No offense international agreements fail and undermine local solutions Loris 9, Nicolas Loris is a Policy Analyst at The Heritage

e Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. Loris studies energy,
environment and regulation issues such as the economic impacts of climate change legislation, a free market approach to nuclear energy and the effects of environmental policy on energy prices and the economy, One Size Fits All not the Way to Go on Global Warming, http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/14/one-size-fits-all-not-the-way-to-go-on-global-warming/ In an interview last year, Dr. Elinor Ostrom receive prize in economics, offers

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the recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the first woman to some tremendous insight. She stresses adaptation over a one-size-fits-all approach and says she doesnt think its possible just to have a nice little neat optimal plan. With the climate change conference in Copenhagen coming in December, Elinor Ostroms point about international agreements is especially relevant: Recognizing that this is something that must be done at multiple levels , so what I am concerned about is a lot of people think that the only way to cope with global change is international agreements. And if we sit around and wait for the national leaders of our respective countries to come to an agreement and operationalize it and make it effective, then people along the coast are going to lose their coasts . So, we must be thinking of diverse ways that we can increase the capacity to respond to external change. We can just call it capacity to respond to change. We dont

need to use the fancy name resilience. How do we cope with change? And, the tragedy of Katrina was that three years before that hurricane, there had been a very well specified article showing that among the kinds of storms we could be facing in the next five years, was a storm like Katrina that would have devastating impacts on the coastal area. That was not predicted that it would occur, but it was predicted that it could well occur and nobody took it seriously. And so Katrina showed that federal, state and local authorities in New Orleans were not resilient and did not have an effective plan, and it was a disaster. And I think maybe that experience is making a lot more people think, well, wed better be a little bit more selfconscious that these things could happen. You can listen to the full podcast or read the full transcripts here. What were doing by proposing cap and trade or international carbon reduction treaties is exactly what Dr. Ostrom warns against. Its extremely costly and very ineffective and

will do nothing to prepare those communities against natural disasters. Its the top down, micromanaging
approach Ostrom opposes. The Hoover Institutions David Henderson sums up Ostroms and co-recipient Oliver Williamsons work nicely: Some have summarized their work by saying that institutions other than free markets often work well. But that statement can mislead you to conclude that government solutions are the answer. Free markets are only a subset of free institutions. A better way to sum up their work is that what Ms. Ostrom and Mr. Willamson really show is that voluntary associations work.

Environmental leadership causes us to push for cap and trade causing economic collapse Loris 9, Nicolas Loris is a Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. Loris studies energy,

environment and regulation issues such as the economic impacts of climate change legislation, a free market approach to nuclear energy and the effects of environmental policy on energy prices and the economy, http://blog.heritage.org/2009/12/18/obama-lays-out-formula-for-economic-disaster-atcopenhagen/ In his speech at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, President Obama told leaders from around the world that the time for talk is over. Obama pushed for all major economies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but admitted some doubt as to whether a collective agreement would be reached. He could offer no concrete plans and nothing more than confidence that cap and trade legislation would be signed into law next year in the United States. While the focus of his speech was primarily on what actions the United States government was undertaking, he stressed that climate change should be addressed using Mitigation. Transparency. And financing. It is a clear formula one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities. And it adds up to a significant accord one that takes us farther than we have ever gone before as an international community. This

is a formula for nothing more than economic disaster and wealth distribution. Mitigation is a costly, ineffective way to address climate change. Using a cap and trade system in an attempt to change the earths temperature would cause gasoline prices to rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates to increase by 90 percent. Net job losses approach 1.9 million as immediate as 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035. Climatologist Paul Knappenberger projects that cap and trade will only change global temperatures a fraction of a degree and admission from Environmental Protection Agencys Lisa Jackson that U.S. action alone wont have any noticeable effect, yet President Obama urged that America is going to continue on this course of action no matter what happens in
Copenhagen. But even collective action wouldnt fare any better. One study of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that called for 5 percent emissions cuts below 1990 baseline levels by 2012 found that even if each country reached its targeted emissions reductions, it would reduce the earths temperature 0.07 degree Celsius by 2050. Transparency is a term that has been stressed repeatedly even before the President took office; it was one of the lynchpins of his campaign. The Climategate emails and other documents that revealed collusion in exaggerating data, ostensible illegal destruction of information, manipulation of data, and attempts to freeze out dissenting scientists from publishing their work in reputable journals show that the scientific debate is anything but transparent. Were unlikely to see any transparency in commitments to reducing carbon dioxide emissions either. China, for instance, prefers to measure carbon emissions relative to its size of the economy mostly because it is less verifiable than a pure emissions target. Since carbon intensity is measured in relation to gross domestic product and Chinese statistics are often altered or censored, it will be easier for China to meet its goals. Financing for developing countries would merely be a historic transfer of wealth. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said America would be a part of a massive foreign aid package, $100 billion annually, in the name of helping developing countries combat global warming. Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Ben Lieberman writes, How much she expects the U.S. taxpayer to contribute to the $100 billion annual fund was not clear, but it could well be more than the $26 billion America spends on foreign aid each year. There are plenty of issues with past foreign aid programs.

