adi starter - fracking neg

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ADI Fracking Neg 2.0 ADI Fracking Neg 1.0................................................. 1 A2 Renewables Adv...................................................3 1NC Frontline.....................................................4 Ext. – No Bridge..................................................9 Ext. – Warming Defense...........................................11 A2 Blackouts.....................................................12 A2 Resource Wars.................................................13 A2 Econ Impact...................................................15 A2 EU Adv..........................................................17 1NC Frontline....................................................18 A2 Russia Aggression Impact......................................22 Ext. – No Solvency...............................................24 Ext. Russia Turn.................................................25 Solvency Hit.......................................................26 1NC Stuff........................................................27 A2 Energy Transition.............................................28 A2 Econ/Market Args..............................................29 Groundwater DA.....................................................30 1NC..............................................................31 Link – Fracking causes methane contamination.....................33 Link - Deep Earth Drilling.......................................34 Chemicals cause health problems..................................35 Chemicals destroy envrionment/health.............................36 Chemicals hurt infant health.....................................38 Hill 12..........................................................38 New York City is at high risk....................................39 Turns Case - Economy.............................................40 A2: It takes thousands of years..................................41 Mollusks = Keystone species......................................42

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Page 1: ADI Starter - Fracking Neg

ADI Fracking Neg 2.0ADI Fracking Neg 1.0...................................................................................................................................1

A2 Renewables Adv.................................................................................................................................3

1NC Frontline.......................................................................................................................................4

Ext. – No Bridge...................................................................................................................................9

Ext. – Warming Defense....................................................................................................................11

A2 Blackouts......................................................................................................................................12

A2 Resource Wars..............................................................................................................................13

A2 Econ Impact..................................................................................................................................15

A2 EU Adv..............................................................................................................................................17

1NC Frontline.....................................................................................................................................18

A2 Russia Aggression Impact.............................................................................................................22

Ext. – No Solvency.............................................................................................................................24

Ext. Russia Turn.................................................................................................................................25

Solvency Hit...........................................................................................................................................26

1NC Stuff............................................................................................................................................27

A2 Energy Transition..........................................................................................................................28

A2 Econ/Market Args.........................................................................................................................29

Groundwater DA....................................................................................................................................30

1NC....................................................................................................................................................31

Link – Fracking causes methane contamination................................................................................33

Link - Deep Earth Drilling...................................................................................................................34

Chemicals cause health problems.....................................................................................................35

Chemicals destroy envrionment/health............................................................................................36

Chemicals hurt infant health.............................................................................................................38

Hill 12.................................................................................................................................................38

New York City is at high risk...............................................................................................................39

Turns Case - Economy........................................................................................................................40

A2: It takes thousands of years..........................................................................................................41

Mollusks = Keystone species..............................................................................................................42

Biodiversity Impact............................................................................................................................43

Aff Answers...............................................................................................................................................44

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No Contamination.............................................................................................................................45

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A2 Renewables Adv

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1NC Frontline

Too late for the natural gas bridgeRomm 2012 (Joe Romm, Fellow at American Progress, April 9, 2012, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” Think Progress, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-a-carbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/)The concept of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” was pushed by the American Gas Association as far back as 1981. It’s the longest bridge in history! Heck, the Golden Gate Bridge only took 4 years to build! But the window where gas can be a major bridge fuel to a world with a livable climate appears to be almost completely closed, now. Had we acted back in the 1980s or even 1990s as climate scientists and world leaders had been urging, then, yes, an expansion of gas use might have made sense. The fact that natural gas is now a bridge fuel to nowhere was first shown by the International Energy Agency in its big June report on gas — see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change. The IEA’s well-named GAG scenario assumes that not only does oil production peak in 2020 — but so does coal! Remember, warming beyond 6°F (3.5°C) is “incompatible with organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4°C [7F] would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level),” according to Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain (see here). We would be self-destructively irrational to risk even 5°F warming. If your goal is a livable climate, we need to transition off of all fossil fuels ASAP.

Methane from fracking causes warmingVergano 2009 (Dan Vergano is a science reporter and columnist at USA Today, where he has been on staff since 1999. Previous reporting stints were at Medical Tribune and HealthWeek, as well as the science intern slot at Science News, freelance work for Men's Health, New Scientist, Science, the Washington Post and others. Prior to his journalism career, Dan worked as a space policy analyst for a federally-funded research and development contract organization, “Methane's role in global warming underestimated”http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-10-29-methane-global-warming_N.htm)Greenhouse gas calculations blame carbon dioxide too much for global warming, and methane too little, suggest researchers Thursday. In the journal Science, a team led by Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York finds that chemical interactions between greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide cause more global warming than previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other efforts. "The total amount of warming doesn't change, just the balance of gasses behind it," Shindell says. The world's climate warmed an average about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1906 to 2005, very likely due to industrial greenhouse gases, the IPCC concluded in 2007, adding that carbon dioxide is "most important" greenhouse gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas produced by landfills, agriculture and some industries. In the study, Shindell and colleagues added chemical interactions between aerosols and greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon monoxide to a century-long model of climate change. They wanted to see the effects on each gas's "Global Warming Potential," or individual contribution to global warming. Methane played a bigger role than expected, suggesting that climate treaties such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol need to consider it more carefully, the study says. Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, but retain heat in the atmosphere, raising global average temperatures. Burning fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities have raised greenhouse gas levels to historic values in the last three centuries. "There is no way, other than aggressive geoengineering, to come close to meeting the world leaders’ goal of overall

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warming not exceeding (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial (levels) without focusing on BOTH carbon dioxide and non-carbon dioxide emissions," says Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute, by email. "This is not an either-or choice — we must do both to have any chance at all." Because non-carbon dioxide gasses also cause air pollution, MacCracken and Shindell both suggest that politicians may embrace limiting those emissions in developing nations more quickly than carbon dioxide ones. China has about 750,000 air-quality-related deaths annually according to the World Health Organization, for example. In December, representatives of 192 nations head to Copenhagen to work on an international agreement to limit emissions. On the international front, "getting priorities right on the non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases has some real value," says MacCracken, a former Clinton-administration climate scientist. If negotiations keep stalling on carbon dioxide emissions debate, then "all of our efforts on the non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases won’t make much difference," he says. "There needs to be a deal and, in my view, cutting non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases and soot can be a helpful bridge to getting an agreement."

Assign warming zero percent probability – flawed models and predictionsCraig D. Idso (founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change) and Sherwood B. Idso (president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change) February 2011 “Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future Pursuing the Prudent Path” http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/prudentpath.pdfAs presently constituted, earth’s atmosphere contains just slightly less than 400 ppm of the colorless and odorless gas we call carbon dioxide or CO2. That’s only four-hundredths of one percent. Consequently, even if the air's CO2 concentration was tripled, carbon dioxide would still comprise only a little over one tenth of one percent of the air we breathe, which is far less than what wafted through earth’s atmosphere eons ago, when the planet was a virtual garden place. Nevertheless, a small increase in this minuscule amount of CO2 is frequently predicted to produce a suite of dire environmental consequences, including dangerous global warming, catastrophic sea level rise, reduced agricultural output, and the destruction of many natural ecosystems, as well as dramatic increases in extreme weather phenomena, such as droughts, floods and hurricanes. As strange as it may seem, these frightening future scenarios are derived from a single source of information: the ever-evolving computer-driven climate models that presume to reduce the important physical, chemical and biological processes that combine to determine the state of earth’s climate into a set of mathematical equations out of which their forecasts are produced. But do we really know what all of those complex and interacting processes are? And even if we did -- which we don't -- could we correctly reduce them into manageable computer code so as to produce reliable forecasts 50 or 100 years into the future? Some people answer these questions in the affirmative. However, as may be seen in the body of this report, real-world observations fail to confirm essentially all of the alarming predictions of significant increases in the frequency and severity of droughts, floods and hurricanes that climate models suggest should occur in response to a global warming of the magnitude that was experienced by the earth over the past two centuries as it gradually recovered from the much-lower-than-present temperatures characteristic of the depths of the Little Ice Age. And other observations have shown that the rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with the development of the Industrial Revolution have actually been good for the planet, as they have significantly enhanced the plant productivity and vegetative water use efficiency of earth's natural and agro-ecosystems, leading to a significant "greening of the earth." In the pages that follow, we present this oft-neglected evidence via a review of the pertinent scientific literature. In the case of the biospheric benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, we find that with more CO2 in the air, plants grow bigger and better in almost every conceivable way, and that they do it more efficiently, with respect to their utilization of valuable natural resources, and more effectively, in the face of environmental constraints. And when plants benefit, so

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do all of the animals and people that depend upon them for their sustenance. Likewise, in the case of climate model inadequacies, we reveal their many shortcomings via a comparison of their "doom and gloom" predictions with real-world observations. And this exercise reveals that even though the world has warmed substantially over the past century or more -- at a rate that is claimed by many to have been unprecedented over the past one to two millennia -- this report demonstrates that none of the environmental catastrophes that are predicted by climate alarmists to be produced by such a warming has ever come to pass. And this fact -- that there have been no significant increases in either the frequency or severity of droughts, floods or hurricanes over the past two centuries or more of global warming -- poses an important question. What should be easier to predict: the effects of global warming on extreme weather events or the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations on global temperature? The first part of this question should, in principle, be answerable; for it is well defined in terms of the small number of known factors likely to play a role in linking the independent variable (global warming) with the specified weather phenomena (droughts, floods and hurricanes). The latter part of the question, on the other hand, is ill-defined and possibly even unanswerable; for there are many factors -- physical, chemical and biological -- that could well be involved in linking CO2 (or causing it not to be linked) to global temperature. If, then, today's climate models cannot correctly predict what should be relatively easy for them to correctly predict (the effect of global warming on extreme weather events), why should we believe what they say about something infinitely more complex (the effect of a rise in the air’s CO2 content on mean global air temperature)? Clearly, we should pay the models no heed in the matter of future climate -- especially in terms of predictions based on the behavior of a non-meteorological parameter (CO2) -- until they can reproduce the climate of the past, based on the behavior of one of the most basic of all true meteorological parameters (temperature). And even if the models eventually solve this part of the problem, we should still reserve judgment on their forecasts of global warming; for there will yet be a vast gulf between where they will be at that time and where they will have to go to be able to meet the much greater challenge to which they aspire

No warming --

A. Not anthropogenic & historical data disproves.Deaver, The Times Herald, “Deaver: Cap and Trade bill not the answer to global warming,” 8/10/2010, http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20100810/OPINION02/8100310/Deaver-Cap-and-Trade-bill-not-the-answer-to-global-warmingWait a minute! While it is true that there is general agreement that there is a greenhouse gas effect, there is no agreement about the

importance of CO2, which is a tiny fraction of such gases. Here are some facts that should tell us to be cautious about introducing

costly economic measures that might not do anything to alleviate the situation. First, there is no scientific proof that global warming is caused by CO2. There is only knowledge that over the past 150 years CO2 emissions generally and very roughly

correspond to rising global temperatures. Second, during the Middle Ages--from about the years 1000 to 1300--an abundance of evidence reveals a period of warming that probably exceeded that of the present period. Greenland was green then. Yet there was no industrial revolution to cause it, and no evidence of any corresponding increase in CO2 from other sources. Third, there is a growing body of evidence , mainly from Arctic and Antarctic ice cores,

that reveal long-term temperature cycles associated with variations in the sun's radiation that could explain the recent warming. The main point is scientists do not have positive evidence either about future climate trends or the fundamental causes of climate change. This suggests government programs such as Cap-and-Trade to deal with CO2 emissions, while imposing huge costs in terms of jobs and slower economic growth, could fail to have any impact on global warming.

