2014 ndi – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative
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- Drilling kills the environment – Chemicals, seismic waves, infrastructure, and oil spills – assumes improves and safety measures
- Weak regulation of deepwater oil and gas production is a major risk to overall ocean health and biodiversity
- Offshore exemptions risk mass ocean extinction
- 2NC Seismic Waves module
- Spills over to cascading biodiversity loss
- 2NC Spills Impact Module
- Resiliency does not apply to Gulf Coast ecosystems—another spill will destroy marine biodiversity.
- Each instance increases the risk of extinction- evaluate linear risk of net benefit
- The net benefit accesses the case and not the other way around---environmental degradation is the root cause of all conflict
- Eco collapse causes extinction
- AT: Technology Has Changed
- Most recent evidence concludes that there is still a risk – even if safety measures are in place accidents can still occur – that’s southern environment law.
- Nothing has changed since DWH---the next spill will be just as catastrophic
- AT: Incentive to be Safe
- No oversight---even if there is it is not close to adequate
Environment DA1NC ShellSpills, Chemicals, sesmic testing, and destroy wetlands and marshesSouthern Environmental Law Center, 2014 (“Defending Our Southern Coasts” 5/16/2014 http://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/offshore-oil-drilling) Risks of Oil Drilling In February 2014, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its final environmental impact statement on the plan to open up the Atlantic coast to seismic surveys for oil and gas. The head of the agency anticipates that applications to conduct seismic testing could be received by the end of the year. Not only are the air gun blasts used in seismic testing harmful to marine life such as the critically endangered North American right whale, allowing seismic testing opens the door to risky oil drilling—under the same lax assessments of risks and precautions that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the federal regulatory agency and oil companies continue operations based on their same claims that there is no significant risk of, or thus impacts from, such oil spills. SELC challenged the agency's cursory environmental review as illegal and irresponsible in light of the BP blowout and oil spill, and its harmful impacts in the Gulf of Mexico. In December 2011, SELC filed suit challenging the agency’s continued sales of oil and gas leases in the Gulf, which still are conducted without adequate environmental analysis and without regard for lessons learned from the BP disaster. Coastal Riches for Wildlife and People The beautiful and biologically rich coastal areas off Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and our Gulf Coast feature some of the most productive estuaries in the country, including the Chesapeake Bay, the Pamlico Sound, the ACE Basin, and Mobile Bay. Our coasts attract millions of tourists, anglers, and other visitors each year and provide important breeding and feeding habitat for rare migratory birds, turtles, and whales. Tourism and fishing—both commercial and recreational—are the economic backbone of hundreds of communities along our coasts. In 2008 alone, the four Atlantic states yielded $262.8 million in commercial fish landings. Problematic Infrastructure The environmental impacts of offshore drilling and its accompanying infrastructure and refineries onshore were well known even before Gulf disaster. Ocean rigs routinely spill and leak oil—and sometimes blow out. Chemicals used to operate oil and gas wells also pollute the marine environment. Moreover, oil spills and other contamination from onshore refineries, pipelines, and associated infrastructure would spoil valuable wetland and marsh ecosystems that provide multiple benefits for Southern communities, including flood control and protection from storms, clean water, and essential habitat for fisheries that sustain our economies and cultures. ExtinctionDavidson, 2003 (Founder – Turtle House Foundation and Award-Winning Journalist, Fire in the Turtle House, p. 47-51) But surely the Athenians had it backward; it’s the land that rests in the lap of the sea. Thalassa, not Gaia, is the guardian of life on the blue planet. A simple, albeit apocalyptic, experiment suggests Thalassa’s power. Destroy all life on land; the ocean creatures will survive just fine. Given time, they’ll even repopulate the land. But wipe out the organisms that inhabit the oceans and all life on land is doomed. “Dust to dust,” says the Bible, but “water to water” is more like it, for all life comes from and returns to the sea. Our ocean origins abid within us, our secret marine history. The chemical makeup of our blood is strikingly similar to seawater. Every carbon atom in our body has cycled through the ocean many times. Even the human embryo reveals our watery past. Tiny gill slits form and then fade during our development in the womb. The ocean is the cradle of life on our planet, and it remains the axis of existence, the locus of planetary biodiversity, and the engine of the chemical and hydrological cycles that create and maintain our atmosphere and climate. The astonishing biodiversity is most evident on coral reefs, often called the “rain forests of the sea.” Occupying less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the global ocean, coral reefs are home to nearly a third of all marine fish species and to as many as nine million species in all. But life exists in profusion in every corner of the ocean, right down to the hydrothermal vents on the seafloor (discovered only in 1977), where more than a hundred newly described species thrive around superheated plumes of sulfurous gasses. The abundance of organisms in the ocean isn’t surprising given that the sea was, as already mentioned, the crucible of life on Earth. It is the original ecosystem, the environment in which the “primordial soup” of nucleic acids (which can self-replicate, but are not alive) and other molecules made the inexplicable and miraculous leap into life, probably as simple bacteria, close to 3.9 billion years ago. A spectacular burst of new life forms called the Cambrian explosion took place in the oceans some 500 million years ago, an evolutionary experiment that produced countless body forms, the prototypes of virtually all organisms alive today. It wasn’t until 100 million years later that the first primitive plants took up residence on terra firma. Another 30 million years passed before the first amphibians climbed out of the ocean. After this head start, it’s not surprising that evolution on that newcomer-dry land-has never caught up with the diversity of the sea. Of the thirty-three higher-level groupings of animals (called phyla), thirty-two are found in the oceans and just twelve on land. 2NC I/L WallDrilling kills the environment – Chemicals, seismic waves, infrastructure, and oil spills – assumes improves and safety measuresHorton, 2008 (Jennifer, howstuffworks, 8/11/2008 http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/offshore-drilling-controversy.htm) Any time oil drilling is mentioned, you know there's going to be talk of its environmental impacts. When it comes to offshore oil