Offshore Wind AFFGKMS LabTable of ContentsOffshore Wind 1ac6Plan7Plan 28Plan 39Inherency (1ac)10Warming Advantage (1ac)11Soft Power Advantage (1ac)13Oceans Advantage (1ac)17Competitiveness Advantage (1ac)19Economy Advantage (1ac)23Energy Independence Advantage (1ac)26Solvency (1ac)29InherencyNo Offshore Wind Now32InherencyBackground Info on Cape Wind Project33InherencyFacts About the Turbines34Solvency Extensions35Offshore Wind Can Provide Enough Power36SolvencyPlan Done By Executive Order37SolvencyAT: Bureaucracy38SolvencyCoastal Zone Management Act Needed to Solve39SolvencyOffshore Provides Massive Renewable Energy40SolvencyPlan Solves41Public Trust Plan Solvency43Warming Advantage Extensions44Warming Coming Now45Warming is Anthropogenic46Warming: AT: Too Far Gone47Warming: Cant Adapt48Warming Kills Economy49Warming: Laundry List Impacts50Warming: Now Key52Warming: Ocean Acidification Add-On53Warming Causes Species Extinction54Warming: AT: Food Turn57Warming: AT: Oceans Check60WarmingMust Solve Now62Warming SolvencyOffshore Wind Solves Warming63Warming AdvantageWar Impact66Warming advantageExtinction Impact67Warming: AT: Models Bad69Warming: AT: Not Warming Now70Warming Hurts Economy73Economy Advantage Extensions74Recession Coming Now75Economy Solvency77Competitiveness Advantage Extensions80CompetitivenessUS behind in renewable energy now81Competitiveness Solvency83Protectionism = War85Oceans Advantage Extensions86OceansAT: Resiliency87OceansSolvency Extensions88Coral Reefs Key to Solve Extinction92Soft Power Advantage Extensions99Soft Power: AT: Hard Power Take-outs Turns100Soft Power Low Now101Soft Power Advantage Solvency102Soft Power Solves Laundry List103Soft Power Solves Terrorism105Soft Power Solvency106Soft Power: Disease Extensions107Soft Power: Proliferation Extensions108Soft Power: Terrorism Extensions109Energy Dependence Advantage Extensions110Energy Dependence Solvency Extensions111Disad Answers113AT: Bird Disad115AT: Environment DA118AT: Electricity Prices DA119AT: Intermittency122AT: Politics Disad123AT: Spending Disad125AT: Wind Requires Fossil Fuels126Counterplan Answers127States Counterplan Answers128States Cant Solve AFF: 1ar Extensions131State CP: 1ar: Federal jurisdiction132Permutation Extensions135Privates Counterplan Answers138Onshore Wind Counterplan Answers140Onshore Wind Doesnt Solve 1ar142NEPA Counterplan Answers145AT: Cars Counterplan147Negative148Disad Links150Politics Disad Links151Spending Disad Links152Counterplans153Onshore Wind CounterplanNet Benefit: Spending154Federalism Link156Privates CP157States Counterplan158States Counterplan Solvency Extensions159States Counterplan: Federal Control Bad161States CounterplanAT: Race to the Bottom162Solvency Neg163Wind power cant solve164Long Time-Frame165Birds Turn166Economy NEG167Warming NEG168

Offshore Wind 1acPlanThe United States federal government should provide an explicit mandate for offshore wind power development, require revisions in states Coastal Zone Management Plans in accordance with the mandate, and provide incentives for offshore wind power development.Plan 2The United States federal government should provide an explicit mandate for offshore wind power development, and require revisions in states Coastal Zone Management Plans in accordance with the mandate.Plan 3The United States federal government should remove barriers to offshore wind power.Inherency (1ac)(--) Offshore Wind Farms Could Supply Much of the U.S.'s Electricity but Isnt Being Implemented Now

Woody 5/8/14 (Todd, Offshore Wind Farms Could Supply Much of the U.S.'s Electricity (If They Ever Get Built) While Europe powers ahead, the U.S. government tries to jumpstart offshore wind technology. TODD WOODY is an environmental and technology journalist based in California. He has written for The New York Times and Quartz, and was previously an editor and writer at Fortune, Forbes, and Business 2.0 ZJN)

When I flew into Copenhagen in 2007, the jet passed over a gleaming array of white wind turbines arranged in a necklace in the citys harbor. Since then, Denmarks offshore wind farm building boom has continued. Last December, for instance, wind farms supplied more half the countrys electricity demand. In England, the London Array went online in 2012, its 175 turbines generating 630 megawatts of electricity from the Thames Estuary. The United States, on the other hand, is generating not a watt from commercial offshore wind farms, despite 80 percent of its electricity demand coming from coastal states, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In fact, the offshore wind capacity of the country has been estimated at 4 million megawatts, or four times the entire generating capacity of existing U.S. power plants. The nations first offshore project, Cape Wind, has been mired in litigation and bureaucratic red tape since 2001. Just on Friday, a federal judge dismissed the latest legal challenge to the 468-megawatt wind farm that would be built in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Great Energy Shift Part Two An Atlantic Special Report Read More The Energy Department took a small step on Wednesday, however, to spur offshore wind, awarding $47 million for three experimental projects to test new technology to take advantage of the strong winds that blow in coastal waters. A New Jersey company called Fishermens Energy scored cash to build five, 5-megawatt turbines three miles off Atlantic City. The project will test a twisted jack foundation, which is a new type of offshore platform that is cheaper to make and install than traditional platforms. On the West Coast, Seattle-based Principle Power will deploy five 6-megawatt turbines 18 miles off Coos Bay, Oregon, to test its semi-submersible floating wind turbine platform. Developing such technology is crucial if wind farms are going to be built in the deep waters off the West Coast, where anchoring platforms to the seabed would be prohibitively expensive. According to the Energy Department, more than 60 percent of the U.S.s offshore wind capacity is in the deep ocean. The Principle Power turbines, for example, will be installed in the ocean where depths reach 1,000 feet. Even further from shore, Dominion Virginia Power will test a hurricane-proof design for two 6-megawatt turbines and platforms to be built 26 miles off Virginia Beach as well as demonstrate the viability of installing, maintaining and operating projects so far from land. All the projects will deploy next-generation direct drive turbines from Alstom, Siemens and XEMC that use fewer moving parts than conventional geared turbines. Given the high cost of fixing turbines far from shore, the fewer breakable parts the better. The three projects selected today are aimed at deploying offshore wind installations in U.S. waters by 2017, the Energy Department said in a statement. But dont hold your breath.

