Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File

Ext #1 – No Conflict

Brito and Intriligator's results have been supported more recently by the World Bank's Collier-Hoeffler (CH) model of civil war onset. The CH model maintains that the opportunities to organize and finance a war are more significant variables than any social or political grievances per se. Under this rubric, the CH model predicts that the chance a nation with limited resources will have a civil war in any five-year span is 1 in 100, but the chance that a resource rich nation will is 1 in 5, according to the March 2006 Harper's Index. Although mathematically-derived quantitative theories provide a rigorous and concrete demonstration of the causal relationship between resources and conflict, the historical record should verify any theory of war. I want to now use a specific case study to illustrate the historical link between natural resources and violence.

Ext #2 – Global Inequalities

Only a global policy overhaul stops resource wars.

Green 6/21/2008 Head of research at Oxfam, Author of From Poverty to Power (Duncan, The Guardian – London, “The Age of Scarcity: The Huge Challenge of Dwindling Resources and Climate Change Can Only Be Met by a Global New Deal,” p. 34, Lexis-Nexis, EA)

We are entering an age of scarcity - in food, water and energy. Rioting has broken out in dozens of countries as food prices spiral, driven upwards by the pressure on land to meet biofuels targets at the expense of food production. Meanwhile, the price of oil is rocketing and, as resources of carbon dwindle, arguments are breaking out over which economies should be allowed to emit greenhouse gases. Scarcity, especially of carbon, will transform the nature and language of politics. According to the recent report of the intergovernmental group the Commission on Growth and Development, avoiding catastrophic climate change while still allowing poor countries the chance to grow their way out of poverty will require the US and Canada to reduce their per capita emissions from 20 tonnes per head to roughly two. Rich countries have two options. First, they can increase the carbon efficiency of their growth. The depth of technological transformation required, however, is comparable only to the industrial conversion of the US and European economies to arms production during wartime. Given the time lag in disseminating new technologies, much of this conversion will have to be based on existing technologies, such as renewables. But so far the news is not good: the current levels of funding fall far short of the scale needed. If rich economies cannot clean up, they must cut down, accepting limits to their growth. The first option is a daunting political and technological challenge, while the second risks political suicide. Meanwhile, developing countries have to be helped to find a low-carbon growth path that has yet to occur in any country in history. Countries normally start dirty and then, sometimes, clean up as they get richer. The atmosphere's heavy load of carbon no longer permits such a luxury. If we fail to find a way of transforming the nature of growth, we face catastrophic climate change and economic decline. At worst, a "carbon curtain" will fall between the haves and the have-nots. Poor communities and entire countries will be left languishing in a new dark age. Avoiding such dystopian predictions requires massive and rapid redistribution of power, opportunities and assets. We need a global version of the US's New Deal. For a 21st century equivalent we cannot afford to wait for the shocks of war and catastrophe that delivered that change. Many impacts of climate change, such as melting glaciers or permafrost, are irreversible. World leaders must build the will and capacity to act before disaster strikes. That means reforming global institutions like the World Bank, the UN and the World Trade Organisation that are far too weighted towards the views and interests of powerful countries. But deep shifts in public attitudes are also essential. Changes of this magnitude, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage, have always been driven by public action, as well as the weight of evidence and argument. A change is needed in the actions of campaigners, media, academics and others to force governments to confront the challenge, rather than slide into denial. We do not yet know if Darwin or Gandhi will be the genius of the age of scarcity - whether we are facing the survival of the fittest or effective global co-operation. But the stakes could not be higher. As Martin Luther King wrote 40 years ago: "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilisations are written the pathetic words: Too late."

Ext #3 – Corruption

Good Governance is key to prevent resource wars from occurring – corruption is inevitable in the status quo

Salehyan 07 assistant professor of political science at the University of North Texas [Idean Salehyan, “The New Myth About Climate Change”, Foreign Policy, August 2007, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3922]
To be sure, resource scarcity and environmental degradation can lead to social frictions. Responsible, accountable governments, however, can prevent local squabbles from spiraling into broader violence, while mitigating the risk of some severe environmental calamities. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has observed, no democracy has ever experienced a famine. Politicians who fear the wrath of voters usually do their utmost to prevent foreseeable disasters and food shortages. Accountable leaders are also better at providing public goods such as clean air and water to their citizens. Third, dire predictions about the coming environmental wars imply that climate change requires military solutions—a readiness to forcibly secure one’s own resources, prevent conflict spillovers, and perhaps gain control of additional resources. But focusing on a military response diverts attention from simpler, and far cheaper, adaptation mechanisms. Technological improvements in agriculture, which have yet to make their way to many poor farmers, have dramatically increased food output in the United States without significantly raising the amount of land under cultivation. Sharing simple technologies with developing countries, such as improved irrigation techniques and better seeds and fertilizers, along with finding alternative energy supplies and new freshwater sources, is likely to be far more effective and cost saving in the long run than arms and fortifications. States affected by climate change can move people out of flood plains and desert areas, promote better urban planning, and adopt more efficient resource-management systems. Yes, climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed, and unchecked environmental degradation may lead to intensified competition over scarce resources in certain regions. The good news is that the future is not written in stone. How governments respond to the challenge is at least as important as climate change itself, if not more so. Well-managed, transparent political systems that are accountable to their publics can take appropriate measures to prevent armed conflict. If the grimmest scenarios come to pass and environmental change contributes to war, human rights abuse, and even genocide, it will be reckless political leaders who deserve much of the blame.

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