drilling, that talk is even more heated, since you're not just digging underground but also thousands of feet underwater. Whenever oil is recovered from the ocean floor, other chemicals and toxic substances come up too -- things like mercury, lead and arsenic that are often released back into the ocean. In addition, seismic waves used to locate oil can harm sea mammals and disorient whales. ExxonMobil recently had to suspend exploration efforts near Madagascar after more than 100 whales beached themselves [source: Nixon]. The infrastructure required to drill wells and transport offshore oil can be equally devastating. A series of canals built across Louisiana wetlands to transport oil has led to erosion. Along with the destruction of the state's marshland caused by drilling efforts, the canals have removed an important storm buffer, possibly contributing to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The petrochemical plants built nearby add to the negative effects [source: Jervis]. Not so fast, say supporters of offshore drilling: Improvements in technology and better government oversight have made drilling inherently safe. In fact, since 1975, offshore drilling has had a 99.999 percent safety record [source: EIA]. The amount spilled has decreased from 3.6 million barrels in the 1970s to less than 500,000 in the '90s. Believe it or not, more oil actually spills into U.S. waters from natural sources and municipal and industrial waste than it does than from offshore oil and gas drilling. As far as the toxic chemicals are concerned, specialists say most of them are at insignificant levels since discharges are regulated by state and federal laws. The mercury released, for example, isn't enough to be absorbed by fish [source: Jervis]. Despite the improvements, detractors of oil drilling remain unconvinced. Although offshore operations themselves may not be involved in as many spills as they used to be, marine transportation of the oil they recover accounts for one-third of oil spills worldwide. The Mineral Management Service predicts there will be no less than one oil spill a year of 1,000 barrels or more in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 40 years. A spill of 10,000 barrels or more can be expected every three to four years [source: Jervis]. And while the 99.999 percent safety record sounds nice, that 0.001 percent can be pretty horrific for people living in the vicinity. A 1969 accident at a Santa Barbara, Calif., well spewed oil all over the beaches and into the water, effectively making any chances of future access to that state's offshore areas highly unlikely. Likewise, the effects of the infamous Exxon Valdez spill back in 1989 are still seen today. Weak regulation of deepwater oil and gas production is a major risk to overall ocean health and biodiversityHull-LLM University of Florida, 2011 29 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 1 ARTICLE: Crude Injustice in the Gulf: Why Categorical Exclusions for Deepwater Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico Are Inconsistent with U.S. and International Ocean Law and Policy D. Deepwater Environments-The Last Frontier Deepwater environments are critically important to the healthy functioning of the world's oceans. Historically, however, environmental concern over marine resources has focused on the coastal waters - near shore areas less than 200 meters deep - where most commercially important marine species are found. 49 This area comprises less than 5% of the world's oceans, and its health and productivity depend on the remaining 95% of the deepwater ocean. 50 In fact, a large fraction of biodiversity and biomass production in coastal areas is directly linked to and dependent upon deep sea ecosystems. 51 Although relatively little is known about inhabitants of deep sea environment, those organisms studied to date show common traits of slow growth, late maturity, slow reproduction, long life (200 years in some cases), and low productivity. 52 These traits have important implications for the sustainable management and use of deep-sea resources. 53 Absent effective management strategies, deepwater species and their associated ecosystems can quickly be depleted below sustainable levels. 54 UNEP recommended that governments incorporate precautionary approaches to manage deepwater environments that take into account the full range and cumulative effects of potential human activities and impacts, and added, "the conservation and sustainable use of the vulnerable ecosystems and biodiversity in deep waters and high seas are among the most critical ocean issues and environmental challenges today." 55 [*12] As the oil industry moves its activities into deeper water to find oil reserve, the risk of harm increases. As UNEP noted: As human activities, such as fishing and oil, gas and mineral exploration and exploitation, move into deeper waters both within and beyond national jurisdiction, the relative lack of data on deep seabed ecosystems and biodiversity makes it difficult to predict and control their impacts. 56 The increasing demand for oil continues to push drilling activities into deeper water, and threatens to fundamentally alter the deep sea environment in the Gulf. Given the industry's attempts to expand the oil depletion window and sustain profits from a non-renewable resource, the outlook for protecting the Gulf environment under the current status quo is not promising. The industry must make fundamental changes to ensure that its actions do not impair the future sustainability of renewable resources in the Gulf. Offshore exemptions risk mass ocean extinctionHull-LLM University of Florida, 2011 29 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 1 ARTICLE: Crude Injustice in the Gulf: Why Categorical Exclusions for Deepwater Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico Are Inconsistent with U.S. and International Ocean Law and Policy Today, the Gulf oil drilling industry poses many of the same environmental risks that were present prior to the Ixtoc spill [*4] thirty years ago. 7 However, those risks have increased with the industry's movement of oil exploration activities into remote, deep ocean sites in the Gulf. 8 The deep, offshore waters of the Gulf contain some of the largest deposits of oil in the United States, but finding and recovering that oil safely presents unique challenges. 9 Controlling and managing breaches at deep sea wells is considerably more difficult than at shallow wells due to the high pressure and low temperature of the deepwater environment, the force of the flowing oil, and the need to rely on unmanned, remotely operated vehicles to respond to accidents. 10 Indeed, the DWH accident resulted in the release of more than 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf because almost every procedure used to stop the blowout failed. 