Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
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- The WTO talks will fail – the negotiations are too secretive
- AT: Yucca Mountain
- AT: Zoonotic Diseases
Ext #1 – WTO FailsThe WTO dispute resolution system fails – it relies on trade retaliation and empirically doesn’t deter violationsKaren Alter, prof of political science Northwestern 2003 [http://eucenter.wisc.edu/publications/alter.pdf International Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 4, July Resolving or Exacerbating Disputes? The WTO’s New Dispute Resolution System
Africa News, June 2008 [“Africa; WTO Delegates Following Talks Through News Media”, June 23, LEXIS] As closed-door meetings proceed between selected countries, other member states of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have resorted to following media reports in an attempt to stay abreast with the current Doha Round of negotiations on agriculture and industrial goods. Delegates told IPS that the talks have become non-transparent. A number of limited-attendance, high-level meetings involving senior officials and ambassadors are taking place while the majority of members are excluded. Many are feeling more and more frustrated about being locked out. The mini-ministerial meeting that the WTO Secretariat had optimistically punted for earlier this month has been put on hold. As a delegate from one of the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of countries told IPS on condition of anonymity, "the meetings are all restricted. It is the masters of the universe who are part of them. We are not there. "Thank goodness for freedom of the press," he said, alluding to the daily news reports of "Inside U.S. Trade" and the "Washington Trade Daily". These have become some delegates' sources of information on the various by-invitation-only negotiating meetings. The chairpersons of the talks at the top of the agenda -- agriculture and industrial goods or non-agricultural market access (NAMA) -- released new negotiating texts on May 19. However, even with these revised texts, too many issues remained unresolved. The major states, including Brazil, then advised WTO Director General Pascal Lamy to hold off on the mini-ministerial meeting until more convergence between positions emerges. AT: Yucca Mountain1. Yucca Mountain is safe- nature and science work together US Department Of Energy, 09 (“Nature and Engineering Working Together For a Safe Repository”, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/fact/Natureandengineering.shtml) Nature and engineering working together for a safe repository. If a repository were built at Yucca Mountain, it would rely on two different systems to prevent radioactive materials from escaping into the environment. These systems act as barriers to the movement of radionuclides (radioactive atoms). The first system involves natural barriers -- characteristics of the rocks and the groundwater at Yucca Mountain. The second system includes man-made, or engineered, barriers that give the repository defense-in-depth and added safety margins. The two systems would work together to protect public health and safety and the environment. Yucca Mountain's climate is very dry. The precipitation averages about 7.5 inches (190 mm) per year, most of which (more than 95%) either runs off, evaporates, or is taken up by the desert vegetation. The mountain's water table is unusually far beneath the surface -- on average, about 2,000 feet (600 m) underground. Yucca Mountain is located in the Death Valley hydrologic basin. Water in this basin does not flow into any rivers or oceans and is isolated from the aquifer systems of Las Vegas and Pahrump, the major nearby town, located about 40 miles (70 km) from the mountain. Natural barriers act together to slow the movement of radioactive particles Yucca Mountain has several natural characteristics that would work together to contain and isolate spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The most important natural barriers include the following: The surface soils and the natural physical shape and configuration of the mountain and its geologic environs (i.e., topography) -- which limit the ability of water to infiltrate the surface Unsaturated rock layers above the repository level -- which limit the ability of water to move down into the repository's emplacement tunnels Unsaturated rock layers below the repository level -- which limit transport of radionuclides that might escape from repository tunnels Volcanic rocks and water-deposited clay, silt, and sands (alluvial deposits) below the water table -- which limit radionuclide transport in the saturated zone With very little water available to start with, the surface soils and topography of Yucca Mountain and its region limit the amount of water that can infiltrate the mountain's surface. Perhaps the most important natural barrier, however, can be found in the rock layers and minerals of Yucca Mountain. The repository would be located about 1,000 feet (300 m) below the mountain's surface and, on average, about 1,000 feet above the water table -- in the unsaturated zone of rock. The unsaturated zone is the expanse of rock in which the microscopic pores are not completely filled with water. Water tends to move very slowly through such rock. At most locations within the mountain, it takes thousands of years for the small amounts of water that can infiltrate the surface to reach the level of the repository. It would then take thousands of additional years for the water to move through the next approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) of unsaturated rock to reach the water table. In addition, certain minerals within the rock actually strain radioactive particles from contaminated water, holding them in place in the rock. Of any particles that do reach the water