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B. Their models are flawed & sats disprove.Steven F. Hayward, F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 3-15-2010, The Weekly Standard, “In Denial,” http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/denial

This central pillar of the climate campaign is unlikely to survive much longer, and each repetition of the “science-is-

settled” mantra inflicts more damage on the credibility of the climate science community. The scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal at East Anglia University, Phil (“hide the decline”) Jones dealt the science-is-settled narrative a huge blow with his candid admission in a BBC interview that his surface temperature data are in such disarray they probably cannot be verified or replicated , that the medieval warm period may have been as warm as today, and that he agrees that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years —all three points that climate campaigners have been bitterly contesting. And Jones specifically disavowed the “science-is-settled” slogan: BBC: When scientists say “the debate on climate change is over,” what exactly do they mean, and what don’t they mean? Jones: It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well [emphasis added]. Judith Curry, head of the School of Earth and Atmos-pheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and one of the few scientists convinced of the potential for catastrophic global warming who is willing to

engage skeptics seriously, wrote February 24: “No one really believes that the ‘science is settled’ or that ‘the debate is over.’ Scientists and others that say this seem to want to advance a particular agenda. There is nothing more detrimental to public trust than such statements.” The next wave of climate revisionism is likely to reopen most of the central questions of “settled science” in the IPCC’s Working Group I, starting with the data purporting to prove how much the Earth has warmed over the last century. A London Times headline

last month summarizes the shocking revision currently underway: “World May Not Be Warming, Scientists Say.” The Climategate emails and documents revealed the disarray in the surface temperature records the IPCC relies upon to validate its claim of 0.8 degrees Celsius of human-caused warming, prompting a flood of renewed focus on the veracity and handling of surface temperature data. Skeptics such as Anthony Watts, Joseph D’Aleo, and Stephen McIntyre have been pointing out the defects in the surface temperature record for years, but the media and the IPCC ignored them. Watts and D’Aleo have painstakingly documented (and in many cases

photographed) the huge number of temperature stations that have been relocated, corrupted by the “urban heat island effect,” or placed too close to heat sources such as air conditioning compressors, airports, buildings, or paved surfaces,

as well as surface temperature series that are conveniently left out of the IPCC reconstructions and undercut the IPCC’s simplistic story of rising temperatures. The compilation and statistical treatment of global

temperature records is hugely complex, but the skeptics such as Watts and D’Aleo offer compelling critiques showing that most of the reported warming disappears if different sets of temperature records are included, or if compromised station records are excluded. The puzzle deepens when more accurate satellite temperature records, available starting in 1979, are

considered. There is a glaring anomaly: The satellite records , which measure temperatures in the middle and upper atmosphere, show very little warming since 1979 and do not match up with the ground-based measurements. Furthermore, the satellite readings of the middle- and upper-air temperatures fail to record any of the increases the climate models say should be happening in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations . John Christy of the University of Alabama, a contributing author to the IPCC’s Working Group I chapter on surface and atmospheric climate change, tried to get the IPCC to acknowledge this anomaly in its 2007 report but was ignored. (Christy is responsible for helping to develop the satellite monitoring system that has tracked global temperatures since 1979. He received NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement for this work.) Bottom line: Expect some surprises to come out of the revisions of the surface temperature records that will take place over the next couple of years. Eventually the climate modeling community is going to have to reconsider the central question:

Have the models the IPCC uses for its predictions of catastrophic warming overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases? Two recently published studies funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, one by Brookhaven Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and one by MIT’s Richard Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi in

Geophysical Research Letters, both argue for vastly lower climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases. The models the IPCC uses for projecting a 3 to 4 degree Celsius increase in temperature all assume large positive (that is, temperature-magnifying) feedbacks from a

doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; Schwartz, Lindzen, and Choi discern strong negative (or temperature-

reducing) feedbacks in the climate system, suggesting an upper-bound of future temperature rise of no more than 2 degrees Celsius . If the climate system is less sensitive to greenhouse gases than the climate campaign believes, then what is causing plainly observable changes in the climate, such as earlier arriving springs, receding glaciers, and shrinking Arctic Ocean ice caps? There have been alternative explanations in the scientific literature for several years, ignored by the media and the IPCC alike. The IPCC downplays theories of variations in solar activity, such as sunspot activity and gamma ray bursts, and although there is robust scientific literature on the issue, even the skeptic community is divided about whether solar activity is a primary cause of recent climate variation. Several

studies of Arctic warming conclude that changes in ocean currents, cloud formation, and wind patterns in the upper

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atmosphere may explain the retreat of glaciers and sea ice better than greenhouse gases . Another factor in the Arctic is “black carbon”—essentially fine soot particles from coal-fired power plants and forest fires, imperceptible to the naked eye but

reducing the albedo (solar reflectivity) of Arctic ice masses enough to cause increased summertime ice melt. Above all, if the medieval warm period was indeed as warm or warmer than today, we cannot rule out the possibility that the changes of recent decades are part of a natural rebound from the “Little Ice Age” that followed the medieval warm period and ended in the 19th century. Skeptics have known and tried to publicize all of these contrarian or confounding scientific findings, but the compliant news media routinely ignored all of them, enabling the IPCC to get away with its serial exaggeration and blatant advocacy for more than a decade.

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Ext. – No Bridge

Complete phase-out of fossil fuels necessary nowRomm 2012 (Joe Romm, Fellow at American Progress, April 9, 2012, “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage,” Think Progress, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/09/460384/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-absent-a-carbon-price-and-strong-standards-to-reduce-methane-leakage/)Building lots of new gas plants simply doesn’t make much sense since we need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the rate of growth of warming in the next few decades if we’re to have any chance to avoid catastrophic global warming. We only want an outcome, which doesn’t exist yet, where natural gas only replaces coal. We don’t want new gas plants to displace new renewables, like solar and wind — since that would negate what little benefit switching from coal to gas might bring. That requires a carbon price. So the only scenario I can see in which more gas makes sense is the one I laid out 3 years ago. We have a rising price for carbon. We have a short-term transition — lasting to about 2020 — to fill the existing underutilized gas-fired capacity and replace coal cheaply. In this scenario, very few new natural gas plants are built. And, of course, during this time we still push hard on efficiency and all forms of renewables to keep bringing them rapidly down the cost curve. Post-2020 it needs to be pretty much all carbon-free power. What this new study adds is that even this approach doesn’t make much sense without an additional effort to cut methane leaks sharply. BOTTOM LINE: If you want to have a serious chance at averting catastrophic global warming, then we need to start phasing out all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Natural gas isn’t a true bridge fuel from a climate perspective. Carbon-free power is the bridge fuel until we can figure out how to go carbon negative on a large scale by the end of the century.

Undercuts renewables expansionInman 2012 (Mason Inman, January 17, 2012, “Shale Gas: A Boon That Could Stunt Alternatives, Study Says,” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/01/120117-shale-gas-boom-impact-on-renewables/)Shale gas has transformed the U.S. energy landscape in the past several years—but it may crowd out renewable energy and other ways of cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a new study warns. A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology used economic modeling to show that new abundant natural gas is likely to have a far more complex impact on the energy scene than is generally assumed. If climate policy continues to play out in the United States with a relatively weak set of measures to control emissions, the new gas source will lead to lower gas and electricity prices, and total energy use will be higher in 2050. Absent the shale supply, the United States could have expected to see GHG emissions 2 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 under this relatively weak policy. But the lower gas prices under the current shale gas outlook will stimulate economic growth, leading GHG emissions to increase by 13 percent over 2005. And the shale gas will retard the growth of renewable energy's share of electricity, and push off the development of carbon capture and storage technology, needed to meet more ambitious policy targets, by as long as two decades. "Shale gas is a great advantage to the U.S. in the short term, for the next few decades," said MIT economist Henry Jacoby, lead author of the new study. "But it is so attractive that it threatens other energy sources we ultimately will need."

Trades off with renewablesLeggett 2012 (Martin Leggett, February 6, 2012, “Shale gas, the 'clean bridge' to nowhere?” Earth Times, http://www.earthtimes.org/energy/shale-gas-boom-clean-bridge-nowhere/1810/)

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Renewables victims of hit-and-run: Shale gas has been a oft-touted 'clean bridge fuel to the future' recently, in recognition of its relatively low CO2 output, when burnt to produce energy. That claim hasn't just come from the shale gas industry. In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama said 'the development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy.' Whilst those clean credentials are debatable-in-the-extreme thanks to mainly the neglected impact of methane leakage, such thinking has helped fuel a boom in drilling and fracking in the US over the last decade. As shale gas companies have competed for investment money, to frack in ever more areas, reserve numbers have swelled. And 'home-grown' shale gas has been marketed as a fuel that would guarantee energy security for decades. 'We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years,' said President Obama. But the rush to pump out shale gas, as well as spilling problems into water courses across the country, has also left stocks of gas higher than ever, and the price drastically down. Whilst that is great news, short-term, for energy consumers, it is leaving the push to 'zero-carbon' renewables treading water. Rachel Cleetus, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Washington Post last week that natural gas could 'take over the entire pie and crowd out renewables. Part of the reason this is happening is that there's a sense that natural gas resources will be around forever.' Which may be far from the case.

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Ext. – Warming Defense

No proof of tipping points – we’ve recovered from worse temp increases Thomas Fuller July 6, 2010. “Global warming, uncertainty, tipping points and the precautionary principle” Environmental Policy Examiner. http://www.examiner.com/environmental-policy-in-national/global-warming-uncertainty-tipping-points-and-the-precautionary-principleOthers are more optimistic, and say that if we act right now, but really right now, we can avoid crossing the line and making permanent changes. They say that because we don't know where the tipping point really is and because we do not know the extent of damage that could be caused by a permanently warmer planet, the Precautionary Principle more or less compels us to take drastic action to fight climate change. There are opposing arguments to this. One of the best arguments against the Precautionary Principle is the error it led us into the last time it was used. Then Vice President Dick Cheney argued that if there was even a 1% chance that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, then it was important to us to invade Iraq, find the weapons and institute regime change. What's important to understand about that is that Cheney was wrong, not because Hussein didn't have WMD. He was wrong in his application of logic. The first step in dealing with this type of situation is reducing the uncertainty in your calculations. For Cheney, this would have meant first, quantifying the type and amounts of WMD Hussein might realistically possess, Hussein's realistic delivery options for WMD, and his propensity to use them. Second, in a Strangelovian way, Cheney would have used existing Pentagon scenarios to calculate the damage to life and the political framework of the Middle East if Husseing used these weapons and compared it very cold-bloodedly to the losses certain to result from our intervention. The problem is Cheney didn't do any of the math. He merely pronounced that Hussein's possible possession of WMD meant that a Tipping Point had already been reached, and that the Precautionary Principle mandated our intervention. But pronouncing it doesn't make it so. There are solid philosophical arguments against both the Tipping Point and the Precautionary Principle, and well-educated and intelligent people on both sides of the fence. And this argument extends to the application of both concepts to climate change. One argument from skeptics is that the Earth has warmed before without reaching a Tipping Point. It may have been warmer than today during Medieval Times, and it certainly has been warmer for most of the period since the end of the last Ice Age. And yet temperatures did eventually decline. In the more remote past, temperatures were dramatically warmer during several periods, but again, temperatures declined. Another argument is that if we rigorously applied the Precautionary Principle to poorly understood phenomena, we would halt all technological progress and innovation. If our society is paralysed by fear of the unknown, we may reject the next invention that might dramatically improve our lives.What disturbs me is that we are willing to discuss in endless detail with incredible amounts of name-calling the causes and effects of global warming, without discussing the validity of using Tipping Points and the Precautionary Principle as guiding lights for how we should react. From what I have seen in the popular media, the use of those terms is very Cheney-esque. People mention the existence of Tipping Points and the Precautionary Principle and assume that that closes the conversation.

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A2 Blackouts

Blackouts are inevitable- there is no way to stop themFairley 2003 (Peter, Spectrum magazine. “The Unruly Power Grid” http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/4195)

The 14 August 2003 blackout may have been the largest in history, zapping more total wattage and affecting more customers than any before, but if history is any guide, it won't be the last. "These kinds of outages are consistent with historical statistics, and they'll keep happening," says John Doyle, professor of control and dynamical systems, electrical engineering, and bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "I would have said this one was overdue." "We will have major failures," agrees IEEE Fellow Vijay Vittal, an electrical engineering professor at Iowa State University in Ames, who is an expert on power system dynamics and control. " There is no doubt about that."

