Contention 1 is Inherency – The National Ocean Policy is a failure. Budget and coordination efforts hamstring holistic strategy for exploration



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Contention 2 – Science Diplomacy

Flight 370 proves that US ocean exploration is dismal.


Helvarg 4/1 (DAVID HELVARG, executive director of Blue Frontier, a marine conservation and policy group. His latest book is "The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair With the Sea, It's no surprise we can't find Flight 370, 4/1/2014, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0401-helvarg-flight-370-ocean-exploration-20140401-story.html MB)

Jet aircraft are large, but not compared with the ocean. The weeks-long search for some physical sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is not something we should wonder at, considering the frontier nature of our blue planet. The 29% of our planet that is land is inhabited by more than 7 billion of our species, at least a few of whom would have reported a crash or hijacked aircraft. By contrast, the ocean that covers 71% of the Earth's surface and 97% of its living habitat rarely has more than a few million people on or about its surface. These include commercial mariners, fishermen, cruise ship passengers, sailors aboard the world's military fleets, offshore oil and gas workers, research scientists and the odd sea gypsy.One reason we've not colonized the ocean, as science-fiction writers (and at least one senator, the late Claiborne Pell, of Rhode Island) once imagined, is that the ocean is a far rougher and more difficult wilderness than any encountered by terrestrial explorers, or even astronauts traveling in the consistent vacuum of space, with its occasional meteorites and space junk to avoid.The sea pummels us with an unbreathable and corrosive liquid medium; altered visual and acoustic characteristics; changing temperatures, depths and pressures; upwellings; tides; currents; gyres; obscuring marine layers; sudden storms and giant rouge waves; and life forms than can sting, poison or bite.¶ Even accounting for more than 70 years of classified military hydrographic surveys, we've still mapped less than 10% of the ocean with the resolution we've used to map all of the moon, Mars or even several moons of Jupiter.¶ Obviously, our ability to search for a missing aircraft at sea has come a long way since Amelia Earhart disappeared while trying to cross the Pacific in 1937. But the patched-together satellite data and electronic-signals processing that has so far pointed the Flight 370 search to an area 1,800 miles from Perth, Australia, is no more than a crisis-mode, jury-rigged, extraordinary effort. Consider this: If you're a drug smuggler and you enter U.S. coastal waters in a speedboat at night, and then go dead in the water during the day, with a blue tarp thrown over your vessel, odds are that you'll successfully deliver your contraband.¶ Our investment in ocean exploration, monitoring and law enforcement efforts is at a 20-year low in the United States and not much better elsewhere. Our chances of quickly finding the missing Malaysian flight would have been improved if we had invested more money and effort on our planet's last great commons, with observational tools such as in-situ labs and wired benthic observatories, remote and autonomous underwater vehicles and gliders, forward-looking infrared cameras and multi-beam shipboard, airborne (and space-deployed) scanning systems, and other smart but woefully underfunded sea technologies.¶ The fact remains that while hundreds of people have gone into space, only three humans have ventured to the lowest point on our planet seven miles down in the Mariana Trench, and the latest of these — filmmaker explorer engineer James Cameron — had to self-fund his 2012 mission.¶ Meanwhile, when it comes to exploring the cosmos, NASA — even in its diminished state — outspends NOAA's ocean exploration program roughly 1,000 to 1. Yet when we get to Mars, the first thing we seek as proof of life is water. Meanwhile, we have a whole water planet that remains a challenge we've once again discovered to be far greater than we thought.¶ Whatever the final resolution of the Flight 370 tragedy, that challenge is bound to become greater as our food and coastal security, marine transportation systems, even our basic ecosystem processes such as the oxygen generated by ocean plankton, are increasingly stressed through overfishing, pollution, loss of coastal habitat and ocean impacts from climate change. Investing in the exploration and understanding of our planet's largest habitat should be a given. Perhaps that will be a lesson learned from our latest human disaster. Unfortunately, while the sea is still vast, our ability to act wisely in our own interests is often limited.

Centralized and coordinated ocean exploration boosts international cooperation; serves as a global model for synergy.


Pages & Kearney, 4 (Patrice, magazine editor @ American Chemical Society, and Bill, editor @ Ocean Drive magazine, “Exploration of the Deep Blue Sea: Unveiling the Ocean’s Mysteries,” In Focus Magazine, Winter/Spring, vol. 4, no. 1, http://www.infocusmagazine.org/4.1/env_ocean.html)

The oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth's surface, regulate our weather and climate, and sustain a large portion of the planet's biodiversity, yet we know very little about them. In fact, most of this underwater realm remains unexplored. Three recent reports from the National Research Council propose a significantly expanded international infrastructure for ocean exploration and research to close this knowledge gap and unlock the many secrets of the sea. Already a world leader in ocean research, the United States should lead a new exploration endeavor by example. "Given the limited resources in many other countries, it would be prudent to begin with a U.S. exploration program that would include foreign representatives and serve as a model for other countries," said John Orcutt, the committee chair for one of the reports and deputy director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. "Once programs are established elsewhere, groups of nations could then collaborate on research and pool their resources under international agreements." Using new and existing facilities, technologies, and vehicles, proposed efforts to understand the oceans would follow two different approaches. One component dedicated to exploration would utilize ships, submersibles, and satellites in new ways to uncover the ocean's biodiversity, such as the ecosystems associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vents, coral reefs, and volcanic, underwater mountains. A second component -- a network of ocean "observatories" composed of moored buoys and a system of telecommunication cables and nodes on the seafloor -- would complement the existing fleet of research ships and satellites. The buoys would provide information on weather and climate as well as ocean biology, and the cables would be used to transmit information from sensors on fixed nodes about volcanic and tectonic activity of the seafloor, earthquakes, and life on or below the seafloor. Also, a fleet of new manned and unmanned deep-diving vehicles would round out this research infrastructure. Education and outreach should be an integral part of new ocean science efforts by bringing discoveries to the public, informing government officials, and fostering collaborations between educators and the program's scientists, the reports say. These activities will expand previous international programs. For example, the observatory network will build on current attempts to understand the weather, climate, and seafloor, such as the Hawaii-2 Observatory -- which consists of marine telephone cables running between Oahu and Hawaii and the California coast -- and the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array, which contains about 70 moorings in the Pacific and was key to predicting interannual climate events such as El Niño.

These partnerships boost US science diplomacy and build coalitions to preserve global stability.


Carnahan, 12 (Russ Carnahan represents Missouri’s Third Congressional District from 2005-2013 and serves on the House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Veterans’ Affairs. Science Diplomacy and Congress, AAAS center for scientific diplomacy, 08.02.2012, http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/perspective/2012/science-diplomacy-and-congress, A.G)

As a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former member of the House Committee on Science, I believe that the coordination of international science and technology (S&T) diplomacy is paramount to U.S. interests. The United States has the potential to build more positive relationships with other countries through science. Our country can better advance U.S. national security and economic interests by helping build technological capacities in other nations and working with international partners to solve global challenges. This is why I have worked in a bipartisan manner to lead the introduction of four bills at the intersection of science and diplomacy: the International Science and Technology Cooperation Act; the Global Conservation Act; the Global Science Program for Security, Competitiveness, and Diplomacy Act; and the Startup Act 2.0. International challenges are just that: global in their scope and in their solutions. The United States cannot solve multifaceted, multinational problems in scientific or diplomatic isolation. Forging networks with scientists and institutions abroad helps the United States and its partners find technical solutions to key global challenges. In an era where international skepticism about U.S. foreign policy abounds, civil society—including scientists and engineers—plays a critical role in reinforcing U.S. foreign policy priorities via engagement with its counterparts


Scientific diplomacy is necessary to solve multiple scenarios for extinction – transcends IR to solve war.


Sackett, 10 (Penny, former Chief Scientist for Australia, former Program Director at the NSF, PhD in theoretical physics, the Director of the Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 8/10, “Science diplomacy: Collaboration for solutions,” Forum for Australian-European Science and Technology Cooperation, http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1p10y/FEAST/resources/134.htm)

Imagine for a moment that the globe is inhabited by a single individual who roams free across outback plains, through rainforests, across pure white beaches — living off the resources available. Picture the immensity of the world surrounding this one person and ask yourself, what possible impact could this single person have on the planet? Now turn your attention to today’s reality. Almost 7 billion people inhabit the planet and this number increases at an average of a little over one per cent per year.  That’s about 2 more mouths to feed every second. Do these 7 billion people have an impact on the planet? Yes. An irreversible impact? Probably. Taken together this huge number of people has managed to change the face of the Earth and threaten the very systems that support them. We are now embarked on a trajectory that, if unchecked, will certainly have detrimental impacts on our way of life and to natural ecosystems. Some of these are irreversible, including the extinction of many species. But returning to that single individual, surely two things are true.  A single person could not have caused all of this, nor can a single person solve all the associated problems. The message here is that the human-induced global problems that confront us cannot be solved by any one individual, group, agency or nation. It will take a large collective effort to change the course that we are on; nothing less will suffice. Our planet is facing several mammoth challenges: to its atmosphere, to its resources, to its inhabitants. Wicked problems such as climate change, over-population, disease, and food, water and energy security require concerted efforts and worldwide collaboration to find and implement effective, ethical and sustainable solutions. These are no longer solely scientific and technical matters.  Solutions must be viable in the larger context of the global economy, global unrest and global inequality.  Common understandings and commitment to action are required between individuals, within communities and across international networks. Science can play a special role in international relations. Its participants share a common language that transcends mother tongue and borders.   For centuries scientists have corresponded and collaborated on international scales in order to arrive at a better and common understanding of the natural and human world. Values integral to science such as transparency, vigorous inquiry and informed debate also support effective international relation practices. Furthermore, given the long-established global trade of scientific information and results, many important international links are already in place at a scientific level. These links can lead to coalition-building, trust and cooperation on sensitive scientific issues which, when supported at a political level, can provide a ‘soft politics’ route to other policy dialogues. That is, if nations are already working together on global science issues, they may be more likely to be open to collaboration on other global issues such as trade and security.


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