Warming Advantage (1ac)The Earth is rapidly warming425 scientists from 57 countries have confirmed rapid warming is occurring nowwere near irreversible tipping points:

Tom Revell, 7/18/2014 (staff writer, Climates annual physical reveals record-breaking global warming, http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/07/18/climates-annual-physical-reveals-record-breaking-global-warming/, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

In 2013 almost all climate indicators high temperatures, rising sea levels, Arctic sea ice coverage were consistent with a globally warming planet, according to a comprehensive new report. The State of the Climate 2013 report, published on Thursday by the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 425 scientists from 57 countries. The 212-page document compared to a patients annual physical finds that almost all evidence suggests that the health of the climate is deteriorating. Average surface temperatures continued to rise. Independent datasets show 2013 was one of the warmest years since measurements began, with estimates placing it between the second and sixth hottest on record. In Australia, it proved to be the number one warmest year on record. Similar trends have also been confirmed in the oceans. Again, independent datasets identify 2013 as being in the top ten hottest years on record for sea surface temperatures. This warming extended to the Arctic, where sea ice extent recovered slightly from a record low in 2012 but was still at its sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. Driven by ice melt in the Arctic and elsewhere, global mean sea level continued to rise, increasing by 3.8 millimetres. These findings reinforce what scientists for decades have observed: that our planet is becoming a warmer place, said NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan. But perhaps most concerning of all is that the concentration of atmospheric carbon the greenhouse gas largely responsible for global warming reached a historically high global average of 395.3 parts per million (ppm) over 2013. April of this year proved to be the first month in human history in which levels of CO2 averaged at over 400 ppm, suggesting the trends observed in State of the Climate 2013 are only set to grow more severe. The take-home message here is that the planet its state of the climate is changing more rapidly in todays world than at any time in modern civilization, Tom Karl, director of NOAAs National Climatic Data Center, told Climate Central. If we want to do an analogy to human health, if we are looking at our weight gain and we are trying to maintain an ideal weight, we are continuing to see ourselves put on more weight from year to year, he said. Scientists fear that on our current trajectory, mankind will fail to limit global temperature rises to below 2C from pre-industrial times. Above this threshold, suggested by scientists and agreed by world leaders, experts believe irreversible tipping points will be set in motion.

New reports confirm: warming causes human extinction:

Greg Ansley (staff writer) 4/1/2014 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11229788, Academics warn human survival on the line, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

Leading Australian academics have warned that humans could face extinction from massive global health crises, plunging food production, and other damage inflicted on the Earth's life support system by climate change. Their warning follows the release yesterday of the latest report of the United Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which forecast a catastrophic future for the planet unless urgent action is taken. Australia was warned in the report of major declines in agricultural productivity, the death of the Great Barrier Reef, more severe heatwaves and bushfire seasons, and storms and flooding of increasing severity and intensity. But Australian National University Emeritus Professor Anthony McMichael, Canberra University Professor Colin Butler and Canberra University's Associate Dean, Research, Helen Louise Berry say the crucial impact on human life has been sidelined. At potential risk is the survival of the species. The three academics were contributors to the report on the impact of climate change on human health. "Public discussion has focused narrowly on a largely spurious debate about the basic science and on the risks to property, iconic species and ecosystems, jobs, the GDP and the economics of taking action versus taking our chances," they wrote in The Conversation. Waves broke over Porthcawl Harbour, South Wales, when the UK was battered by high winds and heavy rain in February. "Missing from the discussion is the threat climate change poses to Earth's life-support system - from declines in regional food yields, freshwater shortage, damage to settlements from extreme weather events and loss of habitable, especially coastal, land. "The list goes on: changes in infectious disease patterns and the mental health consequences of trauma, loss, displacement and resource conflict. "In short, human-driven climate change poses a great threat, unprecedented in type and scale, to well-being, health and perhaps even to human survival." They wrote that over the next few decades climate change would hit mainly in poorer and vulnerable communities already suffering high rates of illnesses such as under-nutrition and diarrhoeal disease. Researchers in many countries had already reported increases in heat-related illnesses and deaths, changes in the distribution of water-borne diseases and the insects that carry them, and reduced food yields. By 2100, when according to some computer models the planet will have warmed by an average 4C, "people won't be able to cope, let alone work productively, in the hottest parts of the year. "Some regions may become uninhabitable," they wrote. "Impacts on mental health could be similarly extreme, further limiting our collective capacity to cope, recover and adapt." The increasing frequency of extreme heatwaves and bushfires pose significant risks to life, property damage and the economy, with more frequent and intense flooding. But one of the report's lead authors, Macquarie University Professor Lesley Hughes, said action could still be taken to avoid the worst: "It's not all doom and gloom if we get a wriggle on and do a lot about it." "This is the critical decade to tackle the cause of climate change and stabilise the climate to avert the most serious risks." Report paints grim picture The negative effects of climate change are already beginning to be felt worldwide and yet countries are ill-prepared for the potentially immense effects on food security, water supplies and human health, the United Nations climate report has concluded. In the most comprehensive study yet into the effects of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that global warming could undermine economic growth and increase poverty. The IPCC found the negative effects of climate change have already extended beyond any potential benefits of rising temperatures. They will worsen if global-average temperatures continue to rise by the expected lower limit of 2C by 2100 and could become catastrophic if temperatures rise higher than 4C. In a blunt and often pessimistic assessment of climate-change effects, the fifth since 1990, the IPCC scientists give a stark warning about what the world should expect if global temperatures rise as predicted without mitigation or adaptation. "In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans," says the report released after a final meeting in Yokohama, Japan. It says climate-change effects this century are tipped to slow economic growth, make poverty tougher, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and "emerging hot spots of hunger". "Climate change is happening, there are big risks for everyone and no place in the world is immune from them," said Professor Neil Adger of Exeter University, one of the many lead authors of the report. Nearly 2000 experts from around the world contributed.

Offshore wind power mitigates the effects of warming:

Jeffrey THALER 12 Visiting Professor of Energy Policy, Law & Ethics, University of Maine School of Law and School of Economics (Jeff Thaler, FIDDLING AS THE WORLD BURNS: HOW CLIMATE CHANGE URGENTLY REQUIRES A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE PERMITTING OF RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS, Jeff Thaler University of Maine School of Law September 17, 2012 Environmental Law, Volume 42, Issue 4, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2148122, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

As noted in Part I, offshore wind energy projects have the potential to generate large quantities of pollutant-free electricity near many of the worlds major population centers, and thus to help reduce the ongoing and projected economic, health, and environmental damages from climate change. Wind speeds over water are stronger and more consistent than over land, and have a gross potential generating capacity four times greater than the nations present electric capacity.119 The net capacity factor120 for offshore turbines is greater than standard land-based turbines, and their blade-tip speeds are higher than their land-based counterparts.121 Offshore wind turbine substructure designs mainly fall into three depth categories: shallow (30 m or less), transitional (30 m to 60 m), and deep water ( greater than 60 m).122 Most of the grid-scale offshore wind farms in Europe have monopole foundations embedded into the seabed in water depths ranging from 5 m to 30 m;123 the proposed American projects such as Cape Wind in Massachusetts and Block Island in Rhode Island would likewise be shallowwater installations.124

