private-sector investment in R&D,
which would reduce the demand for water by all sectors. For example, new or improved crops and techniques for more
efficient use of water in agriculture could enhance agricultural productivity. That would provide numerous ancillary benefits,
including reductions in the risk of hunger and pressures on freshwater biodiversity while also enhancing the opportunity for
other in-stream uses (e.g., recreation). Notably, diversion of water to agricultural uses might be the largest current threat to
freshwater biodiversity. Improvements in water conservation following such reforms are likely to be most pronounced for the
agricultural sector, which is responsible for 85 percent of global water consumption. A reduction of 18 percent in agricultural
water consumption would, on average, double the amount of water available for all other uses.
3. IPCCs water claims ignore adaptation, technology

Professor Martin Parry, was the co-chair of IPCC Working Group 2 during its latest (2007) assessment. Similarly, the authors
of the FTAs water resources and coastal flooding studies were also lead authors of corresponding chapters in the same IPCC
Fourth Assessment Report. A dissection of the FTA methodologies shows that: * The water resources study31 totally ignores
adaptation, despite the fact that many adaptations to water-related problems, e.g., building dams, reservoirs and canals, are
among mankinds oldest adaptations, and do not depend on the development of any new technologies.
4. FTA study shows that warming will decrease water shortages

FTA results also indicate that by 2085, global warming would reduce the global population at risk of water shortages, although
some areas would see increases. This finding is contrary to the erroneous impression conveyed by the IPCCs AR4s Working
Group II Summary for Policy Makers because that summary emphasizes the number of people that may experience an increase
in water shortage but neglects to provide corresponding estimates for the number that would see a reduction in water shortage.
However, the finding that the net population experiencing water shortage would be reduced is consistent with other studies of
the global impact of global warming on water resources. Remarkably, this result is obtained despite the fact that the author of
the study does not allow for any adaptation and, consequently, nor does it account for advances in adaptive capacity that should
logically occur under the IPCC scenarios. Had adaptation been considered, the net population at risk of water shortage due to
global warming would have decreased even more substantially than the author indicates.
123
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (Top)

1. CO2 will address the food crisis, prevent the starvation of hundreds of millions of peopleemissions
cuts trigger a massive food crisis
11, p. 30-31.
As indicated in the material above, a very real and devastating food crisis is looming on the horizon, and continuing
advancements in agricultural technology and expertise will most likely not be able to bridge the gap between global food
supply and global food demand just a few short years from now. However, the positive impact of Earths rising atmospheric
CO2 concentration on crop yields will considerably lessen the severity of the coming food shortage. In some regions and
countries it will mean the difference between being food secure or food insecure; and it will aid in lifting untold hundreds of
millions out of a state of hunger and malnutrition, preventing starvation and premature death. For those regions of the globe
where neither enhancements in the techno-intel effect nor the rise in CO2 are projected to foster food security, an Apollo
moon-mission-like commitment is needed by governments and researchers to further increase crop yields per unit of land area
planted, nutrients applied, and water used. And about the only truly viable option for doing so (without taking enormous
amounts of land and water from nature and driving untold numbers of plant and animal species to extinction) is to have
researchers and governments invest the time, effort and capital needed to identify and to prepare for production the plant
genotypes that are most capable of maximizing CO2 benefits for important food crops. Rice, for example, is the third most
important global food crop, accounting for 9.4% of global food production. Based upon data presented in the CO2 Science
Plant Growth Database, the average growth response of rice to a 300-ppm increase in the airs CO2 concentration is 35.7%.
However, data obtained from De Costa et al. (2007), who studied the growth responses of 16 different rice genotypes, revealed
CO2-induced productivity increases ranging from -7% to +263%. Therefore, if countries learned to identify which genotypes
provided the largest yield increases per unit of CO2 rise, and then grew those genotypes, it is quite possible that the world
could collectively produce enough food to supply the needs of all of its inhabitants. But since rising CO2 concentrations are
considered by many people to be the primary cause of global warming, we are faced with a dilemma of major proportions. If
proposed regulations restricting anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which are designed to remedy the potential global warming
problem) are enacted, they will greatly exacerbate future food problems by reducing the CO2-induced yield enhancements that
are needed to supplement increases provided by advances in agricultural technology and expertise. And as a result of such CO2
emissions regulations, hundreds of millions of the worlds population will be subjected to hunger and malnutrition. Even more
troubling is the fact that thousands would die daily as a result of health problems they likely would have survived had they
received adequate food and nutrition. About the only option for avoiding the food crisis, and its negative ramifications for
humanity and nature alike, is to allow the atmospheric CO2 concentration to continue to rise as predicted (no CO2 emission
restrictions), and then to learn to maximize those benefits through the growing of CO2-loving cultivars.
2. This food crisis is worse than the effects of climate change

11, p. 31-32.
In light of the host of real-world research findings discussed in the body of this report, it should be evident to all that the
looming food shortage facing humanity mere years to decades from now is far more significant than the theoretical and largely
unproven catastrophic climate- and weather-related projections of the worlds climate alarmists. And it should also be clear that
the factor that figures most prominently in both scenarios is the airs CO2 content. The theorists proclaim that we must
drastically reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions by whatever means possible, including drastic government interventions in
free-market enterprise systems. The realists suggest that letting economic progress take its natural unimpeded course is the only
way to enable the airs CO2 content to reach a level that will provide the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2
enrichment that will be needed to provide the extra food production that will be required to forestall massive human starvation
and all the social unrest and warfare that will unavoidably accompany it, as well as humanitys decimation of what little yet
remains of pristine nature, which will include the driving to extinction of untold numbers of both plant and animal species.
Climate alarmists totally misuse the precautionary principle when they ignore the reality of the approaching lack-of-foodinduced crisis that would decimate the entire biosphere, and when they claim instead that the catastrophic projections of their
climate models are so horrendous that anthropogenic CO2 emissions must be reduced at all costs. Such actions should not even
be contemplated without first acknowledging the fact that none of the catastrophic consequences of rising global temperatures
have yet been conclusively documented, as well as the much greater likelihood of the horrendous global food crisis that would
follow such actions. The two potential futures must be weighed in the balance, and very carefully, before any such actions are
taken.
124
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (General Ext)

1. CO2 fuels plant growthemissions cuts massive food shortage
Philip V. Brennan, journalist, Inconvenient Facts About Climate Change, NEWSMAX, 6-10-08,
http://www.newsmax.com/brennan/climate-change/2008/06/10/id/324056, accessed 9-5-12.
Having swallowed that absurdity, the global warming juggernaut rolls on towards the goal of legislating a reduction of CO2
levels to prevent future global warming at the very moment when the world is rapidly entering a period of sustained cooling.
Nobody bothers to consider the consequences of this absurdity. Should their plans succeed and CO2 levels be drastically
reduced, a genuine global disaster would inevitably follow because we need healthy levels of that essential gas to just to
survive. It feeds to plant life that feeds us. As Lawrence Solomon, onetime global warming enthusiast and author of "The
Deniers" wrote in his June 7 Financial Post article, "In Praise of CO2," scientists Steven Running of the University of Montana
and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, found that "over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more
bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass almost 110 million square kilometres
enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each
square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year." That study Solomon notes, shows
how CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants, he wrote, use the carbon from CO2 to
"bulk themselves up," explaining that carbon is the building block of life. Moreover, they release oxygen, which along with the
plants, then sustain animal life. "As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S.
scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: 'Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier
climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life
have both increased substantially during the past half-century,'" he wrote. All that is in jeopardy thanks to the foolhardiness of
the global warming fanatics who want to defy the laws of nature by robbing mankind of the benefits of CO2, a gas essential to
our civilization.
2. CO2 emissions massively benefit plants, prevent a bevy problems

Taylor, Dick Thoenes, Anton Uriarte Gerd Weber, 2009, p. 6-7.
Chapter 7. Biological Effects of Carbon Dioxide Enhancement A 300-ppm increase in the airs CO2 content typically raises the
productivity of most herbaceous plants by about one-third; and this positive response occurs in plants that utilize all three of the major
biochemical pathways (C3, C4, CAM) of photosynthesis. For woody plants, the response is even greater. The productivity benefits of
CO2 enrichment are also experienced by aquatic plants, including freshwater algae and macrophytes, and marine microalgae and
macroalgae. The amount of carbon plants gain per unit of water lostor water-use efficiencytypically rises as the CO2 content of
the air rises, greatly increasing their ability to withstand drought. In addition, the CO2-induced percentage increase in plant biomass
production is often greater under water-stressed conditions than it is when plants are well watered. Atmospheric CO2 enrichment
helps ameliorate the detrimental effects of several environmental stresses on plant growth and development, including high soil
salinity, high air temperature, low light intensity and low levels of soil fertility. Elevated levels of CO2 have additionally been
demonstrated to reduce the severity of low temperature stress, oxidative stress, and the stress of herbivory. In fact, the percentage
growth enhancement produced by an increase in the airs CO2 concentration is often even greater under stressful and resource-limited
conditions than it is when growing conditions are ideal. As the airs CO2 content continues to rise, plants will likely exhibit
enhanced rates of photosynthesis and biomass production that will not be diminished by any global warming that might occur
concurrently. In fact, if the ambient air temperature rises, the growth-promoting effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment will likely
also rise, becoming more and more robust. The ongoing rise in the airs CO2 content likely will not favor the growth of weedy
species over that of crops and native plants. The growth of plants is generally not only enhanced by CO2-induced increases in net
photosynthesis during the light period of the day, it is also enhanced by CO2-induced decreases in respiration during the dark period.
The ongoing rise in the airs CO2 content, as well as any degree of warming that might possibly accompany it, will not materially alter
the rate of decomposition of the worlds soil organic matter and will probably enhance biological carbon sequestration. Continued
increases in the airs CO2 concentration and temperature will not result in massive losses of carbon from earths peatlands. To the
contrary, these environmental changesif they persistwould likely work together to enhance carbon capture. Other biological
effects of CO2 enhancement include enhanced plant nitrogen-use efficiency, longer residence time of carbon in the soil, and increased
populations of earthworms and soil nematodes. The aerial fertilization effect of the ongoing rise in the airs CO2 concentration
(which greatly enhances vegetative productivity) and its anti-transpiration effect (which enhances plant water-use efficiency and
enables plants to grow in areas that were once too dry for them) are stimulating plant growth across the globe in places that previously
were too dry or otherwise unfavorable for plant growth, leading to a significant greening of the Earth. Elevated CO2 reduces, and
nearly always overrides, the negative effects of ozone pollution on plant photosynthesis, growth and yield. It also reduces atmospheric
concentrations of isoprene, a highly reactive non-methane hydrocarbon that is emitted in copious quantities by vegetation and is
responsible for the production of vast amounts of tropospheric ozone.
125
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (General Ext) [contd]
3. CO2 address ALL of the triggers for a future increase in ag productionyields, nutrient efficiency,
water efficiency
11, p. 24-25.
In our efforts to meet the three tasks set forth by Tilman et al. (2002) to (1) increase crop yield per unit of land area, (2) increase crop
yield per unit of nutrients applied, and (3) increase crop yield per unit of water used, humanity is fortunate to have a powerful ally in
the ongoing rise in the airs CO2 content. Since atmospheric CO2 is the basic food of nearly all plants, the more of it there is in the
air, the better they function and the more productive they become. For a 300-ppm increase in the atmospheres CO2 concentration
above the planets current base level of slightly less than 400 ppm, for example, the productivity of Earths herbaceous plants rises by
something on the order of 30 to 50% (Kimball, 1983; Idso and Idso, 1994), while the productivity of its woody plants rises by
something on the order of 50 to 80% (Saxe et al., 1998; Idso and Kimball, 2001). Thus, as the airs CO2 content continues to rise, so
too will the productive capacity or land-use efficiency of the planet continue to rise, as the aerial fertilization effect of the upwardtrending atmospheric CO2 concentration boosts the growth rates and biomass production of nearly all plants in nearly all places. In
addition, elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations typically increase plant nutrient-use efficiency in general and nitrogen-use
efficiency in particular as well as plant water-use efficiency. Consequently, with respect to fostering all three of the plant
physiological phenomena Tilman et al. (2002) contend are needed to prevent the catastrophic consequences they foresee for the planet
just a few short decades from now, a continuation of the current upward trend in the atmospheres CO2 concentration as projected by
the IPCC would appear to be essential.
4. CO2 will boost food production by fifty percent over the next 40 years
11, p. 15-17.
The results of the world food supply calculations are contained in Table 3. Column one lists the forty-five crops that provided
95% of the total food production of all the planets agricultural enterprises over the period 1995-2009, the individual
percentage contributions of which (listed in column 2) are assumed will remain constant to the year 2050. The third column
lists the linear regression-based modeled production values of these crops in 2009. The fourth column lists the production
values of the crops projected for the year 2050 on the basis of techno-intel-induced enhancements of the agricultural enterprise,
as calculated in the previous section of this paper; while the fifth column lists the techno-intel production values plus
enhancements due to the increase in the airs CO2 content expected to occur between 2009 and 2050. Summing the food
production contributions reported in columns three, four and five, it can be seen that for the world as a whole, total food
production is estimated to increase by 34.5% between 2009 and 2050 due to the techno-intel effect alone, but that it will
increase by 51.5% due to the combined consequences of the techno-intel effect and the CO2 aerial fertilization effect. Both of
these percentage increases, however, fall far short of the estimated 70 to 100 percent increase in agricultural production needed
to feed the planets growing population by the year 2050, as per the calculations of Bruinsma (2009), Parry and Hawkesford
(2010) and Zhu et al. (2010).
5. Future emissions will continue to boost yieldshelps address food problems

11, p. 9.
Because thousands of laboratory and field experiments have demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 enrichment significantly
enhances plant growth and water use efficiency, and because those benefits have positively impacted crop yields in the past,
there is ample reason to believe that future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration will produce increases in crop yields in
addition to those expected to result from future advancements in agricultural technology and expertise. And since the everpresent dynamic of supply and demand for food is of critical importance to the human inhabitants of the globe, it seems only
prudent to explore the role that the ongoing rise in the airs CO2 concentration may play in sustaining humanity throughout the
21st century, via the balance that must be struck between the production and consumption of food. Hence, it is to this important
task that we now turn our attention.
126
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (Plant Growth)