New Tech solves- multiple responses available to grid collapseBusiness Wire 2001 (Dec. 17. “Innovative technologies can improve national security; optimal technologies software able to make nation’s power grid more secure” written by business editors/high-tech and energy writers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_Dec_17/ai_80858553)

Optimal Technologies announced this week the ability to improve national security with breakthrough electric power system technologies. If one part of a power grid were to fail due to intentional disruption -- or accident, operating error, or natural disaster -- Optimal's tools could allow multiple responses to avoid grid collapse, including automated recontrolling of key connections, rerouting of power flows, and precise management of loads. Optimal's new Aempfast(TM) (pronounced aim-fast) software, now being tested, has the unique ability to "see" the power grid as a whole and in great detail. Aempfast can swiftly find blockages in power flow, identify and direct system adjustments eliminating the congestion points, and reroute power -- in seconds, as opposed to hours -- thereby avoiding blackouts and brownouts. " This software is fundamental for electric power contingency planning and crisis management," said Roland Schoettle, founder and CEO of Optimal Technologies.

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A2 Resource Wars

No resource warsIdean Salehyan (Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas) May 2008 “From Climate Change to Conflict? No Consensus Yet” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 45, no. 3 http://emergingsustainability.org/files/resolver%20climate%20change%20and%20conflict.pdfFirst, the deterministic view has poor predictive power as to where and when conflicts will break out. For every potential example of an environmental catastrophe or resource shortfall that leads to violence, there are many more counter-examples in which conflict never occurs. But popular accounts typically do not look at the dogs that do not bark. Darfur is frequently cited as a case where desertification led to food scarcity, water scarcity, and famine, in turn leading to civil war and ethnic cleansing.5 Yet, food scarcity and hunger are problems endemic to many countries – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – but similar problems elsewhere have not led to large-scale violence. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food shortages and malnutrition affect more than a third of the population in Malawi, Zambia, the Comoros, North Korea, and Tanzania,6 although none of these countries have experienced fullblown civil war and state failure. Hurricanes, coastal flooding, and droughts – which are all likely to intensify as the climate warms – are frequent occurrences which rarely lead to violence. The Asian Tsunami of 2004, although caused by an oceanic earthquake, led to severe loss of life and property, flooding, population displacement, and resource scarcity, but it did not trigger new wars in Southeast Asia. Large-scale migration has the potential to provoke conflict in receiving areas (see Reuveny, 2007; Salehyan & Gleditsch, 2006), yet most migration flows do not lead to conflict, and, in this regard, social integration and citizenship policies are particularly important (Gleditsch, Nordås & Salehyan, 2007). In short, resource scarcity, natural disasters, and long-term climatic shifts are ubiquitous, while armed conflict is rare; therefore, environmental conditions, by themselves, cannot predict violent outbreaks. Second, even if local skirmishes over access to resources arise, these do not always escalate to open warfare and state collapse. While interpersonal violence is more or less common and may intensify under resource pressures, sustained armed conflict on a massive scale is difficult to conduct. Meier, Bond & Bond (2007) show that, under certain circumstances, environmental conditions have led to cattle raiding among pastoralists in East Africa, but these conflicts rarely escalate to sustained violence. Martin (2005) presents evidence from Ethiopia that, while a large refugee influx and population pressures led to localized conflict over natural resources, effective resource management regimes were able to ameliorate these tensions. Both of these studies emphasize the role of local dispute-resolution regimes and institutions – not just the response of central governments – in preventing resource conflicts from spinning out of control. Martin’s analysis also points to the importance of international organizations, notably the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in implementing effective policies governing refugee camps. Therefore, local hostilities need not escalate to serious armed conflict and can be managed if there is the political will to do so. Third, states often bear responsibility for environmental degradation and resource shortfalls, either through their own projects and initiatives or through neglect of the environment. Clearly, climate change itself is an exogenous stressor beyond the control of individual governments. However, government policies and neglect can compound the effects of climate change. Nobel Prizewinning economist Amartya Sen finds that, even in the face of acute environmental scarcities, countries with democratic institutions and press freedoms work to prevent famine because such states are accountable to their citizens (Sen, 1999). Others have similarly shown a strong relationship between democracy and protection of the environment (Li & Reuveny, 2006). Faced with global warming, some states will take the necessary steps to conserve water and

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land, redistribute resources to those who need them most, and develop disaster-warning and -response systems. Others will do little to respond to this threat. While a state’s level of income and technological capacity are certainly important, democracy – or, more precisely, the accountability of political leaders to their publics – is likely to be a critical determinant of how states respond to the challenge. Fourth, violent conflict is an inefficient and sub-optimal reaction to changes in the environment and resource scarcities. As environmental conditions change, several possible responses are available, although many journalists and policymakers have focused on the potential for warfare. Individuals can migrate internally or across borders, or they can invest in technological improvements, develop conservation strategies, and shift to less climate-sensitive livelihoods, among other adaptation mechanisms. Engaging in armed rebellion is quite costly and risky and requires large-scale collective action. Individuals and households are more likely to engage in simpler, personal, or smallscale coping strategies. Thus, organized violence is inefficient at the individual level. But, more importantly, armed violence against the state is used as a means to gain leverage over governments so as to gain some form of accommodation, namely, the redistribution of economic resources and political power. Organized armed violence rarely (if ever) arises spontaneously but is usually pursued when people perceive their government to be unwilling to listen to peaceful petitions. As mentioned above, rebellion does not distribute resources by itself, and protracted civil wars can have devastating effects on the economy and the natural environment, leaving fewer resources to bargain over. Thus, organized violence is inefficient at the collective level. Responsive, accountable political leaders – at all levels of government – are more likely to listen to citizen demands for greater access to resources and the means to secure their livelihoods. Political sensitivity to peaceful action can immunize states from armed insurrection.

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A2 Econ Impact

Economic collapse doesn’t cause war – no causal connectionThomas P.M. Barnett (senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC and a contributing editor/online columnist for Esquire magazine) August 2009 “The New Rules: Security Remains Stable Amid Financial Crisis” http://www.aprodex.com/the-new-rules--security-remains-stable-amid-financial-crisis-398-bl.aspxWhen the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery -- surprisingly led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over the past year and realize how globalization's first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more than three-dozen ongoing conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the global recession. Indeed, the last new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006). Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external trigger (followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia and its two breakaway regions. Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global economic trends. And with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement elsewhere around the planet has been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with pirates off Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our new Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces. So, to sum up: * No significant uptick in mass violence or unrest (remember the smattering of urban riots last year in places like Greece, Moldova and Latvia?); * The usual frequency maintained in civil conflicts (in all the usual places); * Not a single state-on-state war directly caused (and no great-power-on-great-power crises even triggered); * No great improvement or disruption in great-power cooperation regarding the emergence of new nuclear powers (despite all that diplomacy); * A modest scaling back of international policing efforts by the system's acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain); and * No serious efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan or supplant its role. (The worst things we can cite are Moscow's occasional deployments of strategic assets to the Western hemisphere and its weak efforts to outbid the United States on basing rights in Kyrgyzstan; but the best include China and India stepping up their aid and investments in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Sure, we've finally seen global defense spending surpass the previous world record set in the late 1980s, but even that's likely to wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this unprecedented "stimulus" spending. If anything, the friendly cooperation on such stimulus packaging was the most notable great-power dynamic caused by the crisis. Can we say that the world has suffered a distinct shift to political radicalism as a result of the economic crisis? Indeed, no. The world's major economies remain governed by center-left or center-right political factions that remain decidedly friendly to both markets and trade. In the short run, there were attempts across the board to

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insulate economies from immediate damage (in effect, as much protectionism as allowed under current trade rules), but there was no great slide into "trade wars." Instead, the World Trade Organization is functioning as it was designed to function, and regional efforts toward free-trade agreements have not slowed. Can we say Islamic radicalism was inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift was clearly overwhelmed by the Islamic world's growing disenchantment with the brutality displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And looking forward, austere economic times are just as likely to breed connecting evangelicalism as disconnecting fundamentalism. At the end of the day, the economic crisis did not prove to be sufficiently frightening to provoke major economies into establishing global regulatory schemes, even as it has sparked a spirited -- and much needed, as I argued last week -- discussion of the continuing viability of the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency. Naturally, plenty of experts and pundits have attached great significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of "economic warfare" and the like between "fading" America and "rising" China. And yet, in a world of globally integrated production chains and interconnected financial markets, such "diverging interests" hardly constitute signposts for wars up ahead. Frankly, I don't welcome a world in which America's fiscal profligacy goes undisciplined, so bring it on -- please! Add it all up and it's fair to say that this global financial crisis has proven the great resilience of America's post-World War II international liberal trade order. Do I expect to read any analyses along those lines in the blogosphere any time soon? Absolutely not. I expect the fantastic fear-mongering to proceed apace. That's what the Internet is for.

No causal relationship – ignores other variablesNiall Ferguson (Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University) 2006 Foreign Affairs, September/October, Vol. 85, Issue 5Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises were not followed by wars.

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A2 EU Adv

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1NC Frontline

Energy security now

Miller ‘12 (Rich, February 6, 2012, “Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. As Top Producer,” Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-07/americans-gaining-energy-independence-with-u-s-as-top-producer.html, 7/20/12, atl)

The U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency, a goal the nation has been pursuing since the 1973 Arab oil embargo triggered a recession and led to lines at gasoline stations. Domestic oil output is the highest

in eight years. The U.S. is producing so much natural gas that, where the government warned four years ago of a critical need to boost imports, it now may approve an export terminal . Methanex Corp. (MX), the world’s biggest methanol maker, said it will dismantle a factory in Chile and reassemble it in Louisiana to take advantage of low natural gas

prices. And higher mileage standards and federally mandated ethanol use, along with slow economic growth, have curbed demand. The result: The U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the U.S. Department of Energy. That would be the highest level since 1992. “For 40 years, only politicians and the occasional author in Popular Mechanics magazine talked about achieving energy independence,” said Adam Sieminski, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Energy Information

Administration. “Now it doesn’t seem such an outlandish idea.” The transformation, which could see the country become the world’s top energy producer by 2020, has implications for the economy and national security -- boosting household incomes, jobs and government revenue; cutting the trade deficit; enhancing manufacturers’ competitiveness; and allowing greater flexibility in dealing with unrest in the Middle East. Output Rising U.S. energy self-sufficiency has been steadily rising since 2005, when it hit a low of 70 percent, the data compiled by Bloomberg show. Domestic crude oil production rose 3.6 percent last year to an

average 5.7 million barrels a day, the highest since 2003, according to the Energy Department. Natural gas output climbed to 22.4 trillion cubic feet in 2010 from 20.2 trillion in 2007, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission warned of the need for more imports. Prices have fallen more than 80 percent since 2008. At the same

time, the efficiency of the average U.S. passenger vehicle has helped limit demand. It increased to 29.6 miles per

gallon in 2011 from 19.9 mpg in 1978, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The last time the U.S. achieved energy independence was in 1952. While it still imported some petroleum, the country’s exports, including of coal, more than offset its imports.

EU gas trade is critical to Russian economic stability and Russia doesn’t have the capabilities to expand

Ratner et al ‘12 (Specialist in Energy Policy, Michael e-, Paul Belkin, Analyst in European Affairs, Jim Nichol, Specialist in Russian and European Affairs, Steven Woehrel, Specialist in European Affairs, March 13, 2012, “Europe’s Energy Security: Options and Challenges to Natural Gas Supply Diversification” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42405.pdf, 7/19/12, atl)

The Russian natural gas industry is one of the most important players in the global energy market. In 2010, Russia had the largest natural gas reserves in the world, nearly 24% of the world’s total, was the leading exporter of natural gas, and placed second in production and consumption behind the United States. Russia was also a founding member, and currently holds the top

position, in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). As noted, Russia is currently the dominant supplier of natural gas to Europe, accounting for about one-quarter of the EU’s natural gas supplies.19 (See Figure 2.) This dependency does not go only in one direction, however. Europe is also the most important market for Russian natural gas exports, a calculation the Russians must take into account when developing its political relations with

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Europe. The bulk of Gazprom’s natural gas exports go to Europe and Eurasia. Of the 7.1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas exported by Gazprom in 2010, almost 55% went to the EU. Of the rest, over 28% went to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), many of which have been unreliable in paying what they owe and/or receive natural gas at subsidized prices.20 The rest went to Turkey,

which is seeking EU membership, and other non-EU countries in Europe, and to Asia. The revenues generated by this trade are vital to the ruling Russian elite. At present, all Russian natural gas exports are controlled by Gazprom. As a

state-controlled firm, Gazprom has the closest possible links with top Russian leaders (Russia’s outgoing president

Dimitri Mevedev served as president of Gazprom). The personal and political fortunes of Russia’s leaders are closely tied to Gazprom. Russian government revenues (in 2010, 46% of total Russian government revenue came from oil and

natural gas taxes) and Russia’s economic revival in the Putin/Medvedev era have been heavily dependent on the massive wealth generated by energy exports to Europe. Gazprom offers natural gas to the Russian domestic market at subsidized prices, which also bolsters the ruling elite politically. Government proposals to decrease subsidies have not come to fruition. In addition to their financial benefits, Russian natural gas exports to Europe and Eurasia may have important psychological benefits for the Russian elite. They may be viewed as demonstrating the resurgence of Russian power after the collapse of the Soviet Union over 20 years ago. Russia’s “National Security Strategy to 2020,” released in May 2009, stated that “the resource potential of Russia” is one of the factors that

has “expanded the possibilities of the Russian Federation to strengthen its influence in the world arena.”22 In the long term, Russia hopes to reduce dependency on Europe by diversifying its customer base as well. By 2030, the Russian government plans to increase gas exports to Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan until they make up 19%-20% of the total.