In many cases only a fraction of the funds were well spent, and aid can encourage the perpetuation of the very reasons (and regimes) that gave rise to the need for assistance in the first place. Foreign aid doled out to fight global warming has another big drawback the problem it addresses is an overstated one.

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It constrains global growth Lieberman 10, Copenhagen a step backwards -- towards reality, Ben Lieberman is a Senior Policy Analyst on Energy and the Environment at
Heritage, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/01/copenhagen-a-step-backwards-toward-reality Q: Is the Copenhagen Accord a real deal? Are there any beneficiaries of this decision? What responsibilities do nations have going forward? To fully appreciate what a step backwards the final Copenhagen accord is, one has to recall the buildup to it. For the last two years, global warming activists and UN officials had circled December 2009 on their calendars as the watershed moment for creating a new carbon-constrained global economy for decades to come. And in the nick of time, they would argue, as the existing targets in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are scheduled to expire in 2012. Furthermore, with the Bush administration gone in 2009, many in the international community felt that the path was clear for the Obama administration to finally include America in binding, verifiable, and enforceable restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, none of this happened in Copenhagen. The final agreement includes no stringent new post-2012 targets -- nor even weak ones for that matter. In fact, all that the Copenhagen accord contains is vague aspirational language to the effect that it would be nice if each country decided on its own to reduce emissions. Even this face-saving language had to be pared back at the behest of China and other developing nations that didn't want any hint that they might be obligated to do something. Equally non-binding promises from developed nations to provide finance to poor countries and to move forward with international monitoring of emissions are similarly meaningless. Anyone who doubts that the Copenhagen accord is a step backwards should compare it to the stronger language in the UN's 2007 Bali agreement. The lofty expectations for Copenhagen were lowered considerably in the months before the conference, but not enough to reflect the nearly empty final agreement. Those trying to spin the Copenhagen accord as a success that provides momentum for the currently-stalled Senate bill are fudging the facts even worse than the Climategate scientists. The biggest political surprise is how little difference the change in administrations made. It turns out that both the Bush and Obama administrations faced the same underlying realities that militate against a big new treaty. In particular, President Obama's chief negotiator Todd Stern sounded a lot like his Bush administration predecessor in recognizing that an agreement would be worthless if it exempted China, India and other fast developing nations. But, as the two weeks in Copenhagen revealed, these nations remain adamant about retaining the free pass they secured under the Kyoto Protocol. This impasse sank Copenhagen and will very likely sink the next big UN conference in Mexico City next November. Developing world intransigence also impacts the domestic debate. Manufacturing state Senators fearful of losing jobs to these nations should domestic legislation unilaterally raise manufacturing costs in America can take no comfort from the Copenhagen accord that this potential disparity will be addressed. The reality is that ratcheting down carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is a costly and ineffective solution to an overstated problem, and reality was the big winner that emerged from Copenhagen. The Copenhagen fiasco, along with the failure to pass domestic climate legislation this year, means that the debate gets kicked into 2010 with no momentum whatsoever. It will only get harder to push an unpopular global warming agenda in an election year -- and that would be a very good thing.