1. Emissions cuts risk massive famine
Philip V. Brennan, journalist, Inconvenient Facts About Climate Change, NEWSMAX, 6-10-08,
What makes this even more hilarious is the fact that the period of global warming earth has experienced since the end of the
little ice age is coming to a sudden halt. Solomon says, "The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon
dioxide as the planet has warmed CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool will
start to take the carbon dioxide back. With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less
green . . . "Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other
scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere
at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the
carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere." That's not going green. It the browning of the earth and with it the specter of
mass famine.
2. New plant types are being developed to take advantage of a CO2-rich atmosphere
11, p. 25.
Recognizing these benefits, some researchers have begun to explore ways in which to maximize the influence of atmospheric
CO2 on crop yields even more. Much of these efforts are devoted to identifying super hybrid cultivars that can further break
the yield ceiling presently observed in many crops (Yang et al., 2009). De Costa et al. (2007), for example, grew 16 genotypes
of rice (Oryza sativa L.) under standard lowland paddy culture with adequate water and nutrients within open-top chambers
maintained at either the ambient atmospheric CO2 concentration (370 ppm) or at an elevated CO2 concentration (570 ppm).
Results indicated that the CO2-induced enhancement of the light-saturated net photosynthetic rates of the 16 different
genotypes during the grain-filling period of growth ranged from +2% to +185% in the yala season (May to August) and from
+22% to +320% in the maha season (November to March). Likewise, they found that the CO2-induced enhancement of the
grain yields of the 16 different genotypes ranged from +4% to +175% in the yala season and from -5% to +64% in the maha
season.
3. Plants are naturally adapted to much higher CO2 levels

Dr. William Happer, The Truth About Greenhouse Gases, George C. Marshall Institute, 52311,
www.marshall.org/article.php?id=953, accessed 6-19-12.
As far as green plants are concerned, CO2 is not a pollutant, but part of their daily breadlike water, sunlight, nitrogen, and
other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO2 levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now.
Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when
they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.
4. Plants prefer higher temperatures in CO2-rich environments

Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso and Craig Idso, Plants of Today (And Even More So of Tomorrow): Free at Last! CO2 SCIENCE
MAGAZINE v. 15 n. 23, 6612, http://co2science.org/articles/V15/N23/EDIT.php, accessed 7-12-12.
On the other hand, earth's vegetation is not in "plant heaven" yet, for as Tissue and Lewis continue, "studies suggest that as
CO2 rises from glacial to future levels, the limitation imposed by CO2 on growth and physiology becomes secondary to other
environmental factors, such as temperature and drought." And so it does; but with more CO2 in the air, plants have been
proven to be better able to deal with these stresses than they were over the prior 350 million years. In the case of rising
temperatures, for example, there is abundant experimental evidence that at higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations plants
actually prefer higher temperatures (see the many pertinent items we have archived under Growth Response to CO2 with Other
Variables: Temperature in our Subject Index). And with respect to the stress of drought, plants are much better equipped to deal
with it now-a-days in light of the increased water use efficiency that they typically exhibit in CO2-enriched air (see Growth
Response to CO2 with Other Variables: Water Stress in our Subject Index). Yes, earth's plants are gradually being freed from
the environmental fetters that have for so long held them back and prevented them from exhibiting their true productivity
potential, thanks to the life-giving carbon dioxide that has been emitted to the atmosphere by mankind's historic and ongoing
burning of fossil fuels. Long may the trend continue!
127
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--CO2 Fertilization (Plant Growth)

[contd]
5. Higher temperatures do not hinder photosynthesis
With respect to rising temperatures and their effect on photosynthesis, Kirschbaum states that all plants appear to be capable
of a degree of adaptation to growth conditions, noting that photosynthesis in some species can function adequately up to
50C. In fact, he says that photosynthesis can acclimate considerably to actual growth conditions, noting that optimum
temperatures for photosynthesis acclimate by about 0.5C per 1.0C change in effective growth temperature (Berry and
Bjorkman, 1980; Battaglia et al., 1996). This response, wherein plants adjust the workings of their photosynthetic apparatus to
perform better at higher temperatures as temperatures rise, would appear to be especially beneficial in a warming world.
6. Higher CO2 levels boost plant productivitymultiple mechanisms

11, p. 7.
The idea that an increase in the airs CO2 content may be of benefit to the biosphere can be traced back in time over 200 years.
As early as 1804, for example, de Saussure showed that peas exposed to high CO2 concentrations grew better than control
plants in ambient air; and work conducted in the early 1900s significantly increased the number of species in which this
growth-enhancing effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment was observed to occur (Demoussy, 1902-1904; Cummings and Jones,
1918). In fact, by the time a group of scientists convened at Duke University in 1977 for a workshop on Anticipated Plant
Responses to Global Carbon Dioxide Enrichment, an annotated bibliography of 590 scientific studies dealing with CO2 effects
on vegetation had been prepared (Strain, 1978). This body of research demonstrated that increased levels of atmospheric CO2
generally produce increases in plant photosynthesis, decreases in plant water loss by transpiration, increases in leaf area, and
increases in plant branch and fruit numbers, to name but a few of the most commonly reported benefits. And five years later, at
the International Conference on Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Productivity, it was concluded that a doubling
of the airs CO2 concentration would likely lead to a 50% increase in photosynthesis in C3 plants, a doubling of water use
efficiency in both C3 and C4 plants, significant increases in biological nitrogen fixation in almost all biological systems, and an
increase in the ability of plants to adapt to a variety of environmental stresses (Lemon, 1983).
7. CO2 is plant foodaids their growth, are adapted to higher concentrations

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colourless and odourless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and
a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often
increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals
evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilisers
and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase
almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
8. CO2 addresses water shortagesincreases plant water use efficiency

11, p. 27-28.
Lastly, in the case of drought, we again have the nearly universal bettering of plant water use efficiency that is induced by
atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Fleisher et al. (2008), for example, grew potato plants (Solanum tuberosum cv. Kennebec) from
seed tubers in soil-plant-atmosphere research chambers maintained at daytime atmospheric CO2 concentrations of either 370
or 740 ppm under well-watered and progressively water-stressed conditions. And in doing so, they found that total biomass,
yield and water use efficiency increased under elevated CO2, with the largest percent increases occurring at irrigations that
induced the most water stress. In addition, they report that water use efficiency was nearly doubled under enriched CO2
when expressed on a tuber fresh weight basis. These results indicate, in the words of the three researchers, that increases in
potato gas exchange, dry matter production and yield with elevated CO2 are consistent at various levels of water stress as
compared with ambient CO2, providing what we so desperately need in todays world, and what we will need even more as
the worlds population continues to grow: significantly enhanced food production per unit of water used. And there are many
other studies that have produced similar results (De Luis et al., 1999; Kyei-Boahen et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2006).
128
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Greening

1. The more the merrierincreases in co2 levels will prevent us from decimating the biosphere
Since atmospheric CO2 is the basic "food" of nearly all plants, the more of it there is in the air, the better they function and the
more productive they become. For a 300-ppm increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration above the planet's current base
level of slightly less than 400 ppm, for example, the productivity of earth's herbaceous plants rises by something on the order of
30% (Kimball, 1983; Idso and Idso, 1994), while the productivity of its woody plants rises by something on the order of 50%
(Saxe et al., 1998; Idso and Kimball, 2001). Thus, as the air's CO2 content continues to rise, so too will the productive capacity
or land-use efficiency of the planet continue to rise, as the aerial fertilization effect of the upward-trending atmospheric CO2
concentration boosts the growth rates and biomass production of nearly all plants in nearly all places. In addition, elevated
atmospheric CO2 concentrations typically increase plant nutrient-use efficiency in general - and nitrogen-use efficiency in
particular - as well as plant water-use efficiency, as may be verified by perusing the many reviews of scientific journal articles
we have produced on these topics and archived in the Subject Index of our website (www.co2science.org). Consequently, with
respect to fostering all three of the plant physiological phenomena that Tilman et al. (2002) contend are needed to prevent the
catastrophic consequences they foresee for the planet just a few short decades from now, a continuation of the current upward
trend in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration would appear to be essential. In the case we are considering here, for example, the
degree of crop yield enhancement likely to be provided by the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration expected to occur
between 2000 and 2050 has been calculated by Idso and Idso (2000) to be sufficient - but only by the slightest of margins - to
compensate for the huge differential that is expected to otherwise prevail between the supply and demand for food earmarked
for human consumption just 43 years from now. Consequently, letting the evolution of technology take its natural course, with
respect to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, would appear to be the only way we will ever be able to produce sufficient
agricultural commodities to support ourselves in the year 2050 without the taking of unconscionable amounts of land and
freshwater resources from nature and decimating the biosphere in the process.
2. Many studies prove that warming will actually increase biodiversity

Hansen also foresees a warming-induced "extermination of a large fraction of plant and animal species," with many at high
latitudes and altitudes being "pushed off the planet." However, as demonstrated by the scientific studies we cite, warming especially when accompanied by an increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration - typically results in an expansion of the
ranges of terrestrial plants and animals, leading to increases in biodiversity almost everywhere on the planet. Likewise, where
Hansen sees nothing but "destruction of coral reefs and other ocean life" in response to a predicted CO2-induced acidification
of the world's oceans, real-world observations suggest just the opposite.
129
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Top)

1. Human CO2 emissions are vital to preventing the next ice age
PERISCOPE POST, Human Carbon Emissions Have Averted Ice Age, Say Scientists, But Global Warming Dangers
Remain, 1912, npg.
Scientists have published research suggesting human carbon emissions will prevent the next ice age. The news is likely to
infuriate environmentalists while enthusing groups who oppose limiting carbon emissions. The advent of the next ice age is
already behind schedule, reported The Telegraph: "Typically there is a period of about 11,000 years between ice ages, and with
the last one ending 11,600 years ago the arrival of the next already appears overdue." Researchers suggested that this delay is
due to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. So if global warming is keeping us from freezing over, does that mean it's actually
a good thing? Nothing new. Andrew C. Revkin reported for The New York Times Dot Earth blog that there is already a large
body of scientific literature on the subject of whether greenhouse gases are preventing a big freeze. Revkin spoke to several
researchers in the field on the matter, most of whom concluded that what's new about the latest study is the way in which those
involved have calculated the "interglacials", which are the warmer periods between ice ages.
2. The next ice age could occur quickly, in less than 20 years, and threatens civilizaiton
Phil Chapman, geophysicist, Sorry to Ruin the Fun, But an Ice Age Cometh, THE AUSTRALIAN, 4-23-08,
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html, accessed 9-5-12.
It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into
another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850. There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be
much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now
and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would
increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it. Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as
planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases. There is also another
possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past
several million years, severe glaciation has almost always afflicted our planet. The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions,
most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally
by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years. The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded
human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur
quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years. The next descent into an ice age
is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even
faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027. By then,
most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with
a catastrophe beyond imagining.
130
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Coming Now)

1. Temps have not increased in 15 yearsmay actually be on the brink of a new ice age
Dana Rohrabacher, U.S. Representative, Forget Global Warming Its Cycle 25 We Need to Worry About, STATES NEWS
SERVICE, 2112, lexis.
The supposed "consensus' on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new
temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading
for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on
readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the
University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy
throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a "grand minimum' in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter
winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food. Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high
numbers of sunspots seen at their peak. We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call "Cycle 24' - which is why
last week's solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at
less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century. Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun's surface - suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due
in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still. According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance
that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the "Dalton minimum' of
1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the "Maunder minimum' (after astronomer
Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the "Little Ice Age' when, as well as the Thames frost fairs,
the canals of Holland froze solid.
2. Temperatures are dropping againmay be headed towards a new ice age

Randy Mann, World Headed Toward Mini Ice Age? SPOKESMAN REVIEW, 22312, p. S6.
A report released at the end of January by British climate scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit
showed that the Earth's average temperatures have dropped to the same levels seen back in 1997 before the so-called "big
warmup." The average global temperature in 2011 was 0.68 degrees above normal. In the previous decade, the average
temperature on this planet was 0.81 degrees above normal. The British scientists agree with many Russian and Japanese
climate scientists that the world could be headed toward a mini ice age sometime in the near future. The new climate study
suggests that the next significant cycle of cooling may rival the 70-year period in the mid-1600s that saw "frost fairs" held each
winter season in London on the Thames River, which froze solid in January and February.
3. We are already experiencing global coolingrecent weather events prove

Phil Brennan, journalist, Some Unpleasant Facts About Climate Change, NEWSMAX, 6-17-08,
In case you haven't noticed, loveable old Mother Nature has been on a rampage lately, tearing up the global landscape with a
frightening host of catastrophes that make poor old Al Gore's predictions of a French-fried earth look like invitations to a
garden tea party. Earthquakes of substantial magnitude, floods inundating usually peacefully bucolic Midwestern areas,
tornadoes of unprecedented ferocity, disasters that are leaving not only property losses of massive proportions in their wake,
but claiming not inconsiderable numbers of human lives as well. For example, hundreds of thousands died in the Indonesian
earthquake-induced tsunami and the recent Chinese earthquake alone. Something very unpleasant is going on, and before you
jump to algorean conclusions, all of these catastrophes haven't got a damned thing to do with global warming. We are watching
climate change develop, but its not the sort the global warming alarmists would have us believe is underway. It's global cooling
on a massive scale. Let's start with the rash of tornadoes that have been tearing up large parts of the Midwest and Southeastern
U.S. Torrents of rainfall have produced the tragic flooding we are now witnessing in places like Iowa, which is not, as you
might speculate, being punished for giving Barack Obama a major primary victory but instead, it is in the wrong geographic
location at this particular point in time. Ask any knowledgeable meteorologists what created the rash of tornadoes and floods
and they'll tell you flat out that it is cold fronts coming south from the frozen North and running into warm tropical air from the
South headed northward that set off tornadoes and torrential rainfall. The colder the front heading south and the warmer the
front moving north, the worse the storms will be. That's right, cold fronts in late May and early to mid-June coming from Arctic
and sub-Arctic regions that Mr. Gore assures us are well on the way towards becoming the new balmy global winter resorts.
131
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Warming Prevents)

