Second negative briefs
RISING SEA-LEVELS WILL BE CATASTROPHIC
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- SK/N208. DESALINATION: Solvency 1. DESALINATION IS NOT COST-EFFECTIVE
- 2. DESALINATION WON’T WORK IN RURAL OR REMOTE AREAS
- 3. SAN DIEGO IS ALMOST UNIQUE IN SUITABILITY
- SK/N209. DESALINATION: Disads 1. DESALINATION INCREASES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
- 2. DESALINATION DEVASTATES MARINE LIFE
- SK/N210. DRIFTNETS: Solvency 1. COMPLETE BAN OF DRIFTNETS IS UNWORKABLE
- 2. FRAUD WILL DESTROY SOLVENCY
- SK/N211. INVASIVE SPECIES Disad A. INCREASED OCEAN TRAFFIC INCREASES INVASIVE SPECIES
- B. INVASIVE SPECIES WREAK HAVOC AND DESTRUCTION
- N212. IRON FERTILIZATION: Solvency 1. EFFICACY IN SEQUESTERING CARBON IS UNPROVED
- 2. CANADIAN INCIDENT DID NOT PROVE SOLVENCY
- 3. FURTHER STUDY IS NEEDED
- N213. IRON FERTILIZATION: Disad A. IRON FERTILIZATION ENTAILS HUGE LONG-TERM RISKS
- B. THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IS VIOLATED
3. RISING SEA-LEVELS WILL BE CATASTROPHIC a. INCREASED EMISSIONS RAISE SEA LEVELS SK/N207.30) Justin Gillis & Kenneth Chang, THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 13, 2014, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. A United Nations scientific committee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has warned that the global sea level could rise as much as three feet by the end of this century if stronger efforts are not made to control greenhouse gases. The new findings suggest the situation is likely to get far worse in subsequent centuries. b. COASTAL CITIES WILL BE DESTROYED SK/N207.31) Justin Gillis & Kenneth Chang, THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 13, 2014, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. Research published in 2012 found that a rise of less than four feet would inundate land on which some 3.7 million Americans live today. Miami, New Orleans, New York and Boston are all highly vulnerable. SK/N207.32) Justin Gillis & Kenneth Chang, THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 13, 2014, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. He [Richard B. Alley, climate scientist at Pennsylvania State U.] added that while a large rise of the sea may now be inevitable from West Antarctica, continued release of greenhouse gases will almost certainly make the situation worse. The heat-trapping gases could destabilize other parts of Antarctica as well as the Greenland ice sheet, potentially causing enough sea-level rise that many of the world's coastal cities would eventually have to be abandoned. SK/N208. DESALINATION: Solvency 1. DESALINATION IS NOT COST-EFFECTIVE SK/N208.01) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot -- roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources. And its price tag is at least four times the cost of obtaining "new water" from conservation methods -- such as paying farmers to install drip irrigation, or providing rebates for homeowners to rip out lawns or buy water-efficient toilets. SK/N208.02) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. "We look out and see a vast ocean. It seems obvious," said Heather Cooley, water director for the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Oakland. "But it's [desalination’s] cost prohibitive for most places in California." SK/N208.03) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. After enduring severe water shortages during a drought in the late 1980s, Santa Barbara voters agreed to spend $34 million to build a desalination plant. It opened in 1991 and provided water for four months. When the drought ended, the city shut it down. Water from reservoirs and other sources was significantly cheaper. SK/N208.04) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Similarly, Australia spent more than $10 billion building six huge seawater desalination plants during a severe drought from 1997 to 2009. Today, Cooley noted, four are shut down because when rains finally came, the cost of the water became noncompetitive. SK/N208.05) Lorelei Laird, PLANNING, August-September 2013, p. 31, PROQUEST. The reverse osmosis technology this plant will use is not new, but reverse osmosis seawater desalination has not been widely adopted in the U.S. That's largely because it's not as cheap as conventional water sources. In fact, U.S. seawater desalination plants have been underused because of this factor. After the 1987-1992 drought, plants were built in several California cities-but after the drought ended, many were shut down or used intermittently. And in Florida, the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is running below capacity because of the price difference. SK/N208.06) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Santa Cruz city officials in August shelved plans for a desal plant after environmental activists raised fears that the new water might trigger more growth. Marin County studied a desal project, then dropped it when water use declined. Long-running plans to build a desal plant in San Francisco Bay near Concord were shelved this year when the region's largest water districts decided they could obtain water more cheaply through recycling and other means. 2. DESALINATION WON’T WORK IN RURAL OR REMOTE AREAS SK/N208.07) STATES NEWS SERVICE, March 21, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. While water desalination technologies currently exist, few are suitable for rural or remote areas where brackish water is abundant and there is a great need for technologies that can provide fresh water for home and farm use. 3. SAN DIEGO IS ALMOST UNIQUE IN SUITABILITY SK/N208.08) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. San Diego County is better suited than any large California community for desalination. It receives only 10 inches of rain a year, one-third less than Los Angeles, Fresno or San Jose. It has very little groundwater. And it has a large customer base to spread out the cost of the Carlsbad plant, which will provide about 7 percent of the total water needs of the county. SK/N209. DESALINATION: Disads 1. DESALINATION INCREASES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS SK/N209.01) Lorelei Laird, PLANNING, August-September 2013, p. 31, PROQUEST. Heather Cooley [researcher, Pacific Institute] points to a third environmental problem with desalination plants: greenhouse gas emissions from the large amount of energy used to pressurize water for reverse osmosis. That typically means electricity from coal-fired power plants. SK/N209.02) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. In Carlsbad, two gallons of seawater will be needed to produce each gallon of drinking water. And to remove the salt, the plant will use an enormous amount of energy -- about 38 megawatts, enough to power 28,500 homes -- to force 100 million gallons of seawater a day through a series of filters. The process, known as reverse osmosis, removes salt and other impurities by blasting the water at six times the pressure of a fire hose through membranes with microscopic holes. 