AT: Competitiveness Key to Heg

AT: Competitiveness Key to Heg

Niall Ferguson, Hoover senior fellow, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, 2003

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: What Is Power? Which global players have power today—and which are likely to acquire it in the coming decades? Hoover Institute Digest, no. 2, http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3058266.html

It’s certainly tempting to assume that power is synonymous with gross domestic product: Big GDP equals big power. Hence many analysts point to China’s huge economy and rapid growth as evidence that the country will soon gain superpower rank, if it hasn’t already. Just project forward the average annual growth rates of the past 30 years, and Chinese GDP will equal that of the United States and exceed that of the EU, within just two decades (see figure 3). Gross Domestic Product in 1998 and Projected GDP in 2018 (millions of constant 1990 international dollars) But GDP doesn’t stand for Great Diplomatic Power. If the institutions aren’t in place to translate economic output into military hardware—and if the economy grows faster than public interest in foreign affairs—then product is nothing more than potential power. America overtook Britain in terms of GDP in the 1870s, but it was not until the First World War that it overtook Britain as a global power.

AT: Coral Reefs

1. Coral is dying at a quick pace in the squo

US Dept. of Interrior and National Park Services 6 (“Coral Bleaching and Disease Deliver “One – Two Punch” to Coral Reefs in the US Virgin Islands” < http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/sfcn/docs/CRTF%20Fact%20Sheet%20w%20Photo%201-1a.pdf> October accessed 6/29/09) SC

Monitoring programs that were in place before the bleaching began allowed NPS and USGS to quantify the effects of bleaching and disease. The NPS/ South Florida-Caribbean Inventory and Monitoring Network Program (SFCN) has permanent, randomly selected transects (=120) at 6 sites (up to 15 m deep) in St. John and St. Croix, including Virgin Islands NP and Buck Island Reef NM. An average of 90% of coral cover bleached at these sites in September and October 2005. Many corals began to recover their normal coloration but then suffered a “one-two punch” from disease (primarily white plague). Historically, sites were monitored annually using digital video, but frequency of monitoring increased to every 2-6 months to document the effects of the bleaching and disease event. Although bleaching was associated with record -warm seawater temperatures, some corals remain discolored and mortality from disease has continued despite cooler seawater temperatures in 2006. Coral cover has declined 48.7% at the long-term study sites as of July 2006. Two New Approaches to Evaluate Change In addition to the analysis of the digital videotapes for changes in percent coral cover over time, two other approaches are being used to examine the responses of corals to this event. First, the amount of disease affecting the coral reefs is being estimated on each sampling date by measurement of lesions (areas that have recently been killed by disease) on coral colonies one meter on either side of the permanent transects. Within our study sites, mortality from disease ranged from 4 to 80-times more extensive following bleaching than before bleaching began. Second, videotapes from successive time periods at each long-term site are being compared side-by-side to follow the condition and fate of 4153 selected coral colonies.
2. Coral Reefs have been dying in drastic numbers since the 70’s due to disease and coral bleaching

Telegraph 9 (“Coral Reefs collapse amid Global Warming” < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/5487425/Coral-reefs-collapse-amid-global-warming.html> June 10 accessed 6/29/09) SC

Scientists spotted the trend after analysing 500 surveys of 200 reefs conducted between 1969 and 2008.  They found 75 per cent of the reefs were now largely "flat" compared with 20 per cent in the 1970s. Today, most of the reefs across the Caribbean are significantly flatter and more uniform than they used to be, the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The most complex reefs are virtually wiped out, said the scientists. Disease and warming sea temperatures both have the effect of levelling and flattening coral reefs. In the late 1970s reefs were flattened when large amounts of Caribbean coral were killed off by widespread disease. More recently intense and frequent coral bleaching events, a direct result of rising sea surface temperatures due to global warming, have caused much more reef flattening, say the researchers. Study leader Dr Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, from the University of East Anglia's School of Biological Science, said: "For many organisms, the complex structure of reefs provides refuge from predators. This drastic loss of architectural complexity is clearly driving substantial declines in biodiversity, which will in turn affect coastal fishing communities. "The loss of structure also vastly reduces the Caribbean's natural coastal defences, significantly increasing the risk of coastal erosion and flooding." Reversing damage to coral reefs poses a major challenge for scientists and policy-makers alike, said the researchers.
3. Sharks, not Coral, are key to biodiversity and current overfishing has collapsed current coral level

Physorg 5 (“Research Shows Overfishing of Sharks Key Factor in Coral Reef Decline” http://www.physorg.com/news3688.html April 15 accessed 6/29/09) SC

Jordi Bascompte and Carlos Melián of the Integrative Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, in Sevilla, Spain, and Enric Sala of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, developed an unprecedented model of a Caribbean marine ecosystem and details of its intricate predator-prey interactions. This food “web” covered 1,000 square kilometers to a depth of 100 meters and included some 250 species of marine organisms. The study, published in the April 12 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, included an intricate network of more than 3,000 links between these species. The project was one of the largest and most detailed investigations of marine food webs and the first study to integrate food web structure, dynamics and conservation. One of the most striking products of the study is a stark picture of human impacts on marine ecosystems and the consequences of targeted fishing. In the Caribbean, overfishing of sharks triggers a domino effect of changes in abundance that carries down to several fish species and contributes to the overall degradation of the reef ecosystem. Overfishing species randomly, the study shows, is not likely to cause these cascading effects. “It appears that ecosystems such as Caribbean coral reefs need sharks to ensure the stability of the entire system,” said Sala, deputy director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps. When sharks are overfished, a cascade of effects can lead to a depletion of important grazers of plant life. This is because there are fewer sharks to feed on carnivorous fish such as grouper—causing an increase in their numbers and their ability to prey on parrotfishes. The removal of plant-eating animals such as parrotfishes has been partly responsible for the shift of Caribbean reefs from coral to algae dominated, the authors note. Thus overfishing of sharks may contribute further to the loss of resistance of coral reefs to multiple human disturbances. “The community-wide impacts of fishing are stronger than expected because fishing preferentially targets species whose removal can destabilize the food web,” the authors conclude in their report. Because of their comprehensive approach in developing the intricate food web, the authors say their study and its results address more than individual species protection and speak to larger ecosystem protection issues. “The paper presents a community-wide approximation of conservation problems,” said Bascompte. “We cannot asses all of the implications of overfishing by only looking at the target species or a few others. Species are embedded in a complex network of relationships and this network has a particular shape. This has large implications for the propagation of the consequences of overfishing through the whole food web.”

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