1. CO2 emissions are effectively preventing the next ice age
UPI, Human Emissions Deferring Next Ice Age?, 1912, npg.
Human emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, will delay the Earth's next Ice age, European, Canadian and
U.S. scientists say. An international team of researchers says data on historical warm interglacial periods most like the current
one suggest the Earth would be due for another Ice Age in 1,500 years, but human emissions have been so high it could be
pushed farther into the future. If CO2 concentrations were at "natural" levels the glaciation cycle would hold, they say, but as
things stand it will not. "I don't think it's realistic to think that we'll see the next glaciation on the [natural] timescale,"
Lawrence Mysak at McGill University in Montreal told BBC News.
2. Global warming will delay the next ice agewont come for 780K years
The good news for those of us who don't particularly like those bone-chilling temperatures is that scientists studying ice ages
on Earth have reported in the journal Nature Geoscience that the next one will almost certainly be delayed quite a while thanks
to our present global warming trend and problem. So, assuming the global warming doesn't get us all, in about 1,500 year's
time our descendants will be thanking us for giving them a considerable breathing period in which to figure out what to do
about a pending new ice age! Mind you, there is much uncertainty about exact timing, but that's the best estimate for now. The
scientists arrived at it by studying the periods between ice ages -- interglacials, they call them -- and comparing our present one
with past ones, finding the best match way back about 780,000 years ago.
3. We are overdue for an ice age, CO2 emissions will avert it

TELEGRAPH, Carbon Emissions to Block Next Ice Age, 1912, lexis.
Researchers from Cambridge University who examined variations in the Earth's orbit and global climate patterns calculated
that the next ice age should begin within the next 1,500 years. But the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the environment
means that the global freeze which should be on its way will not be able to take hold, they said. The period between the end of
an ice age and the beginning of the next is typically about 11,000 years due to a natural cycle related to the Earth's orbit. The
temperate stretch in between global freezes can be longer or shorter depending on a number of factors, but with the last ice age
having ended 11,600 years ago the arrival of another already appears overdue. The onset of an ice age is triggered by small
changes in the Earth's orbit including the rotation of its axis and the extent to which it is inclined, which change gradually
according to a cycle lasting tens of thousands of years.
4. Continued increases in CO2 emissions necessary to avoid an extinction-level ice age

Drs. Keith & Craig Idso, Global Climate Change: According to Hoyle... and Wickramasinghe Too! CO2 SCIENCE
MAGAZINE v. 4 n. 14, April 2001, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N14/EDIT.php, accessed 5-3-08.
But first we must consider what type of perturbation could send the planet reeling into the next scheduled ice age. High on
Hoyle and Wickrainasinghe's list of potential triggering mechanisms is the creation of ice crystals in the upper reaches of the
atmosphere, such as those that form over Antarctica during Southern Hemispheric winter. Such particles have a tremendous
cooling power over the planet, as they are highly reflective of incoming solar radiation; and it would take only a small amount
of them to dramatically raise the planet's albedo, sending us hurtling towards a rendezvous with cold so extreme that most of
the biosphere would perish in the process. What keeps us from this fate? Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's analysis shows it is the
latent heat supplied by the condensation of water vapor, carried upward by convection currents that provides the warmth
needed to keep the dreaded ice crystals at bay; and they calculate that to be successful in this regard, enough moisture must be
wafted upward to provide for an annual average precipitation total over the world of approximately 50 cm. Currently, mean
global precipitation is about 80 cm, so we are safe; but, as the scientists say, "not by a wide margin What is their prescription
for a better safety margin? "We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world
climate," they say, for "the renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world's major food-growing areas
inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population." Indeed, Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe indicate that "without some artificial means of giving positive feedback to the climate, ...an eventual drift into
ice-age conditions appears inevitable."The policy implications of Hoyle and Wickrainasinghe's analysis are clear, crystal-clear,
in fact; and they state them without equivocation. "Manifestly, we need all the greenhouse we can get," they say, noting that
"those who have engaged in uncritical scaremongering over an enhanced greenhouse effect raising the Earth's temperature by a
degree or two should be seen as both misguided and dangerous." for the problem of the present "is of a drift back into an iceage. not away from an ice-age."
132
Mitigation Not Justified: Climate Change Good--Ice Age (Ice Age Bad)
1. A new ice age risks widespread destruction
David Fisher, FIRE AND ICE: THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT, OZONE DEPLETION, AND NUCLEAR WINTER, 1990, p.
32.
If we survived that ice age as savages, could we not survive the next one as a sophisticated civilization? Probably not. As
savages we were free and nomadic; as a civilization of nations we are constrained and immobile. When the great ice sheets
began their inexorable sweep southward twenty-some thousand years ago, the human tribe as well as the lower orders of
animals moved ahead of them, felling the encroaching ice. Following their food supplies, they managed to survive and even
flourish, and when the ice retreated, they followed it into North America. The whole world, after all, was never entirely crushed
beneath the ice, nor were temperatures everywhere below freezing. But what would happen today if Russia became
uninhabitable? Where would the Russians go if Germany were covered with ice, would the Germans be welcomed into Italy? if
all of Canada and half of the United States lay beneath miles of ice, would Nicaragua open its arms to receive the refugees? Not
according to our past. Global war would surely ensure and with nuclear weapons at our fingertips could extinction be far
behind? Even without the threat of our self destruction, a new ice age would surely be a calamity dwarfing any in recorded
history.
2. Onset of an ice age causes massive disasters

Phil Brennan, journalist, Some Unpleasant Facts About Climate Change, NEWSMAX, 6-17-08,
www.newsmax.com/brennan/climate_change/2008/06/17/105234.html, accessed 6-18-08.
History has shown that the 20-year period that precedes the onset of glaciation, is one of increasing violence on a scale unheard
of over the past 10,000 years. Earthquakes of incredible size and violence, rashes of incredibly destructive tornadoes,
hurricanes and other violent storms, and natural disasters of a frequency and magnitude beyond anything our limited
imaginations can conjure, await us in the immediate future. Every winter gets longer; every summer gets shorter; spring and
fall disappear. Soon there are only winters very frigid winters. And the ice man cometh.
3. A new ice age threatens to destroy humanitydriven by decreased solar output

Zbigniew Jaworoski, Chair, Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protections, Warsaw, The Ice Age is
Coming! 21st CENTURY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Winter 2003-2004, pp. 52-65.
The current sunspot cycle is weaker than the preceding cycles, and the next two cycles will be even weaker. Bashkirtsev and
Mishnich expect that the minimum of the secular cycle of solar activity will occur between 2021 and 2026, which will result in
the minimum global temperature of the surface air. The shift from warm to cool climate might have already started. The
average annual air temperature in Irkutsk, which correlates well with the average annual global temperature of the surface air,
reached its maximum of +2.3C in 1997, and then began to drop to +1.2C in 1998, to +0.7C in 1999, and to +0.4C in 2000.
This prediction is in agreement with major changes observed currently in biota of Pacific Ocean, associated with an oscillating
climate cycle of about 50 years periodicity. The approaching new Ice Age poses a real challenge for mankind, much greater
than all the other challenges in history. Before it comeslets enjoy the warming, this benign gift from nature, and lets
vigorously investigate the physics of clouds. F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe58 stated recently that without some artificial
means of giving positive feedback to the climate . . . an eventual drift into Ice Age conditions appears inevitable. These
conditions would render a large fraction of the worlds major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to
the extinction of most of the present human population. According to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, those who have engaged
in uncritical scaremongering over an enhanced greenhouse effect raising the Earths temperature by a degree or two should be
seen as both misguided and dangerous, for the problem of the present is of a drift back into an Ice Age, not away from an Ice
Age.
133
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Adaptation Superior

1. Warming only modestly increases environmental problemsadaptation is a better option
This study examines whether climate change is in fact the worlds most pressing environmental and human health problem and
considers the merits of mitigation (that is, policies that would restrict emissions or concentrations of greenhouse gases) versus
adaptation (policies that would reduce or take advantage of the impact of the climate change caused by greenhouse gas
emissions) to address whatever problems are created or exacerbated. In short, careful analysis reveals that through the
foreseeable future, climate change exacerbates existing environmental and human health problems, but only to a modest degree
relative to contributions from other factors not related to climate change. Hence, the threats posed by climate change are more
robustly and cost-effectively addressed, at least in the short- to medium-term, by policies that address the underlying causes of
the environmental and human health problems that are exacerbated by climate change.
2. Climate action should be focused on mitigation efforts

Third, policymakers should implement no-regret mitigation measures now, while expanding the range and diversity of future
no-regret options. The latter could be advanced by research and development to improve existing and develop new
technologies that would reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations more cost-effectively than currently possible.
Should new information indicate that more aggressive mitigation action is necessary, future emission reductions might then be
cheaper, even if they have to be deeper to compensate for a delay in a more aggressive response in the short term.
3. Adaptation, not cuts, will produce the highest level of future welfare
Through 2085, human well-being is likely to be highest under the richest-but-warmest (A1FI) scenario and lowest for the
poorest (A2) scenario. Matters may be best in the A1FI world for some critical environmental indicators through 2100, but not
necessarily for others. Either focused adaptation or broad pursuit of sustainable development would provide far greater benefits
than even the deepest mitigationand at no greater cost than that of the barely effective Kyoto Protocol. For the foreseeable
future, people will be wealthierand their well-being higherthan is the case for present generations both in the developed
and developing worlds and with or without climate change. The well-being of future inhabitants in todays developing world
would exceed that of the inhabitants of todays developed world under all but the poorest scenario. Future generations should,
moreover, have greater access to human capital and technology to address whatever problems they might face, including
climate change. Hence the argument that we should shift resources from dealing with the real and urgent problems confronting
present generations to solving potential problems of tomorrows wealthier and better positioned generations is unpersuasive at
best and verging on immoral at worst.
4. Adaptation is bettercurrently poor countries will have far more resources to do so in the future
Figure 6 shows that despite the various assumptions that have been designed to overstate losses from GW and understate the
unadjusted GDP per capita in the absence of any warming: * For populations living in countries currently classified as
developing, net GDP per capita (after accounting for global warming) will be 1165 times higher in 2100 than it was in the
base year. It will be even higher (1895 times) in 2200. * Net GDP per capita in todays developing countries will be higher in
2200 than it was in industrialized countries in the base year (1990) under all scenarios, despite any global warming. That is,
regardless of any global warming, populations living in todays developing countries will be better off in the future than people
currently inhabiting todays industrialized countries. This is also true for 2100 for all but the poorest (A2) scenario. * Under
the warmest scenario (A1FI), the scenario that prompts much of the apocalyptic warnings about global warming, net GDP per
capita of inhabitants of developing countries in 2100 ($61,500) will be double that of the U.S. in 2006 ($30,100), and almost
triple in 2200 ($86,200 versus $30,100). [All dollar estimates are in 1990 U.S. dollars.] In other words, the countries that are
today poorer will be extremely wealthy (by todays standards) and their adaptive capacity should be correspondingly higher.
Indeed, their adaptive capacity should on average far exceed the U.S.s today. So, although claims that poorer countries will be
unable to cope with future climate change may have been true for the world of 1990 (the base year), they are simply
inconsistent with the assumptions built into the IPCC scenarios and the Stern Reviews own (exaggerated) analysis.
134
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Adaptation Superior [contd]

5. Investing in growth and adaptation is a much better way to deal with the problems of climate change
Robert W. Hahn, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute and Peter Passell, Senior Fellow, Milken Institute, Time to
Change U.S. Climate Policy, ECONOMISTS VOICE, October 2007, http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-theenvironment/time-to-change-us-climate-policy/, accessed 9-5-12.
Reducing global emissions fast enough to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide at an acceptable level, we are now told, could
prove far more costly than the take-a-polar-bear-to-lunch bunch assumes. Dependence on electricity from coal, the premier
source of carbon emissions, will be hard to break. Nuclear power is expensive, and bitterly opposed by many
environmentalists, while alternative energy sources are equally expensive and--as the ethanol-from-corn boondoggle suggests-an invitation to economic dislocation and colossal waste. Anyway, these skeptics say, even if rich nations do grasp the nettle,
China and India can't be jawboned into joining the effort. Indeed, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling has
pointed out, poor countries have little incentive to divert money to reducing carbon emissions when the cheaper way to save
lives and property is to invest in economic growth. After all, the reason so many die when the monsoons flood West Bengal is
that they have neither the roads nor the vehicles to get out of harm's way.
135
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Collective Responsibility Problems