Soft Power Advantage (1ac)The US failure to take the lead on climate change is undermining its soft power:

Joe Romm (staff writer) 4/5/2012 (U.S. Global Warming Denial Will Help China Overtake America, Experts Warn, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/05/456978/us-global-warming-denial-will-help-china-overtake-america-experts-say/, Accessed 7/27/2014)

Raven and biologist Paul R. Ehrlich co-invented the bedrock concept of co-evolution, in 1964. Raven tells ABC bluntly Its not a matter of conjecture anymore, he said. Climate change is the most serious challenge probably that the human race has ever confronted. Raven quickly summarized the virtually unanimous understanding of the worlds climate scientists and other responsible experts about the great upheavals manmade global warming is now producing. Blakemore has a great video interview of Raven in the now world-famous, immense and exquisite gardens that .. he had turned into an expansive vision of what a peaceful and balanced world could look like a sort of international botanical metaphor. Raven talks warming starting around 2:15: He slams denialism, as Blakemore explains: Americas Prestige Damaged by Its Climate Denialism; World Has Given Up on Hoped-for U.S. Leadership Two years ago, Raven added in his email, the world was hoping for U.S. leadership on this question, global climate change, and now it has pretty well given up, with us as the only hold-out nation on the science. An extensive disinformation campaign in the United States about the scientific solidity and gravity of manmade global warming has been described in detail by a number of academic analyses and extensive professional journalistic enquiry. For example, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, details how ideological, political and fossil fuel industry interests have been able to confuse and intimidate many leaders in legislature and media. Blakemore notes that other leading experts have made a similar warning of the risks posed to this country of allowing its science, climate, and energy policy to continue to be captured by the deniers: Also dovetailing with this and Peter Ravens assessment that the world has pretty much given up on American leadership in climate, Christiana Figueres, the head of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) used even stronger language, speaking of the tragedy of the U.S. position: The tragedy of the position that the U.S. is taking is that not only does it act here in a way that is not particularly ambitious, but the more tragic part about it is the U.S. is cutting off its possibilities to be a leader in this field, to be a leader in green technology (and thus) to create jobs, Figueres said. The U.S. is losing leadership to China. So we lose moral leadership which will become an increasing threat to our so-called soft power as the full impact of climate change begins to kick in over the coming decades and the world sees our intransigence as a major reason for inaction. And we lose the chance to be a leader in the single biggest job creating sector of this century carbon-reducing technologies and strategies.

Soft power is necessary to solve terrorism, proliferation, and disease:

Mark P. Lagon (International Relations and Security Chair at Georgetown University's Master of Science in Foreign Service Program) 2011 (The Value of Values: Soft Power Under Obama, Sept/Oct 2011, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/value-values-soft-power-under-obama)

Despite large economic challenges, two protracted military expeditions, and the rise of China, India, Brazil, and other new players on the international scene, the United States still has an unrivaled ability to confront terrorism, nuclear proliferation, financial instability, pandemic disease, mass atrocity, or tyranny. Although far from omnipotent, the United States is still, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called it, the indispensible nation. Soft power is crucial to sustaining and best leveraging this role as catalyst. That President Obama should have excluded it from his vision of Americas foreign policy assetsparticularly in the key cases of Iran, Russia, and Egyptsuggests that he feels the country has so declined, not only in real power but in the power of example, that it lacks the moral authority to project soft power. In the 1970s, many also considered the US in decline as it grappled with counterinsurgency in faraway lands, a crisis due to economic stagnation, and reliance on foreign oil. Like Obama, Henry Kissinger tried to manage decline in what he saw as a multipolar world, dressing up prescriptions for policy as descriptions of immutable reality. In the 1980s, however, soft power played a crucial part in a turnaround for US foreign policy. Applying it, President Reagan sought to transcend a nuclear balance of terror with defensive technologies, pushed allies in the Cold War (e.g., El Salvador, Chile, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines) to liberalize for their own good, backed labor movements opposed to Communists in Poland and Central America, and called for the Berlin Wall to be torn downover Foggy Bottom objections. This symbolism not only boosted the perception and the reality of US influence, but also hastened the demise of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. For Barack Obama, this was the path not taken. Even the Arab Spring has not cured his acute allergy to soft power. His May 20, 2011, speech on the Middle East and Northern Africa came four months after the Jasmine Revolution emerged. His emphasis on 1967 borders as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace managed to eclipse even his broad words (vice deeds) on democracy in the Middle East. Further, those words failed to explain his deeds in continuing to support some Arab autocracies (e.g., Bahrains, backed by Saudi forces) even as he gives tardy rhetorical support for popular forces casting aside other ones. To use soft power without hard power is to be Sweden. To use hard power without soft power is to be China. Even France, with its long commitment to realpolitik, has overtaken the United States as proponent and implementer of humanitarian intervention in Libya and Ivory Coast. When the American president has no problem with France combining hard and soft power better than the United States, something is seriously amiss.

Terrorism risks Extinction

Hellman 8 (Martin E. Hellman, emeritus prof of engineering @ Stanford, Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf)

The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the publics mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever. [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we cant live in a world where its anything but extremely low-probability. [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years, with 79 percent of the respondents believing it more likely to be carried out by terrorists than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, societys almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War IIs fatalities were double or triple that numberchaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagans belief that nuclear weapons were totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization. [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care millions of people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. further millions might eventually die of latent radiation effects. [OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessitynot an option.

Proliferation risks extinction:

David Wolfe (Director, Oppenheimer Institute for Science and International Co-operation), 11/13/2011 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/13/pragmatic-approaches-to-nuclear-proliferation, Accessed 8/3/2014, rwg)

I feel it necessary to respond to the naive letter from Tony Benn et al (Letters, 10 November). Nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to human survival ever invented. Benn is old enough, as am I, to remember that some 150,000 human beings were evaporated in August 1945. What is not generally realised is that the weapons used in Japan were mere firecrackers compared to what is available today. We must now consider the instantaneous deaths of millions. The cause of non-proliferation was greatly hampered by the lies of Bush and Blair over Iraq. But there is a real and increasing threat. There is no military need or use for the horrible instruments. Not from Israel, and certainly not from the UK, where 25bn is foolishly allocated for their renewal. Israel is the only country with such arms whose very existence has been threatened by Iran. And Iran has directly violated the non-proliferation treaty for decades, not years, as carefully documented by David Albright and colleagues at the Institute for Science and International Security. The poison of weapon development has spread from North Korea to Libya, even to Syria, all regimes with the blood of their citizens on their hands. It is proliferation that is the huge threat. Every country that develops these weapons represents a huge increase in the threat to civilisation. Every weapon produced increases the possibility of their use, whether on purpose, by accident, or by terrorism. It is unlikely that Iran's programme can be stopped, and military action is useless, stupid and counterproductive. But no country should be allowed such production with immunity. Some international actions, probably in the form of diplomatic pressure and sanctions, are called for. Illegality which threatens the survival of the human race cannot be allowed to proceed unhindered.