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International cap and trades a coercive shake-down it makes tyranny inevitable Krauthammer 9, Charles Krauthammer is a Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated political columnist, The New Socialism,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228779/new-socialism/charles-krauthammer But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism. One of the major goals of

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the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques. Politically its an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich mans guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental

guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale, too. On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an endangerment to human health. Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything . No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses, and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life. This naked assertion of vast executive power in

the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech president (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society. Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the Left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers, and technocrats. This time, however, the
alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality, but saving the planet. Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic senator Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty. With the Senate blocking President Obamas cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup detat served as the administrations loud response to Webb: The hell we cant. With this EPA endangerment finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade. Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. Theres the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society as will drastic carbonregulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats. Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend existing clean-air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation. Do it now. Do it soon. Because

Big

Brother isnt lurking in CIA cloak. Hes knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap. Thats on par with nuclear war Redish and Cisar 91, Martin H. Redish, professor of law at Northwestern, and Elizabeth J. Cisar, Law Clerk to Chief Judge William Bauer,
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, December 1991, Duke Law Journal, 41 Duke L.J. 449, p. 474 In summary, no defender of separation of powers can prove with certitude that, but

for the existence of separation of powers, tyranny would be the inevitable outcome. But the question is whether we wish to take that risk, given the obvious severity of the harm that might result. Given both the relatively limited cost imposed by use of separation of powers and the great severity of the harm sought to be avoided, one should not demand a great showing of the likelihood that the feared harm would result. For just as in the case of the threat of nuclear war, no one wants to be forced into the position of saying, I told you so.

International regulations kill Mexicos oil sector Wilson Center 6, Climate Politics in Mexico in a North American Perspective, http://wilsoncenter.tv/sites/default/files/Paper%20Pulver%20%255Brevised%255D1.pdf
The Secretaria de Energias (SENER) intensified engagement climate policy was particularly influential. Observers date serious SENER involvement in the climate issue to early 1997. The COP 3 negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997 were the first time a representative 5 from SENER was included in the Mexican delegation to the UN climate change negotiations, since the first round of the negotiations in 1991. By 1998, several internal documents had been generated by SENER addressing energy and climate change issues (SENER, 1998a, 1998b). Unlike SEMARNAT, SENER

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was less concerned with Mexicos ecological vulnerability to climate change impacts and instead focused the potential adverse effects of international climate regulation on Mexicos oil economy. At the time, most oil exporting countries were vocal opponents to action on climate change (Pershing, 1999). Bureaucrats in SENER echoed

this policy stance and have generally voiced opposition to climate regulation. Evidence of the consequences of both SENERs involvement in climate policy debates and the general politicization of the climate issue can be seen in the fate of UNAM Professor Carlos Guys Ad Hoc Group for inter-ministerial dialogue. In 1997, the informal group was converted into a formal Comite Intersecretarial de Cambio Climatico, with an expanded list of participating ministries (Belausteguigoitia & Lopez-Bassols, 1999; SEMARNAP, 1998). At the same time, Guy Garcia was replaced by Julia Carabias Lillo from SEMARNAP as the lead coordinator of the Mexican climate policy process

High oil prices key to the Mexican economy Agren 11 (6/01/11, David Agren, covers politics and national affairs for The News, Mexico City's English-language daily, The Globe and Mail,
Oil: The Mexican Cartels other deadly business, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/oil-the-mexican-cartels-other-deadlybusiness/article1845378/page1/)

The Mexican government depends on oil revenue for approximately 40 per cent of its budget . Politicians have preferred to depend heavily on Pemex revenue instead of raising other taxes, leaving the company indebted and lacking adequate funds in past years for exploration and maintenance. Non-oil tax revenue amounts to approximately 10 per cent of GDP, one of the lowest rates in Latin America. That destroys the global economy Rangel 95 (Enrique Rangel, Monterrey Bureau, 11/28/1995, The Dallas Morning News, Pressure on the Peso) All year long, thousands of foreign investors have nervously watched Mexicos volatile financial markets as the Clinton

administration and congressional leaders debated the pros and cons of bailing out a battered currency. With the exception of 1982 - when Mexico defaulted on its foreign debt and a handful of giant New York banks worried they would lose billions of dollars in loans - few people abroad ever cared about a weak peso. But now its different, experts say. This time, the world is keeping a close eye on Mexicos unfolding