1. Nationalizing responsibility does not make sense--nature of the harm and its cause do not allow for a
ready assessment of guilt
However appealing, corrective justice intuitions turn out to be a poor fit with the climate change problem--where the dispute is
between nations, and where an extremely long period of time must elapse before the activity in question generates a harm. This
is not to deny that a corrective justice argument can be cobbled together and presented as the basis of a kind of rough justice in
an imperfect world. Perhaps the argument, while crude, is good enough to provide a factor in allocating the burdens of
emissions reductions. Unfortunately, even that conclusion would rely on notions of collective responsibility that are not easy to
defend. Most of the attractiveness of the corrective justice argument derives, we suspect, from suppressed redistributive and
welfarist assumptions, or from collectivist habits of thinking that do not survive scrutiny. It is sometimes argued that because
people take pride in the accomplishments of their nation, they should also take responsibility for its failures. Americans who
take pride in their country's contributions to prosperity and freedom should also take responsibility for its contributions to
global warming. This argument, however, is especially weak. Many people are proud that they are attractive or intelligent, or
can trace their ancestry to the Mayflower, or live in a city with a winning baseball team, but nothing about these psychological
facts implies moral obligations of any sort. A person who is proud to be American, and in this way derives welfare from her
association with other Americans who have accomplished great things, perhaps should be (and is) less proud than she would be
if she were not also associated with Americans who have done bad things. She does not have any moral obligation, deriving
from her patriotic pride, to set aright what other Americans have done wrong. Here too, the argument has general implications.
It is often tempting to invoke principles of corrective justice to ask one nation to compensate another. But especially when long
periods of time have passed since the initial wrongdoing, the corrective justice argument runs into serious problems, and it is
probably better to think in terms of redistribution or welfare.
2. Blaming wealthy nations does not make much sense--many of the emissions came from people who are
already dead
The current stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a result of the behavior of people living in the past. Much of it is
due to the behavior of people who are dead. The basic problem for corrective justice is that dead wrongdoers cannot be
punished or held responsible for their behavior, or forced to compensate those they have harmed. At first glance, holding
Americans today responsible for the activities of their ancestors is not fair or reasonable on corrective justice grounds, because
current Americans are not the relevant wrongdoers; they are not responsible for the harm. Indeed, many Americans today do
not support the current American energy policy and already make some sacrifices to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that
result from their behavior. They avoid driving, they turn down the heat in their homes, and they support electoral candidates
who advocate greener policies. Holding these people responsible for the wrongful activities of people who lived in the past
seems perverse. An approach that emphasized corrective justice would attempt to be more finely tuned, focusing on particular
actors, rather than Americans as a class, which would appear to violate deeply held moral objections to collective
responsibility. The task would be to distinguish between the contributions of those who are living and those who are dead.
3. Many Americans did not even benefit from prior emissions

Chicago, "Climate Change Justice," GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL v. 96, 6--08, p. 1593-1594.
In the context of climate however, this argument runs into serious problems. The most obvious difficulty is empirical. It is true
that many Americans benefit from past greenhouse-gas-emissions, but how many benefit, and how much do they benefit?
Many Americans today are, of course, immigrants or children of immigrants, and so not the descendants of greenhouse-gasemitting Americans of the past. Such people may nonetheless gain from past emissions, because they enjoy the kind of
technological advance and material wealth that those emissions made possible. But have they actually benefited, and to what
degree? Further, not all Americans inherit the wealth of their ancestors, and even those who do would not necessarily have
inherited less if their ancestors' generations had not engaged in the greenhouse-gas-emitting activities. The idea of corrective
justice, building on the tort analogy, does not seem to fit the climate change situation.
136
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Domestic Poor Poeple

1. Not everyone in the U.S. has an equal burden to act--the domestic poor are not to blame
Maxine Burkett, Associate Professor, Law, University of Colorado, Just Solutions to Climate change: A Climate Justice Proposal for
a Domestic Clean Development Mechanism, BUFFALO LAW REVIEW v. 56, April 2008, p. 197-198.
One might argue in response that the resulting liability must apply to all Americans, even the poor, and the distributive justice
argument is more appropriate when assessing relative distributions between nations. It is true that the discrepancies between nations is
quite astonishing, with the entire continent of Africa contributing only three percent of total greenhouse gas emissions since 1900 as
compared to two-thirds of total emissions generated by the United States and Western Europe. As Paul Baer convincingly argues,
however, the "same distributional principles that apply between nations should apply within nations, with increased liability for those
who are more responsible." Liability is, as Baer argues, unequally divided between classes in both the North and the South. While
acknowledging the scarcity of information on intra-national distribution of emissions, he maintains that "there is a strong correlation
between income and emissions, and between present income and past income." With that correlation established, Baer uses current
income distributions as a proxy for historical emissions and attempts to calculate what is owed from the U.S. wealthy to the U.S. poor.
2. Disproportionate impact is the very definition of environmental injusticethose who bear the burden
are not responsible for the problem, the impact is a legacy of social racism
The profound injustices that inhere in climate change's disproportionate effects are obvious, yet two of them bear explication. One is
that the unequal burden that is occurring, and is predicted, falls on those who have not been primarily responsible for climate change,
domestically as well as internationally. African Americans, for example, are "less responsible for climate change than other
Americans; ... at present, African Americans emit 20 percent less greenhouse gases per household," and on a per capita basis. It is also
true that the less wealthy half of America, regardless of race, is far less responsible for carbon dioxide emissions as well. Further,
historically these percentage disparities were even higher. The second, and perhaps most compelling, injustice is the compounding
effect of the environmental risk on the underlying societal inequities - inequality that resulted in the uneven patterns of development
and access to resources and opportunity in America. In other words, the legacy of slavery, segregation, the placement of reservations
for indigenous populations, and the more elusive systemic discrimination that has followed, for example, is now locking in
differentiated experiences of a warming planet. The reach of that racial discrimination has deep implications for the structuring of
sound and just climate policy.
3. Basic morality requires that our abatement strategies account for their effects on the poor and
communities of color
The emerging field of "climate justice" is concerned with the intersection of race, poverty, and climate change. It takes, as a basic
premise, that the disadvantaged in the United States stand to suffer the risks of warming more severely than others, as do their
counterparts in the global South. Climate justice also recognizes the direct kinship between social inequality and environmental
degradation, which is not isolated to the global south. The most obvious example is the relatively ubiquitous siting of industrial power
plants in environmental justice communities, negatively affecting the public health and welfare of those who live in proximity while
greatly contributing to global warming. As an ethical matter, an aggressive mitigation approach is virtually mandatory in light of the
existing and predicted effects of climate change. Extensive greenhouse gas emissions are a result of industrialization, and the
byproduct of this lifestyle is great social, economic, and ecological destruction, unevenly distributed. The response of the
industrialized world, however, suggests blindness to the moral imperative at base. That it is wrong to harm others, or risk harming
others, for one's own gain is a universal ethical principle. Paul Baer argues that the immorality of such action is justified by many
moral frameworks, "from divine revelation to deontological ethics to social contract theory," if not common(sense) morality. Further,
the tenets of distributive justice make similar demands regarding immediate and aggressive mitigation. Donald Brown argues, because
distributive justice demands that the burdens of reducing a problem either be shared equally or based upon merit or deservedness,
there is no conceivable equitably based formula that would allow the United States to continue to emit at existing levels once it is
understood that steep reductions are called for. There is no plausible argument that merit and deservedness should favor the United
States. Instead, the historical impacts of the lifestyle of the wealthy on the less well-off militate in favor of distribution bending steeply
in favor of the poor. U.S. patterns of consumption historically, and certainly today, introduce a particularly strong obligation for
aggressively confronting climate change domestically. The utterly unsustainable nature of American consumption cannot be
overstated. Presidents to oilmen have straight-forwardly articulated the excesses of American lifestyle. In 1997, President Clinton
noted that the United States had less than five percent of the world's population, while having twenty-two percent of the world's
wealth and emitting more than twenty-five percent of the world's greenhouse gases. In 2006, Shell Oil Company President John
Hofmeister stated that the "United States has 4.5 percent of the world's population but uses 25 percent of the world's oil and gas, and
there needs to be a cultural or "behavioral change' toward the use of energy." That this is a result of lifestyle excesses, relative to our
global counterparts, is undeniable.
137
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Economy

1. Emissions cuts would devastate our economy
Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation, "What Americans Need to Know About the Copenhagen Global
Warming Conference," SPECIAL REPORT, 11-17-09, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/11/What-Americans-Needto-Know-About-the-Copenhagen-Global-Warming-Conference, accessed 5-2-10.
What Are the Economic Concerns? The goal of the Kyoto Protocol, the building block for Copenhagen, is similar to the
purpose of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill, which narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives in June, and of
the Kerry-Boxer bill being considered in the U.S. Senate. All three would set limits on emissions from fossil fuels -- the coal,
oil, and natural gas that provide America with 85 percent of its energy. Such limits would act as a large energy tax, driving up
the energy costs of individuals and consumers, forcing them to use less energy. More stringent emissions targets would require
even larger increases in fossil energy prices to further discourage their use. A Heritage Foundation analysis of WaxmanMarkey found that this energy tax would have serious implications throughout the economy. For a household of four, energy
costs (electric, natural gas, gasoline expenses) would rise by $436 in 2012 and by $1,241 by 2035, averaging $829 over that
period. Higher energy costs would increase the cost of many other products and services. Overall, Waxman-Markey would
reduce gross domestic product by $393 billion annually and by a total of $9.4 trillion by 2035. An initial analysis of the Senate
bill finds comparable costs. Beyond the increased costs imposed on individuals and households, the Waxman-Markey bill
would reduce employment, especially in the manufacturing sector. The Heritage analysis estimates that net job losses would
exceed 1 million on average annually through 2035, even after accounting for the overhyped green jobs. Analyses from the
Brookings Institution, National Black Chamber of Commerce, and other institutions found roughly comparable effects.
Assuming proponents of a Copenhagen treaty want targets at least as stringent as those in the Waxman-Markey bill -- a 17
percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 baseline levels in 2020 up to an 83 percent reduction by 2050 -- U.S.
compliance costs would be similarly high.
2. Emissions cuts will cause enormous economic losses

Legislation," WEBMEMO, 8-3-09, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/08/National-Security-Not-a-Good-Argumentfor-Global-Warming-Legislation
The premise behind Waxman-Markey is that the United States must create a government-run program to reduce the emission of
"greenhouse gases," including carbon dioxide (CO2). The bill would establish a complex energy tax scheme to penalize
businesses and industries that emit these gases. Despite passage in the House, the bill has become increasingly controversial as
the economic consequences of the legislation have become more apparent. For example, a study by The Heritage Foundation's
Center for Data Analysis finds that the law would make the United States about $9.4 trillion poorer by 2035. Much of this
decline would be from reduced economic productivity and job loss. In particular, under Waxman-Markey there would be 1.15
million fewer jobs on average than without a cap-and-trade bill.
3. Emissions cuts could cost over a million jobs, result in enormous losses
Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation, "U.N. Global Warming Treaty Process Still Off-Track in Bonn-and for Good Reason," WEBMEMO, 4-23-10, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/04/UN-Global-Warming-TreatyProcess-Still-Off-Track-in-Bonn-and-for-Good-Reason, accessed 5-2-10.
At the same time treaty negotiators continue to try to sell the world on a costly new agreement in the midst of an ongoing
global recession, the very reason for itglobal warmingis proving to be less and less of a threat. Although U.N. bureaucrats
in Bonn ignored growing doubts about the scientific justification for their actionsjust as they did in Copenhagenwaning
public support is reaching a level where it cannot be ignored. In the U.S., recent surveys show concern over global warming
droppingone poll showed it finishing 20th out of 20 issues in terms of importance, while another had it finishing eighth out
of eight environmental issues. Those same surveys show the economy and jobs to be the top priorities, which is precisely what
a new global warming agreement would jeopardize. A Heritage Foundation analysis of the WaxmanMarkey cap-and-trade
bill, which passed the House last June, found gross domestic product losses of over $9.4 trillion by 2035, over a million net job
losses, and household energy cost increases exceeding $1,000 per year. A global treaty with similarly stringent provisions
would impose comparable burdens.
138
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Economy (Answers to "Green Jobs")

1. Green job claims are false--the regulations just shift labor from another part of the economy, kill
growth by raising energy costs
Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation, "Green Jobs: Environmental Red Tape Cancels Out Job
Creation," WEBMEMO, 2-4-10, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/02/Green-Jobs-Environmental-Red-Tape-CancelsOut-Job-Creation
Can Green Jobs Reduce Unemployment? Not when they require significant government assistance. When the President and
Congress talk about green jobs, they are talking about ones created via federal tax breaks, subsidies, or outright mandates. For
example, wind- and solar-generated electricity already enjoys subsidies nearly 50 times higher per unit of energy output than
ordinary coal and 100 times higher than natural gas. Green-job subsidies siphon resources and jobs away from other parts of
the economy. A study of alternative energy in Spain estimates that the cost of such subsidies for wind and solar prevents 2.2
such private-sector jobs for each green job created. Mandates (such as those in place requiring the use of ethanol in gasoline
and proposed ones to set federal renewable electricity standards) kill jobs by raising energy costs. The only reason these
alternative energy sources need to be mandated in the first place is that they are too expensive to compete otherwise. Thus, in
addition to forcibly supplanting traditional energy jobs, renewable energy mandates raise energy costs and thus destroy jobs,
especially in energy-intensive manufacturing. President Obama has done many media events at wind turbine factories,
boasting about the green jobs at each. However, for every federally created green job seen, there are unseen jobs that are
destroyed.
2. Serious co2 reductions would cripple the economy

2007, p. 62.
Meanwhile, atmospheric concentrations of CO2, which is an important greenhouse gas, have risen from approximately 280
parts per million (ppm) before the Industrial Revolution to 380 ppm today (Marland et al., 2007). The current rate of increase is
roughly 1.5 ppm per annum (Houghton, 2005) and the concentration at the end of the 21st Century might be as high as 970
ppm (IPCC, 2001).2 In the absence of profound technological change, curtailing growth in CO2 emissions would require
severe economic contraction, entailing the decommissioning of most of the worlds existing industrial capacity and abandoning
the internal combustion engine.
3. Green jobs are not enough--employment/economic figures are still negative

David Kreutzer, Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation, Testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee,
4-22-09, www.heritage.org/Research/Testimony/The-Economic-Impact-of-Cap-and-Trade, accessed 5-2-10.
Production drops even though firms will have adopted more energy efficient technologies and processes. To reiterate, the
trillions of dollars of lost GDP and the hundreds of thousands of lost jobs occur even after homes and businesses have made
the switch to greener methods. The hoped-for green-job gain is a mirage. Attached is a copy of a page from a 1945 issue of
Mechanix Illustrated. It shows a cyclist pedaling a jerry-built generator to power hair dryers in a Parisian beauty salon. Though
not the sort of green job that is currently talked about, this human-powered generator illustrates why costly energy policies are
not a stimulus. A person on a bicycle generator would do very well to average 150 watts of output during a day. At this level, a
modern-day cyclist/generator could produce electricity worth 10-15 cents per day at retail prices. With sufficient subsidies,
people could be induced to power such generators and the proponents could then point to the "green " jobs that have been
"created." What is not seen is the value of the cyclists' forgone output elsewhere. Even at minimum wage, the value of the labor
is $52.40 per day. So each human-powered generator would shrink the economy by over $50 per day. This is not an economic
stimulus. Alternative energy schemes that require subsidies or that require protection from competing with conventional
sources of power cannot be economic stimuli--their output is worth less than their inputs. An industry whose inputs cost more
than its output is making the economy smaller and will necessarily reduce overall income.
139
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Economy (Answers to "Green Jobs") [contd]