Diseases cause extinctionnew viruses are constantly emerging:

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, 2009 ( Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate#.U95moKNeJHQ, Accessed 8/3/2014, rwg)

In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIVs rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the viruss abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIVs use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a global influenza pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral strain which could only infect birds into a human-viable strain (10).

The plan allows for the US to demonstrate its leadership in renewable energy to mitigate climate change:

Jacqueline S. Rolleri (law degree, Roger Williams University) 2010 (Roger Williams University Law Review, Spring 2010, Lexis/Nexis, Accessed 7/22/14, rwg)

States like Rhode Island and Massachusetts will continue to push forward with the development of offshore wind farms, despite the unavoidable setbacks that have already occurred. The recent release of the MMS final rules is a sign that the federal government recognizes the urgent need to move away from conventional energy resources and move toward alternative renewable energy resources such as offshore wind farms. Several issues arising under the new legislation have been identified and must be improved upon if the United States is serious about becoming a global leader in the offshore wind energy industry. While an OZMP is one recommendation for how the federal government may attempt to streamline the regulatory process and [*247] plan for cumulative impacts, there are certainly other viable options that the government should take into consideration. Regardless of which regulatory scheme ultimately prevails, the United States should continue to push forward with the development of alternative renewable energy projects in order to meet future energy demands and help mitigate the detrimental effects of global warming.

Oceans Advantage (1ac)(--) The worlds oceans are on the verge of collapseresilience is being overcome:

Justin Gregg, 6/27/2014 (staff writer) (http://www.earthtouchnews.com/wildlife/oceans/new-report-says-our-oceans-are-dying-but-its-not-too-late-to-change-that, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

A new report from an independent commission warns that our oceans are on the verge of collapse. Human threats like overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution have grown at an unprecedented rate in recent decades, and will lead to the decimation of marine ecosystems unless immediate action is taken. "Benign neglect by the majority, and active abuse by the minority, have fuelled a cycle of decline," suggests the Global Ocean Commission in a report on ocean health published this week. The Commission, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts and based out of the University of Oxford, is headed by ocean experts and influential political leaders from around the globe. overfishing-infographic_2014_06_27 In the 1980s, 39% of fish species were classified as exploited, overexploited or collapsed. Three decades later, this number has spiked to 87%. Image: Global Ocean Commission. The problem of unsustainable fishing practices on the high seas is a focal point of the report. The so-called "freedom of the high seas", a doctrine enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, established an area of international waters that lies outside the jurisdiction of any one nation, and begins 200 nautical miles from shore. According to the Commission, the high seas, which constitute 64% of the world's oceans, are "being exploited by those with the money and ability to do so, with little sense of responsibility or social justice". The Commission is calling for world governments to take immediate action in stopping those industrial practices that pose the greatest threat to our oceans. "Unless we turn the tide on ocean decline within five years, the international community should consider turning the high seas into an off-limits regeneration zone until its condition is restored," suggested Jos Mara Figueres, co-chair of the Commission and former president of Costa Rica. Although there are a handful of regulations and agencies governing commercial access to the high seas, the Commission has outlined "serious gaps in the global ocean governance system" that "add up to a systemic weakness that allows threats such as illegal fishing and the destruction of marine biodiversity to continue". Perhaps the most worrying finding outlined in the report is the acceleration of the exploitation of these regulatory gaps, and the dramatic impact this is having on fish stocks. At the time the UN approved the Convention in the 1980s, 39% of fish species were classified as exploited, overexploited or collapsed. Three decades later, this number has spiked to 87%. This is partly due to technological innovation that has allowed the fishing, mining, and oil and gas industries to exploit what were once inaccessible areas of the oceans. The high seas, once protected by their inhospitable remoteness, have been systematically transformed into what Commission co-chair David Miliband has dubbed "plundered territory". The high seas, once protected by their inhospitable remoteness, have been systematically transformed into plundered territory. In an effort to rectify the damage caused by our "Wild West" approach to high seas resource management, the Global Ocean Commission has launched the Mission Ocean initiative. Their eight-part solution, intended to be rolled out over the next five years, aims to put a stop to overfishing, as well as clamp down on illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing around the globe. They aim to close regulatory gaps through robust enforcement of current international agreements and establish binding environmental standards for offshore oil and gas industries. Although much of the report focuses on the kinds of things that must be done by international regulatory bodies in order to save our oceans, there is one area where the average citizen can play a role: the reduction of plastic in our oceans. According to the report, "plastics are by far the most abundant and problematic type of marine debris". Recent reports suggest that plastic waste causes $13 billion in damage to marine ecosystems each year. Reducing our reliance on plastics something that individuals can do on a daily basis is a simple step all of us can take to halt our rush toward marine collapse.

Collapse of marine ecosystems causes extinction

CRAIG 03 - Associate Dean for Environmental Programs @ Florida State University [Robin Kundis Craig, ARTICLE:Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii, McGeorge Law Review, Winter 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity.[*265]Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world.

Multiple recent studies confirm offshore wind benefit marine ecology and bolster marine biodiversity:

Casey 12 (Zo, 12/4/14, Offshore wind farms benefit sealife, says study, http://www.ewea.org/blog/2012/12/offshore-wind-farms-benefit-sealife-says-study/, Senior Communication Officer and Blog Editor for European Wind Energy Association, mls)

Offshore wind farms can create a host of benefits for the local marine environment, as well as combatting climate change, a new study by the Marine Institute at Plymouth University has found. The Marine Institute found that wind farms provide shelter to fish species since sea bottom trawling is often forbidden inside a wind farm, and it found that turbine support structures can create artificial reefs for some species. A separate study at the Nysted offshore wind farm in Denmark confirmed this finding by saying that artificial reefs provided favourable growth conditions for blue mussels and crab species. A study on the Thanet offshore wind farm in the UK found that some species like cod shelter inside the wind farm. One high-profile issue covered by the Marine Institute study was that of organisms colliding with offshore wind turbines. The study, backed-up by a number of previous studies, found that many bird species fly low over the water, avoiding collision with wind turbine blades. It also found that some species, such as Eider ducks, do modify their courses slightly to avoid offshore turbines. When it comes to noise, the study found no significant impact on behaviour or populations. It noted that a separate study in the Netherlands found more porpoise clicks inside a Dutch wind farm than outside it perhaps exploiting the higher fish densities found. The study also said that offshore wind power and other marine renewable energies should be rolled out rapidly in order to combat the threats to marine biodiversity, food production and economies posed by climate change. It is necessary to rapidly deploy large quantities of marine renewable energy to reduce the carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning which are leading to ocean acidification, global warming and climatic changes, the study published said. EWEA forecasts that 40 GW of offshore wind capacity will be online in European seas by 2020 which will offset 102 million tonnes of CO2 every year. By 2030, the expected 150 GW of offshore capacity will offset 315 million tonnes of CO2 annually thats a significant contribution to the effort to cut carbon. It is clear that the marine environment is already being damaged by the increasingly apparent impacts of climate change; however it is not too late to make a difference to avoid more extreme impacts, the study said. If you bring all these studies together they all point to a similar conclusion: offshore wind farms have a positive impact on the marine environment in several ways, said Angeliki Koulouri, Research Officer at EWEA. First they contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions, the major threat to biodiversity, second, they provide regeneration areas for fish and benthic populations, she added.