financial crisis for one simple reason: Mexico is a major international player. If its economy were to collapse, it would drag down a few other countries and thousands of foreign investors. If recovery is prolonged, the world economy will feel the slowdown. It took a peso devaluation so that other countries could notice the key role that Mexico plays in todays global economy, said economist Victor Lpez Villafane of the Monterrey Institute of Technology. I hate to say it, but if Mexico were to default on its debts, that would trigger an international financial collapse not seen since the Great Depression , said Dr. Lpez, who has conducted comparative studies of the Mexican economy and the economies of some Asian and Latin American countries. Thats why its in the best interests of the United States and the industrialized world to help Mexico weather its economic crisis, he said. The crisis began last December when the Mexican government devalued the currency. Last March, after weeks of debate, President
Clinton, the International Monetary Fund and a handful of other countries and international agencies put together a $ 53 billion rescue package for Mexico. But despite the help - $ 20 billion in guarantee loans from the United States - Mexicos financial markets have been volatile for most of the year. The peso is now trading at about 7.70 to the dollar, after falling to an all-time low of 8.30 to the dollar Nov. 9. The road has been bumpy, and that has made many - particularly U.S. investors - nervous. No country understands better the importance of Mexico to the

global economy than the United States, said Jorge Gonzlez Dvila, an economist at Trinity University in San Antonio. Despite the rhetoric that you hear in Washington, I think that most people agree - even those who oppose any aid to Mexico - that when Mexico sneezes, everybody catches a cold, Mr. Gonzlez said. Thats why nowadays any talk of aid to Mexico or trade with Mexico gets a lot of attention, he said. Most economists, analysts and business leaders on both sides of the border agre e that the biggest impact abroad of a prolonged Mexican fiscal crisis may be on the U.S. economy, especially in Texas and in cities bordering Mexico.

Mexican collapse causes global instability turns their impacts

Haddick 10 Robert Haddick, Managing editor of the Small Wars Journal, 9/10/2010. Foreign Policy,http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war_does_america_have_to_win_it) Most significantly, a strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest of the world. An increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars, corrupted government and media, and a breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the United States to question the importance of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world. Should the

southern border become a U.S. president's primary national security concern, nervous allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a distracted and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result. Secretary Clinton has looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one from getting out of control.

Mexican economic declines a bigger internal link to their external impacts: ( ) The economy 3 warrants a. Biz Con failure sends shockwaves through international investment across the world b. Comparatively higher magnitude their internal link ev just says the plan helps the economy Mexican decline triggers an international financial collapse not seen since the Great Depression Thats Rangel c. Implicates the U.S. instability would cross the border causing economic crisis thats Haddick --- more ev Westhawk 8 private investor. Formerly, the global research director and portfolio manager for a large, private, U.S.-based investment firm.
Former U.S. Marine Corps officer: infantry company commander, artillery battalion staff officer December 21, 2008, "Now that would change everything," http://westhawk.blogspot.com/2008/12/now-that-would-change-everything.html) Yes, the

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rapid collapse of Mexico would change everything with respect to the global security environment. Such a collapse would have enormous humanitarian, constitutional, economic, cultural, and security implications for the U.S. It would seem the U.S. federal government, indeed American society at large, would have little ability to focus serious attention on much else in the world. The hypothetical collapse of
Pakistan is a scenario that has already been well discussed. In the worst case, the U.S. would be able to isolate itself from most effects emanating from south Asia. However, there would be no running from a Mexican collapse.

Bonner 10 - Senior Principal of the Sentinel HS Group. He was Administrator ofthe U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from 1990 to 1993 and Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2001 to 2005 (Robert C Bonner, The New Cocaine Cowboys. Foreign Affairs. New York: Jul/Aug 2010. Vol. 89, Iss. 4; pg. 35. ProQuest)//BB Mexico is in the throes of a battle against powerful drug cartels, the outcome of which will determine who controls the country's law enforcement, judicial, and political institutions. It will decide whether the state will destroy the cartels and put an end to the culture of impunity they have created. Mexico could become a first-world country one day, but it will never achieve that status until it breaks the grip these criminal organizations have over all levels of government and strengthens its law enforcement and judicial institutions. It cannot do one without doing the other. Destroying the drug cartels is not an impossible task. Two decades ago, Colombia was faced with a similar-and in many ways more daunting-struggle. In the early 1990s, many Colombians, including police officers, judges, presidential candidates, and journalists, were assassinated by the most powerful and fearsome drug-trafficking organizations the world has ever seen: the Cali and Medellin cartels. Yet within a decade, the Colombian government defeated them, with Washington's help. The United States played a vital role in supporting the Colombian government, and it should do the same for Mexico. The stakes in Mexico are high. If the cartels win, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate outside the state and the rule of law, undermining Mexico's democracy. The outcome matters for the United States as well-if the drug cartels succeed, the United States will share a 2,000-mile border with a narcostate controlled by powerful transnational drug cartels that threaten the stability of Central and South America .