4. Net effect of emissions cuts is lower employment, despite green jobs claims
William Beach et al., Director, Center for Data Analysis, "The Economic Consequences of Waxman-Markey: An Analysis of
the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," CENTER FOR DATA ANALYSIS REPORT, 8-6-09,
www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/08/the-economic-consequences-of-waxman-markey-an-analysis-of-the-americanclean-energy-and-security-act-of-2009, accessed 5-2-10.
This CDA analysis extends only to 2035, as this is the forecasting horizon for the macroeconomic model used to prepare these
estimates. But it should be noted that the emissions reductions continue to tighten through 2050 and that model-based analysis
by other groups whose models extend beyond 2035 shows increasing harm to the U.S. economy. In addition to burdening
households, the high energy prices weaken the production side of the economy. Contrary to the claims of an economic boost
from "green" investment as firms undertake the changes to reduce emissions and increased employment as so-called green jobs
are created to do this work, Waxman-Markey would be a significant net drain on GDP and employment.
5. Regulation only increases red tape, confounding green jobs claims

In the midst of a recession, costly environmental legislation is not an easy sell. For that reason, the Obama Administration and
congressional proponents of an aggressive environmental agenda have tried to recast their policies as a boost to--rather than a
drain on--the economy. From the stimulus package to pending global warming legislation to the Senate's upcoming jobs bill,
the latest mantra is green jobs--employment to be created by imposing various environmental measures. But the reality is that
these efforts increase federal spending and exert new government control over the private sector. They are thus more likely to
harm the economy and reduce the prospects for net job growth. Genuine job creation can be achieved not through more
environmental red tape but less--in particular by allowing more domestic energy production.
6. Green jobs claims are wrong--empirical evidence from Europe and California proves
What Has the Experience with Green Jobs Shown? Before the U.S. expands its green jobs agenda, a look at the experiences of
those nations that have already gone further down that road would be instructive. As mentioned, Spain has likely destroyed
more jobs than it has created with its extensive subsidies for wind and solar. Its unemployment rate, nearly 19 percent, is
double that of the U.S. and does not suggest that green jobs can create prosperity. In Denmark, each wind energy job has cost
$90,000 to $140,000 in subsidies, which is more than the jobs pay. In Germany, the figure is as high as $240,000. And the
experience in Spain, Denmark, and Germany is that most of the green jobs created are temporary ones. The global experience-that market interventions increase green employment but hurt the overall economy--may also apply in California. California
stands out among the states as moving more aggressively in imposing a green economy. It also has unemployment considerably
higher than the national average. Although several factors play a part in California's economic problems, its environmental and
energy policy--global warming measures, alternative energy mandates, other regulations that raise conventional energy prices-are likely part of the reason for the state's overall economic malaise. To a large extent, the green jobs agenda represents the
Europeanization and the Californiazation of the American Economy. That is bad news for job growth.
140
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Geoengineering Superior

1. Adaptation, geoengineering are far less expensive than emissions cuts
Research is already being carried out on the viability of geoengineering - a catch-all term for technologies that sequester CO2
or other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or cool the planet through solar radiation management - while more resources
can and, for reasons quite apart from rising sea levels, probably should be invested in sea and flood defences around the world.
After all, the Dutch mastered this aspect of hydraulics in the 16th century. Former British chancellor Nigel Lawson, who
chairs the London-based sceptic think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation, has written that, "adaptation will enable
us, if and when it is necessary, greatly to reduce the adverse consequences of global warming, at far less cost than mitigation
[emissions reduction], to the point where for the world as a whole, these are unlikely greatly to outweigh (if indeed they
outweigh at all) the customarily overlooked benefits of global warming".
2. Geoengineering will solve climate changeCloud seeding

Edwin Cartlidge, Cloud-Seeding Ships Could Combat Climate Change, PHYSICS WORLD, 9408,
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/35693, accessed 6-19-12.
It should be possible to counteract the global warming associated with a doubling of carbon dioxide levels by enhancing the
reflectivity of low-lying clouds above the oceans, according to researchers in the US and UK. John Latham of the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, US, and colleagues say that this can be done using a worldwide fleet of
autonomous ships spraying salt water into the air. Clouds are a key component of the Earths climate system. They can both
heat the planet by trapping the longer-wavelength radiation given off from the Earths surface and cool it by reflecting
incoming shorter wavelength radiation back into space. The greater weight of the second mechanism means that, on balance,
clouds have a cooling effect. Lathams proposal, previously put forward by himself and a number of other scientists, involves
increasing the reflectivity, or albedo, of clouds lying about 1 km above the oceans surface. The idea relies on the Twomey
effect, which says that increasing the concentration of water droplets within a cloud raises the overall surface area of the
droplets and thereby enhances the clouds albedo. By spraying fine droplets of sea water into the air, the small particles of salt
within each droplet act as new centres of condensation when they reach the clouds above, leading to a greater concentration of
water droplets within each cloud.
141
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth / Innovation (General)

1. Growth is key to innovationany policy that hurts the economy will undermine emergence of new
energy technologies
Kevin Book, Senior Vice President, Energy Policy, Oil and Alternative Energy, FBR Capital Markets Corp., Testimony before
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, CQ CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, 11-15-07, lexis.
Inventions born of necessity may be ingenious, but they are likely to be undercapitalized. By contrast, innovation and
profligacy often live in the same zip code, if not necessarily under the same roof. New technologies to address global climate
change are going to require more investment dollars, not less. Stable economies encourage wealthy enterprises to invest in
research and development towards new transformational technologies, as well as evolutionary improvements to existing
processes. This may explain past U.S. leadership in energy and environmental technologies: not just because laws established
new pollution controls, but also because, once rules were in place, the nation's rare, if not unique, combination of efficient
markets, open society and economic prowess enabled new pollution control technologies to emerge from corporate laboratories
and basement inventors alike. It is possible that plain old Yankee ingenuity might really be a lucky accident, but I believe it
comes from a synergy among related and supporting industries that form what Harvard business scholar Michael Porter would
call our "national advantage". This means that policies that raise the operating costs of industrial innovators enough to cause a
recession could deprive the U.S. and the world of emissions control technologies made possible, ironically, by the same wealth
and stability that inure energy end-users to the price signals that encourage conservation.
2. Tech is the best way to solve, thrives in a pro-growth economy

Technology development and deployment offers the most efficient and effective way to reduce GHG emissions and a strong
economy tends to pull through capital investment faster. There are only two ways to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use
- use less fossil fuel or develop technologies to use energy more efficiently to capture emissions or to substitute for fossil
energy. There is an abundance of economic literature demonstrating the relationship between energy use and economic growth,
as well as the negative impacts of curtailing energy use. Over the long-term, new technologies offer the most promise for
affecting GHG emission rates and atmospheric concentration levels.
3. Growth decreases emissionsempirically cuts energy intensity, U.S. experience proves

Many policymakers overlook the positive impact that economic growth can have on GHG emission reductions. For example, in
2006, while the U.S. economy grew at 3.3 percent, CO2 emissions fell to 5,877 MMTCO2, down from 5,955 MMTCO2 in
2005, a 1.3 percent decrease. Overall energy use only declined by 0.9 percent, indicating the U.S economy is becoming less
carbon intensive even without mandatory emission caps or carbon taxes. Internationally, the U.S. compares well in terms of
reducing its energy intensity (the amount of energy used to produce a dollar of output). The U.S., with its voluntary approach to
emission reductions, has cut its energy intensity by 20 percent over the 1992-2004 period compared to only 11.5 percent in the
EU with its mandatory approach (see Figure 6). Strong U.S. economic growth, which averaged over 3 percent per year from
1992 to 2005 compared to about 1 percent in the EU, is responsible for the U.S.'s more rapid reduction in energy intensity in
recent years.
4. Emissions cuts divert resources from more effective storm-abatement techniques

Q: Could the Kyoto Protocol or other measures to fight warming do more harm than good? Yes. For example, consider
hurricanes. Vast amounts could be spent trying to mitigate global warming as an indirect means of reducing future hurricane
damageeven though there is no consensus about a global warminghurricane link. The resources used in this effort would
not be available for improvements in warning systems, flood control, building codes, evacuation plans, relief efforts, or
anything else that could have actually made a difference with Hurricane Katrina. Also consider the one big success story in
Katrinathe million or more people who got into the family car and drove out of harm's way in the days before the storm hit.
If Kyoto-style energy restrictions had made automobiles and gasoline prohibitively expensive for some (as is very likely), more
people would have been stranded in New Orleans and other coastal cities.
142
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth / Innovation (General) [contd]

5. Emissions cuts make us poorer, decrease our ability to adapt
Q: Shouldn't we "play it safe" and take tough preventive measures against global warming? Not necessarily. There are risks to
global warming, but there are also risks to global warming policies. Fossil fuelscoal, oil, and natural gasprovide the world
with most of its energy. It will be costly to ratchet down emissions from fossil fuels enough to make even a modest dent in the
earth's future temperature. The Kyoto Protocol, the multilateral treaty that places a cap on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gas emissions, will actually accomplish very little. If fully implemented, its energy rationing provisions could cost hundreds of
billions of dollars annually but would, according to its proponents, avert only 0.07 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050. The
costs of capping carbon dioxide are large and immediate, but the benefits are small and remote. And a poorer world, which
Kyoto would give us, would have less ability to deal with whatever challenges the future brings.
6. Development solves better than abatementemissions cuts will only make the problem worse
Q: Don't we owe it to the people in developing nations to save them from global warming? First and foremost, the developing
world needs to develop, not to adopt costly first-world environmental measures that would halt economic progress. The
consequences of severe poverty are no less fearful than even the most far-fetched global warming doomsday scenarios. Energy
rationing to combat warming would perpetuate poverty by raising energy prices for those who can least afford it. The last thing
the 2 billion who currently lack access to electricity or safe drinking water and sanitation need are global warming policies that
would place these and other necessities further out of reach.
7. Taxes or cap-and-trade will increase energy prices, hurting poor people and driving businesses
overseas
before Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, 11--14--07, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG110shrg73849/html/CHRG-110shrg73849.htm, accessed 9-4-12.
Making energy more expensive by direct taxes or cap-and-trade schemes (around which business may cleverly skirt) is
troublesome. First, these are regressive taxes since the poor disproportionately spend more on energy. Secondly, as a
manufacturer, who employs hundreds in my state, told me last week, If my energy costs go up according to these proposals,
Im closing down and moving offshore. Irony and tragedy are here. The irony is that higher energy costs will lead to an
increase in greenhouse emissions as offshore plants have less stringent rules. The tragedy is that this will lead to further
economic suffering in a part of my state where no more suffering is needed.
143
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth / Innovation (Poor Nations)

1. Growth strategy is superior for people in poor countries, especially given future uncertainty
Yet another approach would be to address the root cause of why poor countries are deemed to be most at risk, namely, poverty.
But the only way to reduce poverty is to have sustained economic growth. This would not only address the climate-sensitive
problems of poverty but all problems of poverty, and not just that portion caused by GW. It would, moreover, reduce these
problems faster and more cost-effectively. No less important, it is far more certain that sustained economic growth would
provide real benefits than would emission reductions because although there is no doubt that poverty leads to death, disease and
other problems, there is substantial doubt regarding the reality and magnitude of the negative impacts of GW, especially since
they ignore, for the most part, improvements in adaptive capacity. Of the three approaches outlined above, human well-being in
poor countries is most likely to be advanced furthest by sustained economic development and to be advanced least by emission
reductions. In addition, because of the inertia of the climate system, economic development is likely to bear fruit faster than
any emission reductions.
2. Economic development will help insulate poorer nations against the effects of climate change
However, developing countries are most at risk of climate change not because they will experience greater climate change, but
because they lack adaptive capacity to cope with its impacts. Hence, another approach to addressing climate change would be
to enhance the adaptive capacity of developing countries by promoting broad development, i.e., economic development and
human capital formation, which, of course, is the point of sustainable economic development.81 Moreover, since the
determinants of adaptive and mitigative capacity are largely the same, enhancing the former should also boost the latter.82
Perhaps more important, advancing economic development and human capital formation would also advance societys ability
to cope with all manner of threats, whether climate related or otherwise.
3. Best way to address the impacts of climate change is to focus on capacity development in poorer
countries
First, policymakers should work toward increasing adaptive capacity, particularly in developing countries, by promoting efforts
to reduce vulnerability to todays urgent climate-sensitive problemsmalaria, hunger, water stress, flooding, and other extreme
eventsthat might be exacerbated by climate change.89 The technologies, human capital, and institutions that will need to be
strengthened or developed to accomplish this will also be critical in addressing these very problems in the future if and when
they are aggravated by climate change. Increasing adaptive capacity might also increase the level at which GHG concentration
would need to be stabilized to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, which is the stated
ultimate objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.90 Alternatively, increasing adaptive capacity could
postpone the deadline for stabilization. In either case, it could reduce the costs of meeting the ultimate objective.
4. Focused adaptation helps poor people more than does emissions cuts
An alternate approach to reducing the GW impacts would be to reduce the climate-sensitive problems of poverty through
focused adaptation.76 This might involve, for example, major investments in things such as early warning systems, the
development of new crop varieties, and public health interventions. Focused adaptation would allow society to capture the
benefits of GW while allowing it to reduce the totality of climate-sensitive problems that GW might worsen. Focused
adaptation could in principle address 100% of the problems resulting from hunger, malaria and extreme weather events,
whereas emission reductions would at most deal with only about 13%. Focused adaptation, moreover, would likely be much
less expensive than emission reductions.
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Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth Strategy Superior