Competitiveness Advantage (1ac)US competitiveness is on a downward slide in the status quo:

Michael Porter, professor @ Harvard Business School, March 2012 (http://hbr.org/2012/03/the-looming-challenge-to-us-competitiveness/ar/1, The Looming Challenge to U.S. Competitiveness, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

The American economy is clearly struggling to recover from a recession of unusual depth and duration, as we are reminded nearly every day. But the United States also faces a less visible but more fundamental challenge: a series of underlying structural changes that could permanently impair Americas ability to maintain, much less raise, the living standards of its citizens. If government and business leaders react only to the downturn and fail to confront Americas deeper challenge, they will revive an economy with weak long-term prospects. During the past year, we have examined U.S. competitiveness with the help of a diverse group of scholars, business leaders from around the world, and the first-ever comprehensive survey of Harvard Business School alumni. Our research suggests that the U.S. faces serious challenges. Too often, Americas leaders, in government and business, have acted in ways that neutralize the countrys many strengths. However, the decline of U.S. competitiveness is far from inevitable. The United States remains the worlds most productive large economy and its largest market for sophisticated goods and services, which stimulates innovation and acts as a magnet for investment. To restore its competitiveness, America needs a long-term strategy. This will require numerous policy changes by government, which may seem unlikely with Washington gridlocked. However, many of the crucial steps can and must be carried out by states and regions, where many of the key drivers of competitiveness reside. More important, business leaders can and must play a far more proactive role in transforming competition and investing in local communities rather than being passive victims of public policy or hostages of misguided shareholders. What Is Competitiveness? America cannot address its economic prospects without a clear understanding of what we mean by competitiveness and how it shapes U.S. prosperity. The concept is widely misunderstood, with dangerous consequences for political discourse, policy, and corporate choices that are all too evident today. The United States is a competitive location to the extent that companies operating in the U.S. are able to compete successfully in the global economy while supporting high and rising living standards for the average American. (We thank Richard Vietor and Matthew Weinzierl for helping to articulate this definition.) A competitive location produces prosperity for both companies and citizens. Lower American wages do not boost U.S. competitiveness. Neither does a cheaper dollar. A weakened currency makes imports more expensive and discounts the price of American exportsin essence, it constitutes a national pay cut. Some steps that reduce firms short-term costs, then, actually work against the true competitiveness of the United States. Whether a nation is competitive hinges instead on its long-run productivitythat is, the value of goods and services produced per unit of human, capital, and natural resources. Only by improving their ability to transform inputs into valuable products and services can companies in a country prosper while supporting rising wages for citizens. Increasing productivity over the long run should be the central goal of economic policy. This requires a business environment that supports continual innovation in products, processes, and management.

Declines in competitiveness cause protectionism:

Georgios Georgiadis, European Central Bank, 6/10/2013 (Growth, Competitiveness and Trade Protectionism During the Great Recession, http://www.uibcongres.org/imgdb/archivo_dpo12975.pdf, Accessed 7/27/2014)

This paper investigates the effect of domestic and affected trading partner's growth as well as competitiveness on trade policies of G20 economies for the time period during the Great Recession. Using a comprehensive dataset on trade policies provided by the Global Trade Alert, we consider a wide array of trade barriers which stretch be- yond traditional dimensions of protectionism, in particular \murky" measures (such as state aid measures involving local content requirements) which have been quan- titatively important during the Great Recession. Despite the observed restraint in trade protectionism, we find that the relationship between domestic growth, compet- itiveness and trade protectionism documented for the decades prior to the financial crisis continued to hold during the Great Recession: Countries tended to pursue more trade-restrictive policies when they experienced recessions and/or when their com- petitiveness deteriorated. Moreover, we find that this relationship continued to hold even when non-traditional, \murky" protectionism is taken into account in addition to traditional trade policies such as tariff and trade defence measures. Regarding dif- ferences in the recourse to trade protectionism across countries, we find that (i) trade policies of G20 advanced economies responded more strongly to changes in domestic growth and competitiveness than those of G20 emerging market economies, and that (ii) G20 economies' trade policies vis-a-vis other G20 economies were less responsive to changes in competitiveness than those pursued vis-a-vis non-G20 economies.

Protectionism will lead to terrorism, genocide, world war, and extinction.

Panzner (faculty at the New York Institute of Finance) 2008 (faculty at the New York Institute of Finance, 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets who has worked in New York and London for HSBC, Soros Funds, ABN Amro, Dresdner Bank, and JPMorgan Chase (Michael, Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse, Revised and Updated Edition, p. 136-138, googlebooks)

Continuing calls for curbs on the flow of finance and trade will inspire the United States and other nations to spew forth protectionist legislation like the notorious Smoot-Hawley bill. Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it triggered a series of tit-for-tat economic responses, which many commentators believe helped turn a serious economic downturn into a prolonged and devastating global disaster, But if history is any guide, those lessons will have been long forgotten during the next collapse. Eventually, fed by a mood of desperation and growing public anger, restrictions on trade, finance, investment, and immigration will almost certainly intensify. Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-border movement of Americans and outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for a general crackdown on nonessential travel. Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting or sending funds to other countries exceedingly difficult. As desperate officials try to limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and reckless policies, they will introduce controls on foreign exchange, foreign individuals and companies seeking to acquire certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property and other assets on the (heap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be stymied by limits on investment by noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms to ripple across economies and markets, disrupting global payment, settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course, continue to undermine business confidence and consumer spending.In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next by tourists and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly. The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such tensions will give rise to full-scale military encounters, often with minimal provocation. In some instances, economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap technology and the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more healed sense of urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an "intense confrontation" between the United States and China is "inevitable" at some point. More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal acts. Terrorists employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings of a new world war.

Wind energy will bolster US competitiveness:

David Kashi, 7/22/2013 (staff writer, The US Department Of The Interior Announced Plans To Increase Wind Energy, http://www.ibtimes.com/us-department-interior-announced-plans-increase-wind-energy-1355929, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

The U.S. Department of the Interior, or DOI, announced the nations second offshore wind energy lease sale off the coast of Virginia, the DOI said in a press release Monday. The competitive lease sale offshore Virginia will mark an important transition from planning to action when it comes to capturing the enormous clean energy potential offered by Atlantic wind, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said. Responsible commercial wind energy development has the potential to create jobs, increase our energy security and strengthen our nations competitiveness.

