1Lurph ME1AC PlanPlan: The United States federal government should increase funding for its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earths mesosphere by one million billion dollars.

1AC TransitionContention 1 is the Transition:

Massive spending collapses the economyRobinson 09[Ron Robbins 5/19/09, MBA is the founder and analyst of Investing for the Soul and maintains the blog, Enlightened Economics, Interest Rate Manipulation and Loose Money Promote Economic Collapse, http://monetarycurrent.com/commentaries/53-philosophy/691-interest-rate-manipulation-and-loose-money-promote-economic-collapse.html]

Economies with excessively loose monetary policies and who force interest rates to ultra low levels for extended periods of time eventually succumb to a massive top-heavy debt structure which at some point 'topples over.' These countries then suffer either a deflationary debt implosion/depression in which much of the debt is liquidated, or the country's central bank instigates a huge inflationary push to reduce the value of all credit market debt in the country by vastly increasing the amount of currency and the expansion of its money supply. A big inflationary push frequently leads to a lack of confidence in the country's currency and hence the possibility of 'hyper-inflation' occurring as everyone unloads the country's currency for real goods or other currencies. Argentina earlier this decade and Zimbabwe recently, are examples of central bank sponsored inflation that led to no confidence in their currencies, resulting in hyper-inflation. The inflationary approach is what appears to be favoured by the American, Japanese and British central banks. From an Enlightened Economics perspective, the actions of manipulating down interest rates and the over printing of money by central banks fall under a terrible fallacy: the belief that we can resolve our short-term economic problems by going more into debt and not concern ourselves with the long-term consequences. A global consciousness has to arise which understands that manipulating markets, most especially interest rates and money supply, leads to highly unstable economies which in time either implode or explode!

1AC TransitionThe US is key. A collapse would force a quick and conflict free transition to local economies. Lewis 98[Chris H. Lewis, Professor of American Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, 1998, in The Coming Age of Scarcity, Dobkowski and Wallimann, eds, pp. 55-56.]The successful collapse of global industrial civilization is, in part, dependent on the 80 percent not fully integrated with the global economy breaking free from their ties to modern industrial civilization. Faced with growing threats of economic and ecological collapse, many underdeveloped nations and regions should declare their independence from the global economy, recognizing that this economy is the larger cause of their poverty. After breaking free from the First Worlds economic and political hegemony, underdeveloped countries can then use their resources and people to feed themselves and improve their quality of life. Of course, we have been witnessing such attempts for the past fifty years after World War II as colonial and neocolonial struggles for independence. The wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, and in the nations of the former Soviet Union were all struggles to win independence from foreign domination. The cold war was, in large part, a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union over who would dominate the modern world and the so-called nonaligned nations of the Third World. With the global instability created by the end of the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the decline of American hegemony, underdeveloped countries may find that they have the strategic opportunity to demand their independence from First World domination. They can refuse to pay their debts, withdraw from the global industrial economy, nationalize foreign corporations that are exploiting their wealth, and create local and regional economies to support their own people. But Third World independence from the First World-dominated global economy will not come without a heavy economic, political, and military price. With the withdrawal of underdeveloped countries from the global economy within the next thirty to fifty years, the developed countries will face continual material, ecological, and energy shortages that will force them to downscale their economies. The First World will, ironically, be forced to follow the lead of the Third World and create local and regional economies that are sustainable and self-sufficient. In many instances, nations will break up, forming smaller polities tied together by ethnic, religious, or social bonds. If these polities and nations take responsibility for helping their peoples survive the hardship and suffering imposed by the devolution of the global industrial civilization and economy, they will be better able to reduce the real threat of mass death and genocide that will arise from the collapse of modern industrial civilization

1AC TransitionThe collapse through government spending is key to a shift to small, sustainable communities.Jackson 02[8/1/02 Jackson and Jackson, Ph. D, no date Ross, Ph.D. in Operations Research (the theory and practice of problem solving), and Hildur. Founders of Gaia Trust.http://www.gaia.org/rj/21987/22870/]

One factor which will accelerate the development of ecovillages is the increasing cost and decreasing quality observable in the welfare state's institutionalized care of individual citizens from cradle to grave, and their corresponding health costs. With an increasing number of elderly in the population, it will become even more obvious that the current system is simply too expensive. In the future, it will be discovered that these same tasks can be solved at much greater cost-effectiveness and more satisfactorily for all by using the resources of local ecovillage communities and by putting far greater emphasis on preventative medicine and healthy home-grown food.