1. Pursuing growth is a far better way to deal with climate change than are emissions cuts
Warming, POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 1211, ES.
A third approach would be to fix the root cause of why developing countries are deemed to be most at-risk, namely, poverty.
Sustained economic growth would, as is evident from the experience of developed countries, address virtually all problems of
poverty, not just that portion exacerbated by global warming. It is far more certain that sustainable economic growth will
provide greater benefits than emission reductions: while there is no doubt that poverty leads to disease and death, there is
substantial doubt regarding the reality and magnitude of the negative impact of global warming. This is especially true as
assessments often ignore improvements in adaptive capacity. Of these three approaches, human well-being in poorer countries
is likely to be advanced most effectively by sustained economic development and least by emission reductions. In addition,
because of the inertia of the climate system, economic development is likely to bear fruit faster than any emission reductions.
2. Best response to warming is to do nothingallow continued growth

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a
message to any candidate for public office: there is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ``de-carbonise'' the
world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse gas control policies are
not justified economically. A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed
that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio was achieved for a policy that allowed 50 more years of economic growth
unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less developed parts of the world that would
like to share some of the same advantages of material wellbeing, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the
world enjoy. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the
modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.
3. Better off growing and adapting to climatewealth will make it easier

Analysis using both the Stern Review and the fast-track assessment reveals that notwithstanding climate change, for the
foreseeable future, human and environmental well-being will be highest under the richest-but-warmest scenario and lower for
the poorer (lower-carbon) scenarios. The developing worlds future wellbeing should exceed present levels by several-fold
under each scenario, even exceeding present wellbeing in todays developed world under all but the poorest scenario.
Accordingly, equity-based arguments, which hold that present generations should divert scarce resources from todays urgent
problems to solve potential problems of tomorrows wealthier generations, are unpersuasive.
4. Emissions cuts, lost growth are far worse than the effects of climate change
Halting climate change would reduce cumulative mortality from various climate-sensitive threats, namely, hunger, malaria, and
coastal flooding, by 410 percent in 2085, while increasing populations at risk from water stress and possibly worsening
matters for biodiversity. But according to cost information from the UN Millennium Program and the IPCC, measures focused
specifically on reducing vulnerability to these threats would reduce cumulative mortality from these risks by 5075 percent at a
fraction of the cost of reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs). Simultaneously, such measures would reduce major hurdles to the
developing worlds sustainable economic development, the lack of which is why it is most vulnerable to climate change. The
world can best combat climate change and advance well-being, particularly of the worlds most vulnerable populations, by
reducing present-day vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that could be exacerbated by climate change rather than
through overly aggressive GHG reductions.
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Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Growth Strategy Superior [contd]

6. Better off pursuing growthwill allow us to adapt to climate change
Although climate change can lead to a deterioration of many human health and environmental metrics, that does not tell us
what we really want to know. What we want to know is this: Will human health and environmental quality be better under
richer but warmer scenarios than under poorer but cooler scenarios? Thats primarily because wealth creation, human capital,
and new or improved technologies often reduce the extent of the human health and environmental bads associated with
climate change more than temperature increases exacerbate them. The data in Table 1 suggests that, on one hand, the impacts
of climate change should decrease as one goes from scenario A1FI on the left to B1 on the right (in accordance with the pattern
of declining climate change, ceteris paribus). On the other hand, economic and technological developmentboth critical
determinants of adaptive capacityought to attenuate the impacts of climate change.19 Considering future levels of economic
and technological development, that attenuation should be greatest for the A1FI scenario, followed by the B1, B2 and A2
scenarios, in that order. Thus, even though the A1FI scenario has the greatest amount of warming and thus, the largest amount
of climate change, it would not necessarily have the worst outcomes. Thats because it should also have the highest degree of
adaptive capacity. Economic growth broadly increases human well-being by increasing wealth, technological development, and
human capital. These factors enable society to address virtually any kind of adversity, whether it is related to climate or not,
while specifically increasing societys capacity to reduce climate change damages through either adaptation or
mitigation.20Many determinants of human well-beinghunger, malnutrition, mortality rates, life expectancy, the level of
education, and spending on health care and on research and developmentimprove along with the level of economic
development, as measured by GDP per capita.
7. Future harm does not justify action--emissions cuts could also hurt future people by decreasing growth
Chicago, "Climate Change Justice," GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL v. 96, 6--08, p. 1596-1597.
The argument that we owe duties to the future, on welfarist or other grounds, seems right, but as a basis for current abatement
efforts, it runs into a complication. Suppose that activities in the United States that produce greenhouse gases (a) do harm
people in the future by contributing to climate change, but also (b) benefit people in the future by amassing capital on which
they can draw to reduce poverty and illness and to protect against a range of social ills. Supposing, as we agree, that present
generations are obliged not to render future generations miserable, it is necessary to ask whether current activities create
benefits that are equivalent to, or higher than, costs for those generations. As our discussion of distributive justice suggests, it is
possible that greenhouse gas abatement programs--as opposed to, say, research and development or promoting economic
growth in poor countries--are not the best way to ensure that the appropriate level of intergenerational equity is achieved. This
point is simply the intertemporal version of the argument against redistribution by greenhouse gas abatement that we made
above. Of course, it remains empirically possible that abatement programs would produce significant benefits for future
generations without imposing equally significant burdens--in which case they would be justified on welfarist grounds. And we
have agreed that, on those grounds, some kind of greenhouse gas abatement program, including all the leading contributors,
would be justified. But this is not a point about corrective or distributive justice.
8. Wealth is strongly correlated with improved environmental qualitystrongly mitigates the

impacts of climate change
Increasing wealth also improves some, though not necessarily all, indicators of environmental well-being. Wealthier nations
have higher cereal yield (an important determinant of cropland, which is inversely related to habitat conversion) and greater
access to safe water and sanitation. They also have lower birth rates.22Notably, access to safe water and access to sanitation
double as indicators of both human and environmental well-being, as does crop yield, since higher yield not only means more
food and lower hunger, it also lowers pressure on habitat.23 Cross country data also indicate that for a fixed level of economic
development, these indicators of human and environmental wellbeing (e.g., malnutrition, mortality rates, life expectancy,
access to safe water, crop yields, and so forth) improve with time (because technology almost inevitably improves with
time).24 Similarly one should expect, all else being equal, that societys ability to cope with any adversity, including climate
change, should also increase with the passage of time. Thus, over time, the combination of economic and technological
development should increase societys adaptive capacity which, barring inadvertent maladaptation, ought to reduce the future
impacts of climate change.
146
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Mitigation is a Poor Strategy

1. There is no justification for cutting emissions--cash payments make more sense
Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would cost some nations much more than others and benefit some nations far less than
others. Significant reductions would likely impose especially large costs on the United States, and recent projections suggest
that the United States is not among the nations most at risk from climate change. In these circumstances, what does justice
require the United States to do? Many people believe that the United States is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
beyond the point that is justified by its own self-interest, simply because the United States is wealthy, and because the nations
most at risk from climate change are poor. This argument from distributive justice is complemented by an argument from
corrective justice: The existing "stock" of greenhouse gas emissions owes a great deal to the past actions of the United States,
and many people think that the United States should do a great deal to reduce a problem for which it is disproportionately
responsible. But there are serious difficulties with both of these arguments. On reasonable assumptions, redistribution from the
United States to poor people in poor nations would be highly desirable, but expenditures on greenhouse gas reductions are a
crude means of producing that redistribution: It would be much better to give cash payments directly to people who are now
poor. The argument from corrective justice runs into the standard problems that arise when collectivities, such as nations, are
treated as moral agents: Many people who have not acted wrongfully end up being forced to provide a remedy to many people
who have not been victimized Without reaching specific conclusions about the proper response of any particular nation, and
while emphasizing that welfarist arguments strongly support some kind of international agreement to protect against climate
change, we contend that standard arguments from distributive and corrective justice fail to provide strong justifications for
imposing special obligations for greenhouse gas reductions on the United States.
2. Emissions cuts are a poor way to help those who are hurt by climate change
We also accept, for purposes of argument, the view that when people in one nation wrongfully harm people in another nation,
the wrongdoers have a moral obligation to provide a remedy to the victims. It might seem to follow that the largest emitters,
and above all the United States, have a special obligation to remedy the harms they have helped cause and certainly should not
be given side-payments. But the application of standard principles of corrective justice to problems of climate change runs into
serious objections. As we shall show, corrective justice arguments in the domain of climate change raise many of the same
problems that beset such arguments in the context of reparations more generally. Nations are not individuals: they do not have
mental states and cannot, except metaphorically, act. Blame must ordinarily be apportioned to individuals, and it is hard to
blame all greenhouse gas-emitters for wrongful behavior, especially those from the past who are partly responsible for the
current stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Our principal submissions are that the distributive justice argument must
be separated from the corrective justice argument, and that once the two arguments are separated, both of them face serious
difficulties. If the United States wants to assist poor nations, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to be the best
way for it to accomplish that goal. It is true that many people in poor nations are at risk because of the actions of many people
in the United States, but the idea of corrective justice does not easily justify any kind of transfer from contemporary Americans
to people now or eventually living in (for example) India and Africa.
147
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Reparations Superior

1. Failure to spur a renewables transition via climate reparations risks massive conflicts, resentment
Naomi Klein, journalist, "Climate Rage," ROLLING STONE, 11--11--09, www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/11/climate-rage,
accessed 9-6-12.
But shunning the high price of climate change carries a cost of its own. U.S. military and intelligence agencies now consider
global warming a leading threat to national security. As sea levels rise and droughts spread, competition for food and water will
only increase in many of the world's poorest nations. These regions will become "breeding grounds for instability, for
insurgencies, for warlords," according to a 2007 study for the Center for Naval Analyses led by Gen. Anthony Zinni, the
former Centcom commander. To keep out millions of climate refugees fleeing hunger and conflict, a report commissioned by
the Pentagon in 2003 predicted that the U.S. and other rich nations would likely decide to "build defensive fortresses around
their countries." Setting aside the morality of building high-tech fortresses to protect ourselves from a crisis we inflicted on
the world, those enclaves and resource wars won't come cheap. And unless we pay our climate debt, and quickly, we may well
find ourselves living in a world of climate rage. "Privately, we already hear the simmering resentment of diplomats whose
countries bear the costs of our emissions," Sen. John Kerry observed recently. "I can tell you from my own experience: It is
real, and it is prevalent. It's not hard to see how this could crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism.
That's a threat too. Remember: The very places least responsible for climate changeand least equipped to deal with its
impactswill be among the very worst affected." That, in a nutshell, is the argument for climate debt. The developing world
has always had plenty of reasons to be pissed off with their northern neighbors, with our tendency to overthrow their
governments, invade their countries and pillage their natural resources. But never before has there been an issue so politically
inflammatory as the refusal of people living in the rich world to make even small sacrifices to avert a potential climate
catastrophe. In Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bolivia, the Arctic, our climate pollution is directly responsible for destroying entire
ways of lifeyet we keep doing it. From outside our borders, the climate crisis doesn't look anything like the meteors or
space invaders that Todd Stern imagined hurtling toward Earth. It looks, instead, like a long and silent war waged by the rich
against the poor. And for that, regardless of what happens in Copenhagen, the poor will continue to demand their rightful
reparations. "This is about the rich world taking responsibility for the damage done," says Ilana Solomon, policy analyst for
ActionAid USA, one of the groups recently converted to the cause. "This money belongs to poor communities affected by
climate change. It is their compensation."
2. Climate debt is the best response to the disparate impact of climate change--wealthy nations should pay
reparations to the poorer nations
accessed 9-6-12.
Among the smartest and most promisingnot to mention controversialproposals is "climate debt," the idea that rich
countries should pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis. In the world of climate-change activism, this marks a
dramatic shift in both tone and content. American environmentalism tends to treat global warming as a force that transcends
difference: We all share this fragile blue planet, so we all need to work together to save it. But the coalition of Latin American
and African governments making the case for climate debt actually stresses difference, zeroing in on the cruel contrast between
those who caused the climate crisis (the developed world) and those who are suffering its worst effects (the developing world).
Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: "About 75 to 80 percent" of the damages caused by
global warming "will be suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases."
Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill. The grass-roots movement behind the proposal argues that all the costs
associated with adapting to a more hostile ecologyeverything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more
expensive technologiesare the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. "What we need is not something we
should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making," says Lidy
Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote
climate reparations. "Climate debt is not a matter of charity." Sharon Looremeta, an advocate for Maasai tribespeople in
Kenya who have lost at least 5 million cattle to drought in recent years, puts it in even sharper terms. "The Maasai community
does not drive 4x4s or fly off on holidays in airplanes," she says. "We have not caused climate change, yet we are the ones
suffering. This is an injustice and should be stopped right now."
148
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Reparations Superior [contd]