Economy Advantage (1ac)US recession is coming now:

Toledo Blade, 7/27/2014 (Sluggish growth to weigh down American economy, economist predicts, http://www.toledoblade.com/Economy/2014/07/27/Sluggish-growth-to-weigh-down-American-economy-economist-predicts.html, Accessed 8/3/2014, rwg)

Thats the view of David Levy, who oversees the Levy Forecast, a newsletter analyzing the economy that his family started in 1949 and one with an enviable record. Nearly a decade ago, the now 59-year-old economist warned that U.S. housing was a bubble set to burst, and the damage would push the country into a recession so severe the Federal Reserve would have to slash short-term borrowing rates to their lowest levels ever to stimulate the economy. Thats exactly what happened. Now, Mr. Levy says the United States is likely to fall into a recession next year triggered by downturns in other countries, the first time in modern history. The recession for the rest of the world ... will be worse than the last one, says Mr. Levy, whose grandfather called the 1929 stock crash and whose father won praise over decades for anticipating turns in the business cycle, often against conventional wisdom. Mr. Levys forecast for a global recession is extreme, but its worth considering given how much is riding on the dominant view that economies are healing. Investors have pushed U.S. stocks to record highs, and Fed estimates have the United States growing at an annual pace of at least 3 percent for the rest of the year and all of 2015. Investors also have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into emerging market stock funds recently on hopes economic growth in those countries will pick up, not stall. Worrisome signs are out there. Unlike their U.S. counterparts, European banks are stuck with too many bad loans from the financial crisis. Business debt is too high. And confidence is fleeting, as investors saw earlier this month when stocks sold off on worries over the stability of Portugals largest bank. In China and other emerging markets, the problem of relying on indebted Americans to buy more of their goods each year and not selling enough to their own people means a glut of underused factories. The world hopes to ride on the coattails of the U.S. consumer, says Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, but the U.S. consumer isnt in a position to take on the burden. Emerging markets bounced back faster from the financial crisis than did rich countries, but Mr. Levy thinks a big reason for that has made things worse. Overseas companies poured money into factories, machines, and buildings to make things on the assumption that exports, after snapping back from recession lows, would continue to grow at their prior pace. They have not, because companies had been investing too much to expand production before the crisis too. You build factories and stores, and they cant pay for themselves, says Mr. Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, a consulting firm. Businesses cant generate profits, and they start to contract. Compared to such fragile economies, Mr. Levy says the United States is in decent shape. Like most economists, hes not worried about the nations 2.9 percent drop in economic output in the first quarter. He expects growth to return, but not for long, as a recession in Europe or emerging markets spreads to the United States. Mr. Levy says the United States is more vulnerable to troubles abroad than people realize. Exports contributed 14 percent of U.S. economic output last year, up from 9 percent in 2002. That sounds good, but it also makes the country more dependent on global growth, which, in turn, relies more on emerging markets. Those markets accounted for 50 percent of global output last year, up from 38 percent in 2002. Mr. Levy predicts a U.S. recession will throw its housing recovery in reverse and push home prices below the low in the last recession. He says panicked investors are likely to dump stocks and flood into U.S. Treasurys, a haven in troubled times, like never before. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite to its price, is likely to fall from 2.5 percent to less than 1 percent an unprecedented low. In 2012, when investors feared a breakup of the euro-currency bloc, the 10-year yield fell to 1.4 percent.

Economic decline causes war studies prove

Royal 10 (Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent stales. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (20081 advances Modclski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 19SJ) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fcaron. 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states arc likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Mom berg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write. The linkage, between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict lends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other (Hlomhen? & Hess. 2(102. p. X9> Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blombcrg. Hess. & Wee ra pan a, 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blombcrg. Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force arc at least indirecti) correlated. Gelpi (1997). Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that Ihe tendency towards diversionary tactics arc greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked lo an increase in the use of force. In summary, rcccni economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict al systemic, dyadic and national levels.' This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.

Offshore wind will turn the US into a massive economic powerhouse:

Sargent, 9/13/12 [Rob Sargent, U.S. Poised to Join the Race on Offshore Wind: Lawmakers Must Commit to More Pollution-Free Energy, http://www.environmentamerica.org/news/ame/us-poised-join-race-offshore-wind]

The Turning Point for Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy includes details on the key milestones each Atlantic Coast state and along with the wind potential and the economic benefits. Among the highlights of the report: Offshore wind energy will be an economic powerhouse for America. Harnessing the 52 gigawatts of already-identified available Atlantic offshore wind energy just 4 percent of the estimated generation potential of this massive resource could generate $200 billion in economic activity, create 300,000 jobs, and sustain power for about 14 million homes. (Europe already produces enough energy from offshore wind right now to power 4 million homes.) America is closer than ever to bringing offshore wind energy ashore. Efforts are underway in 10 Atlantic Coast states, with over 2,000 square nautical miles of federal waters already designated for wind energy development off of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Environmental reviews finding no significant impacts have been completed, and leases are expected to be issued for some of these areas by the end of the year. Despite this progress, leadership is urgently needed at both the state and federal level to ensure offshore wind energy becomes a reality in America: President Obama should set a clear national goal for offshore wind energy development, and each Atlantic state governor should also a set goal for offshore wind development off their shores. These goals must be supported by policies that prioritize offshore wind energy and other efforts to secure buyers for this new source of reliable, clean energy.

Energy Independence Advantage (1ac)The US is heavily dependent on foreign energy sources:

Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, 7/20/2014 (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20140721/NEWS05/307210006/Don-Briggs-Support-oil-gas-bolster-U-S-security)

Why does the current instability in Iraq cause our gas prices to jump? Why should anything going on in Libya affect the United States energy market? One simple reason: The United States has been dependent on foreign resources for several decades. Our dependence has not been on just any ol country. Specifically, we have been dependent on the Organization of Exporting Countries for our yearly imports of petroleum. To be more specific, the latest data from the United States Energy Information Administration shows that we imported 5.83 million barrels of petroleum a day from OPEC countries or 55 percent of our net imports for 2012. This fact quickly answers the previous question of why our market is disrupted by Middle Eastern instability. Naturally, looking at this data, it would be accurate to say that energy independence needs to occur sooner than later. Although this is an accurate statement, the broader scope of energy security cannot be ignored. No one would argue that the United States is a world super power. However, as instability continues in the Middle East, and the demand for natural resources in America grows, an obvious tie between our power and our natural resource stability can be seen. As the oil and natural gas supply increases with each new day here in the United States, it is vital that our federal government and our individual states recognize the importance of free enterprise. Rather than hamper new development and exploration, our nation should be doing everything possible to encourage new oil and gas business. Will oil and gas be the fuel of the future? Authorities on all fronts argue this issue daily. For today, oil and natural gas are the leading fuels that literally power our country. Petroleum products can be found in nearly any item you pick up. What are the tangibles of energy security? For starters, the U.S. Department of Defense relies on petroleum for more than 75 percent of its needs. Another example of energy security is the fact that nearly every farming and manufactured food and household product is made through the use of petroleum. Just as Russia has done with the Ukraine by cutting off natural gas supplies, similarly, if Saudi Arabia decided to diminish their imports to the United States, immediate chaos would be thrown into the U.S. trade market. What is the solution to achieving energy independence and security? The United States is on the right path. Developing our own technologies and our own natural resources will only speed up the process of establishing our long-term energy security. The ripple effect, however, on our energy security and independence starts small. For example, when a local or parish/county government overregulates or prohibits oil and gas operations, even this action decelerates our long-term safety and strength as a nation.