However, Russia has a considerable way to go to meet this objective . In 2010, gas exports to Asia made up about 7% of total Russian gas exports, all in the form of LNG. Russia opened its first LNG export facility in 2009 on its east coast. Long-standing Russian hopes of providing large amounts of natural gas to China by pipeline have been stymied by the fact that China has been unwilling to pay the price Europe pays for Russian natural gas.23

Russian economic collapse spreads globally and goes nuclear

David ’99 (Writer for Foreign Affairs, Steven R, “Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars”, Foreign Affairs -Volume 8 No. 1, 10/25/11, atl]

If internal war does strike Russia, economic deterioration will be a prime cause. From 1989 to the present, the gdp has fallen by 50 percent. In a society where, ten years ago, unemployment scarcely existed, it reached 9.5 percent in 1997 with many

economists declaring the true figure to be much higher. Twenty-two percent of Russians live below the official poverty line (earning less than $70 a month). Modern Russia can neither collect taxes (it gathers only half the revenue it is due) nor

significantly cut spending. Reformers tout privatization as the country's cure-all, but in a land without well-defined property rights or contract law and where subsidies remain a way of life, the prospects for transition to an American-style capitalist economy look remote at best.

As the massive devaluation of the ruble and the current political crisis show, Russia's condition is even worse than most analysts feared. If conditions get worse, even the stoic Russian people will soon run out of patience. A future conflict would quickly draw in Russia's military. In the Soviet days civilian rule kept the powerful armed forces in check. But with the Communist Party out of office, what little civilian control remains relies on an exceedingly fragile foundation, personal friendships between government leaders and military commanders. Meanwhile, the morale of Russian soldiers has fallen to a dangerous low. Drastic cuts in spending mean inadequate pay, housing, and medical care. A new emphasis on domestic missions has created an ideological split between the old and new guard in the military leadership, increasing the risk that disgruntled generals may enter the political fray and feeding the resentment of soldiers who dislike being used as a national police force.

Newly enhanced ties between military units and local authorities pose another danger. Soldiers grow ever more dependent on local governments for housing, food, and wages. Draftees serve closer to home, and new laws have in creased local control

over the armed forces. Were a conflict to emerge between a regional power and Moscow, it is not at all clear which side the military would support. Divining the military's allegiance is crucial, however, since the structure of the Russian Federation makes it virtually certain that regional conflicts will continue to erupt. Russia's 89 republics, krais, and oblasts grow ever more independent in a system that does little to keep them together. As the central government finds itsel devolves to the periphery.

With the economy collapsing, republics feel less and less incentive to pay taxes to Moscow when they receive so little in return. Three-quarters of them already have their own constitutions, nearly all of which make some claim to

sovereignty. Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies may motivate non-Russians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control inspired similar

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movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If these rebellions spread and Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely. Should Russia succumb to internal war, the consequences for the United States and Europe will be severe. A major power like Russia even though in decline does not suffer civil war quietly or alone. An embattled Russian Federation might provoke op portunistic attacks

from enemies such as China. Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and western Europe. Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear

plants, would poison the environment of much of Europe and Asia. Within Russia, the consequences would be even

worse. Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime. Most alarming is the real possibility that the violent disintegration of Russia could lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal. No nuclear state has ever fallen victim

to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be foreseen. Russia retains some 20,000 nuclear weapons and the raw material for tens of thousands more, in scores of sites scattered throughout the country. So far, the

government has managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much materiel. If war erupts, however, Moscow's already weak grip on nuclear sites will slacken, making weapons and sup plies available to a wide range of anti-American groups and states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And it is hard to think of anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civil war.

Inevitable – trade pacts and infrastructure prevent alternatives from mattering

Ratner et al ‘12 (Specialist in Energy Policy, Michael e-, Paul Belkin, Analyst in European Affairs, Jim Nichol, Specialist in Russian and European Affairs, Steven Woehrel, Specialist in European Affairs, March 13, 2012, “Europe’s Energy Security: Options and Challenges to Natural Gas Supply Diversification” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42405.pdf, 7/19/12, atl)

Collectively, EU member states are the world’s largest energy importer, importing about 55% of their energy supply—approximately 84% of their oil and 64% of their natural gas.12 EU member states increasingly rely on natural gas, particularly to reach ambitious targets to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas comprised over 25% of the EU’s primary energy consumption in 2010, a number that is expected to grow to almost 30% by 2030.13 Oil made up almost 40%, coal about 16%, and nuclear 12%

of the EU primary energy supply. The European Commission forecasts that the EU will import over 80% of its natural gas needs by 2030. Analysts note that recent policy decisions, such as a 2011 German announcement that it would phase out use of its nuclear power plants by 2020 and a French decision to prohibit shale gas development, could mean a more rapid rise in Europe’s

dependence on natural gas imports. Other EU countries have made similar announcements, but are much smaller energy consumers. Russia has long been, and is expected to continue to be, the key supplier of natural gas to Europe. In 2010, Russia

accounted for 34% of European natural gas imports, followed by Norway and Algeria (see Figure 1). Russian and European companies have developed an extensive network of infrastructure to transport Russian natural gas long distances to European markets. Observers expect natural gas to play a significant role in Europe-Russia relations for decades to come . Different EU member states use natural gas to different degrees and import levels and sources vary by country (see Table 1). Some large natural gas consumers, such as Spain, do not import any natural gas from Russia. Germany, the second biggest natural gas consumer and Russia’s largest market, relied on Russia for almost 40% of its imports in 2010. The opening of the Nord Stream pipeline in late 2011 and Germany’s planned closure of its nuclear power plants highlights Germany’s potentially greater reliance on Russia. In a reflection of these national differences, the EU has traditionally exerted little if any influence over the energy policies of

individual member states. However, in the face of rising concern about Europe’s reliance on Russian energy

and growing public pressure to address global climate change, EU member states have begun to increase cooperation toward an “Energy Policy for Europe.” As stated earlier, European heads of state have committed to completing the integration

and liberalization of the internal European energy market by 2014; promoting the interconnection of electric grids and natural gas pipelines; boosting energy efficiency; and better coordinating external energy policies. European leaders anticipate that these initiatives will allow member states to share and trade energy more flexibly than at present, mitigating the impact of potential supply interruptions and overdependence on a single supplier. Even as EU leaders promote ideas on a common energy strategy, many question how far

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individual member states will agree to push Russia (and Gazprom) to adopt the EU’s principles of competition and open its energy sector to outside investment. Some believe that without such Russian concessions, Europe will ultimately find its energy security largely under Russian

control. Indeed, several member states have pursued bilateral energy deals with Russia that will increase their dependence on Russia for years to come. Both Germany and Italy, the largest importers of Russian natural gas, have negotiated long-term deals with Russia to lock in future natural gas supplies. For Germany and several others, Russia’s role as a dominant energy supplier increases the importance of fostering good relations with Moscow. Further, bilateral deals with Russia are not limited to the major energy consumers. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Greece, and others have entered into long-term energy agreements with Gazprom over the past several years. These examples of individual member states dealing with Russia bilaterally have in the past drawn harsh criticism from other EU member states, such as the Baltic states and Poland, who have had strained relations with Russia for some time over other issues as well. Governments in these countries have warned their European colleagues not to make energy deals that could give Russia

increased political influence over European decision-making. Many of these nations believe that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy is likely to last no matter how successful Europe may be in identifying energy supply alternatives. But they also feel Europe does not gain real security by becoming more dependent on Russia. In fact, the growing presence of Gazprom throughout the European energy market (for instance through its ownership of distribution and storage infrastructure) has led many to worry about the EU’s ability to develop an energy policy insulated from Gazprom’s influence.14

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A2 Russia Aggression Impact

No Russian aggression – strong demographic and structural changes

Popescu ’12 (European Council on Foreign Relations research fellow, Nicu, February 3, 2012, European Council on Foreign Relations, "Russia’s liberal-nationalist cocktail” blogs.euobserver.com/popescu/2012/02/06/russias-liberal-nationalist-cocktail/, accessed 2-11-12, atl)

One of Vladimir Putin’s recent pre-election articles dedicated to the ‘national question’ largely subscribes to this view, even though he

laments the ‘inadequate, aggressive, defiant and disrespectful’ behaviour of some migrants. But such imperialist nationalism was based on a strong confidence in Russia’s state capacity, power of territorial expansion and cultural attraction. However, the growing realisation of Russia’s structural problems – from demographic crisis to bad governance under Putin, topped by the economic crisis – has led to some structural shifts in Russian nationalism. An increasingly obvious trend in the last few years is for the ‘old’ expansionist nationalism to rapidly lose ground to a new breed of isolationist, introvert and defensive nationalism that is primarily anti-immigrant and often anti-imperial. Such nationalism is more concerned with maintaining Russia’s ‘Russianness’ than with territorial expansion. The key source of this defensive nationalism is the toxic mix of high immigration into Russia coupled with a demographic crisis. With over 12 million migrants, Russia is the second biggest recipient of inward migration in the world after the US, though as a share of migrants per total population Russia only ranks 55th in the world. From the nationalists’ perspective Russia’s demographic crisis is two-fold. One aspect is the decline of Russia’s population, with the threat of further decline due to the higher numbers of old than young. But from the nationalists’

perspective, graver still is the fact that the fall in numbers of ethnic Russians due to emigration, high mortality and low birth rates is faster than the overall demographic decline, the pace of which has indeed slowed, partly due to immigration (primarily from Central Asia and the south Caucasus) and higher population growth among some Russian minorities, particularly in the north Caucasus. So the fear is not only about Russia’s decreasing

population, but even more so about the fact that Russia is becoming less ethnically Russian. The instinctive response to fears of relative demographic decline of ethnic Russians is a growing ‘fortress Russia’ syndrome. At its core, Russia’s defensive nationalism rests on a much-diminished belief in Russia’s power to expand and assimilate its periphery, particularly the culturally distant Muslim populations of

Central Asia and the Caucasus. The nationalist schism is clearly visible at nationalist marches parts of the crowd shout ‘there is no Russia without Caucasus’ whereas other parts shout ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’ and ‘Migrants today, Occupiers tomorrow’.