d. Dooms investment through regional instability and loss of an economic base that means nobody would invest in the aff thats Haddick more ev

**********READ BELOW IF THEY DONT HAVE MEX ECON ADV*************

Increased regional instability and cartel influence elevates the risk of a biological terrorist attacks against the United States

Bryan 1 (Anthony T., Director of the Caribbean Program North/South Center, and Stephen E. Flynn, Senior Fellow Council on Foreign Relations, Terrorism, Porous Borders, and Homeland Security: The Case for U.S.-Caribbean Cooperation, 10-21, http://www.cfr.org/publication/4844/terrorism_porous_borders_and _homeland_ security.html) Terrorist acts can take place anywhere. The Caribbean is no exception. Already the linkages between drug trafficking and terrorism are clear in countries like Colombia and Peru, and such connections have similar potential in the Caribbean. The security of major industrial complexes in some Caribbean countries is vital. Petroleum refineries and major industrial estates in Trinidad, which host more than 100 companies that produce the majority of the worlds methanol, ammonium sulphate, and 40 percent of U.S. imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), are vulnerable targets. Unfortunately, as experience has shown in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, terrorists are likely to strike at U.S. and European interests in Caribbean countries. Security issues become even more critical when one considers the possible use of Caribbean countries by terrorists as bases from which to attack the United States. An airliner hijacked after departure from an airport in the northern Caribbean or the Bahamas can be flying over South Florida in less than an hour. Terrorists can sabotage or seize control of a cruise ship after the vessel leaves a Caribbean port. Moreover, terrorists with false passports and visas issued in the Caribbean may be able to move easily through passport controls in Canada or the United States. (To help counter this possibility, some countries have suspended "economic citizenship" programs to ensure that known terrorists have not been inadvertently granted such citizenship.) Again, Caribbean countries are as vulnerable as anywhere else to the clandestine manufacture and deployment of biological weapons within national borders.

Latin American instability causes extinction

Rochlin 94 James Francis Rochlin Professor of Political Science Okanagan University College, Discovering the Americas: the evolution of Canadian foreign policy towards Latin Americahttp://books.google.com/books?id=TMmfUN_CfhgC&q=%22While+there+were%22#v=snippet&q=%22While%20there%20were%22& f=false While there were economic motivations for Canadian policy in Central America, security considerations were perhaps more important. Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions of declining U.S. influence in the region which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable divisions of wealth in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression, under-development, mounting external debt, anti-American sentiment produced by decades of subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on were linked to the prospect of explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the Central American imbroglio was viewed as a fuse which could ignite a cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time worried that in a worst-case scenario, instability created by a regional war, beginning in Central America and spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy Washington to the extent that the United States would be unable to perform adequately its important hegemonic role in the international arena a concern expressed by the director of research for Canadas Standing Committee Report on Central America. It was feared that such a predicament could generate increased global instability and perhaps even a hegemonic war. This is one of the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as Contadora, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

