Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files
AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 112
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- 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 113
1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 112[Lee evidence continues, no text deleted] say, rising temperatures in northern Canada, Alaska and Siberia make it easier to get at oil and gas resources in regions that had previously been too bone-chilling to tap. (A few degrees of change in temperature can transform a previously inhospitable climate.) But what happens if some tempting new field pops up in international waters contested by two great powers? Or if smaller countries with murky borders start arguing over newly arable land? Finally, we should also worry about new conflicts over issues of sovereignty that we didn't need to deal with in our older, colder world. Consider the Northwest Passage, which is turning into an ice-free corridor from Europe to Asia during the summer months. Canada claims some portions of the route as its own sovereign waters, while the United States argues that these sections lie within international waters. Admittedly, it'd take a lot of tension for this to turn into a military conflict, but anyone convinced that the United States and Canada could never come to blows has forgotten the War of 1812. And not all this sort of resource conflict will occur between friendly countries. Other kinds of territorial quarrels will arise, too. Some remote islands -- particularly such Pacific islands as Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga, the Maldives and many others -- may be partially or entirely submerged beneath rising ocean waters. Do they lose their sovereignty if their territory disappears? After all, governments in exile have maintained sovereign rights in the past over land they didn't control (think of France and Poland in World War II). Nor are these new questions far away in the future. The first democratically elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, is already planning to use tourism revenue to buy land abroad -- perhaps in India, Sri Lanka or Australia -- to house his citizens. "We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades," he told Britain's Guardian newspaper. The net result of these changes will be the creation of two geopolitical belts of tension due to global warming, which will dramatically shape the patterns of conflict in the 21st century. First, politics will heat up along what we might call the equatorial tension belt, a broad swath of instability around the planet's center. This belt will creep southward, deeper into Africa, and extend far into central Asia. Second, a new tension belt will develop around the polar circles. In the short term, the main problems will arise in the Northern Hemisphere, but later in the 21st century, the area around the South Pole may also see increasing security strains as countries rush to claim and develop heretofore frozen areas. If the equatorial tension belt includes mostly poor, developing countries fighting over survival, the new polar tension belt will draw in wealthy, developed countries fighting over opportunity. This is, admittedly, a glum view of the future. But we can still avoid the new hot wars -- or at least cool them down a bit. For starters, we should redouble our efforts to slow down global warming and undo the damage humanity has already done to the environment. Every little bit helps, so by all means, hassle your senator and recycle those bottles. Beyond that, we need to get our heads around the idea that global warming is one of the most serious long-term threats to our national and personal security. For the next two decades or so, the climate will continue to change: Historic levels of built-up greenhouse gases will continue to warm the world -- and spin it toward new patterns of conflict. So we need to do more than simply reverse climate change. We need to understand and react to it -- ordinary people and governments alike -- in ways that avoid conflict. Over the next few years, we may find that climate-change accords and peace treaties start to overlap more and more. And we may find that global warming is heating new conflicts up to the boiling point. 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 1135) In addition, increased corn incentives from corn-based ethanol causes fragile grassland habitats to be converted to corn fields, risking environmental collapse from habitat destruction. SPECHT, 12 [Jonathan, Legal Advisor for Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B; J.D., Washington University in St. Louis; “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” 4/24, http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf] While a major portion of this increase in corn production in the Great Plain states is attributable to farmers converting land already used to grow other crops or pasture to corn production, 80 much of it also derives from plowing native habitat. “Recent dramatic increases in corn plantings have been heavily concentrated in the Prairie Pothole Region, displacing other crops as well as sensitive prairie pothole habitat.” 81 The trend of replacing native habitat with fields of corn is an extremely worrying development, and is arguably the strongest reason for displacing at least some domestic corn-based ethanol with Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol. Therefore, this trend will be discussed in some depth. Increased corn production is degrading two environmentally significant habitats in the Great Plains, grasslands and wetlands. According to The Nature Conservancy, “grasslands and prairies are the world’s most imperiled ecosystem.” 82 While grasslands once stretched across the entire central portion of the United States, it has lost between eighty-three and ninety-nine percent of its original tall grass prairie habitat. 83 U.S. grasslands are the native habitat of a number of threatened and endangered species, such as the greater prairie chicken, 84 which cannot live in cornfields. 85 In addition to reducing the overall amount of habitat available to native species, the process of plowing grassland to grow crops fragments habitat by splitting it into disconnected segments. 86 The negative effects on wildlife of converting grasslands to corn fields, and thereby also fragmenting what habitat remains, are well-documented. “[I]n counties with high corn [production] increases, the average number of grassland [bird] species was found to decline significantly from 2005 to 2008.” 87 Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2011 2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis 2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle 2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg 2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative 2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018 2011 -> All America Looks Up to Virginia;” Virginia and the Declaration of Independence 2011 -> Rao bulletin 2011 -> Christopher Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in 2011 -> The Battle of Frenchtown (1855), Washington Territory: the Political and Demographic Context rev 9/4/11 2011 -> Seti aff •seti neg •Asteroids Aff Download 3.16 Mb. 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