Your arguments are just saturated Russiaphobia

Matveeva ‘08 (Guardian staff reporter, Anna, "Battling Russophobia," Guardian, 12-13-8, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/13/russia-west-media-stereotypes, 7/24/12, atl)

A Russophobia virus has infected the air. What is it? It is when an English literature teacher in a good school, explaining how to

answer an exam question on comedy, tells your daughter: "Don't worry, simply write – I am Russian, I do not have a sense of humour." Or the ease with which jokes like "You are Russian, you must know all about corruption," are made. A BBC documentary presenter asks his Russian interpreter in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad: "Do you feel Russian or European?" What does he expect the woman to say? When a fashionable detective writer wants to write a thriller with a foreign twist, guess who will be the nemesis? An al-Qaida plot in Hackney runs the risk of being politically incorrect. But Russian dissidents and oligarchs chased by Scottish police fit the bill perfectly. The British media, mindful of inter-race relations, seeks to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslims, but the idea that Russians can feel hurt does not occur to them. For Russians in the west, if one is not an oligarch, pop star or secret assassin, and does not think that "Putin's regime" is second-worst to that of Ivan the Terrible, treading these waters is problematic. This is not to say that Russians in Britain are discriminated against in the workplace, or that my neighbours suspect me of dumping polonium when I throw rubbish away. Rather, it is possible to say things without thinking of what it might be like on the receiving end. Stereotypes promoted by the media are now entrenched: Russian companies are corrupt and are puppets of the state, minorities are not allowed to speak their languages and males are chauvinist

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machos. The economy survives on pumping gas, while the leadership dreams of conquering half of the world. News from Russia is bad news. It is hard to blame journalists for reporting what is newsworthy: saying that Russians go to supermarkets and buy the same food as their western counterparts is boring, while writing that Moscow hosts the first ever all-male strip joint is "sexy". The Russia-Georgia debacle brought these attitudes to the fore. The reaction of the media and the politicians was overwhelmingly anti-Russian, because their gut feeling told them who was in the wrong. More objective reports appeared much later. Why was the conflict in South Ossetia so important? Because Russia was a party to it. Readers were led to believe that minuscule South Ossetia is a proto-

state like Kosovo, while no parallels were drawn with Nato action in ex-Yugoslavia in support of Albanians. The question is: can Russia do anything good? In Russophobes' eyes, it should (1) surrender and apologise, (2) give western companies control over natural reserves because Russians mismanage them anyhow, (3) limit their ambitions to culture and (4) award Boris Berezovsky a medal for democracy-promotion. What feeds Russophobia? Moscow's own actions are only part of the story. In the last few years several constituencies came together to create a new momentum. The cold warriors found a mission again. The existence of a familiar enemy who plays by the rules is more comfortable than the "enemy amongst us" who may work in a corner chip shop. Western liberals who passionately believed in Russia's democratic transformation to their own recipe became disillusioned, turning the energy of embittered idealism into exposing the evils of "Putin's KGB regime". They were joined by immigrants who made their way in the new country by "unveiling the truth" about Russia. What are the effects of Russophobia? Economically, as BP and Shell found out, it is harder to do business. Politically, it is impossible to conduct a frank dialogue on issues of common concern, as trust has gone out of the relationship. In the security field, it has resulted in militarisation on both sides, undermining the achievements of disarmament. Finally, polarising language flourishes. Unlike in the 1990s, the Russian elite reads English-language media, getting from it the idea that "the west is against us". Why should we care? Attitudes matter as Russia is at a crossroads. It can go either towards increased modernisation or militarisation. It can build pragmatic, but solid relations with the west, or it can indulge in spoiling the international

game and setting up anti-western alliances. It is the responsibility of the western intelligentsia to see that stereotypes create enemies and not to miss their chance to prevent a new division of Europe.

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Ext. – No Solvency

Increase in exports wouldn’t do anything

Cunningham ‘12 (American Security Project Policy Analyst, Nicholas, Specializes in Energy and Competitiveness, June 25, 2012, “Should U.S. Export Natural Gas?” http://americansecurityproject.org/blog/2012/should-u-s-export-natural-gas/, 7/21/12, atl)

However, there are reasons to believe that the furor, from both sides, is overblown. Exporting natural gas will neither be as good as supporters believe, nor as damaging as critics would have it. There are several reasons

why even if we went full steam ahead with natural gas exports, it would not have a major impact. In

fact, it probably won’t even be a big deal. First, natural gas prices are historically volatile. Even if the U.S. possesses ample supplies for years to come, current domestic prices are probably at unsustainably low levels. Already, low gas prices are hurting drilling companies, prompting them to sell off assets. Rig counts are

down, and production may have reached a temporary peak, and has begun to decline. Many companies are either cutting back on production because it has become less profitable or they are shifting their production from dry gas to wet gas and oil production, which are more valuable. As production scales back, prices will have to rise. As prices rise, profit margins for exports will shrink. Second, LNG capacity to meet Asian demand, particularly in Australia, is expanding. As Roman Kilisek of the Foreign Policy Association notes, LNG exports from Australia

will increase by 20-80 million tons per year by 2018. As that capacity comes online, high natural gas prices in Asia will begin to moderate. Third, exporting natural gas is not like exporting oil. Natural gas needs to be cooled to negative 260 degrees F, which transforms it into a liquid, then transported by ship to its destination, where it is regasified and piped into its

distribution system. This is difficult and expensive to do, which both shrinks profit margins and means that export capacity will remain limited at least in the near-term. Finally, the effects of natural gas exports for the U.S. economy are ambiguous. Certainly, there are distributional effects: producers will benefit and industries using natural gas

as a feedstock will be hurt. But, most likely, the overall economic impact will be mixed. A recent report from the

Brookings Institution concluded that LNG exports are feasible but would be limited due to high costs. They estimated that exporting natural gas prices would only increase wellhead prices by 2-11%. This would not adversely impact the U.S. manufacturing sector, particularly since energy prices only reflect a small share of total costs in most domestic industries. In short, the issue is overblown. While exports would affect different stakeholders in different ways, the impact will only be

marginal. LNG exports will not be the enormous economic prize that some are making it out to be , nor will it spell doom for our competitiveness.

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Ext. Russia Turn

New production proves uniqueness now

Holland ‘12 (American Security Project Adjunct Fellow, Andrew, July 22, 2012, “American Shale Gas is Revolutionizing European Energy Security”, http://americansecurityproject.org/blog/2011/american-shale-gas-is-revolutionizing-european-energy-security/, 7/20/12, atl)

For the last three decades, the story of European energy security has been a steadily growing dependence on Russian natural gas. From the time when the Trans-Siberian Pipeline first started delivering gas to Europe in 1983, countries of Europe have grown steadily more dependent on Russian gas. The integration of the former Eastern Bloc into the EU over the last two decades made the problem even more acute, as 40 years of infrastructure was built in order to foster dependence between the Soviet Union and its satellite

states. By 2009, Russia was exporting 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas into Europe, about 25% of Europe’s total gas consumption. The result of that dependence is that Russia has been able to exert its status as a monopolistic energy supplier . Gas shut-offs to Ukrainian pipelines (through which most of Europe’s supplies travel) in the winters of 2005 and 2009 caused widespread misery across Eastern Europe as power and heat were shut down in countries like Bulgaria and Romania that are almost totally dependent on Russian imports. Gazprom, and the Russian state, have not been afraid to threaten the stability of these supplies to gain geopolitical power and extract

foreign policy concessions. Now, however, new supplies of shale gas from the United States are reshaping this equation. A new report out from Rice University’s Baker Institute, “Shale Gas and US National Security” (pdf) by Kenneth Medlock, Amy

Meyers Jaffe and Peter Hartley highlights how increased US production of gas is already undercutting Russia’s geopolitical power of European energy. It states that “Russia’s natural gas market share in Western Europe will decline to as little as 13 percent by 2040, down from 27 percent in 2009.” Even without any significant production of shale gas in Europe (yet), a glut of gas produced in the United States is changing Europe’s geopolitical energy equation. Over the

last ten years, the United States has gone from essentially zero in 2000 to over 10 billion cubic feel per day by 2010. The graph at left shows how this revolution has affected total US gas production. This production increase has been enough to change the US from a net importer of gas to a net exporter. Where once the US had been scrambling to build Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals in the early part of the decade, now those same

terminals are being used to export gas. This has freed other large producers, most notably Qatar, to change their exports from the United States to places like Europe or Japan. Not only has this reduced prices, it also has given Europe

the redundancy it needs to free itself from Russian gas dominance. For years, US policy on building energy security in Europe was to foster competition with Russian gas. The focus of this policy was to build a gas pipeline through the

‘Southern Corridor’ from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and up through the Balkans. It is ironic that now the United States is the exporter that could provide the competition to Russian gas that Europe needs.

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Solvency Hit

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1NC Stuff

Fracking successes in the US don’t translate abroad

Urbina ’11 (Ian, The New York Times, “Hunt for Gas Hits Fragile Soil, and South Africans fear risks,” 12/30, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/south-african-farmers-see-threat-from-fracking.html?_r=1, TGA)

Some economists and environmentalists say that while the governments of poorer countries may benefit from the new tax revenues and

jobs, they may not be paying enough attention to the environmental risks of drilling. They also note that local residents — who bear the brunt of the air pollution, potential water contamination from spills or underground seepage, and truck traffic that come with drilling — 1may see few benefits. “These projects have already started causing steep inflation in costs of local housing and services, and except for the lucky few who get temporary

construction jobs, the economic conditions for local communities can actually get worse,” said Doug Norlen, policy director of Pacific Environment, an advocacy and research organization that tracks federal and corporate financing of energy projects abroad.

The direct benefits of new drilling to American landowners — they receive bonuses and royalties when they lease their land to drillers — will generally not be shared by landowners abroad. In South Africa and many other countries looking to embrace the drilling, the minerals under a property are more often owned by governments, not individuals. Mr.

Norlen added that the influx of foreign construction workers in these projects could lead to conflicts with local and tribal communities. In one example, he noted, the United States government-financed project in Papua New Guinea to extract and transport liquid natural gas recently led to violent clashes between residents and foreign contractors.

Fracking bad – laundry list of impacts

Stevenson 6/25/12 (Tim, Founding director of Post Oil Solutions, "Is Peak Oil Dead?" www.reformer.com/ci_20930567/is-peak-oil-dead?source=most_viewed, TGA)

Despite their apparent promise of a bright future, however, this shift to unconventional fossil fuels has a very dark side. For one thing, their extraction and processing is extremely expensive. The Energy Returned on Energy Investment (EROEI) for the Bakken shale in North Dakota, for example is 4:1, which means it takes one barrel of energy to produce four barrels of shale oil, and that is before refining the oil to finished products. The tar sands net energy in Alberta is 3:1. These compare with the halcyon days of cheap oil - the 1930s and 1940s - where the EROEI produced 100:1 net-energy. In order to recoup their considerable investment, energy companies will have to charge triple digit sums for a barrel of oil. Historically, the U.S. goes into a recession when we spend more than 4.6 percent of our GDP on oil, around $60 a barrel. Charles Hall, at the State University of New York, has calculated

that it is not possible to run our complex civilization on a net-energy below about a 6:1ratio. Additionally, this bonanza is short term. The 24 billion barrels, for example, estimated to be trapped in U.S. shale formations is only about 9 months’ worth of global consumption. Fracking wells typically don’t keep producing for very long. While some have been able to yield as much as 1,000 barrels a day,

the rate then falls off to 65 percent the first year, 35 percent the second, and 15 percent the third. Then there is the environmental damage, like the BP Gulf disaster in 2010. The drilling technique for tar sands and shale oil -- "fracking" -- uses great amounts of highly pressurized water, sand and toxic chemicals to force oil and gas from the rock formations in which they are embedded. This has resulted in serious air pollution, wastewater problems, and concerns about the safety of water supplies, with growing evidence that toxic fracking water is leaking into underground aquifers. Earthquakes are also occurring in fracking areas where they’ve not happened before.

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A2 Energy Transition

Too soon to invest in natural gas—no stable market and no short-term profit sustainabilityBarone 6/27/12 (Writer for Forbes, "Way Too Soon to Get Into Natural Gas" www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/06/27/way-too-soon-to-get-into-natural-gas/, TGA)

While Mr. Gundlach’s trade is quite interesting, it seems a bit risky, or at least too early. If natural gas prices return to the $5 to $7 MMBtu range, the demand coming from the power industry could be short lived, as it could then be more economical to retrofit power generating units back to coal usage. Coal also has the advantage of having a fixed set of rules and regulations that the EPA enforces, while there remains a lot of uncertainty around what the future fracking regulations will be. Furthermore, demand from autos and trucks, or from LNG export is still in the talking phase. Little investment has yet been made. The fundamental demand and supply features of the trade are just not there, especially in the short-run. One only needs to look at Chesapeake Energy (CHK) and its mounting debt and management issues to see the sector is not sound. While I believe that Devon Energy (DVN) and XTO Energy, which was purchased by

ExxonMobil, are well managed I would not be a buyer at this point based on their current profit margins. We also would not be buyers of midstream infrastructure operators either, which is where Mr Gundlach’s mutual fund DoubleLine Multi-Asset Growth Fund (DMLAX) is looking at making purchases.

