Misc Resource Wars Impact



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Offense

Deforestation Turn




Oil dependence is key to the economy and deforestation

Bryce 10

[Robert, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, “Cleaning Up Oil's Reputation”, Wall Street Journal, 4-23-10, online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303491304575187934172406168.html, javi]



Oil, and foreign oil in particular, has been a favorite whipping boy for American politicians since the 1970s. They say that we are "addicted" to oil, that oil fosters terrorism and that we can "win the oil endgame." While those claims are effective at rousing the masses, here's the reality: The world isn't using too much oil. It's not using enough. The world now consumes about 85 million barrels of oil per day. That consumption has resulted in unprecedented levels of mobility and affluence. The correlation between oil use and wealth is so close as to be inarguable. Yes, the U.S. is among the world's biggest per capita consumers of oil, but that petroleum has made the American economy into a powerhouse. Increasing oil consumption among the rural poor would have major benefits: It would help preserve rain forests and endangered species habitat; more importantly, it would help save the lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished people who die premature deaths every year due to indoor air pollution caused by burning biomass. People living in rural poverty have no choice but to cook their food with locally available fuels. For tens of millions of these people, the only choice is wood, which often results in the destruction of forests needed to sustain endangered species. Consider the case of the mountain gorillas living in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are under siege due to demand for wood from the people living around the park. What's the best way to preserve the forest? Local conservationists agree the fastest way is to provide the locals with butane, propane or other fuels derived from oil so that they quit burning wood and charcoal. If oil didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. No other substance can compare to oil in terms of energy density, flexibility, cost and convenience. None of this is to deny the many problems caused by the global oil business. Oil drilling and oil spills—both onshore and offshore—have had significant environmental effects including wildlife kills, habitat destruction and serious land- and water-contamination problems. And the risks of oil drilling were made apparent again on Thursday when a giant oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon, sank after it was hit by a deadly explosion and fire. Eleven rig workers are still missing. The costs associated with oil are many. But when compared with the fuels that might replace oil, particularly plant-based biofuels, petroleum outshines them all. Increased use of clean-burning refined oil products would not only preserve forests, it would also provide immediate health benefits to impoverished people who are sickened, or die prematurely, from indoor air pollution caused by the burning of biomass. World-wide, as many as 1.6 million people per year, the majority of them women, are dying premature deaths due to this type of pollution. Indoor air pollution hits women and girls particularly hard because they spend more time indoors, cooking over open fires, than their male counterparts. If environmentalists in the rich countries are truly concerned about protecting rare forest-dwelling animals and improving the lives of the rural poor, they should be arguing for increased use of oil, not less.

Deforestation causes global species extinction and kills hundreds of millions


Sandow 2k

[David, Assistant Secretary Oceans, Environment, and Science, “Protecting and Conserving the World’s Forests”]



First, why do we care? In part, because forests cover 40% of the earth's land surface and are home to more than 70% of land-living plants and animals. An estimated 10-30 million species are found in tropical forests alone. The biodiversity that has sustained life through the millennia is found nowhere more richly than in forests. Forests perform myriad ecological services. They are often called the "lungs of the world," absorbing carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. Forests pull water from the clouds and control the flow of water into rivers and streams. Forests protect water quality and stabilize soils. Forests also help prevent disasters. When Hurricane Mitch dropped record rains on Nicaragua and Honduras, many villages that sat beneath barren, logged hillsides suffered terrible mudslides, with enormous loss of life. Villages that sat beneath forested hills were spared the worst devastation. And last month in Venezuela, the pattern was repeated. Amid the terrible devastation of some of the worst rains of the century, forests helped save lives. Forests are a critical economic resource -- providing food, fuel, shelter, and jobs for millions of people around the globe. A world without forest resources is scarcely imaginable. Forests provide the raw materials for lumber, plywood, paper, and other staples of modern life. Around the world, more than 500 million people depend on forests for their livelihood. The United States is the world's #1 importer and #2 exporter of forest products -- with total trade valued from $40-60 billion a year. Forests are also home to millions of indigenous people around the globe. And they are places for recreation, relaxation, and inspiration. So we value forests for all these reasons: their rich biological diversity, their many ecological services, their role in disaster prevention, their many products -- so ubiquitous in our lives -- the habitat they offer, and the way they help our spirits soar. What is the state of the world's forests? Sadly, many are disappearing at record rates. In the past decade, the world has lost an average of 38 million acres of forest per year. This is a land area roughly the size of Georgia. Tropical forests are vanishing at the rate of 250 acres per minute. To put that in context -- a football field is roughly two acres. We are losing two football fields of tropical forest every second. Such statistics are difficult to absorb. Perhaps most telling, we have now lost over half the forests that once blanketed the earth. Some countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover in the past few decades!

Broad statistical models prove – unmanaged economic declines lead to global conflict


Royal 10

[Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction – U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, 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 states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski 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. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 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 are 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. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends 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. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 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), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are 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 to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent 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 at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.



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