table, the silts, rocks, and clays would slow, or capture, them. From there, any radioactive particles must then be transported more than 11 miles (18 km) through the rock in the saturated zone before reaching a location where the water is likely to be pumped to the surface and used by anyone. It would take many thousands of years for these processes to occur. Engineered barriers contribute to defense in depth By itself, the mountain would provide a high degree of protection to the public. To enhance the mountain's natural barriers, scientists and engineers have devised a series of man-made, or engineered, barriers to augment the natural system. The major engineered barriers include the following: Drip shields -- which limit the ability of water to contact the waste package Waste packages -- which limit the water contacting the actual waste forms inside Cladding (corrosion-resistant metal tubes that contain the ceramic fuel pellets) -- which limits the water contacting the commercial spent nuclear fuel portion of the waste Solid waste forms -- which limit the rate of radionuclides picked up by any water that does contact the waste Inverts (the floors of stainless steel and crushed volcanic rock added to the emplacement tunnels) -- which limit the rate of release of radionuclides to the natural barriers. The repository tunnels themselves also would serve as important engineered barriers to potential radioactive releases. The tunnels would be constructed away from large fractures in the rock because in unsaturated rock water moves fastest in large fractures. However, because of capillary forces, any water in small fractures near a larger opening, such as a tunnel, tends to stay in the fractures. The emplacement tunnels would also be designed so that any water that does enter them can drain, by gravity, out of the tunnels and away from any others. Natural and engineered barriers work together to provide necessary protection When designing disposal systems intended to last longer than recorded human history, scientists and engineers must consider the possibility that one or more barriers, natural or engineered, could fail to perform as expected. Waste packages may fail earlier than expected because of undetected defects. Unforeseen circumstances could cause more water than anticipated to seep into the tunnels. Fortunately, the repository's ability to contain and isolate its contents would not depend on any single barrier, natural or man-made. Having a combination of barriers is called defense-in-depth, meaning if one barrier fails to perform as expected, other barriers will continue to function in a way that compensates for the unexpected failure. Each of the barriers would work with the others to support a system designed to protect the public's health and safety and safeguard the environment. In fact, considering all the barriers working together, sophisticated computer calculations project that for at least 10,000 years after the repository is closed, the radiation a person could receive from the repository would be far below the radiation protection standards for public health and safety. 2. Yucca mountain will be safe for over a Million years US Department Of Energy, 09 (“Nature and Engineering Working Together For a Safe Repository”, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/fact/Natureandengineering.shtml) Federal regulations require us to evaluate the safety of the entire repository system using performance assessment. Our tool to do this is a computer model called a Total System Performance Assessment, or TSPA.Using data from our site characterization studies we have developed hundreds of computer models that simulate the different geologic, hydrologic, physical, and chemical processes of the repository. These models are used to analyze how the different parts of the repository work. Experts then incorporate the results of these analysis models into more comprehensive models for analyzing primary repository processes, which include: climate change water infiltration into the mountain water movement above the repository level water seepage in the repository tunnels the tunnel environment the effects on the engineered features the effects on the waste itself the transport of radioactive particles through the tunnel floor the transport of particles through the rock below the repository the transport of particles in the groundwater the effects on people and the environment In addition, process models were used to examine how different disruptive events such as earthquakes or volcanoes could affect repository safety. Results The Total System Performance Assessment calculates the radiation dose that people living at the repository boundary (about 11 miles from the repository) could receive over the next 10,000 to 1 million years. The dose calculations consider the conditions we expect to happen, which include minor earthquakes and climate change. They also consider unlikely damaging events, such as major earthquakes and volcanoes. This sum is compared to the Environmental Protection Agency’s dose and groundwater standards for Yucca Mountain. The radiation doses projected by the TSPA are substantially lower than the EPA's proposed standards. In fact, for the first 10,000 years after closure of the repository, for all the scenarios added together, the mean annual dose received by the most exposed person would be less than one additional millirem per year. AT: Zoonotic Diseases1. Most zoonotic diseases can’t kill fast enough to cause mass death. It is impossible for zoonotic diseases to cause extinction because they need hosts to survive.Sedon and Homes, 06 – Writer and PhD Professor of Biology at PennState – 2006(Michael and Edward, “Emerging viruses: Past, present, and future,” 11-6-06, http://www.rps.psu.edu/unplugged/fall06/holmes.html) Without the costly protease inhibitor drugs that have given many with HIV a longer life span, the disease will "cut a swath through the population of Africa," Holmes predicted. However, he explained, it's not in the best interest of even the most lethal viruses to kill their "hosts" too quickly. "Viruses need to infect new people to survive," Holmes said, "which explains why some viruses last longer than others." Deadly viruses like Ebola do not spread through large populations because the virus kills the host quickly, unlike HIV which allows the host to live with the disease long enough, sometimes unknowingly, to spread the virus, Holmes noted. And avian flu doesn't transmit well because it lives deep within the body. "It's a dead-end virus," he explained, "because, at this point, it has not generated a transmittable path from person-to-person after infection." 