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A2 Econ/Market Args

Prices will inevitably skyrocket

Finger 7/22/12 (Richard, Forbes, “We’re Headed to $8 Natural Gas,” http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2012/07/22/were-headed-to-8-00-natural-gas/, TGA)

There is a glut of natural gas. Everybody knows that. There’s so much of the latest multi stage hydraulic fracturing going on from New York State to Texas and all places in between, prices will be low forever. But just as a full watering hole can deplete quickly the current gas storage glut can recede. If fact it already has been and at an alarmingly brisk pace and there may be a confluence of other events which could hasten the process. Consider this. The weekly EIA natural gas storage numbers reported each Thursday came in with a 28 billion cubic feet (bcf) injection. The inventory increase last year at this time was 67 bcf while the five year average accretion was 74 bcf. So true that one week does not a trend make. But this makes eleven straight weeks that have experienced below average storage injections. After Thursday’s numbers were released inventories stood at 3.163 Trillion Cubic Feet or 19.2% above last year but only 17.5% above the five year average. A seemingly decent cushion until you consider as recently as May 10 stockpiles were 48.4% and 49.9% ahead of the previous year and the five year averages respectively. So the question becomes, why are rates of gas injection dropping so precipitously unless the shale plays are actually unable to produce the necessary incremental volumes.

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Groundwater DA

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1NC

Increased fracking will pollute groundwater and destroy the ecosystemBishop 11 (“Chemical and Biological Risk Assessment for Natural Gas Extraction in New York” Ronald E. Bishop, Ph.D., CHO Chemistry & Biochemistry Department State University of New York, College at Oneonta March 28, 2011, http://www.sustainableotsego.org/Risk%20Assessment%20Natural%20Gas%20Extraction-1.htm)

Over the last decade, operators in the natural gas industry have developed highly sophisticated methods and materials for the exploration and production of methane from unconventional reservoirs. In spite of the

technological advances made to date, these activities pose significant chemical and biological hazards to human health and ecosystem stability. If future impacts may be inferred from recent historical performance, then: • Approximately two percent of shale gas well projects in New York will pollute local ground-water over the short term. Serious regulatory violations will occur at more than one of every ten new shale gas projects. • More than one of every six shale gas wells will leak fluids to surrounding rocks and to the surface over the next century. • Each gas well pad, with its associated access road and pipeline, will generate a sediment discharge of approximately eight tons per year. If not sequestered from local waterways, these sediments will further threaten federally endangered mollusks and other aquatic organisms. • Construction of access roads and pipelines will fragment field and forest habitats, further threatening plants and animals which are already species of concern. • Some chemicals in ubiquitous use for shale gas exploration and production, or

consistently present in process wastes, constitute human health and environmental hazards when present at extremely low concentrations. Potential exposure effects for humans include poisoning of susceptible tissues, endocrine disruption syndromes, and elevated risks for certain cancers. • Exposures of gas field workers and neighbors to toxic chemicals and noxious bacteria are exacerbated by certain common practices, such as air/foam-lubricated drilling and the use of impoundments for flowback fluids. These methods, along with the intensive use of diesel-fueled equipment, will degrade air quality and may cause a recently described “down-winder’s syndrome” in humans, livestock and crops. • State officials have not effectively managed oil and gas exploration and production in New York, evidenced by thousands of undocumented or improperly abandoned wells and numerous incidents of soil and water contamination. Human health impacts from these incidents may include abnormally high death rates from glandular and reproductive system cancers in men and women. Improved regulations and enhanced enforcement may reasonably be anticipated to produce more industry penalties, but not

necessarily better industry practices, than were seen in the past. Overall, proceeding with any new projects to extract methane from unconventional reservoirs by current practices in New York State is highly likely to degrade air, surface water and ground-water quality, to harm humans, and to negatively impact aquatic and forest ecosystems. Mitigation measures can partially reduce, but not eliminate, the anticipated harm. Natural gas production from hydrocarbon-rich shale formations is probably the most rapidly developing trend in onshore oil and gas exploration and production today. “In some areas,

this has included bringing drilling and production to regions of the country that have seen little or no activity in the past. New oil and gas developments bring changes to the environmental and socio economic ‐ landscape, particularly in those areas where gas development is a new activity. With these changes have come questions about the nature of shale gas development, the potential environmental impacts, and the ability of the current regulatory structure to deal with this development.” (1) Prominent features of shale gas development, which distinguish it from conventional gas extraction activity, are the use of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing. While these technologies certainly lead to well projects which are orders of magnitude larger than traditional gas wells, and enable energy development companies to pursue projects in places which historically weren’t commercially viable (such as New York’s Southern Tier), gas exploration and production have never been free of risk. No attempt is made here to isolate horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing from any other processes used for gas extraction and transportation, inasmuch as the term “fracking” is understood by a majority of Americans as emblematic of the entire shale gas industry (2). Therefore, the objective is to evaluate risk related to the industry as a whole.

Drilling kills the ecosystem and causes methane leaks that exacerbate warmingBishop 11 (“Chemical and Biological Risk Assessment for Natural Gas Extraction in New York” Ronald E. Bishop, Ph.D., CHO Chemistry & Biochemistry Department State University of New York, College at Oneonta March 28, 2011, http://www.sustainableotsego.org/Risk%20Assessment%20Natural%20Gas%20Extraction-1.htm)

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As stated above, the working hypothesis for this risk assessment is that future impacts may be inferred from historical performance. Therefore, cumulative chemical and biological impacts from the gas industry in New York may be predicted for projects of any scope by combining incident statistics from Part 1 with related health and environmental impacts

from Part 2. For example, from a development of 10,000 gas wells (a plausible estimate according to Anthony Ingraffea) (130),

the sediment run-off into nearby waterways would amount to at least 80,000 tons per year. Such a development would reasonably be expected to generate about 1,200 citations for serious regulatory violations and at least 200 incidents of groundwater contamination in the short term. Over a century, about 1,600 more leaking gas wells should be anticipated. If this scale of development takes place in a 2-county area,

then significant spikes in emergency room visits for respiratory complaints and other aspects of “down-winder’s syndrome” in

those counties should be anticipated as well. Changes in human chronic disease profiles and impacts on domestic, aquatic and forest ecosystems would be more insidious and difficult to measure – but not necessarily less significant. The record of New York State officials in managing gas industry impacts has been no better than those of officials in neighboring states, and

may be substantially worse. Documenting harm and penalizing those in the energy industry who caused it have historically done little to mitigate that harm or prevent its re-occurrence. New York State law regarding the gas industry clearly promotes production over environmental protection (35). Therefore, there is little evidence that changes to the regulatory process will be adequate to protect New York’s environment and citizens from harm caused by this industry. These conclusions essentially agree with those made by Zoback, Kitasei and Copithorne (110), Hazen and Sawyer (131) and Fuller and Hetz (132). However, they disagree with the assessment of the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) (36); it is possible that the GWPC maintains lower standards for public safety and health than these other evaluators.

Ecosystem decline and species loss risk extinctionWarner 94 (Paul Warner, American University, Dept of International Politics and Foreign Policy, August, Politics and Life Sciences, 1994, p 177)

Massive extinction of species is dangerous, then, because one cannot predict which species are expendable to the system as a whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, "Plants and animals cannot tell us what they mean to each

other." One can never be sure which species holds up fundamental biological relationships in the planetary ecosystem. And, because removing species is an irreversible act, it may be too late to save the system after the extinction of key plants or animals. According to the U.S. National Research Council, "The ramifications of an ecological change of this

magnitude [vast extinction of species] are so far reaching that no one on earth will escape them." Trifling with the "lives" of species is like playing Russian roulette, with our collective future as the stakes.

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Link – Fracking causes methane contamination

A peer reviewed study shows drinking water contamination from frackingCSM 11 (May 9th, Fracking' for natural gas is polluting ground water, study concludes, http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0509/Fracking-for-natural-gas-is-polluting-ground-water-study-concludes)

Methane levels were 17 times higher in ground water near areas where shale-gas "fracking" wells had been drilled in Pennsylvania, compared with areas where no gas drilling had occurred, a new study has found. Duke University researchers analyzed methane gas in 68 private ground-water wells across five

counties in Pennsylvania and New York. The study cited "evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas extraction." In shale-gas extraction, water is mixed with chemicals and sand and is injected at high pressure deep into

shale formations, which then releases natural gas. The peer-reviewed study, which is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of the first to conclude that hydraulic fracturing is polluting ground water. And it’s likely to be used as ammunition in court by those opposing drilling in sensitive watersheds. The hydraulic fracturing approach has dramatically increased available US reserves of natural gas by unlocking gas that was previously trapped in shale formations from the mid-Atlantic to Texas to Colorado. But environmentalists and local residents have long claimed that fracking pollutes ground water with methane as well as with chemicals in the injection fluids. The Duke researchers said that the presence of methane likely was due to its escape from faulty drill casings.

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Link - Deep Earth Drilling

Even fluids injected deep beneath the ground will migrate upwards – contamination is limited now, but if fracking increases, it will get into the drinking waterLustgarten 12 (Abrahm, investigative journalist for ProPublica, his investigation into fracking for natural gas was recognized with the George Polk award for environmental reporting, a National Press Foundation award for best energy writing, his reporting on BP and the Deepwater Horizon tragedy was nominated for an Emmy, MA in Journalism from Columbia, July 9th New Study: Fluids From Marcellus Shale Likely Seeping Into PA Drinking Water, http://www.propublica.org/article/new-study-fluids-from-marcellus-shale-likely-seeping-into-pa-drinking-water)

New research has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania's natural gas fields are likely seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies. Though the fluids were natural and not the byproduct of drilling or hydraulic fracturing, the finding further stokes the red-hot controversy over fracking in the Marcellus Shale, suggesting that drilling waste and chemicals could migrate in ways previously thought to be impossible. Impact The study, conducted by scientists at Duke University and California State

Polytechnic University at Pomona and released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tested drinking water wells and aquifers across Northeastern Pennsylvania. Researchers found that, in some cases, the water had mixed with brine that closely matched brine thought to be from the Marcellus Shale or areas close to it. No drilling chemicals were detected in the water, and there was no correlation between where the natural brine was detected and where drilling takes

place. Still, the brine's presence – and the finding that it moved over thousands of vertical feet -- contradicts the oft-repeated notion that deeply buried rock layers will always seal in material injected underground through drilling, mining, or underground disposal. "The biggest implication is the apparent presence of connections from deep underground to the surface," said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and

one of the study's authors. "It's a suggestion based on good evidence that there are places that may be more at risk." The study is the second in recent months to find that the geology surrounding the Marcellus Shale could allow contaminants to move more freely than expected. A paper published by the journal Ground Water in April used modeling to predict that contaminants could reach the surface within 100 years – or fewer if the ground is fracked.