(--) Continued energy dependence risks multiple scenarios for war:

Mark E. Rosen, 2010 (Deputy General Counsel, CNA Corporation), University of Richmond Law Review, March 2010 44 U. Rich. L. Rev. 977, ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING TO ACT.

There is a growing consensus in U.S. national security circles that American dependence on imported oil constitutes a threat to the United States because a substantial portion of those oil reserves are controlled by governments that have historically pursued policies inimical to U.S. interests. For example, Venezuela, which represents eleven percent of U.S. oil imports, "regularly espouses anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric both at home and abroad ... [and] ... promotes ... [an] anti-U.S. influence in parts of Latin and South America ..." n72 that retards the growth of friendly political and economic ties among the United States, Venezuela, and a few other states in Latin and South America. This scenario plays out in many different regions. Russia, for example, has used its oil leverage to exert extreme political pressure upon Ukraine and Belarus. n73 Longstanding Western commercial relations with repressive regimes in the Middle East - i.e., Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia - raise similar issues because of the mixed strategic messages that are being sent. Of course, large wealth [*989] transfers have allowed the Taliban in Saudi Arabia to bankroll terrorism. n74 A. Chokepoints and Flashpoints For the foreseeable future, the U.S. military will most likely be involved in protecting access to oil supplies - including the political independence of oil producers - and the global movements of using oil to help sustain the smooth functioning of the world economy. The security challenges associated with preserving access to oil are complicated by geographical "chokepoints," through which oil flows or is transported, but which are vulnerable to piracy or closure. n75 "Flashpoints" also exist as a result of political - and sometimes military - competition to secure commercial or sovereign access to oil in the face of disputed maritime and land claims that are associated with oil and gas deposits. Together, these challenges have necessitated that the United States and its allies maintain costly navies and air forces to protect sea lanes, ocean access, and maintain a presence to deter military competition in disputed regions. A selection of today's chokepoints and flashpoints follow. The Strait of Hormuz. This strait is the narrow waterway that allows access from the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf. Two-thirds of the world's oil is transported by ocean, and a very large percentage of that trade moves through Hormuz. The northern tip of Oman forms the southern shoreline of the strait. n76 Hormuz is protected by the constant transits of the U.S. Navy and its allies. Even though the strait has not been closed, the Persian Gulf has been the scene of extensive military conflict. n77 On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, initiating an eight-year war between the two countries that featured the "War of the Tankers," in which 543 ships, including the USS Stark, were attacked, while the U.S. Navy provided escort services to protect tankers [*990] that were transiting the Persian Gulf. n78 There have been past threats by Iran to militarily close the strait. n79 Additionally, there are ongoing territorial disputes between the United Arab Emirates and Iran over ownership of three islands that are located in approaches to the strait. n80 Closure of the strait would cause severe disruption in the movements of the world's oil supplies and, at a minimum, cause significant price increases and perhaps supply shortages in many regions for the duration of the closure. n81 During the War of the Tankers, oil prices increased from $ 13 per barrel to $ 31 a barrel due to supply disruptions and other "fear" factors. n82 Bab el-Mandeb. The strait separates Africa (Djibouti and Eritrea) and Asia (Yemen), and it connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. The strait is an oil transit chokepoint since most of Europe's crude oil from the Middle East passes north through Bab el-Mandeb into the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. n83 Closure of the strait due to terrorist activities or for political/military reasons, could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal and Sumed Pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). n84 This would add greatly to transit time and cost, and would effectively tie-up spare tanker capacity. Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb would effectively block non-oil shipping from using the Suez Canal. n85 In October 2002 the French-flagged tanker Limburg was attacked off the coast of Yemen by terrorists. n86 During the [*991] Yom Kippur War in 1973, Egypt closed the strait as a means of blockading the southern Israeli port of Eilat. n87 The Turkish Straits and Caspian Oil. The term "Turkish Straits" refers to the two narrow straits in northwestern Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which connect the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea on one side and the Aegean arm of the Mediterranean Sea on the other. Turkey and Russia have been locked in a longstanding dispute over passage issues involving the Turkish Straits. n88 The 1936 Montreux Convention puts Turkey in charge of regulating traffic through the straits; n89 yet Turkey has been hard pressed to stop an onslaught of Russian, Ukrainian, and Cypriot tankers, which transport Caspian Sea oil to markets in Western Europe. n90 Because of the very heavy shipping traffic and very challenging geography, there have been many collisions and groundings in the past, creating terrible pollution incidents and death. n91 Thus far, none of these incidents have been attributed to state-on-state-conflict or terrorism; n92 however, the confined waterway is an especially attractive target because of the grave economic and environmental damage that would result from a well-timed and well-placed attack on a loaded tanker. The issues surrounding the straits are also a subset of larger problems associated with the exploitation of Caspian oil, including severe pollution of the Caspian Sea as a result of imprudent extraction techniques, as well as the ever-present potential for conflict among the various claimants to the Caspian's hydrocarbon resources due to an inability of the various Caspian littoral states to agree on their maritime boundaries - and their [*992] legal areas in which to drill. n93 Any one of these problems could become a major flashpoint in the future. China vs. Japan. The Daiyu/Senkaku islands located in the East China Sea have become an increasingly contentious dispute because both claimants have, in the past, used modern military platforms to patrol the areas of their claims in which there are suspected oil and gas deposits in the seabed. n94 In September 2005, for example, China dispatched five warships to disputed waters surrounding its oil and gas platforms, which were spotted by a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft. n95 There have been other similar military-to-military encounters. n96 Given the fact that both countries have modern armed forces and are comparatively energy starved, it is not difficult to envision serious conflict erupting over these disputed areas. The Arctic Super Highway. Traditionalists would probably not include the Arctic as a security chokepoint. The oil connection is reasonably well known: "22 percent of the world's undiscovered energy reserves are projected to be in the region (including 13 percent of the world's petroleum and 30 percent of natural gas)." n97 However, given the very small margins that transporters earn transporting oil from point A to B, n98 shipping companies are always in search of shorter routes to transport oil to market. As the thawing of the Arctic Ocean continues as a result of climate change, n99 this may create new shipping routes that transporters of [*993] oil and other goods will use to maximize their profits and minimize their transit times. As supplies of readily exploitable crude oil are reduced, the probability increases that some of this trade will result from exploitation activities in the land and littoral areas adjacent to the Arctic Sea. This development is concerning for a number of reasons: (1) the area is very remote and could provide a safe haven to pirates seeking to hijack cargoes; (2) the environmental sensitivity of the area, and the concomitant difficulty of mounting a cleanup effort, means that an oil spill in that marine environment will be much more persistent than an oil spill in temperate waters; n100 (3) the Arctic presents unique navigational difficulties due to the lack of good charts, navigational aids, and communications towers, as well as the impacts of extreme cold on the operational effectiveness of systems; n101 (4) the unsettled nature of claims by various countries, including the United States, to the seabed continental shelf resources in the littoral areas off their coastlines creates the potential for military competition and conflict over these claims. n102 The International Maritime Organization ("IMO") is now circulating draft guidelines for ships operating in Arctic areas to promote - but not require - ship hardening against an iceberg strike, better crew training, and environmental protection measures. n103 These guidelines are merely advisory and can only be implemented via the flag states. n104 Also, neither IMO nor any of the UN Law of the Sea Institutions have mandatory jurisdiction over any of the flashpoint issues relating [*994] to competing continental shelf claims in the Arctic, n105 meaning that any disputes will remain unresolved for a long time. The above is only a selected list of potential flashpoints in which oil is the main culprit. Disputes between China and six other nations of the Spratly Islands, and other territories in the South China Sea, remain unresolved.

