Even major global powers won’t use hsr, China is failing



Download 0.81 Mb.
Page13/31
Date18.10.2016
Size0.81 Mb.
#2773
1   ...   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   ...   31

Asian Carp DA




1NC

1. Asian Carp are threatening the Great Lakes—that kills surrounding ecosystems.


Trevor Quirk, February 27, 2012. “Why Asian carp are such a threat.” The Christian Science Monitor. Trevor Quirk is a CSM Contributor. http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0227/Why-Asian-carp-are-such-a-threat

The EPA currently classifies the Asian Carp as an invasive species. The Corps and the concerned states agree that the carp are a serious threat to the ecology of the Great Lakes area, as well as its $7-billion sport-fishing market. The disagreement pivots around whether the current schemes in place are enough.¶ In 2002, The Army Corps of Engineers installed an electric-current barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the only navigable link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River drainage basins. The Great Lake states, evidently unsatisfied, have proposed that this link be permanently destroyed. ¶ More recently, in early 2009, when the electric barriers were deactivated for maintenance, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources dumped 2,200 gallons of rotenone – a toxin to fish that is said to be harmless to humans – into the canal. The $3 million action produced 90 tons of dead fish, among which only one Asian carp was found.¶ Given the extreme measures being taken, you might wonder what it is about these carp that makes them so terrifying?¶ First, let's define the fish in question. 'Asian carp' is a catchall for four distinct species: the Bighead, Silver, Grass, and Black carp. Though their names might signify otherwise, these species do closely resemble each other, tending to have the same lurid tarnished-silver scales. The four species vary in size, but are large compared to native American freshwater fish. They can weigh anywhere from 60 to 110 pounds, and range from 40 to 60 inches in length. All four are known to inhabit the Mississippi River Basin, which eventually connects to the Great Lakes. In the Mississippi and other American waterways, Asian carp "have left a trail of tremendous destruction," says Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service, Minneapolis. Wooley says the carp's previous activity in other environments demonstrates its ability to "literally take over an ecosystem." ¶ Wooley told the Monitor of the carp's two major threats. The first is a food problem. Asian carp don't eat other fish, but because of their voracious appetites (consuming up to a third of their body weight per day) they could easily out-compete native fish that rely on specific sources of food. Each type of carp prefers a different food – varying from grass to plankton to snails and mussels –making their attack on the ecosystem somewhat multi-pronged. Moreover, these sources lie at the bottom of Great Lakes' food chain. Changes at the foundation tend to reverberate through the entire ecosystem. Then there's the Asian carp's fecundity. Female Bighead carp, for example, can carry up to 1 million eggs in a lifetime, much more than most native fish. They also reproduce rapidly, says Wooley. Once introduced, the Asian carp is difficult to stop.

2. More waterways only increase the risk of carp invasion.


Trevor Quirk, February 27, 2012. “Why Asian carp are such a threat.” The Christian Science Monitor. Trevor Quirk is a CSM Contributor. http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0227/Why-Asian-carp-are-such-a-threat

The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the Great Lakes states' appeal to close shipping locks to stymie the on-going incursion of Asian carp.¶ Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are suing the Army Corps of Engineers to provide greater protection to prevent the fish from entering the Great Lakes. While this suit continued, the five states sought an injunction to have the Corps close locks on waterways that connect the Mississippi River with Lake Michigan.¶ The federal government said that the efforts proposed by these states would detract from the long-term strategy of the Corps.

3. Invasive species cause massive loss of biodiversity and can adapt easily—this wipes out existing species.


Stephen Leahy, May 21, 2009. “Biodiversity: Alien Species Eroding Ecosystems and Livelihoods.” Inter Press City News, Stephen Leahy is a correspondent. http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/05/biodiversity-alien-species-eroding-ecosystems-and-livelihoods/]

However. this mass movement of species is reducing overall biodiversity. When the Nile Perch was introduced into Africa’s Lake Victoria, 100 to 150 endemic fish species were wiped out. There are many similar instances but most often the invaders do not directly cause extinctions. Instead they compete for food, habitat and other resources, reducing local species numbers to low levels. And then a bad weather event, disease or some other stress comes along and suddenly the native species is gone, Ricciardi said. “Every invasive species has an impact but most go undocumented. They are insidious and often subtle in terms of impacts,” he said. Unnoticed, some invaders spread far and wide, adapt to local conditions and then years afterwards become a major problem by degrading or dramatically altering the ecosystems they are in. “Invasives are a form of biological pollution, but one that can change and adapt,” Ricciardi said. Local species are vulnerable to these invaders because they do not have any evolutionary experience to cope with them. There many examples of large numbers of species on isolated islands decimated by goats, cats and rats simply because those species never lived there until someone introduced them. And that is the key – invasions are tightly connected to human behaviour.

4. Species and biodiversity loss causes collapse and human extinction


Major David Diner, JAG Corps, United States Army, Winter 1994, Military Law Review, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161, p. 170-173

1. Why Do We Care? -- No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single-minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world’s survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. Only a fraction of the earth’s species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world’s biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. “The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole.” 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, mankind [humankind] may be edging closer to the abyss.


Download 0.81 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   ...   31



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
washington post
environmental effects
glory days
european part