2. Unlike other disease, zoonotics have been contained if not eliminated due to the restrictions placed on animal trade, vaccines, and quarantines.Torres—99 (Alfonso, D.V.M., M.S., Ph.D., Deputy Administrator, USDA, Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services, “International Economic Considerations Concerning Agricultural Diseases and Human Health Costs of Zoonotic Diseases,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 894:80-82) Animal diseases can negatively affect the number and availability of animals, their productivity, or their appearance. 1 A few centuries ago, animal diseases affected mostly individual owners or herdsmen, but did not have serious consequences on the larger community. A similar event today will not only have a negative impact on the animal owners, but more importantly, will significantly affect the general economy of the region, the entire nation, even a group of nations. The importance of animal diseases as an element affecting international trade of animals and animal products has reached its full impact level with the recent designation by the World Trade Organization (WTO) of the International Office of Epizootics (OIE) as the international agency in charge of establishing animal health standards upon which international commerce can institute restrictions to prevent the spread of animal diseases from one nation to another. It is important to point out that while the spread of human diseases around the world is due to the unrestricted movement of people across political boundaries, animal diseases are, for the most part, restricted to defined geographic areas of the world due to the implementation of animal importation requirements, quarantines, animal movement regulations, and by disease control measures that include mass vaccination campaigns and animal depopulation practices. A number of animal diseases have been eradicated from countries or even from continents around the world by aggressive, well-coordinated, long-term animal health campaigns. This is in contrast to the relatively few human diseases successfully eradicated from large areas of the world. 3. Control of zoonotic disease is impossible in some countries—people are morally opposed to killing animals to stem the spread of the disease.Blancou, Chomel and Belotto, 2005 (Jean, former General Director of OEI, Bruno and Albino, “Emerging or re-emerging bacterial zoonoses: factors of emergence, surveillance and control,” Vet. Res., pg 507-522) The main obstacles that are encountered in the control of bacterial zoonoses are the same as those opposed to the control of any infectious disease, that is most often finan- cial and human obstacles rather than tech- nical limitations. The financial resources needed to effi- ciently fight against zoonotic agents are not available for all countries. Only the inter- national community’s financial support, could, notably, allow developing countries to organize a proper control of zoonotic dis- eases, but it is rare that this is materialized as a financial gift and mobilization of spe- cific funds, even by well-known interna- tional organizations (such as WHO, FAO, OIE), is limited for such diseases. Due to all these difficulties, many sanitary authorities of these countries have given up the estab- lishment of such prevention programs. Oth- ers manage, with a lot of perseverance, to elaborate complicated multilateral financial arrangements. This allows punctual projects to be realized, but rarely to establish the long-term prophylaxis plans that they really need. When financial and material problems are supposedly solved, human-related dif- ficulties should not be underestimated. These difficulties can originate within the services in charge of applying the national prophy- laxis plans, when these services are not themselves convinced of the good use of these plans, or when they do not seem to get specific benefits from it. The obstacles sometimes result from a lack of cooperation between specific professional categories, amongst which figure breeders, as well as livestock brokers or even veterinarians bothered by the application of certain pro- grams of control or the limited incentive given by the health authorities for perform- ing prophylaxis tasks. Finally, the obstacle to such plans may be caused by the active opposition of the public opinion to certain methods of control. This is notably the case for the hostility of some groups to the mass slaughtering of animals during epizootics, or to the use of vaccines issued from genetic engineering. By lack of an appropriate con- sensus, the control of some zoonotic dis- eases may simply be impossible in some countries. World No Go Boom??? Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. Tropical Cyclones documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> Cartographic Concepts for Realizing a Location Based umts service documents -> 1/ Background Statistics Human development index rank Download 2.71 Mb. Share with your friends:
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