11 Despite the substantial risk associated with deep sea oil drilling in the Gulf, the Mineral Management Service (MMS) has routinely elected to categorically exclude certain offshore oil exploration and development activities in the Gulf from environmental review otherwise required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 12 MMS categorically excluded British Petroleum's (BP) exploration plan covering the DWH well from environmental review without ever considering the potential impacts from a well blowout like the one that actually occurred. [*5] This article examines the current practice of categorically excluding oil exploration and development/production activities in the Gulf from environmental review, and argues that the practice violates NEPA and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), and is inconsistent with U.S. and international ocean law and policy. Section I provides a brief overview of the status of the world's imperiled oceans, with particular emphasis on the Gulf ecosystem. Section II addresses America's dependence on crude oil and the increasing role played by the Gulf in meeting the nation's energy needs, and examines the projected environmental impacts of the DWH accident that led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Section III provides a brief overview of U.S. ocean law and policy. Section IV discusses the NEPA review process with particular emphasis on the use of categorical exclusions, and examines some of the key decisions made during the environmental review process for the BP lease covering the site of the DWH well. Section V provides analysis of the interaction of laws governing oil exploration and development in the Gulf and concludes that categorically excluding exploration plans in the Gulf from environmental review violates national and international law. II. Highstakes Prospecting in a Fragile Ocean For centuries, humans have exploited the resources of the world's oceans with little concern for, or understanding of, how their collective activities caused harm. Nineteenth century Poet Lord Byron once wrote, "man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore." 13 His words reveal a commonly held, but incorrect assumption that humans are incapable of causing any lasting harm to the vast oceans. The current imperiled state of the world's oceans and the particular sensitivity and ecological importance of the Gulf ecosystem make imperative changes to the current environmental review practices. Despite exhibiting remarkable resiliency to anthropogenic insult for centuries, the world's oceans are increasingly showing signs of vulnerability to human influences. Research has unequivocally demonstrated that the synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff are fundamentally altering once complex, vibrant [*6] marine ecosystems. 14 As marine biodiversity declines, ecosystems with intricate marine food webs are being degraded to primordial seas dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease. 15 Absent fundamental changes in the use and management of ocean resources, human activities may lead to a massive extinction in the ocean. 16 The Gulf's once pristine waters and productive ecosystems have been significantly altered as the result of anthropogenic insults. The primary drivers of ocean degradation are overexploitation, pollution, climate change, and ocean acidification. 2NC Seismic Waves moduleSeismic waves devastate whale populations – disorients them and is causing them to be on the verge of extinction – that’s southern environment law.Whales are a keystone speciesZimmer et al 2007 (Richard, Ryan Ferrer, Professors of Biology at UCLA, “Neuroecology, Chemical Defense, and the Keystone Species Concept”, http://www.biolbull.org/content/213/3/208.full) Consumption of STX-laden zooplankton or their incapacitated predators can have dramatic effects on top pelagic predators. Vertebrates such as fish (Adams et al., 1968; White, 1980, 1981), seabirds (Nisbet, 1983; Shumway et al., 2003), and marine mammals (Geraci et al., 1989; Reyero et al., 1999; Doucette et al., 2006) are much more sensitive to STX and its derivatives than are invertebrate grazers. Consequently, after dinoflagellate blooms, large-scale vertebrate mortality arises from ingestion of STX-laden planktonic organisms. Massive die-offs of top pelagic predators such as right whales (Doucette et al., 2006), monk seals (Reyero et al., 1999), and several species of fish (White, 1980, 1981) can lead to dramatic cascading effects throughout entire planktonic communities (Carpenter et al., 1985; Myers and Worm, 2003; Bruno and O'Connor, 2005). Spills over to cascading biodiversity lossMcKinney 2003 (Michael, Director of Environmental Studies, University of Texas, PHD from Yale, http://books.google.com/books?id=NJUanyPkh0AC&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=manatees+%22keystone+species%22&source=bl&ots=rB1vju6y6v&sig=isIAuB81-ZM_Hv4PAMp2EKt4lH8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kaX7T_GoEYiorQHfrZ2LCQ&ved=0CGgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=manatees%20%22keystone%20species%22&f=false, ) Are All Species Equally Important? With so many species at risk, triage decisions cannot be made on the basis of risk alone. Conservation biologists therefore often ask whether one species is more important than another. Ethically, perhaps one could argue that all species are equal; an insect may have as much right to live as a panther. But in other ways, in particular. In ecological and evolutionary importance, all species are not equal. Ecological importance reflects the role a species plays in its ecological community. Keystone species play large roles because they affect so many other species. Large predators, for example, often control the population dynamics of many herbivores. When the predators, such as wolves, are removed, the herbivore population may increase rapidly, overgrazing plants and causing massive ecological disruption. Similarly, certain plants are crucial food for many animal species in some ecosystems. Extinction of keystone species will often have cascading effects on many species, even causing secondary extinctions. Many therefore argue that saving keystone species should be a priority. 2NC Spills Impact ModuleOffshore exemptions risk catastrophic oil spillsHartsig-Artic Program Director for Ocean Conservancy, 2011 16 Ocean & Coastal L.J. 269 ARTICLE: SHORTCOMINGS AND SOLUTIONS: REFORMING THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF OIL AND GAS FRAMEWORK IN THE WAKE OF THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER 4. Eliminating the Use of Categorical Exclusions for OCS Drilling Activities Under NEPA regulations, categorical exclusions are appropriate only for those actions that "do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment." 272 BOEM, however, created categorical exclusions for actions that can and do have significant effects on the environment. For example, BOEM created a categorical exclusion for the "[a]pproval of an offshore lease or unit exploration[,] development/production plan[,] or a Development Operation Coordination Document in the central or western Gulf of Mexico." 273 The categorical exclusion was inapplicable to plans or documents that presented particularly high risks, such as facilities in areas that posed a "high seismic risk" or that used "new or unusual technology." 274 Nonetheless, BOEM used the categorical exclusion to justify its decision to approve--without preparing an EA or EIS--BP's plan to use an oil rig floating in nearly 5,000 feet of water to drill an exploration well that would penetrate roughly two-and-a-half miles below the seabed. 