2. DESALINATION DEVASTATES MARINE LIFE SK/N209.03) Lorelei Laird, PLANNING, August-September 2013, p. 31, PROQUEST. Another concern about desalination plants-one that drives up the cost of development-is their environmental impact. When seawater is taken into a desalination plant, the marine life living in that water is killed. There are also concerns about the other end of the process, when very salty brine is discharged and could hurt organisms living on the ocean floor. SK/N209.04) Lorelei Laird, PLANNING, August-September 2013, p. 31, PROQUEST. Similarly, the Surfrider Foundation opposed Poseidon's plan to mitigate the brine discharge problem by diluting it with more seawater-"tripling the marine life mortality from the intake to avoid the threat of habitat degradation," Geever [water programs manager, San Diego Surfrider Foundation] says. SK/N209.05) THE ECONOMIST (US), March 31, 2012, p. 42(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Joe Geever of the Surfrider Foundation says desalination uses too much energy and that Poseidon's plant would kill too much marine life, including fish such as the goby and the garibaldi, which unfortunately happens to be California's state marine fish. SK/N209.06) Paul Rogers, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (California), May 29, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. To critics, the plant [Carlsbad Desalination Plant] is a costly mistake that will use huge amounts of energy and harm fish and other marine life when it sucks in seawater using the intakes from the aging Encina Power Plant next door. "This is going to be the pig that will try for years to find the right shade of lipstick," said Marco Gonzalez, an Encinitas attorney who sued on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental groups to try to stop construction. "This project will show that the water is just too expensive." SK/N210. DRIFTNETS: Solvency 1. COMPLETE BAN OF DRIFTNETS IS UNWORKABLE SK/N210.01) STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 14, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Today, the European Commission announced its proposal to ban all types of driftnets from operating in European waters. The measure is aimed at eliminating alleged loopholes that allow illegal fishing with driftnets to continue. However, according to Oceana, the marine conservation organisation that has been working to end the use of this unsustainable fishing gear for the last ten years, the approach of the Commission is mistaken, despite its sound intentions. SK/N210.02) Keith Findlay, ABERDEEN PRESS AND JOURNAL (Scotland), May 30, 2014, p. 36 , LexisNexis Academic. A Scottish fishing leader has said a proposed blanket ban on driftnets is another example of the kind of "nonsense" rules from Brussels that have led to UK voters backing the anti-Europe UK Independence Party (Ukip). SK/N210.03) Keith Findlay, ABERDEEN PRESS AND JOURNAL (Scotland), May 30, 2014, p. 36 , LexisNexis Academic. Writing in his latest SFO newsletter, he [Iain MacSween, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Organisation] said the recent proposal from the European Commission - led by European Union Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki - to end all driftnet fishing in EU waters was typically ill-judged. He added: "It is not just the driftnetting in the Med for swordfish and tuna, where huge nets are used and do catch other species, but all driftnets. So, the Clovelly (north Devon) herring fishing that produces 10 tonnes per annum will need to close as will the Thames Blackwater herring fishery. It is symptomatic of the nonsense that comes out of the commission. Banning driftnetting in these fisheries, or even the Cromarty Firth or the Sound of Scalpay, is going to achieve nothing. Not one dolphin, shark or turtle will be saved but this is the approach that the commission takes time and time again.” 2. FRAUD WILL DESTROY SOLVENCY SK/N210.04) STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 14, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Oceana is concerned that the measures proposed by the European Commission could penalise thousands of sustainable artisanal fishing boats and open once again the potential for massive subsidies fraud rather than targeting the few vessels that have continued illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing activities and that should have been officially blacklisted years ago. SK/N211. INVASIVE SPECIES Disad A. INCREASED OCEAN TRAFFIC INCREASES INVASIVE SPECIES SK/N211.01) LIFE SCIENCE WEEKLY, May 21, 2013, p. 916, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Globalisation, with its ever increasing demand for cargo transport, has inadvertently opened the flood gates for a new, silent invasion. New research has mapped the most detailed forecast to date for importing potentially harmful invasive species with the ballast water of cargo ships. SK/N211.02) STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 28, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened passages leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species, biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center assert in a commentary published May 28 in Nature. SK/N211.03) STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 28, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. While new opportunities for tapping Arctic natural resources and interoceanic trade are high, commercial ships often inadvertently carry invasive species. Organisms from previous ports can cling to the undersides of their hulls or be pumped in the enormous tanks of ballast water inside their hulls. Now that climate change has given ships a new, shorter way to cross between oceans, the risks of new invasions are escalating. SK/N211.04) LIFE SCIENCE WEEKLY, June 10, 2014, p. 634, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Trans-Arctic shipping is a game changer that will play out on a global scale," said lead author Whitman Miller. "The economic draw of the Arctic is enormous. Whether it's greater access to the region's rich natural resource reserves or cheaper and faster inter-ocean commercial trade, Arctic shipping will reshape world markets. If unchecked, these activities will vastly alter the exchange of invasive species, especially across the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans." B. INVASIVE SPECIES WREAK HAVOC AND DESTRUCTION SK/N211.05) LIFE SCIENCE WEEKLY, May 21, 2013, p. 916, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Animals and plants can hitch a ride on cargo ships, hiding as stowaways in the ballast tanks or clinging to the ship's hull. Upon arrival in a new port, alien species can then wreak havoc in formerly pristine waters. These so-called invasive species can drive native species to extinction, modify whole ecosystems and impact human economy. Some regions, such as the San Francisco Bay or Chesapeake Bay, have even reported several new exotic species per year. The knock-on effects to fishermen, farmers, tourism and industry create billions of US dollars in damage every year. SK/N211.06) STATES NEWS SERVICE, July 13, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, author of the Stop Invasive Species Act signed by President Obama last week, made the following statement after the discovery of Asian carp eDNA in Lake Erie - the first ever discovered in the Great Lakes. "This alarming discovery underscores the need for action now to stop Asian carp and other invasive species from devastating our Great Lakes and the hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs that depend on them.” SK/N211.07) Trevor Quirk, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, February 27, 2012, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. 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. N212. IRON FERTILIZATION: Solvency 1. EFFICACY IN SEQUESTERING CARBON IS UNPROVED SK/N212.01) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Adding iron or other nutrients to surface waters in the open ocean is a process known as Ocean Fertilization. In fact, this process is comparable to the use of fertilizers in agriculture, i.e. adding nutrients that are found to be lacking in the local environment to stimulate plant growth, in this case phytoplanckton that form the base of the marine food-chain. The stated intention was to trigger a plankton bloom in the hope of attracting salmon to this food source and enhance fisheries in the area. The resulting photosynthetic activity could, in theory, increase the storage of carbon from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. However, the science is still highly uncertain, the supposed benefits have yet to be demonstrated, and "ownership' issues for open ocean fishery enhancement have yet to be resolved. SK/N212.02) Jeff Tollefson, NATURE, October 25, 2012, p. 458, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. And whether iron fertilization actually sequesters carbon is uncertain. A study by Smetacek published in July--based on analysis of an experiment in 2004--found that at least half of the carbon taken up by the iron-fertilized plankton was buried after they sank to the bottom of the sea. But other studies have found that carbon in the blooms remains in the active biological cycle and is not sequestered at all. SK/N212.03) Jeff Tollefson, NATURE, October 25, 2012, p. 458, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. It is unclear whether the project will restore the salmon. A bumper run of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in 2010 came two years after a volcanic eruption in Alaska sent a layer of iron-rich ash over the ocean, fertilizing a plankton bloom. But many scientists remain sceptical. Whether the Haida experiment worked won't be known for two years, when the youngest of the salmon feeding in the ocean today return home to spawn. 2. CANADIAN INCIDENT DID NOT PROVE SOLVENCY SK/N212.04) Jeff Tollefson, NATURE, October 25, 2012, p. 458, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. When a chartered fishing boat strewed 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the ocean off western Canada last July, the goal was to supercharge the marine ecosystem. The iron was meant to fertilize plankton, boost salmon populations and sequester carbon. Whether the ocean responded as hoped is not clear, but the project has touched off an explosion on land, angering scientists, embarrassing a village of indigenous people and enraging opponents of geoengineering. The first reports about the project, which appeared in British newspaper The Guardian on 15 October, presented it as a rogue geoengineering scheme--the largest in history--in "blatant violation" of international treaties. SK/N212.05) Jeff Tollefson, NATURE, October 25, 2012, p. 458, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In fact, the Old Massett scheme dumped five times more iron than previous fertilization experiments. And no scientists outside the project have seen data that might show whether it worked as advertised. 