LNG explosions outweigh nuclear war

Lovins and Lovins 1 [Amory Lovins- Co-Founder of Rocky Mountain Institute and six honorary doctorates and numerous major awards, including a 1997 Heinz Award, a 1993 MacArthur Fellowship, and the Onassis Foundations first Delphi Prize in 1989, and with Hunter Lovin s he has shared a 1999 Lindbergh Award, a 1993 Nissan Prize, a 1983 Right Livelihood Award , Hunter Lovins- a former co-CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit resource policy think tank. She holds a BA from Pitzer College, a JD from Loyola University School of Law with the Alumni Award for Outstanding Service to the School, and an honorary LHD from the University of Maine. Brittle Power - 2001 update and rerelease of 1982 book. Pg 87-88] LNG is less than half as dense as water, so a cubic meter of LNG (the usual unit of measure) weighs just over half a ton.1 LNG contains about thirty per- cent less energy per cubic meter than oil, but is potentially far more hazardous.2 Burning oil cannot spread very far on land or water, but a cubic meter of spilled LNG rapidly boils into about six hundred twenty cubic meters of pure natural gas, which in turn mixes with surrounding air. Mixtures of between about five and fourteen percent natural gas in air are flammable. Thus a single cubic meter of spilled LNG can make up to twelve thousand four hundred cubic meters of flammable gas-air mixture. A single modern LNG tanker typically holds one hundred twenty-five thousand cubic meters of LNG, equivalent to twenty-seven hundred million cubic feet of natural gas. That gas can form between about twenty and fifty billion cubic feet of flammable gas-air mixtureseveral hundred times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. About nine percent of such a tankerload of LNG will probably, if spilled onto water, boil to gas in about five minutes.3 (It does not matter how cold the water is; it will be at least two hundred twenty-eight Fahrenheit degrees hotter than the LNG, which it will therefore cause to boil violently.) The resulting gas, however, will be so cold that it will still be denser than air. It will therefore flow in a cloud or plume along the surface until it reaches an ignition source. Such a plume might extend at least three miles downwind from a large tanker spill within ten to twenty minutes.4 It might ultimately reach much fartherperhaps six to twelve miles.5 If not ignited, the gas is asphyxiating. If ignited, it will burn to completion with a turbulent diffusion flame reminiscent of the 1937 Hindenberg disaster but about a hundred times as big. Such a fireball would burn everything within it, and by its radiant heat would cause third-degree burns and start fires a mile or two away.6 An LNG fireball can blow through a city, creating a very large number of ignitions and explosions across a wide area. No present or foreseeable equipment can put out a very large [LNG]... fire.7 The energy content of a single standard LNG tanker (one hundred twenty-five thousand cubic meters) is equivalent to seven-tenths of a megaton of TNT, or about fifty-five Hiroshima bombs.

Bioterror is probable it causes extinction

Myhrvold 13 [Nathan, formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Venturesone of the largest patent holding companies in the world, Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action, The Lawfare Research Paper Series Research paper NO . 2, http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Strategic-Terrorism-Myhrvold-7-3-2013.pdf, BJM] Biotechnology is advancing so rapidly that it is hard to keep track of all the new potential threats. Nor is it clear that anyone is even trying. In addition to lethality and drug resistance, many other parameters can be played with, given that the infectious power of an epidemic depends on many properties, including the length of the latency period during which a person is contagious but asymptomatic. Delaying the onset of serious symptoms allows each new case to spread to more people and thus makes the virus harder to stop. This dynamic is perhaps best illustrated by HIV , which is very difficult to transmit compared with smallpox and many other viruses. Intimate contact is needed, and even then, the infection rate is low. The balancing factor is that HIV can take years to progress to AIDS , which can then take many more years to kill the victim. What makes HIV so dangerous is that infected people have lots of opportunities to infect others. This property has allowed HIV to claim more than 30 million lives so far, and approximately 34 million people are now living with this virus and facing a highly uncertain future.15 A virus genetically engineered to infect its host quickly, to generate symptoms slowlysay, only after weeks or monthsand to spread easily through the air or by casual contact would be vastly more devastating than HIV . It could silently penetrate the population to unleash its deadly effects suddenly. This type of epidemic would be almost impossible to combat because most of the infections would occur before the epidemic became obvious. A technologically sophisticated terrorist group could develop such a virus and kill a large part of humanity with it. Indeed, terrorists may not have to develop it themselves: some scientist may do so first and publish the details. Given the rate at which biologists are making discoveries about viruses and the immune system, at some point in the near future, someone may create artificial pathogens that could drive the human race to extinction . Indeed, a detailed species-elimination plan of this nature was openly proposed in a scientific journal. The ostensible purpose of that particular research was to suggest a way to extirpate the malaria mosquito, but similar techniques could be directed toward humans.16 When Ive talked to molecular biologists about this method, they are quick to point out that it is slow and easily detectable and could be fought with biotech remedies. If you challenge them to come up with improvements to the suggested attack plan, however, they have plenty of ideas. Modern biotechnology will soon be capable, if it is not already, of bringing about the demise of the human race or at least of killing a sufficient number of people to end high-tech civilization and set humanity back 1,000 years or more. That terrorist groups could achieve this level of technological sophistication may seem far-fetched, but keep in mind that it takes only a handful of individuals to accomplish these tasks. Never has lethal power of this potency been accessible to so few, so easily. Even more dramatically than nuclear proliferation, modern biological science has frighteningly undermined the correlation between the lethality of a weapon and its cost, a fundamentally stabilizing mechanism