3. Wealthy countries should pay reparations--they are responsible for hte problem
accessed 9-6-12.
The case for climate debt begins like most discussions of climate change: with the science. Before the Industrial Revolution,
the density of carbon dioxide in the atmospherethe key cause of global warmingwas about 280 parts per million. Today, it
has reached 387 ppmfar above safe limitsand it's still rising. Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of
the world's population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate.
(The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions.)
And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning
goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200
years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis. In Latin America, left-wing economists have long argued that Western
powers owe a vaguely defined "ecological debt" to the continent for centuries of colonial land-grabs and resource extraction.
But the emerging argument for climate debt is far more concrete, thanks to a relatively new body of research putting precise
figures on who emitted what and when. "What is exciting," says Antonio Hill, senior climate adviser at Oxfam, "is you can
really put numbers on it. We can measure it in tons of CO2 and come up with a cost." Equally important, the idea is supported
by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changeratified by 192 countries, including the United States. The
framework not only asserts that "the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated
in developed countries," it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made "on the basis of equity and in
accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities."
4. We need climate reparations--poor nations will be disproportionately hurt by climate change, cannot
afford to switch to renewables without them
accessed 9-6-12.
The reparations movement has brought together a diverse coalition of big international organizations, from Friends of the Earth
to the World Council of Churches, that have joined up with climate scientists and political economists, many of them linked to
the influential Third World Network, which has been leading the call. Until recently, however, there was no government
pushing for climate debt to be included in the Copenhagen agreement. That changed in June, when Angelica Navarro, the chief
climate negotiator for Bolivia, took the podium at a U.N. climate negotiation in Bonn, Germany. Only 36 and dressed casually
in a black sweater, Navarro looked more like the hippies outside than the bureaucrats and civil servants inside the session.
Mixing the latest emissions science with accounts of how melting glaciers were threatening the water supply in two major
Bolivian cities, Navarro made the case for why developing countries are owed massive compensation for the climate crisis.
"Millions of peoplein small islands, least-developed countries, landlocked countries as well as vulnerable communities in
Brazil, India and China, and all around the worldare suffering from the effects of a problem to which they did not
contribute," Navarro told the packed room. In addition to facing an increasingly hostile climate, she added, countries like
Bolivia cannot fuel economic growth with cheap and dirty energy, as the rich countries did, since that would only add to the
climate crisisyet they cannot afford the heavy upfront costs of switching to renewable energies like wind and solar. The
solution, Navarro argued, is three-fold. Rich countries need to pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate,
make deep cuts to their own emission levels "to make atmospheric space available" for the developing world, and pay Third
World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives. "We cannot and will not give up our
rightful claim to a fair share of atmospheric space on the promise that, at some future stage, technology will be provided to us,"
she said.
149
Mitigation Not Justified: Bad--Reparations Superior [contd]

5. Climate reparations could address energy problems throughout the developing world
accessed 9-6-12.
Largely because of the beauty of the Yasun, the plan has generated widespread international support. Germany has already
offered $70 million a year for 13 years, and several other European governments have expressed interest in participating. If
Yasun is saved, it will demonstrate that climate debt isn't just a disguised ploy for more aidit's a far more credible solution to
the climate crisis than the ones we have now. "This initiative needs to succeed," says Atossa Soltani, executive director of
Amazon Watch. "I think we can set a model for other countries." Activists point to a huge range of other green initiatives that
would become possible if wealthy countries paid their climate debts. In India, mini power plants that run on biomass and solar
power could bring low-carbon electricity to many of the 400 million Indians currently living without a light bulb. In cities from
Cairo to Manila, financial support could be given to the armies of impoverished "trash pickers" who save as much as 80 percent
of municipal waste in some areas from winding up in garbage dumps and trash incinerators that release planet-warming
pollution. And on a much larger scale, coal-fired power plants across the developing world could be converted into more
efficient facilities using existing technology, cutting their emissions by more than a third.
6. Reparations are key to getting an international deal to address climate change

accessed 9-6-12.
Without such guarantees, reparations will be meaninglessand without reparations, the climate talks in Copenhagen will likely
collapse. As it stands, the U.S. and other Western nations are engaged in a lose-lose game of chicken with developing nations
like India and China: We refuse to lower our emissions unless they cut theirs and submit to international monitoring, and they
refuse to budge unless wealthy nations cut first and cough up serious funding to help them adapt to climate change and switch
to clean energy. "No money, no deal," is how one of South Africa's top environmental officials put it. "If need be," says
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speaking on behalf of the African Union, "we are prepared to walk out." In the past,
President Obama has recognized the principle on which climate debt rests. "Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the
damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead," he acknowledged in his September speech at the
United Nations. "We have a responsibility to provide the financial and technical assistance needed to help these [developing]
nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development."
150
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Developing Country Emissions

1. Emissions from China, India are swamping cuts elsewhere
International Energy Agency (IEA), Global Carbon-Dioxide Emissions Increase by 1.0 Gt in 2011 to Record High, 525
12, http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2012/may/name,27216,en.html, accessed 7-5-12.
In 2011, a 6.1% increase in CO2 emissions in countries outside the OECD was only partly offset by a 0.6% reduction in
emissions inside the OECD. China made the largest contribution to the global increase, with its emissions rising by 720 million
tonnes (Mt), or 9.3%, primarily due to higher coal consumption. What China has done over such a short period of time to
improve energy efficiency and deploy clean energy is already paying major dividends to the global environment, said Dr.
Birol. Chinas carbon intensity the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP fell by 15% between 2005 and 2011. Had
these gains not been made, Chinas CO2 emissions in 2011 would have been higher by 1.5 Gt. Indias emissions rose by 140
Mt, or 8.7%, moving it ahead of Russia to become the fourth largest emitter behind China, the United States, and the European
Union. Despite these increases, per-capita CO2 emissions in China and India still remain just 63% and 15% of the OECD
average respectively.
2. China already emits almost as much CO2 as the U.S.

Richard Heinberg, senior fellow, "China Coal Update," Post Carbon Institute, 3--8--12, http://www.postcarbon.org/blogpost/747521-china-coal-update, accessed 4-9-12.
Chinese greenhouse gas emissions totaled 8.24 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalents in 2010; the 2011 figure will likely
clock in at over 8.8 billion tonnes. The US racked up 5.5 billion metric tonnes of emissions in 2010, out of a world total of 33.5
billion tonnes. The US still ranks first in terms of per capita emissions among the big economies, with 18 metric tonnes
emitted per person; China emits under 6 tonnes per person, while the world average stands at 4.49 tonnes per person.
3. U.S. cuts meaningless--swamped by China

Richard Heinberg, senior fellow, "China Coal Update," Post Carbon Institute, 3--8--12, http://www.postcarbon.org/blogpost/747521-china-coal-update, accessed 4-9-12.
Second, can the world save itself from a climate apocalypse unless China leads the way? Talk of climate justice (which
emphasizes the higher per-capita emissions of wealthy nations) is all well and good, but the harsh reality is that even drastic
emissions cuts by the US will mean relatively little unless China also cuts soon and fast. So far, indications are that Beijing is
keeping the carbon pedal to the metal, despite concurrent efforts to become a world leader in renewable energy. Barring a
dramatic global emissions policy breakthrough, resource limits and economic contraction seem to offer the main hope for
keeping climate change to merely catastrophic levels.
4. Warming threat exaggerated, other nations will swamp any U.S. emissions reductions
CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS, staff, Think Gas is Cheap? Washington Seems to Believe It Is, 6-1-08, p. G1.
Some might argue that if this bill prevents global warming-induced catastrophes, then it will be worth it. But there is growing
evidence that the warming threat has been exaggerated. Indeed, 2008 is shaping up to be a cooler year than 2007, and some
scientists are predicting that this countertrend will last for a while. But even assuming the worst-case scenarios of runaway
warming, this bill would make little difference. Many other nations, including fast-growing China and India, are doing nothing
to reduce their energy use. Thus, any efforts to force Americans to use less energy would be offset by big increases elsewhere.
According to Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist of the American Council for Capital Formation,
Lieberman-Warner would cut global concentrations of carbon dioxide by only 4 percent below where they would otherwise be
by the end of the century. Thus, at most, this bill would reduce the earth's future temperature by a small fraction of a degree -too little even to verify that it happened. In other words, America's Climate Security Act promises lots of economic pain for
almost no environmental gain.
151
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Developing Country Emissions [contd]

5. Growth from other sectors will swamp any U.S. emissions cuts
William Beach et al., Director, Center for Data Analysis, "The Economic Consequences of Waxman-Markey: An Analysis of
the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," CENTER FOR DATA ANALYSIS REPORT, 8-6-09,
www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/08/the-economic-consequences-of-waxman-markey-an-analysis-of-the-americanclean-energy-and-security-act-of-2009, accessed 9-4-12
Because of market-driven increases in energy efficiency, CO2 emissions have grown more slowly than has national income for
decades in the United States. Contrasted with the moderating growth of American CO2 emissions, those of the developing
world, especially China and India, have been accelerating. China is now the world's largest emitter of CO2. Because the
developing world is so populous and because large segments are finally experiencing the rapid economic growth that perverse
economic policies had previously stifled, the growth in CO2 emissions will swamp the cuts proposed in the U.S. by WaxmanMarkey. Climatologists estimate that Waxman-Markey's impact on world temperature will be too small to even measure in the
first several decades. The theoretical moderation of world temperature would be 0.05 degree centigrade by 2050. If CO2emission levels meet the Waxman-Markey target of 17 percent of 2005 emissions by the year 2050, and if they are frozen at
that level for the rest of the century, Waxman-Markey would still reduce the world temperature by only 0.2 degree Celsius by
2100.
6. Warming threat exaggerated, other nations will swamp any U.S. Emissions reductions
CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS, staff, Think Gas is Cheap? Washington Seems to Believe It Is, 6-1-08, p. G1.
Some might argue that if this bill prevents global warming-induced catastrophes, then it will be worth it. But there is growing
evidence that the warming threat has been exaggerated. Indeed, 2008 is shaping up to be a cooler year than 2007, and some
scientists are predicting that this countertrend will last for a while. But even assuming the worst-case scenarios of runaway
warming, this bill would make little difference. Many other nations, including fast-growing China and India, are doing nothing
to reduce their energy use. Thus, any efforts to force Americans to use less energy would be offset by big increases elsewhere.
According to Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist of the American Council for Capital Formation,
Lieberman-Warner would cut global concentrations of carbon dioxide by only 4 percent below where they would otherwise be
by the end of the century. Thus, at most, this bill would reduce the earth's future temperature by a small fraction of a degree -too little even to verify that it happened. In other words, America's Climate Security Act promises lots of economic pain for
almost no environmental gain.
7. China now emits more co2 than does the U.S.

John Vidal and David Adam, journalists, China Overtakes US as Worlds Biggest CO2 Emitter, GUARDIAN, 6-19-07,
China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures
released today show. The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving man-made
global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes
the booming Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's
biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year. But according to the
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, soaring demand for coal to generate electricity and a surge in cement
production have helped to push China's recorded emissions for 2006 beyond those from the US already. It says China produced
6,200m tonnes of CO2 last year, compared with 5,800m tonnes from the US. Britain produced about 600m tonnes. Jos Olivier,
a senior scientist at the government agency who compiled the figures, said: "There will still be some uncertainty about the
exact numbers, but this is the best and most up to date estimate available. China relies very heavily on coal and all of the recent
trends show their emissions going up very quickly." China's emissions were 2% below those of the US in 2005. Per head of
population, China's pollution remains relatively low - about a quarter of that in the US and half that of the UK.
152
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--International Agreements

1. Kyoto proves that countries won't comply with cuts agreements--compliance costs are too high
Is the Kyoto Protocol Worth Extending? No. Even aside from the growing doubts about the seriousness of the global warming
threat -- the Kyoto Protocol or any other putative global warming solution is only a solution to the extent that a genuine
problem exists in the first place -- the Kyoto Protocol has failed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Emissions are increasing
in several signatory nations. In several more countries, emissions are declining more slowly than emissions in the U.S., which
ironically is not a party to Kyoto. For example, according to U.N. data, the U.S. reduced emissions by 3 percent from 2000 to
2006, while the 27 European signatories increased their emissions by 0.1 percent. Germany's emissions declined by only 1.7
percent, while Canada's emissions rose 21.3 percent. European Environmental Agency data show that emissions increased in
Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain in the decade after the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. One key reason for
compliance difficulties in Europe has been the tremendous cost of reducing emissions, estimated at $67.75 billion to $170.84
billion through 2008. Despite these high costs for their inadequate efforts to reduce emissions, these European nations claim to
want to enact much tougher targets in Copenhagen. Further, Kyoto's exemption for developing nations has proven a far greater
oversight than originally believed because these emissions, especially from China, have increased far faster than had been
anticipated in 1997. For example, the Senate Byrd-Hagel Resolution warned that developing-nation emissions would exceed
those of the developed world "as early as 2015." According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information
Administration, it happened in 2005.
2. Proposed treaty cuts are too small to make a dent in any warming
Would the Environmental Benefits Be Worth It? No. First, there are growing doubts about whether global warming really is the
crisis it was claimed to be heading into the 1997 Kyoto negotiations. For example, global temperatures have leveled off since
then. However, putting the scientific doubts aside for a moment, the Kyoto approach seems unlikely to slow global warming
effectively. One scientific study estimated that, even if the treaty reached its targeted emissions reductions, it would reduce the
earth's future temperature by about 0.07 degree Celsius by 2050 -- an amount too small to make any difference and impossible
to verify because natural variability is far greater. Obviously, more stringent targets at Copenhagen would reduce the
temperature more, but not by much, especially if developing nations were still exempt from emissions reductions.
3. Developing nations refuse to accept emissions cuts--dooms the treaty

Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation, "U.N. Global Warming Treaty Process Still Off-Track in Bonn-and for Good Reason," WEBMEMO, 4-23-10, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/04/UN-Global-Warming-TreatyProcess-Still-Off-Track-in-Bonn-and-for-Good-Reason, accessed 9-4-12.
Developing nations blame the Westand particularly the United Statesfor emitting most of the carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere. For that reason, representatives of these nations have demanded that they remain
exempt from any obligations to reduce emissions. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol required 5 percent emissions reductions from
developed nation signatories based on 1990 baseline emissions. But the treaty left developing nations off the hook. Kyotos
provisions expire in 2012, and perhaps the single biggest controversy as the U.N. attempts to fashion a post-Kyoto treaty is the
treatment of the developing world. China, India, and other developing countries insist that they should maintain their
exemptions in any post-2012 deal. In addition, many have demanded substantial foreign aid packages to deal with the
consequences of warming. The developing world is correct that the West was the first to industrialize and is historically
responsible for most of the emissions, but this point is not relevant from a policy perspective. The reality looking forward is
that quickly developing nationschiefly Chinawill be responsible for the lions share of future emissions. In fact,
developing-world emissions surpassed those of the developed world in 2005 and are projected to rise at a rate seven times
faster in the decades ahead. China alone out-emits the U.S., and its emissions are projected to increase nine times faster through
2030. Thus, any new treaty to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol and provide post-2012 targets and timetables must either
include developing nations or be wholly ineffective in achieving the goal of emissions reductions. To its credit, the U.S.
delegation has been clear that a new agreement must have meaningful involvement from China and other high-emitting
developing nations. What emerged from Copenhagen, and is still true in Bonn, is that developing nations refuse to budge on
accepting targets and timetables for reducing emissions. In addition, many of these nations expect increased foreign aid from
the developed world and reacted angrily to suggestions from the U.S. delegation in Bonn that such aid be tied to accepting
obligations to reduce emissions. This impasse is unlikely to be narrowed in time for Cancun, if ever.
153
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Momentum / Inevitable