Offshore wind power creates energy independence:

Peter J. Schaumberg and Angela F. Colamaria 2009 (former Deputy Associate Solicitor for the Division of Mineral Resources & former senior career attorney responsible for mineral development matters, Roger Williams University Law Review, Summer 2009, Accessed 7/27/2014, rwg)

Renewable energy opportunities on the OCS are a key component to securing this Nation's energy independence. The offshore wind energy sector, in particular, has grown exponentially worldwide. Opportunities for development on the OCS will likely accelerate the pace of that expansion. In addition, recent experience with high energy prices and the instability associated with dependence on foreign sources of supply are creating opportunities for developers to initiate projects on the OCS with newer technologies, such as tidal, wave, and thermal energy. The OCS final rules are important in that they create the potential for renewable energy to displace a portion of U.S. fossil fuel use. Such a shift will generate environmental benefits, reduce U.S. dependence on foreign sources of energy, and create new renewable energy jobs.

Solvency (1ac)(--) The plan is necessary to bolster support for offshore wind power in the United States:

Erica Schroeder, J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, 2010 (California Law Review, 2010, Turning Offshore Wind On, http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu /cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=californialawreview; Accessed 7/21/2014, rwg)

C. Suggested Revisions to the CZMA Despite its ineffectiveness to date, the CZMA has great potential to serve as a framework for offshore wind power development. With some simple but clear revisions that could enhance federal influence, mimicking Denmark's stronger centralized control of energy development, the CZMA could be used to mandate offshore wind power-friendly CZMPs where applicable. At the same time, the Act will continue to uphold the federalism values ingrained in the management of coastal resources in the United States. These revisions should be: To include an explicit mandate for offshore wind power development where appropriate and feasible on all U.S. coasts; To require revisions to CZMPs in accordance with this new mandate and To increase funding and other incentives for offshore wind power development. Revising the CZMA is not a new idea for Congress. For example, during the Cape Wind federal jurisdiction saga, Cong. William D. Delahunt (D-MA) proposed a set of revisions to the CZMA 2 5 7 in response to the Cape Wind federal jurisdiction confusion. 2 5 8 Although these did not pass, 2 5 9 and focused on agency jurisdiction over offshore wind rather than the promotion of offshore wind, the proposal at least demonstrates some willingness in Congress to take on the idea of revising the CZMA. Indeed, the CZMA has been amended in the 260 past, for example to encourage aquaculture. In a promising sign of state willingness to cooperate in coastal management, Massachusetts and fifteen other states participated in MMS's initial Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) process, which 261 was MMS's effort to determine how to address offshore wind permitting. Several commenters in the process, including representatives of state agencies, urged MMS to coordinate with state authorities in finding suitable locations for 262 offshore wind facilities. More recently, Massachusetts's Ocean Management Plan explicitly suggests coordination with MMS for offshore renewable energy 263 siting. 1. Mandate Offshore Wind Power Development Although the United States has evolved a fundamentally different approach to coastal management from Denmark, revisions to the CZMA should shift our national approach toward increased, centralized influence and coordination that has worked so effectively in that country. Currently the CZMA recognizes the potential importance of offshore energy development and requires the consideration of the development of energy facilities that "are of greater than local significance" in state plans. 2 64 These vague standards are not sufficient, however, as evidenced by the failure of offshore wind power development in the United States, and in Cape Wind in particular. The CZMA should be revised to include an explicit mandate to states to permit, and possibly even to promote, offshore wind energy and other renewable energy development in appropriate locations. The term "development" should broadly encompass generation facilities as well as transmission lines and other works required to allow facilities to operate effectively. While it is important for states to continue to respond to local concerns and negative impacts, the federal government needs a stronger voice in favor of the national interest in offshore wind power development. This new mandate would not have a detrimental effect on the federal government's broad goal of environmental protection. It would not give offshore wind power developers a right to develop anywhere off the coast, but it would push development in locations that are appropriate environmentally. Along with studies relating to optimal coastal development conditions, for example, wind pattern studies, MMS's PEIS could serve as a useful starting point in defining what "appropriate locations" should entail. The PEIS examines "the potential environmental consequences of implementing the [Alternative Energy and Alternate Use Program on the OCS] and will be used ,,265 to establish initial measures to mitigate environmental consequences. Individual projects would almost certainly still require individual EISs under NEPA, which would further ensure environmentally appropriate offshore renewable development. In fact, NEPA would effectively serve as a backstop to the development that a revised CZMA would encourage, as it would discourage or prohibit environmentally harmful overdevelopment. This revision to the CZMA could change how coastal states treat offshore wind power development in two ways. First, it would require changes to many states' CZMPs to reflect the new national priority for offshore renewable energy sources, including offshore wind. Second, the new CZMA mandate would affect how states approach the federal consistency review process with respect to renewable permitting and construction in state and federal waters.266 The federal government would likely certify offshore wind projects as consistent with states' revised CZMPs because development of offshore renewable energy would be an explicit goal in the states' CZMPs under the revised CZMA. Similarly, states would less frequently be able to object to these determinations, because they would have difficulty