3. FURTHER STUDY IS NEEDED SK/N212.06) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A total of 13 small-scale iron fertilization studies and two commercial pilot studies had been conducted to date to improve scientific understanding of nutrient limitation, a factor closely connected to marine ecosystem structure, productivity and resource exploitation, and the global cycling of carbon and other key elements. There have been some unexpected responses, for instance markedly different phytoplankton communities and total biomass resulted from two iron addition experiments conducted a year apart at the same site in the northwest Pacific Ocean. SK/N212.07) Michael Gross, CHEMISTRY AND INDUSTRY, January 2013, ESCOHost, p. 27. Marine biologist Chris Bowler from the Ecole Nationale Superieure at Paris comments: 'At this time, the handful of large-scale iron fertilisation experiments that have been done are simply not enough for us to allow an accurate cost-benefit analysis to weigh the benefits of iron fertilisation against the collateral ecological costs. We need more studies like EIFEX that assess carbon export, and we need even longer term experiments that assess plankton ecosystem community changes.' N213. IRON FERTILIZATION: Disad A. IRON FERTILIZATION ENTAILS HUGE LONG-TERM RISKS SK/N213.01) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Geoengineering, also known as Climate Engineering, refers to "the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system, in order to moderate global warming'. Geoengineering the climate is an option that is now gaining scientific, policy, and public attention but it involves considerable uncertainty and risk. The potential side effects of geoengineering are presently not well understood and will likely include unintended ecological consequences, which in turn can pose important political, social, and ethical challenges. SK/N213.02) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One of the main conclusions is that "large-scale fertilization could have unintended (and difficult to predict) impacts, not only locally, e.g. risk of toxic algal blooms, but also far removed in space and time. Impact assessments need to include the possibility of such "far-field' effects on biological productivity, sub-surface oxygen levels, biogas production and ocean acidification'. SK/N213.03) STATES NEWS SERVICE, November 2, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In the statement, the Parties [Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972 (London Convention) and to the 1996 Protocol thereto (London Protocol)] recognized the actions of the Government of Canada in investigating this incident and stressed that ocean fertilization has the potential to have widespread, long-lasting, and severe impacts on the marine environment, with implications for human health. SK/N213.04) EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL, Autumn 2012, p. 12, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Large-scale experiments with ocean fertilization are currently banned by the London Convention, which restricts dumping at sea. Victor Smetacek, lead author of the Nature study, says that is "a crying shame" because it blocks crucial research that would help us understand "what might happen to species composition" if we were to continuously add iron to the sea. Fair enough. Though that experiment sort of sounds like adding straws to a bale to see which one will break the camel's back. SK/N213.05) Michael Gross, CHEMISTRY AND INDUSTRY, January 2013, ESCOHost, p. 27. Many experts in the field are critical of commercial iron fertilisation projects. Smetacek [Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research at Bremerhaven in Germany] wants to keep commercial interest out of the endeavour: 'Under all circumstances, the experiments and later large-scale applications must remain in the hands of scientists employed by international, non-profit agencies analogous to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) or WHO (World Health Organisation),' he says. B. THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IS VIOLATED SK/N213.06) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. It is clear that the consequences of ocean fertilization are not yet fully understood. Given the level of uncertainty and the political and ethical challenges mentioned above, the international community feels it is critical to uphold the precautionary principle. In 2008, the 193 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decided that no further ocean fertilization activities for whatever purpose should be carried out in non-coastal waters until there was stronger scientific justification, assessed through a global regulatory mechanism. Such a regulatory framework is now being developed by the London Convention (LC) and London Protocol (LP). SK/N213.07) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. What is the United Nations' current position on ocean fertilization? The outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) states "We stress our concern about the potential environmental impacts of ocean fertilization. In this regard, we recall the decisions related to ocean fertilization adopted by the relevant intergovernmental bodies, and resolve to continue addressing ocean fertilization with utmost caution, consistent with the precautionary approach' (The Future We Want, s.167). This document, a joint endeavour of the entire UN System, was adopted by Member States in July 2012. SK/N213.08) Wendy Watson-Wright [Asst. Director General, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission], STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 23, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In response to concerns that large-scale ocean fertilization might be attempted before its consequences were fully understood, CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity], Parties to the LC [London Convention] and LP [London Protocol] and IOC [Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission] have urged governments to ensure that ocean fertilization activities do not take place until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities, including an assessment of associated risks. These UN entities have also advocated for a global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanism to be put in place for these activities, with the exception of small scale scientific research studies within coastal waters. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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