275 The impacts associated with even normal drilling operations include noise, air, and water pollution, as well as increased vessel and air traffic. 276 When BP lost control of the Macondo well and the Deepwater Horizon burst into flames on April 20, 2010, it demonstrated graphically something that should have been obvious all along: all OCS drilling activities carry with them the potential for a catastrophic oil spill. Given [*311] the actual and potential impacts of OCS drilling operations, it is unreasonable to assume--as BOEM did--that such operations do not have a significant effect on the human environment. As a result, OCS drilling operations are not eligible to be categorically excluded from environmental review under NEPA. 277 BOEM should revise its Department Manual to eliminate categorical exclusions for OCS drilling activities. In the future, all OCS drilling activities should be subject to some level of site-specific NEPA analysis, either an EA or EIS. Resiliency does not apply to Gulf Coast ecosystems—another spill will destroy marine biodiversity.Craig, 2011 (Robin Kundis Craig, Attorneys’ Title Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Environmental Programs, Florida State University College of Law, Tallahassee, Florida, 12/20/11 “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A Match Made in Hell” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1906839) Importantly, however, the second aspect of resilience theory acknowledges that ecosystems can exist in multiple states rather than stabilizing around a single equilibrium state; as a result, changes anddisturbances can “push” ecosystems over thresholds from one ecosystem state to another.146 This second sense of resilience “assumes multiple states (or ‘regimes’) and is defined as the magnitude of a disturbance that triggers a shift between alternative states.”147 For example, the boreal forests of Canada can exist in at least two states with respect to spruce budworms: a “no outbreak” state“characterized by low numbers of budworm and young, fastgrowing trees,” and an “outbreak” state “characterized by high numbers of budworm and old, senescent trees.”148 The shift between the two appears to relate to an increase in canopy volume, which in turn affects bird populations and the birds’ ability to control the pest.149 Regime-shift models can also help to explain outbreaks of some human diseases.150 However, natural resources law and policy generally do not acknowledge this second sense of resilience, and, as a result, it generally does not incorporate mechanisms for acknowledging, responding to, or even trying to avoid ecological regime shifts. Finally, resilience theory also acknowledges “the surprising and discontinuous nature of change, such as the collapse of fish stock or the sudden outbreak of spruce budworms in forests.”151 In other words, the long-time persistence of an ecosystem (or collection of multiple ecosystems) like the Gulf of Mexico in an apparently stable, productive ecosystem state is absolutely no guarantee that humans can continue to disturb and abuse the system and expect only a gradual or linear response. As was true for the second sense of resilience, natural resource law in general and marine resources law in particular do not deal well with the possibility of sudden and dramatic ecosystem changes. Nevertheless, such regime shifts have been documented for a number of marine ecosystems. For example, In Jamaica, the effects of overfishing, hurricane damage, and disease have combined to destroy most corals, whose abundance has declined from more than 50 percent in the late 1970s to less than 5 percent today. A dramatic phase shift has occurred, producing a system dominated by fleshy macroalgae (more than 90 percent cover). Immediate implementation of management procedures is necessary to avoid further catastrophic damage.152Similarly, the presence or absence of sea otters can significantly influence the structure and function of Alaskan kelp forests because the otters, when present, control sea urchin populations, allowing for more extensive coral growth.153 In some locations, moreover, “sea urchin population changes in response to sea otter predation were rapid and extreme” and could result in “short-term changes in kelp density.”154The current law, policy, and remedy regime for offshore oil drilling effectively presumes that marine ecosystems have virtually unlimited first-sense resilience with respect to oil spills—in crudest terms, that restoration will always be possible, and perhaps even through entirely natural means.155 Our experience with the last large oil spill in U.S. waters, however, suggests otherwise. More than twenty years before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, on March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling approximately eleven million gallons of crude oil.156 Although the oil eventually affected about 1300 miles of Alaskan coastline,157 it is important to remember that, in the context of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the Exxon Valdez was a relatively simple—and relatively small—surface release of oil. Even so, more than twenty years later, according to NOAA, “While the vast majority of the spill area now appears to have recovered, pockets of crude oil remain in some locations, and there is evidence that some damage is continuing.”158 More specifically, NOAA reports that, overall, the Prince William Sound ecosystem has proven resilient in the first sense—it has been able to absorb most changes and persist in function and relationships.159Nevertheless, NOAA has also cautioned that “impacts from the spill remain”: Deeply penetrated oil continues to visibly leach from a few beaches, such as Smith Island. In some areas, intertidal animals, such as mussels, are still contaminated by oil, affecting not only the mussels but any animals (including people) that eat them. Some rocky sites that were stripped of heavy plant cover by high-pressure, hot-water cleaning remain mostly bare rock. Rich clam beds that suffered high mortalities from oil and extensive beach cleaning have not re-colonized to their previous levels.160 Notably, NOAA concludes that “Prince William Sound has made a remarkable recovery from a severe injury, but it remains an ecosystem in transition.”161In other words, twenty years after a major surface spill of oil, Prince William Sound has not fully recovered and, indeed, may never do so. Its first-sense resilience to oil spills is incomplete,or at least operates over substantial time scales, and we may eventually find (or decide) that ecological communities within the Sound have in fact experienced resilience in the second sense: an ecological regime shift. As one possible example, NOAA reports that “[b]eginning in 1990, scientists saw the cover of rockweed increase steadily at oiled sites— until 1994, that is. From 1994 through 1995, there appeared to be a noticeable decline in cover, especially at sites that had been oiled.”162 While scientists are still searching for an explanation, the three candidates—a disruption in the normal mix of rockweed ages, an explosion in the populations of grazers such as periwinkle snails, or a longer-term toxic effect of the oil163—all suggest that the oil spill may have induced (or at least threatened) a regime shift. These results suggest that we should be very concerned for the Gulf ecosystems affected by the Macondo well blowout. First, and as this Article has emphasized throughout, unlike the Exxon Valdez spill, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred at great depth, and the oil behaved unusually compared to oil released on the surface. Second, considerably more toxic dispersants were used in connection with the Gulf oil spill than the Alaska oil spill.164 Third, humans could intervene almost immediately to begin cleaning the rocky substrate in Prince William Sound, but human intervention for many of the important affected Gulf ecosystems, especially the deepwater ones (but even for shallower coral reefs), remains impossible. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Prince William Sound was and remains a far less stressed ecosystem than the Gulf of Mexico. In 2008, for example, NOAA stated that “[d]espite the remaining impacts of the [still then] largest oil spill in U.S. history, Prince William Sound remains a relatively pristine, productive and biologically rich ecosystem.”165 To be sure, the Sound was not completely unstressed, and “[w]hen the Exxon Valdez spill occurred in March 1989, the Prince William Sound ecosystem was also responding to at least three notable events in its past: an unusually cold winter in 1988–89; growing populations of reintroduced sea otters; and a 1964 earthquake.”166 Nevertheless, the Gulf of Mexico is besieged by environmental stressors at another order of magnitude (or two), reducing its resilience to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As the Deepwater Horizon Commission detailed at length, the Gulf faces an array of long-term threats, from the loss of protective and productive wetlands along the coast to hurricanes to a growing “dead zone” (hypoxic zone) to sediment starvation to sealevel rise to damaging channeling to continual (if smaller) oil releases from the thousands of drilling operations.167 In the face of this plethora of stressors, even the Commission championed a kind of resilience thinking, recognizing that responding to the oil spill alone was not enough. It equated restoration of the Gulf to “restored resilience,” arguing that it “represents an effort to sustain these diverse, interdependent activities [fisheries, energy, and tourism] and the environment on which they depend for future generations.”168 2NC Impact Run GenericEach instance increases the risk of extinction- evaluate linear risk of net benefitMajor David N. Diner, U.S. Army, 94 [“The Army and the Endangered Species Act: Who’s Endangering Whom?” Military Law Review. 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161. Winter, 1994, LEXIS] By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 mankind may be edging closer to the abyss. The net benefit accesses the case and not the other way around---environmental degradation is the root cause of all conflictFoster, 2000 (Gregory Foster, civilian professor at the National Defense University, September 2000, http://www.aepi.army.mil/internet/china-environmental-dragon.pdf) It has now been more than two decades since the Worldwatch Institute’s Lester Brown first issued a plea to adopt a new and more robust conception of national security attuned to the contemporary world. The threats to security, he argued even then, now may arise less from relations between nations than from man’s relations with nature—dwindling reserves of critical resources, for example, or the deterioration of earth’s biological systems: The military threat to national security is only one of many that governments must now address. The numerous new threats derive directly or indirectly from the rapidly changing relationship between humanity and the earth’s natural systems and resources. The unfolding stresses in this relationship initially manifest themselves as ecological stresses and resource scarcities. Later they translate into economic stresses—inflation, unemployment, capital scarcity, and monetary instability. Ultimately, these economic stresses convert into social unrest and political instability.1 Brown was followed—cautiously at first—by others who recognized the need not only to expand the bounds of national security thinking and discourse, but to take particular account of environmental concerns in such deliberations. Jessica Tuchman Mathews, then affiliated with the World Resources Institute, argued, for example: “Global developments now suggest the need for . . . [a] broadening definition of national security to include resource, environmental and demographic issues.”2 One of the most powerful observations made to date—one that could be judged, in equal measure, as either visionary or hyperbolic—is that by writer-analyst Milton Viorst, who argues that “population and environment . . . seem the obvious sources of the next wave of wars, perhaps major wars.”3…CONTINUES…Where Homer-Dixon is especially insightful is in leading us in the direction of the most powerful counterargument that can be made to resolute critics of environmental causation. He says that whereas, on first analysis, the main causes of civil strife appear to be social disruptions (e.g., poverty, migrations, ethnic tension, institutional breakdown), in reality scarcities of renewable resources, including water, fuelwood, cropland and fish, can precipitate these disruptions and thereby powerfully contribute to strife. By broadening his formulation, we may posit the existence of a more general masking phenomenon by which ostensibly political and economic causes of unrest, violence, conflict, and destabilization (e.g., political repression; economic deprivation, exploitation, and dislocation) actually may mask underlying, less visible, less discernible environmental sources of dissatisfaction, discontent, and alienation (e.g., diminished quality of life; threats to safety and well-being). Eco collapse causes extinctionJayawardena, 2009 (Asitha, London South Bank University, “We Are a Threat to All Life on Earth”, Indicator, 7-17, http://www.indicator.org.uk/?p=55) Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995) explain in detail why the natural environment is so important for life on Earth. It is from the environment that the living organisms of all species import the energy and raw material required for growth, development and reproduction. In almost all ecosystems plants, the most important primary producers, carry out photosynethesis, capturing sunlight and storing it as chemical energy. They absorb nutrients from their environment. When herbivores (i.e. plant-eating animals or organisms) eat these plants possessing chemical energy, matter and energy are transferred ‘one-level up.’ The same happens when predators (i.e. animals of a higher level) eat these herbivores or when predators of even higher levels eat these predators. Therefore, in ecosystems, food webs transfer energy and matter and various organisms play different roles in sustaining these transfers. Such transfers are possible due to the remarkable similarity in all organisms’ composition and major metabolic pathways. In fact all organisms except plants can potentially use each other as energy and nutrient sources; plants, however, depend on sunlight for energy. Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995) further reveal two key principles governing the biosphere with respect to the transfer of energy and matter in ecosystems. Firstly, the energy flow in ecosystems from photosynthetic plants (generally speaking, autotrophs) to non-photosynthetic organisms (generally speaking, heterotrophs) is essentially linear. In each step part of energy is lost to the ecosystem as non-usable heat, limiting the number of transformation steps and thereby the number of levels in a food web. Secondly, unlike the energy flow, the matter flow in ecosystems is cyclic. For photosynthesis plants need carbon dioxide as well as minerals and sunlight. For the regeneration of carbon dioxide plants, the primary producers, depend on heterotrophs, who exhale carbon dioxide when breathing. Like carbon, many other elements such as nitrogen and sulphur flow in cyclic manner in ecosystems. However, it is photosynthesis, and in the final analysis, solar energy that powers the mineral cycles. Ecosystems are under threat and so are we Although it seems that a continued energy supply from the sun together with the cyclical flow of matter can maintain the biosphere machinery running forever, we should not take things for granted, warn Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995). And they explain why. Since the beginning of life on Earth some 3.5 billion years ago, organisms have evolved and continue to do so today in response to environmental changes. However, the overall picture of materials (re)cycling and linear energy transfer has always remained unchanged. We could therefore safely assume that this slowly evolving system will continue to exist for aeons to come if large scale infringements are not forced upon it, conclude Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995). However, according to them, the present day infringements are large enough to upset the world’s ecosystems and, worse still, human activity is mainly responsible for these infringements. The rapidity of the human-induced changes is particularly undesirable. For example, the development of modern technology has taken place in a very short period of time when compared with evolutionary time scales – within decades or centuries rather than thousands or millions of years. Their observations and concerns are shared by a number of other scholars. Roling (2009) warns that human activity is capable of making the collapse of web of life on which both humans and non-human life forms depend for their existence. For Laszlo (1989: 34), in Maiteny and Parker (2002), modern human is ‘a serious threat to the future of humankind’. As Raven (2002) observes, many life-support systems are deteriorating rapidly and visibly. Elaborating on human-induced large scale infringements, Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995) warn that they can significantly alter the current patterns of energy transfer and materials recycling, posing grave problems to the entire biosphere. And climate change is just one of them! Turning to a key source of this crisis, Sloep and Van Dam-Mieras (1995: 37) emphasise that, although we humans can mentally afford to step outside the biosphere, we are ‘animals among animals, organisms among organisms.’ Their perception on the place of humans in nature is resonated by several other scholars. For example, Maiteny (1999) stresses that we humans are part and parcel of the ecosphere. Hartmann (2001) observes that the modern stories (myths, beliefs and paradigms) that humans are not an integral part of nature but are separate from it are speeding our own demise. Funtowicz and Ravetz (2002), in Weaver and Jansen (2004: 7), criticise modern science’s model of human-nature relationship based on conquest and control of nature, and highlight a more desirable alternative of ‘respecting ecological limits, …. expecting surprises and adapting to these.’ AT: Technology Has ChangedWe are still using the same flawed tech that caused the BP spillBanerjee, 2014 (Neela, latimes reporter citing the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, “Flawed drilling gear still in use after BP oil spill, board says” 6/6 http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-gulf-spill-20140606-story.html) Design problems with a blowout prevention system contributed to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, and the same equipment is still commonly used in drilling four years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a report issued by the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The board concluded that the "blowout preventer" — a five-story-tall series of seals and valves that was supposed to shear the drill pipe and short-circuit the explosion — failed for reasons the oil industry did not anticipate and has not fully corrected. Despite improved regulation of deep-water drilling since the disaster, the board found that problems persist in oil and gas companies' offshore safety systems. "This results in potential safety gaps in U.S. offshore operations and leaves open the possibility of another similar catastrophic accident," said Cheryl MacKenzie, lead investigator of the safety board inquiry. The blowout of BP's Macondo well in April 2010 killed 11 men and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the worst offshore oil disaster in United States history. Several federal commissions have investigated the missteps that occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the days and hours leading up to the explosion, which investigators said had its roots in corporate mismanagement and inadequate government oversight of the oil industry. The chemical safety board, which examines industrial accidents but lacks regulatory authority, focused its inquiry on the blowout preventer and safety practices. The blowout preventer, or BOP, sits on the ocean floor below the drilling rig. The drilling pipe from the platform runs through the blowout preventer into the earth and toward the oil and gas deposits. If oil or gas, which is under high pressure underground, accidentally comes up the well bore and pipe, the blowout preventer is supposed to cut off the flow higher up to the platform. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, the lower valves in the blowout preventer closed, letting pressure continue to build, which eventually bent the drill pipe, the safety board study found. The last line of defense, a "blind shear ram" device inside the blowout preventer, could not cut the pipe effectively, and "actually punctured the buckled, off-center pipe, sending huge additional volumes of oil and gas surging toward the surface," the safety board said in the report released Thursday. Since the spill, at least one company, GE Oil and Gas, has designed a new blowout preventer that can cut a similarly bent pipe, but many rigs continue to use the same equipment found at Deepwater Horizon, the report said. "The failed design of the blowout preventer has not been addressed, and many existing rigs rely on the same design that failed on Deepwater Horizon," said Jackie Savitz, vice president of U.S. oceans at Oceana, an environmental group. "At the same time, measures that could truly prevent spills, or improve spill response, were passed over." The American Petroleum Institute and the Interior Department, which oversees offshore drilling, countered the report, asserting that considerable improvements had been made to offshore safety practices after the gulf oil spill. AT: Drilling is SafeMost recent evidence concludes that there is still a risk – even if safety measures are in place accidents can still occur – that’s southern environment law.New deepwater drilling uniquely riskyHouck-prof law Tulane, 2010 24 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 1 Worst Case and the DEEPWATER HORIZON Blowout: There Ought To Be a Law The facts are that deepwater drilling is a new and inherently risky operation, pushing the envelope of technology and engineering. 