1. Uncertainty means we are better off investing in research, as opposed to making large, expensive cuts
Algird Leiga, PhD, Physical Chemistry, New York University, Case Is Not Closed on Man-Made Global Warming,
INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN, 61412, lexis.
It may be time to reconsider alternate variables, such as natural phenomena that could provide a better fit between theory and
fact. If the connection between carbon dioxide and global warming is in question, then it seems premature to save the Earth by
changing energy sources and massively restructuring our economy. In 1974 Time Magazine carried an extensive article titled
"Another Ice Age?" It seems odd that in the span of 40 years the predictions of global cooling and the onset of another ice age
have changed to a global warming catastrophe. Today we are thankful the world did not panic and take drastic action to
restructure our economy. Over the last 70 years well-meaning scientists told us that we are on the verge of the next ice age or
we will burn up from a warmer planet. Any overreaction to these dire predictions could create significant damage to our
economy. Climate change is a slow process measured in decades, so there is time to gather more data before deciding to cut out
conventional oil, coal and natural gas fuels. A premature massive financial investment replacing current energy sources with
poorly understood economics and technology of alternative energy sources will lead to a loss of competitive advantage for
businesses and higher expenses for everyone. Today a better approach is investment in research and development to create a
knowledge base for future economical and clean energy sources.
2. Energy suppression would impose enormous costs, provide little benefitshows that the precautionary
principle should not be applied to climate change
When applied to climate change, the precautionary principle - that we should assume the worst-case scenario is a possibility
and act accordingly - has the ring of logic to it. But what if, as seems likely, the world simply finds it impossible to reduce its
overall dependence on CO2-emitting fuels within the time frame being urged? "Numerous calculations show that the impacts
of these severe energy-suppression measures [the EU talks of reducing emissions by up to 90 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050]
would be too small to measure on the climate, but easy to measure in economic harm," Christy says. "Thus in a simple cost-tobenefit study, we find large costs but no benefits for CO2 reductions. "The precautionary principle is a false perspective ... This
higher cost reduces the standard of living, thus reducing the health, prosperity and opportunity for [most] people - unless you
are fortunate to be in a specific subsidised industry that government decides with taxpayer money to support." Bjorn Lomborg,
the Danish environmental economist and author of the book The Sceptical Environmentalist, has said that the brunt of the costs
of reducing global carbon emissions would be borne by developing countries, mainly in terms of having their dreams of
development thwarted. As he puts it: "Africans ask, 'How can you have a steel industry or a rail network based on solar
[energy]?'" Economists forecast a vastly more developed world 100 years hence - one in which poverty has all but been
eliminated.
3. Increase to 500ppm is already baked in the cake

Today's carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is 390 ppm and it's expected to hit 400 ppm within 10 years - a level not seen
since the Miocene era 14 to 20 million years ago, a time when there were no ice-caps and sea levels were 25-20 metres (80-130
feet) higher than they are today. That pretty much explains all the concern about melting Arctic ice and Greenland and
Antarctic icecaps. Their ice essentially makes up the difference. Global warming clearly means more water. And that's not the
worst of it: some estimates based on current trends suggest we'll see carbon dioxide levels hit as high as 500 ppm before efforts
to stop global warming begin showing up (there's a delay because the gas accumulates faster than it dissipates) and it drops to
about 450 ppm, hopefully less
4. The IPCC concedes that any action will still leave us warming for decades--momentum
The IPCC's Summary for Policymakers on the scientific basis for climate change, released in February 2007, concluded that
global surface temperature increased by 0.57-0.96C from the second half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the
twenty-first, with the rate accelerating to 0.10-0.16C per decade over the last 50 years. Eleven of the last 12 years rank among
the 12 warmest years since 1850. According to the IPCC report, warming will inevitably continue and raised temperatures will
persist for centuries, even with the best possible efforts at mitigation, since there is a lag between emissions and warming and
since important greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for decades to centuries.
154
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Momentum / Inevitable [contd]

5. Cuts now will only have a marginal effect on temperatures
Legislation," WEBMEMO, 8-3-09, www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/08/National-Security-Not-a-Good-Argumentfor-Global-Warming-Legislation, accessed 9-4-12.
Arguing that the law will make the world safer is deeply flawed. First, there are significant doubts that the cap-and-trade
system described in the 1,500-plus-page bill will even have a significant and positive impact on global climate trends.
According to climatologist Chip Knappenberger, Waxman-Markey would moderate temperatures by only hundredths of a
degree after being in effect for the next 40 years and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century. EPA
Administrator Lisa Jackson concurred, recently saying, "U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels." Additionally, the
impact of "managing" greenhouse gases on the environment also remains a subject of great controversy. For example, as
Senator Inhofe noted in a floor speech, S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Virginia, who served as the
first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and more recently as a member and vice chairman of the National Advisory
Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, said that "no one knows what constitutes a 'dangerous' concentration. There exists, as
yet, no scientific basis for defining such a concentration, or even of knowing whether it is more or less than current levels of
carbon dioxide."
6. Warming is inevitable, even if we cut emissions

Bill McKibben, Scholar in Residence, Middlebury College, Warning on Warming, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, 315-07, www.tomdispatch.com/post/167460/mckibben_the_real_news_about_global_warming, accessed 9-5-12.
The IPCC has always avoided taking political positions -- it doesn't recommend specific policies -- and it continues this
tradition with its new report. In its discussions of the momentum of climate change, however, it does introduce one particularly
disturbing statistic. Because of the time lag between carbon emissions and their effect on air temperature, even if we halted the
increase in coal, oil, and gas burning right now, temperatures would continue to rise about two tenths of a degree Celsius per
decade. But, the report writes, "if all radiative forcing agents [i.e., greenhouse gases] are held constant at year 2000 levels, a
further warming trend would occur in the next two decades at a rate of about 0.1C per decade." Translated into English, this
means, to put it simply, that if world leaders had heeded the early warnings of the first IPCC report, and by 2000 had done the
very hard work to keep greenhouse gas emissions from growing any higher, the expected temperature increase would be half as
much as is expected now. In the words of the experts at realclimate.org, where the most useful analyses of the new assessment
can be found, climate change is a problem with a very high "procrastination penalty": a penalty that just grows and grows with
each passing year of inaction.
7. Decades of warming is inevitable despite any emissions cuts

Andrew C. Revkin, journalist, Poor nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms, NEW YORK TIMES, 4-1-07,
The inequity of this whole situation is really enormous if you look at whos responsible and whos suffering as a result, said
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations climate panel. In its most recent report, in February, the panel said that
decades of warming and rising seas were inevitable with the existing greenhouse-gas buildup, no matter what was done about
cutting future greenhouse gas emissions.
8. Emissions cuts now will be inadequate to address climate change

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, staff editorial, Serious for a Change, 6-2-08, p. B2.
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin debating a bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Known as the Climate Security Act, it
is a serious response to global warming that is long overdue. The Senate debate comes on the heels of two official U.S.
government reports released over the past week. Both paint grim pictures of what lies in store as a result of human-caused
climate change. One predicts significant disruptions to agriculture, water supplies and U.S. ecosystems over the next 25 to 50
years. That relatively short time frame is significant. Even if emission reductions are put in place, the report's authors say, they
are unlikely to have a significant impact in such a short time. The report was prepared by the U.S. Climate Change Science
Program and was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
155
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Offsets (Forestry)

1. Non-tropical forest plantings trap more heat than their positive benefits on co2 levels, increasing
warming
Alok Jha, How Trees Might Not Be Green in Carbon Offsetting Debate, THE GUARDIAN, 4-10-07,
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/10/443, accessed 9-5-12.
It may have become the penance of choice for the environmentally conscious individual, but planting trees to offset carbon
emissions could contribute to global warming if they are planted outside the tropics, scientists believe. They argue that most
forests do not have any overall effect on global temperature but, by the end of the century, forests in the mid and high latitudes
could make their parts of the world more than 3C warmer than would have occurred if the trees did not exist. Govindasamy
Bala, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the US, has shown that only tropical rainforests are
beneficial in helping slow global warming. The problem is that while the carbon dioxide forests use for photosynthesis
indirectly helps cool the Earth by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, forests also trap heat from the
sunlight they absorb. Dr Bala and his colleague, Ken Caldeira of the department of global ecology at the Carneige Institute in
Standford, used a computer model to show that, outside a thin band around the equator, forests end up trapping more heat than
they help to get rid of through a cut in carbon dioxide. Planting trees above 50 degrees latitude - the equivalent of Scandinavia
or Siberia in the northern hemisphere - can also cover up tundra normally blanketed in heat-reflecting snow. The scientists said
that the results, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, are explained by the way in
which the suns rays are absorbed or reflected by different parts of the world. Forest canopies, being relatively dark, absorb
most of the suns heating rays that fall on them, warming the surface of the Earth all around. In contrast, grassland or
snowfields reflect a lot more of the suns rays back into space, keeping temperatures in open areas lower.
2. Forest offsets/plantings are a poor way to address climate changetoo transient

Alok Jha, How Trees Might Not Be Green in Carbon Offsetting Debate, THE GUARDIAN, 4-10-07,
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/10/443, accessed 9-5-12.
The results follow increasing criticism from climate scientists of the benefits of forestry schemes to offset carbon emissions.
Kevin Anderson, a scientist with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, warned recently that offsetting was a
dangerous delaying technique that helped people sleep well at night when we shouldnt sleep well at night. Environmental
groups have also been debating the issue. When Dr Balas preliminary findings were discussed at the American Geophysical
Unions annual meeting in San Francisco, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA said that the charity had always encouraged
limiting the number of trees which countries and firms use to mitigate climate change. What we see here is another reason to
limit this, he said. He added that forestry projects were difficult to manage. There are a lot of reasons why buying credits can
be very fleeting, from a consumer point of view. You dont know whats going to happen to your forest in 10 years. All that
effort you made to store that carbon can disappear in a heartbeat.
156
Mitigation Not Justified: Fails--Rebound Effect

1. Efficiency increases energy consumption because it lowers the implicit pricehistory proves
Robert Bryce, energy analyst, Energy Efficiency May Be a Good Thing, But It Wont Cut Energy Use, COUNTERPUNCH,
2--29--08, www.counterpunch.org/bryce02292008.html, accessed 9-5-12.
Those two sentences contain what may be the most important yet least understood concept in the energy business: energy
efficiency increases energy consumption. It's counterintuitive, and precious few energy analysts have bothered to investigate it.
That's why a new book, The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements, by John M. Polimeni, Kozo
Mayumi, Mario Giampetro, and Blake Alcott, should be welcomed and given wide attention. The authors waste little time in
explaining their thesis. On page 3 they state, "We aim to show that increased energy efficiency leads to increased demand and
consumption of energy." The book is one of several analyses that have been published in recent years that confirm Jevons's
findings. Horace Herring of Britain's Open University is among the world's leading experts on the paradox. In 1998 he
concluded that energy efficiency measures will, "by lowering the implicit price, result in increased, not decreased, energy use."
In 2003, Vaclav Smil, a polymath, author and distinguished professor of geography at the University of Manitoba, corroborated
Jevons's work in his book, Energy at the Crossroads. Smil wrote that history is "replete with examples demonstrating that
substantial gains in conversion (or material use) efficiencies stimulated increases of fuel and electricity (or additional material)
use that were far higher than the savings brought by these innovations."
2. Most comprehensive study proves the rebound effect

In 2005, Peter Huber and Mark Mills, in their provocative book, The Bottomless Well, declared that "Efficiency fails to curb
demand because it lets more people do more, and do it faster - and more/more/faster invariably swamps all the efficiency
gains." Last October, the U.K. Energy Research Centre published what it claims is one of the most comprehensive analyses of
the paradox. After a review of over 500 studies, the London-based outfit confirmed the existence of the Jevons Paradox (which
it calls the "rebound effect") and concluded that the "potential contribution of energy efficiency policies needs to be
reappraised."
3. U.S. experience proves that efficiency only increases energy demand

Polimeni looked at data from developed and underdeveloped countries. He notes that between 1960 and 2004, U.S. energy
intensity decreased by 113 percent, but overall energy consumption increased by 100 percent. His conclusion: "Energyefficient technology improvements are counterproductive, promoting energy consumption. Yet, energy efficiency
improvements continue to be promoted as a panacea." So what is to be done? First, we must accept the fact that efficiency
won't reduce consumption, but it can help reduce the rate of consumption growth. And for that reason alone, it should be
pursued.
157

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October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Table of Contents

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION JUSTIFIED

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION NOT JUSTIFIED

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Introduction

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Introduction [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Introduction [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Introduction [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Climate Ethics: Introduction [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Topshelf

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Topshelf [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Topshelf

2. Warming is realmultiple natural indicators and observed temperatures prove

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change RealTopshelf [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Topshelf [contd]

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Consensus

2. Naysayers are wrongdisproven by overwhelming evidence contained in 6000 studies

3. Warming is real98% of qualified scientists say so

4. Warming is realscientific consensus proves

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--Consensus [contd]

6. Consensus says its real and human-caused

8. Warming is real and human-causedscientific consensus proves

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics

Mitigation Justified: Climate Change Real--CO2 Causes

2. CO2 closely tracks with temperaturesrecent ice core data proves

3. CO2 drives climate change--post-Ice Age warming proves

Paradigm Research 2012-13

October Public ForumClimate Ethics