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Chemicals cause health problems

Fracking is unsafe – causes hazardous groundwater contaminationChapman 10 (Karen Charman, managing editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism. She is also an independent investigative environmental journalist, “Trashing the Planet for Natural Gas: Shale Gas Development Threatens Freshwater Sources, Likely Escalates Climate Destabilization,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, 21:4, 72-82, 24 November, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2010.531929)

Some of the fracking chemicals identified include diesel, which contains the carcinogen benzene; ethylene glycol (automotive antifreeze);

formaldehyde; kerosene; various salts and ammonia compounds; and biocides. Many of the chemicals Colborn was able to identify

harm the nervous system, brain, respiratory system, gastrointestinal organs, skin, and eye.35 Many are known to cause cancer, birth defects, developmental problems, reproductive disorders, immune system damage, kidney problems, cardiovascular and blood disease, and death.36 The gas industry and drilling proponents maintain that gas wells go far enough below aquifers and surface water supplies in ‘‘tight,’’ less permeable rock to prevent

horizontal hydrofracking from contaminating drinking water sources. However, ‘‘more than 1,000 . . . cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and

[more recently] Pennsylvania’’37 in areas where drilling is taking place. Underground chemical drift isn’t the only problem with horizontal hydro- fracking, since ‘‘[t]ypically 30 to 40 percent of the water used for drilling and fracturing returns to the surface highly

contaminated.’’38 Gas drilling companies construct on-site pits, usually lined with plastic, where the wastewater evaporates in the open air. These pits are easily punctured, and spills often overflow during a heavy rain.39 In New Mexico, state officials documented approximately 800 water contamination cases from oil and gas operations,

‘‘half of them from waste pits that had leaked chemicals into the ground.’’40 Water sources are also at risk from spills of truckloads of chemicals transported on and off drilling sites, and there are increasing reports of drilling companies being fined for

carelessness or deliberate dumping.41 In New York, wastewater laden with high levels of radioactive elements released from deep underground present even more problems, because few if any water treatment facilities can handle radioactively contaminated water.42

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Chemicals destroy envrionment/health

There are so many dangerous chemicals that could leak into groundwater – they cause cancer, hemorraging, multiorgan failure, inhibited development in children and deathBishop 11 (“Chemical and Biological Risk Assessment for Natural Gas Extraction in New York” Ronald E. Bishop, Ph.D., CHO Chemistry & Biochemistry Department State University of New York, College at Oneonta March 28, 2011, http://www.sustainableotsego.org/Risk%20Assessment%20Natural%20Gas%20Extraction-1.htm)

The majority of chemical products used by the gas industry have not been fully tested for human or environmental toxicity (58, 59). Of those which have, a minority (e.g., bentonite, guar gum, hemicellulase, citric acid, acetic acid, potassium carbonate, sodium chloride, limonene, polyethylene glycol and mineral oil) pose no significant hazards to humans or other organisms as utilized in gas extraction processes. Several other additive chemicals, including ammonia, methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, 1-butanol, thioglycolic acid, acetophenone, sodium perborate tetrahydrate, diammonium peroxydisulfate and hydrochloric acid, are moderately or acutely toxic to humans or aquatic organisms when encountered in concentrated forms (60 – 69), but as used by the natural gas industry, they end up greatly diluted, and so impose relatively modest hazards (58). More significant issues with these chemicals would be anticipated from storage sites, trucking accidents while they are

being transported to remote well sites via rural roads, and staging at well sites. However, a few chemical products in widespread use, including in exploratory wells, pose significant hazards to humans or other organisms, because they remain dangerous even at concentrations near or below their chemical detection limits. These include the biocides glutaraldehyde, 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA) and 2,2-dibromoacetonitrile (DBAN), the corrosion inhibitor

propargyl alcohol, the surfactant 2-butoxyethanol (2-BE), and lubricants containing heavy naphtha. Precisely because of the hazard these chemicals pose even when they are extremely diluted, they are considered in some detail in this section. (Note: CAS No. refers to a unique identifier assigned to every known substance by the Chemical Abstracts Service Registry.)

Glutaraldehyde: Glutaraldehyde (CAS No. 111-30-8) is a biocide used widely in drilling and fracturing fluids. Along with its

antimicrobial effects, it is a potent respiratory toxin effective at parts-per-billion (ppb) concentrations (70); a sensitizer in susceptible people, it has induced occupational asthma and/or contact dermatitis in workers exposed to it, and is a known mutagen (i.e., a substance that may induce or increase the frequency of genetic mutations) (70, 71). It is readily inhaled or absorbed through the skin. In the environment, algae, zooplankton and steelhead trout were found to be dramatically harmed by glutaraldehyde at very low (1 – 5 ppb) concentrations (72).

DBNPA: 2,2-Dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA) (CAS No. 10222-01-2) is a biocide finding increasing use in drilling and fracturing

fluids. It is a sensitizer, respiratory and skin toxin, and is especially corrosive to the eyes (73). In the environment, it is very toxic to a wide variety of freshwater, estuarine and marine organisms, where it induces developmental defects throughout the life cycle. In particular, it is lethal to “water fleas” (Daphnia magna), rainbow trout and mysid shrimp at low (40 to 50 ppb) concentrations, and is especially dangerous to Eastern oysters (74). Chesapeake Bay oysters are killed

by extremely low (parts-per-trillion, ppt) concentrations of DBNPA, well below the limit at which this chemical can be detected. DBAN: Dibromoacetonitrile (DBAN) (CAS No. 3252-43-5) is a biocide often used in combination with DBNPA, from which it is a metabolic product (with

the release of cyanide). Its human and environmental toxicity profiles are similar to that of DBNPA, except that DBAN is also carcinogenic (75). DBNPA and DBAN appear to work synergistically. In combination, the doses at which these biocides become toxic are significantly lower than when they are used separately. In other words, it takes much less of these chemicals to exert toxic effects when they are used together,

although the specific degree of potentiation has not been publicly reported. Propargyl Alcohol: Propargyl alcohol (CAS No. 107-19-7) is a corrosion inhibitor that is very commonly used in gas well construction and completion. This chemical causes burns to tissues in skin, eyes,

nose, mouth, esophagus and stomach; in humans it is selectively toxic to the liver and kidneys (76). Propargyl alcohol is a sensitizer in

susceptible individuals, who may experience chronic effects months to years after exposure, including rare multi-organ failure (77). It is harmful to a variety of aquatic organisms, especially fathead minnows, which are killed

by doses near 1 ppm (78). 2-BE: 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE), also known as ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (EGBE) (CAS No. 111-76-2), is a surfactant used in many phases of gas exploration and extraction. It comprises a considerable percentage of Airfoam HD, commonly used for

air-lubricated drilling (79). Easily absorbed through the skin, this chemical has long been known to be selectively toxic to red blood cells; it causes them to rupture, leading to hemorrhaging (80). More recently, the ability of EGBE at extremely low levels (ppt) to cause endocrine disruption, with effects on ovaries and adrenal glands, is emerging in the medical literature (81). This chemical is only moderately toxic to aquatic organisms, with harm to algae and test fish observed with doses over 500 ppm (80). Heavy Naphtha: Heavy naphtha (CAS No. 64741-68-0) refers to a mixture of petroleum products composed of, among other compounds, the aromatic molecules benzene, toluene, xylene, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons including naphthalene. It is used by the gas industry as a lubricant, especially in drilling muds. This material is hazardous to a host of microbes, plants and

animals (82). Several of the mixture’s components are known to cause or promote cancer. If released to soil or groundwater,

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several components are toxic to terrestrial and aquatic organisms, especially amphibians, in which it impedes air transport through the skin. Flowback Fluids: Irrespective of chemical additives used for drilling, Marcellus shale contains several toxic substances which can be mobilized by drilling. These include lead, arsenic, barium, chromium, uranium, radium, radon and benzene, along with very high levels of sodium chloride (83). These components make flowback fluids hazardous without any added chemicals, and are often among the analytes most easily measured by potential waste fluid treatment plant operators (Figure 1). Wastewater Pollutants Figure 1: Wastewater Pollutants (84) Because of to their significant toxicity at low (ppb) concentrations, and the fact that drill cuttings are often not removed, but rather are buried on-site, several of these flowback fluid and cuttings components (83) are discussed below: barium, lead, arsenic, chromium,

benzene and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials. Barium (Ba): Barium is a toxic heavy metal commonly found in Marcellus shale well flowback fluids (85). Exposure to soluble salts (not the sulfate), which may occur by ingestion, absorption or inhalation,

may induce drops in tissue potassium levels, and by this mechanism it is selectively toxic to the heart and kidneys (86). Further, barite (barium sulfate), used as a weighting agent in drilling muds, reacts with radium salts in shale, forming radioactive scale on metal parts (such as the drill “string”) which then are subsequently brought to the surface (57); in these reactions, barite is converted to more soluble (i.e.

more toxic) barium salts. Lead (Pb): The poisonous nature of lead has been known for centuries, but its ability to impair neurological development in children at very low (1 ppb) concentrations makes it a toxicant of special concern. The most sensitive targets for lead toxicity are the developing nervous system, the blood and cardiovascular systems, and the kidney. However, due to the multiple modes of action of lead in biological systems, and its tendency to bio-accumulate, it could

potentially affect any system or organs in the body. It has also been associated with high blood pressure (87). Arsenic (As): Arsenic, another

component of black shale (83), has also been known as a poison for hundreds if not thousands of years. The most sensitive target tissue appears to be skin, but arsenic produces adverse effects in every tissue against which it has been tested, especially brain, heart, lung, the peripheral vascular system, and kidney (88). Arsenic is harmful below one part per trillion (ppt) in water, and is a confirmed

carcinogen. Chromium (Cr): Chromium, also found in Marcellus shale (89), may be an essential nutrient required in extremely small doses

(μg per day), but the biological system it supports is not currently known. Exposure to elevated doses by inhalation, ingestion, skin or

eye contact may lead to respiratory, gastrointestinal, reproductive, developmental and neurological symptoms (90). Sensitization-induced asthma and allergy have also been reported. However, at very low concentrations, particularly of

potassium dichromate or strontium chromate (the hexavalent form, as found in shale rock) (91), the major hazard posed by chromium is as a carcinogen, especially in stomach and lung tissues (90). Benzene: Benzene, a known shale constituent (83), was

briefly considered above as a component of heavy naphtha. In ppb concentrations, the primary hazard from this compound is due to

its proven ability to cause acute non-lymphocytic leukemia (92). Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive

Materials (TENORM): The use of lubricants and “slickwater” additives along with hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas production have been shown to mobilize naturally occurring radioactive materials, including uranium- 238, radium-226 and radon-222 (93). This has been identified as one of the greatest challenges facing the American

gas industry today (94). Of these, radon is of special concern because as a gas it is extremely mobile, and it is intensely radioactive (94). Exposure by inhalation or ingestion typically results in migration to the lungs, which are susceptible to damage from its

nuclear decay; exposure to radon is considered the second leading cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoking (95). Radon was detected at levels above 300 pCi/L (a drinking water limit proposed by the USEPA), in a majority of groundwater samples collected in New York State by USGS investigators (50 – 52). However, whether the high levels of radon in drinking water may be related to past or present oil and gas development in those locales has never been studied; they could possibly be due to fracture

intensification domains in New York’s subsurface geology (55). 4-NQO: In addition to the above shale constituents, one chemical compound was consistently encountered in flowback fluids from Marcellus gas wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia:

4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4-NQO) (96). This is one of the most potent carcinogens known, particularly for inducing cancer of the mouth (97). It is not used as a drilling additive and is not known to occur naturally in black shale; no studies have been published

to date with respect to what chemical interactions account for its consistent presence in flowback fluids. However, it is dangerous at parts-per-trillion (ppt) concentrations, well below its levels reported in gas well flowback fluids (96).

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Chemicals hurt infant health

Infant birth rate decreased drastically with proximity to natural gas wells – medical costs for this are high – from a small region in Pennsylvannia just starting drilling, costs would be $2.2 million each yearHill 12 (Elaine L., doctoral student at Cornell school of applied economics, dissertation: “Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Infant Health: Evidence from Pennsylvania”, July)

This paper provides the first estimates of the effects of unconventional natural gas development on infant health. There are no other known

studies, to date, linking NGD directly to human health at this scale. These results suggest that natural gas wells close to pregnant mothers’ residences increased LBW by 25%, increased small for gestational age by 17% and reduced 5 minute APGAR scores,

when compared to pregnant mothers’ residences that are close to a future well (permit). For comparison, Currie et al. (2009) find that

smoking in utero increases LBW by 0.18 percentage points on a baseline of 0.089 or a 2% increase in the overall prevalence of LBW in NJ during their study period. These impacts are large compared to mothers smoking, but not implausible given the estimates found in the literature for air pollution impacts on LBW. The strength of this approach is in exploiting a natural experiment that controls for unobservable characteristics. These re- sults are robust across a variety of specifications, which provides evidence of the credibility of the current research design. These results suggest that policies that intend to prevent pollution exposure stemming from unconventional natural gas development should increase the regulated/allowable dis- tance between drilling activity and nearby residences. This paper

provides evidence that exposure within at least 1.5 miles is very detrimental to fetal development. Some specifications not shown suggest that exposure is still detectable within 3 or more miles from the residences

of pregnant women (results are available upon request from author). With unconventional natural gas development expanding throughout 31 states, there is likely to be many exposed babies resulting in a nationwide increase in LBW. A

recent report from the Institute of Medicine estimates that the cost to society of low birth weight and premature birth is $51,600 per infant for the first year of health care costs (in 2005 dollars, Behrman and Butler).21 Due to unconventional natural gas development occurring only recently in Pennsylvania, the number of infants observed close to existing wells before birth is quite small, or just under 2,500 babies. This translates to a cost of $2.2 million and accounts mostly for infants born after gas development in 2010. Even if only the same number of infants were exposed in 2011, that is still a cost of $4.4 million in infant health costs associated with 2 years of natural gas development. This is likely to be a lower bound given that 2,618 additional wells were drilled in 2011 (DEP, 2010). Using the sam- ple of permits as an example, there were 21,646 infants born within 2.5 km of a permit or existing well. The estimates in this paper suggest that, if all of these permits were drilled prior to birth, we would expect to see 379 additional LBW infants, an increase that could be valued at $19.6 million. Unfortunately, we do not have any studies in other states to determine the number of infants exposed within these proximities to be able to determine the nation-wide costs associated with the infant health impacts of unconventional natural gas development.