9 Sea floor responses, when things go wrong, are described as "open heart [*3] surgery at 5,000 feet in the dark." 10 The risks magnify with ocean depth, not exceeding 10,000 feet, to environments that human beings cannot even access to see, can manipulate only with probes and robots, and to temperatures that freeze gasses and render the management of fluids and machinery an order of magnitude more challenging. 11 The risks also magnify with the number of times they are taken; and the deepwater business is booming. The offshore Gulf and Alaska, thought to be the last great oil plays in America, have seen a fifty percent increase in proven discoveries in recent years. 12 Shallow water drilling is declining. 13 Gulf deepwater production boomed from 17 to 141active wells over the last decade; most current leases are at 1000 feet or more and nearly half of the new discoveries push 5000 feet or beyond. 14 This is where the riser from the BP-leased rig met the ocean floor to begin drilling, yet continued four more miles down through sediments and frozen methane hydrates, a serious hazard in their own right. 15 One explanation of the BP disaster could simply be called "risk creep," an activity that began more than a century ago on shore and in low impact conditions. The activity moved gradually into more sensitive Gulf wetlands and then open water, at ever greater depths that, like the differentiation of species, at no time presented something so radically different that we recognized we had a new animal. We had gone from technology circa World War I to something more like nuclear power plants, without accepting that it required a more armored approach. Little in the portfolio of BP, other industry members, or federal regulators puts a premium on exposing risks and slowing things down. As a former Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf Coast director recently explained, apparently in his own defense, his marching orders were to [*4] "expedite" offshore drilling, which he translated as "let the good times roll" (his words). 16 An evangelist for aggressive production, he dismissed the prospect of catastrophic failure as "impossible" (the evaluation came from the head of his engineering team, who was later fired for accepting gifts from an oil company and lying on his ethics form). 17 British Petroleum, for its part, under the transparently deceptive slogan "Beyond Petroleum," had invested $ 39 billion on new oil and gas exploration over just the previous three years; it had spent only 0.05% of this amount, $ 20 million, on research and development for accident prevention and response. 18 Nothing has changed since DWH---the next spill will be just as catastrophicSavitz, 2012 (Jacqueline Savitz Vice President, North American Oceans at Oceana “Industry Won't Make Drilling Safe” http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2012/04/what-more-can-be-done-to-ensur.php) The idea that offshore drilling safety and spill response have substantially improved is little more than a figment of some people’s imagination. In the question above, Michael Bromwich acknowledges that during the Deepwater Horizon disaster (DWH) safeguards were not effective, preparation was not adequate, and response tools were little better than they were 20 years ago. But what has really changed in the past two years? Sadly, not enough. Even the question itself, what the industry (private sector) can do to reduce risks, misses the point because it sidelines the needed government action to scale back drilling given the lack of sufficient safety and response options. Not to mention the lack of private sector solutions. Let’s look at the categories on the list: safeguards, preparations and response tools. Safeguards have barely changed. The last line of defense at the wellhead, the heavily relied upon blowout preventer (BOP), turns out to be flawed by design according to Det Norsk Veritas – not just the one on the Deepwater Horizon, but possibly the rest. Did the private sector fix that problem? Have BOPs been redesigned to be effective and replaced? No and no. So, there’s something the private sector could do, or rather should have done before resuming drilling. But it hasn’t been required and dangerous deep water drilling is already back in full swing. There are new testing and maintenance regulations for BOPs, but they don’t fix the underlying design flaw. So that means we need real improvements in the second category: preparations. Is industry more prepared now? Of course they are, just ask them. Their exploration plans brag about response times in days now, rather than the months that we are accustomed to. According to BP, if DWH happened again, it could plug a well in 2-3 weeks, much faster than the 3 months it took them last time. But what changed? Well, this time we are to assume the capping device will work -- except we really don’t know that. Just because it eventually worked on DWH doesn’t mean it will work next time on a different blowout with a differently oriented pipe or even a damaged wellhead. Maybe if the companies offered to pre-drill relief wells, then they could credibly promise a faster response. But the private sector isn’t offering that, and again, government hasn’t required it. So be ready for another 3-month ordeal. That takes us to response. It’s impossible to fully respond to a major spill. The DWH caused tremendous impacts on marine life and coastal economies. And the response tools are not much better now than they were 2 or even 20 years ago. We still rely on booms that don’t really work, and surface burns that may remove about 5% of the oil. And then there are always toxic dispersants that can be used to hide the problem, though they create new problems. As a result, the next spill will look like 2010 all over again. Response is little more than damage control. To be clear, Oceana doesn’t agree that safety, preparations or response capabilities have been measurably improved or that the private sector will take the initiative to make meaningful changes without government mandates. When the magnitude of risks are as large as those of offshore oil and gas drilling, the investments in safety have to be equally large otherwise drilling will simply continue to be unsafe. That is why we believe we can’t rely on the goodness of corporations, and that we need to move away from offshore drilling and start now to replace its contribution to our energy mix with options that are safer and offer us a better future. AT: Incentive to be SafeAnd, there is an incentive to spill---they don’t have to pay anythingGreenstone, 2010 (Michael Greenstone Director, The Hamilton Project and Senior Fellow “A Built-In Incentive for Oil Spills” http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/06/03-oil-greenstone) Existing law creates incentives for spills. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, the 1990 Oil Pollution Act capped firms' liability for economic damages from oil spills at $75 million, not adjusted for inflation and in addition to all removal costs. Any economic damages beyond this are covered by a government-funded Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which has a per-incident spending cap of $1 billion for expeditious oil removal and uncompensated damages. The rub here is that the $75 million cap on liabilities for economic damages now protects oil companies from full responsibility for damages. This misalignment of incentives is a classic case of moral hazard. Firms or people behave differently when they are protected from risk. Consider that oil companies make decisions about where to drill, and which safety equipment to use, based on benefit-cost analyses of the impact on their bottom line. For example, in choosing a location, oil companies assess whether the expected value of the oil exceeds the costs. These costs include equipment used and wages paid employees. But they also include the expected payouts for potential spill damages to shorelines, local economies and the environment. So the cap inevitably distorts the way companies evaluate their risk. Locations where damages from a spill may be costly — for example, places near coasts or in sensitive environmental areas — seem more attractive for drilling with the cap than if firms actually were responsible for all damages. The cap effectively subsidizes drilling in the very locations where the damages from spills would be the greatest. Further in all drilling locations, it reduces the incentives for investing in the best safety equipment or using the safest, but time-consuming, methods. While an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 gallons of oil are pouring into the Gulf each day, the jury is still out on the spill's total economic damage. If the "top kill" approach had stopped the spill, one Wall Street analyst estimated that the economic damages would be approximately $8 billion. This is more than 100 times the cap. Now, with top kill's failure, even this estimate may be too low. Without the distortions created by the cap, it is unclear whether BP and its partners would ever have drilled at the Deepwater Horizon location. It seems possible, though, that they would have been far more careful in inspecting the blow-out preventers and other emergency units to provide a greater safety net against their own liability. AT: Oversight SolvesNo oversight---even if there is it is not close to adequateAbraham, 2010 (David S. Abraham, who oversaw offshore programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2003 to 2005, is an incoming international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “A Disaster Congress Voted For” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/opinion/14abraham.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=david%20abraham&st=cse) There’s no question that each of these deserves blame. But there’s also no question that the responsibility for developing safe offshore operations extends much further, to Congress itself. For more than a decade, legislators have allowed themselves to be lulled by industry assurances that drilling in deep water posed little danger. One could say that Congress, just like the companies it has attacked, was obsessed with oil. Before the spill, Congress had not debated regulatory safety on wells in the gulf since the 1990s, and when it did, lawmakers focused on how to drill for more oil — which, after all, meant more jobs and more federal revenue for pet projects. In a 1995 attempt to encourage more exploration, Congress agreed to reduce the cut of the proceeds the government could collect on oil and gas drilling in deep waters. Ten years later, despite higher oil prices and declarations from President George W. Bush that more incentives were not needed, a Republican-led Congress reduced royalties yet again. And in a sign of how money had influenced and distorted the debate, throughout the last decade the Louisiana Congressional delegation, for a time including the state’s current governor, Bobby Jindal, backed expanded offshore drilling so that Congress could use proceeds to pay for coastal damage caused by oil-and-gas operations. In 2006 the delegation supported legislation giving a share of federal royalties to states that allowed drilling in federal waters off their coasts, essentially using national revenue to encourage more exploration. At the same time that Congress called for new drilling incentives, it also gutted oversight. From 2002 to 2008, legislators approved budgets reducing regulatory staffing levels by more than 15 percent — despite more complex deep-water operations and Interior Department concerns, voiced in 2000, that industry’s extensive use of contractors and inexperienced offshore workers posed new risks in deep water. It’s not as if Congress didn’t know the risks. Its own research arm, which issues frequent spill-response readiness assessments, has repeatedly cited a 2004 Coast Guard study finding that its “oil spill response personnel did not appear to have even a basic knowledge of the equipment required to support salvage or spill clean-up operations.” Nevertheless, lawmakers failed to act aggressively to ensure adequate oversight. To be fair, Congress wasn’t alone. The same criticism could be leveled at many environmental groups, which were far more interested in maintaining the exploration moratoriums in federal waters than in the safety of ongoing offshore activity. This focus on stopping new drilling — instead of on keeping the water clean — helped give Interior the space to cater to oil companies. As a result, regulatory proposals often received fewer than 10 public comments, mostly from industry, resulting in rules more favorable to it. It’s also true that the previous administration deserves a good share of the blame for its myopic focus on production. The 2001 President’s National Energy Policy directed agencies to increase oil supplies and to remove regulations that were often seen as “excessive and redundant.” Meanwhile, the Interior Department became an industry cheerleader. The attention on output was so great that the department’s head of offshore drilling boasted about how he “oversaw a 50 percent rise in oil production,” a misguided accomplishment for a regulator. Nor is the Obama White House off the hook: despite requesting a few extra regulators, the current administration also failed to address underlying organizational dysfunction. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2014 2014 -> For want of a nail 2014 -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 2014 -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> International History Bee and Bowl 2013-14 Asian Division Question Set Bowl Round Six 2014 -> United states patent and trademark office 2014 -> Coffs harbour eisteddfod vocal syllabus 2014 -> Listen News Programs Schedule pledge now 2014 -> Slow club announce third album complete surrender Download 1.07 Mb. Share with your friends:
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