throughout history. Access to extremely lethal agentslethal enough to exterminate Homo sapienswill be available to anybody with a solid background in biology, terrorists included. The 9/11 attacks involved at least four pilots, each of whom had sufficient education to enroll in flight schools and complete several years of training. Bin Laden had a degree in civil engineering. Mohammed Atta attended a German university, where he earned a masters degree in urban planningnot a field he likely chose for its relevance to terrorism. A future set of terrorists could just as easily be students of molecular biology who enter their studies innocently enough but later put their skills to homicidal use. Hundreds of universities in Europe and Asia have curricula sufficient to train people in the skills necessary to make a sophisticated biological weapon, and hundreds more in the United States accept students from all over the world. Thus it seems likely that sometime in the near future a small band of terrorists, or even a single misanthropic individual, will overcome our best defenses and do something truly terrible, such as fashion a bioweapon that could kill millions or even billions of people. Indeed, the creation of such weapons within the next 20 years seems to be a virtual certainty. The repercussions of their use are hard to estimate. One approach is to look at how the scale of destruction they may cause compares with that of other calamities that the human race has faced.

Extinction from the drug trade

Dreyfus 2 (Pablo Gabriel Dreyfus, Arms control expert PhD from the Institut Universitaire De Hautes Etudes Internationales, Border Spi llover: Drug Trafficking and National Security in South America http://doc.rero.ch/record/2861/files/DreyfusP-these.pdf, //JG) Ecological threats: Ecological threats harm the biosphere, which is the essential support system on which all human enterprises depend.134 Ecological threats stemming from drug trafficking damage the physical base of the state. The production of cocaine involves the use of industrial quantities of chemical inputs such as kerosene, acetone, lime, and sulfuric acid and the waste generated by the process of cocaine distillation is diverted into nearby rivers. This poses a threat to the local ecosystem and, in the long term, to human survival due to the pollution of potable water sources. Also, the extensive and persistent use of land for coca production produces large-scale soil erosion that renders this land unusable for the production of legal crops, not to mention the deforestation of tropical forests, cleared for coca cultivation by coca-growing settlers. The same can be said about the recent phenomenon of opium poppy growing in the high mountain forest regions of Colombia. The harmful effect of these different kinds of threats is mutually reinforced. For example, environmental threats may worsen the effect of economic threats, which in turn may worsen the effect of political threats, which at the same time may reduce the capacity of the state to cope with the traditional / military dimension of drug trafficking. The intensity of these threats will grow of course depending on the security environment of each state and on the weakness or strength of their nature. How does this classification apply to the case of South America? The cocaine industry does not imply a direct military threat to the state, but in South America as well as in other drug producer regions of the Third World (such as South Asia in the case of heroin industry), it can be a catalyst of latent inter-state conflicts. At the same time the threat of foreign military intervention is always present (the case of Panama--even if it is outside of the region under analysis--is an example).

And it happens fast the government relies on oil and sudden shockwaves would destroy Mexicos biggest source of revenue thats Agren if we win timeframe theres only a risk we turn the case

Oils key oil revenues are 40% of Mexicos tax revenue thats Agren Its key to all economic sectors Martin et al. 11 (3/15/11, HSBC, Economies and Strategy Latin America Mexico,

2nc at: oil not key

http://www.research.hsbc.com/midas/Res/RDV?p=pdf&key=LCeVYFLmBt&n=293460.PDF) Oil exports are important for the Mexican economy since they represented 4.0% of GDP in 2010. However, more

important than for the economy as a whole, oil exports are crucial for public sector finances. The revenues associated with both domestic and foreign oil income represented one third of total revenues in 2010. This percentage may increase to 37% in 2011 because of higher oil prices. The fiscal budget assumes an average oil price of USD 65.4/bbl. If the
Mexican oil mix price reaches USD97/bbl our estimates indicate that the excess oil revenues would be USD17.3bn, which is 1.4% of GDP. Nonetheless, these oil revenues are gross in the sense that Mexico also imports oil derivatives. For example,

40% of total gasoline consumption is imported. As a result, the net oil revenues are approximately half of the gross revenues. For instance, oil exports reached USD41.7bn while imports were USD21.4bn in 2010. Therefore, when the government grants a gasoline subsidy to consumers, the subsidy increases when international oil prices rise. Our subsidy
estimate before the oil price increases was 0.4% of GDP (see Mexico Economics: Catching up with international gasoline prices, 20 January 2011). An update of such calculation tells us that the total subsidy will likely increase to 0.5%, that is, 0.1% higher. All in all, the government will receive higher revenues of about 1.4% of GDP than expected because the budgeted oil price at USD65/bbl was a conservative assumption. The Fiscal