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New York City is at high risk

New York is at high risk of drinking water contamination – it’s water supply is unfilteredChapman 10 (Karen Charman, managing editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism. She is also an independent investigative environmental journalist, “Trashing the Planet for Natural Gas: Shale Gas Development Threatens Freshwater Sources, Likely Escalates Climate Destabilization,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, 21:4, 72-82, 24 November, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2010.531929)

New York*the plight of the PCB-laden Hudson River and other trashed waterways immediately within and surrounding New York City

notwithstanding*is famous for the abundance and purity of its fresh water supplies. Relying primarily on the natural cleansing processes of its largely rural and forested 1,969-square-mile watershed to purify the water,14

New York City boasts the largest unfiltered surface water supply in the world.15 Ninety percent of New York

City’s water comes from the Catskill Mountains, a little over a hundred miles north and west of Manhattan.16 This system serves 8 million people in New York City and another million in adjacent upstate communities*approximately half of

the state’s residents.17 Though the system is old, deteriorating, and in need of repair, it is 95 percent gravity fed, still considered an engineering marvel, and often described as New York State’s single most valuable asset. Overall, New York City has invested or

allocated $1.5 billion to protect its drinking water.18 A key element in keeping the New York City water supply clean is the fact that much of upstate New York is not industrialized or intensively developed. In a stunning irony of capitalist greed, the new era of dirty fossil fuel extraction now threatens the water supply of the financial capital of the world.

That’s because most of the bottom third of New York State*including the New York City watershed west of the Hudson

River*sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a vast expanse of sedimentary rock several thousand feet below the surface of the land extending into eight states.19 In 2008, the amount of natural gas in the Marcellus was estimated at as much as 516 trillion cubic feet,20 up from previous U.S. Geological Survey estimates in 2002 of just 1.3 trillion cubic feet.21 The new estimate has prompted some to dub the

Marcellus ‘‘the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.’’

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Turns Case - Economy

Turns case – the health problems caused by fracking cause huge care expeditures, hurting the economyMarketWire 12 (Energy Policies Should Include Health Protections, Experts Say, July 12, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/energy-policies-should-include-health-protections-experts-say-2012-07-12)

The evidence on the links between environment and health is strong enough so that we need to look at all policies that have environmental implications with a health lens," stated Gary Cohen, president and founder of Health Care Without Harm. "The health care sector needs to not only add their voices to the debate on the environmental impacts of energy,

but also to lead in this effort, to protect public health." As the nation continues to feel economic pressures, oil and gas exploration appears attractive to increase jobs and lower energy costs, but the environmental costs can also be debilitating. Almost 75 percent of the nation's health care expenditures are for treatment of chronic illnesses, such as

asthma, cancer and heart and lung disease, many of which are exacerbated or caused by environmental factors. In Pennsylvania alone, for example, more than 260,000 children and more than 890,000 adults have asthma. According to a report

released in 2011 by HCWH, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) and the National Association of School Nurses (NASN), the estimated incremental direct cost of asthma in Pennsylvania to children and adults is over $2.3 billion a year. "In reality, fracking is a global economic disaster," stated Terry Collins. Collins is the Teresa Heinz

Professor of Green Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University. "Fracking is further poisoning, heating, filling and acidifying the oceans. In real time, it is degrading health, biodiversity, peace and prosperity. It is important for health professionals to speak out on energy policies and activities and to help redirect America and the world toward the clean energy we can so easily have by changing course." "Nurses and other healthcare professionals are very concerned about the health ramifications of the new energy boom in Pennsylvania and other states," stated Nina Kaktins from the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association. "We believe it is important for us to voice these concerns and help develop public policies that put human and ecological health first." for us to voice these concerns and help develop public policies that put human and ecological health first."

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A2: It takes thousands of years

Fracking speeds up the pace of groundwater seepage – it will only take a few years to spreadLustgarten 12 (Abrahm, investigative journalist for ProPublica, his investigation into fracking for natural gas was recognized with the George Polk award for environmental reporting, a National Press Foundation award for best energy writing, his reporting on BP and the Deepwater Horizon tragedy was nominated for an Emmy, MA in Journalism from Columbia, May 1st, New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years, http://www.propublica.org/article/new-study-predicts-frack-fluids-can-migrate-to-aquifers-within-years)

A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted. More than 5,000 wells were drilled in the Marcellus between mid-2009 and mid-2010, according to the study, which was published in the journal Ground Water two weeks ago. Operators inject up to 4 million gallons of fluid, under

more than 10,000 pounds of pressure, to drill and frack each well. Scientists have theorized that impermeable layers of rock would keep the fluid, which contains benzene and other dangerous chemicals, safely locked nearly a mile below water supplies. This view of the earth's underground geology is a cornerstone of the industry's argument that fracking poses minimal

threats to the environment. But the study, using computer modeling, concluded that natural faults and fractures in the Marcellus, exacerbated by the effects of fracking itself, could allow chemicals to reach the surface in as little as "just a few years." "Simply put, [the rock layers] are not impermeable," said the study's author, Tom Myers, an independent hydrogeologist whose clients include the federal government and environmental groups.

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Mollusks = Keystone species

Mollusks will be destroyed by fracking runoff – that’s Bishop.

Mollusks are a keystone speciesUniversity of Delware 9 (November 27th, “Aquaculture FAQ - Why are oysters considered a keystone species?” http://www.deseagrant.org/outreach/aquaculture-faq-why-are-oysters-considered-keystone-species)

Filter-feeding bivalve molluscs are considered to be a "keystone species" because of the important ecological services they provide to maintain or improve water quality and clarity, and cycle nutrients between the water column and bottom dwelling species. The diversity and abundance of molluscan shellfish populations are often cited as indicators of the environmental quality and overall health of coastal ecosystems.

Keystone species are critical to preserving ecosystems Kemp 95 (Michael Kemp, biologist, Maryland, BIOLOGICAL LOSS, 1995, p. 140)

In this context, ecosystems contain key organisms and processes which play crucial roles to insure long-term resilience by modifying the impact on ecosystem structure resulting from environmental changes. One mechanism for conferring ecosystem resilience is to establish alternating replacement structures which are switched periodically but which avoid accumulations of excessive (difficult to replace) structure. Examples of such “keystone” species or processes have

been cited for a variety of terrestrial ecosystems. For example, periodic outbreaks of the spruce budworm serve to release accumulated ecological structure for temperate coniferous forests by decimating balsam fir. The outbreaks leave spruce, white birch and seedlings of fir and spruce, and eventually return the forest to mature stands where fir dominate once again (Holling 1973). Few if any examples of these kind of key organisms

have been identified for estuarine ecosystems. The term “keystone” organisms has also been used to describe organisms that play pivotal roles in the trophic structure of an ecosystem (Paine 1966). In this case, predation by keystone organisms effectively preserves community structure by relieving competitive pressure between organisms at lower trophic levels or serving to keep lower level predation levels in check (Carpenter 1988). This latter kind of keystone organism or process has been identified for shallow benthic ecosystems in coastal marine environments, by they are poorly documented for estuarine plankton systems.

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Biodiversity Impact

Biodiversity loss outweighs all impactsTobin 90 (Richard Tobin, THE EXPENDABLE FUTURE, 1990, p. 22 )

Norman Meyers observes, no other form of environmental degradation “is anywhere so significant as the fallout of species.” Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson is less modest in assessing the relative consequences of human-caused

extinctions. To Wilson, the worst thing that will happen to earth is not economic collapse, the depletion of energy supplies, or even nuclear war. As frightful as these events might be, Wilson reasons that they can “be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing…that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by destruction of natural habitats.

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Aff Answers

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No Contamination

Fracking doesn’t cause contamination – major studyBBC 12 (June 28, 'Fracking' safe with strong regulation, report says http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18611647)

In the US, concerns have been raised that the gas or the chemicals can enter drinking water supplies. However, the report concludes that gas contamination should not be a problem - the risk is "very low" - provided that fracking takes place at a depth of many hundreds of metres, a long way below the level of aquifers, and that the wells are properly constructed. Each well is lined with layers of steel and cement; and if this stays intact, the scientists conclude, gas leakage should not be a problem. They also say that with good management of waste water, chemical contamination should be avoided; they criticise the US practice of leaving it in open ponds, which would not be permitted in the UK. The report says the risk that fracking will generate significant seismic events is also small. The actual explosions are far too small to be noticed at the surface, said Prof Zoe Shipton from the University of Strathclyde. "If the fluid moves into existing faults in the rock that are close to slipping anyway, you'll bring that slippage forward in time," she said. "But the Magnitude 2.3 event in Blackpool last year - that is like a lorry going past your house - in fact the British Geological Survey can't measure below Magnitude 2 in towns because of the traffic."

Fracking is safe – UK Royal Society reportNew Zeland Herald 12 (July 20th, Fracking safe, claims UK science body, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10821014)

The controversial oil and gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", is capable of being managed sustainably and without serious risk of groundwater contamination or inducing damaging earthquakes, the Royal Society has found. One of the world's most respected independent scientific bodies, the society worked with the Royal Academy of Engineering to produce a report sought by the UK's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington.

Fracking doesn’t cause increased cancer rates or radioactive water – opponents’ claims are just hypeAP 12 (July 23rd, “Experts: Some fracking critics use bad science” http://www.rdmag.com/News/2012/07/Energy-Natural-Gas-Regulations-Experts-Some-fracking-critics-use-bad-science/)

PITTSBURGH (AP)—In the debate over natural gas drilling, the companies are often the ones accused of twisting the facts. But

scientists say opponents sometimes mislead the public, too. Critics of fracking often raise alarms about groundwater pollution, air pollution, and cancer risks, and there are still many uncertainties. But some of the claims have little—or nothing—to back them. For example, reports that breast cancer rates rose in a region with heavy gas drilling are false, researchers told The Associated Press. Fears that natural radioactivity in drilling waste could contaminate drinking water aren't being confirmed by monitoring, either. And concerns about air pollution from the industry often don't acknowledge that natural gas is a far cleaner burning fuel than coal.

No water supply contamination – tests show no pollution and regulatory changes have been made just to be safeWashington Post 12 (July 22nd, Doctors, scientists say fracking critics misrepresent some facts to make their point, http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/doctors-scientists-say-fracking-critics-misrepresent-some-facts-to-make-their-point/2012/07/22/gJQAX1nO2W_story_1.html)

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Another instance where fears haven’t been confirmed by science is the concern that radioactivity in drilling fluids could threaten drinking water supplies. Critics of fracking note the deep underground water that comes up along with gas has high levels of natural radioactivity. Since much of that water, called flowback, was once being discharged into municipal sewage

treatment plants and then rivers in Pennsylvania, there was concern about public water supplies. But in western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority did extensive tests and didn’t find a problem in area rivers. State environmental officials said monitoring at public water supply intakes across the state showed non-detectable levels of radiation, and the two cases that showed anything were at background levels. Concerns about the potential problem also led to regulatory changes. An analysis by The Associated Press of data from Pennsylvania found that of the 10.1 million barrels of shale wastewater generated in the last half of 2011, about 97 percent was either recycled, sent to deep-injection wells, or sent to a treatment plant that doesn’t discharge into waterways.