Responsibility Law (FRL) establishes that such excess should be distributed as follows: First, 25% to the stabilization fund for counties and federal states (FEIEF). Second, 25% to the stabilization fund for investment in infrastructure in Pemex (FEIIPM). Third, 40% to the stabilization fund of oil income (FEIP); this fund is to finance public expenditure when the budget tax revenues are lower and/or the oil price assumption is higher than the observed figure, as happened during the crisis in 2009. Fourth, 10% goes to investment in infrastructure projects in federal states (FEIEF).

Peaking means itd be a steady transition international environmental requirements cause a sudden decline in revenue that triggers our scenarios even if theyre right that just means Mexican declines inevitable which takes out the aff Oil revenues are increasing Martin et al. 11 (3/15/11, HSBC, Economies and Strategy Latin America Mexico,

2nc at: peaking

http://www.research.hsbc.com/midas/Res/RDV?p=pdf&key=LCeVYFLmBt&n=293460.PDF)

For Mexicos economy oil price hikes should be mostly beneficial. As a net oil exporter, higher prices mean higher revenues. We now project the Mexican oil mix to average USD 97/bbl compared to our previous forecast of USD85.4/bbl. Based on this, oil exports will increase to 4.6% from 4.0% of GDP, while oil imports will rise to 2.6% from 2.4% of GDP. In the fiscal sector gains would be greater because the Congress planned the budget revenues, and consequently expenditure, with a more conservative oil price at USD65/bbl, which is USD32/bbl below our new projection of USD97/bbl. From a budget perspective, this amounts to a net gain of 0.7% of GDP in the fiscal balance Some of these gains would be likely used for contingency funds, some to increase the gasoline subsidy and others to infrastructure investment.

International band wagonings unnecessary all major polluters are reducing emissions voluntarily a. China and India Carrington 11, 8/5/11, Daniel Carrington is a staff writer at The Guardian, Malcolm Turnbull; China and India will become climate leaders,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/05/malcolm-turnbull-china-india-climate

2nc at: bandwagoning

China and India will become the global leaders in action against global warming, according to the Australian politician
who has been called a "climate change martyr". Malcolm Turnbull, who lost the leadership of the Liberal party for supporting a carbon emissions trading scheme, said the climate impacts on those nations will see them act. "China and India will take the global leadership on

climate change: they are suffering for it," Turnbull told the Guardian. He warned that an "extraordinary war against science" in the US and elsewhere would see nations trailing in China's wake . "The paradox is that as the physical signs of climate change get stronger, the political will gets weaker in the US." "Look at countries like China, they are determined to dominate all clean technology areas, putting lots of money into wind, solar, electric vehicles and battery storage ," he said. "America's political impotence, cause by their terrible partisanship, will see them left behind." b. Australia Information Daily 12 news source (Australia Carbon Tax: Gillard dismisses doomsday merchants and defends scheme despite bad
polls, 7/3/2012, http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/51930, Deech) Aussie PM Julia Gillard took to the campaign trail to defend her landmark legislation the Carbon Tax bill that forces major polluters to pay A$23 (15) for every tonne of carbon they emit. The scheme is unpopular with both voters and business alike. Polls in Fairfax newspapers have revealed that twothirds of the voters oppose the measure and a majority believe it would make them worse off. The main beneficiary of Ms. Gillards woes is Tony Abbot, the Liberal leader who heads the opposition coalition. According to recent voting preference polls, Ms. Gillard and Labor trail Mr. Abbot and his conservative coalition by as much as 16 points. Carbon Tax ruined Gillards predecessor Kevin Rudds future and the current Prime Minister was not keen to have it on her to do list at all. However, in

a hung parliament, agreeing to deliver

on the carbon tax was the only way to ensure Labor retained power . Andrew Wilkie, an independent law maker who will come around to supporting the scheme once people have realised the sky hasnt fallen in. Gillard is worried about her political career and has decided she has
supports Gillards government in lieu of her commitment to the carbon tax is confident that voters no option but to defend the carbon tax. The Prime Minister took to the airwaves and challenged the hysterical fear campaign. People will have the opportunity to judge for themselves," she told Australian television. "And what

people are going to see is tax cuts ."