1AC TransitionAnd, their transition impacts are non-unique. Collapse is inevitable by 2030Bond 00Michael. eve of the apocalypse http://www.eveoftheapoc.com.au/Downloads/DebtVsGrowth.htmlThe present global economy is caught in a catch-22 of its own making. Solutions exist, but the blindness that created the problem also stops the solutions from being seen. Problem 1 How Much Is Enough? The present economy is obliged to grow annually at between 3% and 6%. Too much less than 3% for too long and the economy will collapse from lack of currency. Too much over 6% for too long and inflation will spiral out of control, rendering currency meaningless. Below is a table that points out how long it takes for something to double, triple, etc in size, when it increases at rates of 3%, 4%. 5% and 6% per year. For the last 15 years the global economy has been growing at an average of about 4% per year. Note that at 4% growth the economy doubles every 19 years, and grows 10 times its size in a mere 59 years. By the beginning of the 21st century the world's environment was in critical decline. Oceans are turning acidic from atmospheric CO2 threatening marine life, melting glaciers are flooding cities where soon little water will flow at all, species are disappearing from the Earth at a faster rate than during the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. The design of the global economy demands that by 2019 the economy will be twice the size it was in 2000. At its present rate of growth, by 2059 the global economy will be ten times its 2000 size. But Earth cannot sustainably support a global economy the size it was in 2000. Even if the economy slid along at a minimal 3% growth it would still be 10 times its 2000 size by the year 2080. So in order to survive, the global economy is compelled to keep growing like a cancer, at an unsustainable rate that will kill its host. This self-destructive design is a direct result of the flaw in the global money system (see accompanying article Money - Deadlier Than Plutonium). But wait - there's more! Let's assume, like most corporations and politicians do, that the world's resources are endless and that no environmental threats exist. Even if that were the case, the global economy is self-destructive for an entirely different reason, if the first way isn't fast enough. Problem 2 - Coming Ready Or Not! The second problem stems from the fact that in order to sustain 4% annual economic growth, global debt must increase at about 10% annually. Because it is annual growth, this means it is exponential rather than mathematical growth. The difference between the two is shown below. Mathematical Growth 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 7 Exponential Growth 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 = 127 (Much faster growth in same time.) Because global debt increases exponentially 6% faster than the global economy, debt will quickly smother the economy by demanding its entire output merely in interest payment. o the left is a table that illustrates the global situation using the Australian economy as an example. In 2003 the OECD rated Australia's economy as "one of the best performers" in the developed world. The table to the left showing Australia's debt and income figures, demonstrates that even the best performers in the global economy will be bankrupt before 2030. If Australia stays on its present "good" course, within a few decades Australia's interest bill each year will be larger than Australia's entire national income. . Australia would be bankrupt well before it got to this. The figures of 4% economic growth and 10% debt growth are about the same for the entire global economy. The Global Economy is on course to collapse well before 2030 due to a looming global inability to repay annual interest. The reason why debt outpaces economic growth stems from a fault in global money supply.

1AC CapitalismContention 2 is Capitalism

Capitalism creates a rich/poor gap spawning povertyLewis 2k [Ph.D. University of Colorado at Boulder (Chris H Lewis, The Paradox of Global Development and the Necessary Collapse of Global Industrial Civilization

By creating the specter of vast, untold wealth and freedom in the First World and massive, desperate poverty and despair in the Third World, global development is creating the contradictions that will undermine global industrial civilization. On the one hand, global economic integration, which is known as globalization, is creating spectacular wealth and progress for the twenty percent who live in the developed world, but, on the other hand, it is creating massive poverty and social unrest for the eighty percent who live in the underdeveloped world.(Barnet and Cavanagh 1994) Between 1960 and 2000, rather than shrinking, the income gap between the rich and the poor actually grew. According to the 1999 UN Human Development Report, in 1960, the richest 20 percent of the world earned 30 times as much income as the poorest 20 percent, 60 times as much income in 1990, and 74 times as much income by 1997. This UN report also reported that the richest 20 percent of the world consumes 86 percent of the World Gross Domestic Product, the middle 60 percent consume just 13 percent, and the poorest 20 percent consume just 1 percent of the world GDP. In 2000, according to the World Bank, a sixth of the worlds people produced 78 percent of the worlds goods and services and received 78 percent of the worlds income, while three-fifths of the worlds people in the poorest 61 countries receive 6 percent of the worlds income. At the United Nations World Summit for Social Development in March 1995, James Speth, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, noting that the income gap between the rich and poor had doubled over the last 30 years, said: "This widening gulf breeds despair and instability. It imperils our world."(Crossette 1995:A6) Despite this growing inequality between the developed and the developing worlds, aid to developing nations has been shrinking and will continue to do so. Industrial nations and the major international lending institutions are asking developing nations to invest more of their own money to meet basic needs. (Crossette 1995:A6) But how can they afford to do this given the increasing burden of debt-servicing? By 1999 the total external debt of developing countries was 2.5 trillion. In order to pay off that debt, developing countries paid almost $300 billion in debtservice payments in 1999. The Jubilee 2000 Coalition called on First World countries and banks to cancel the unpayable debts of the worlds poorest countries. Instead of becoming developed, some Third World leaders charged that they were becoming even poorer, and even more dependent on shrinking foreign aid. (Escobar 1995) Indeed, most people in the world are living on the margins of development. Threequarters of the world's population lives in the 130 poorer countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and the majority of the population do not have either steady jobs or secure income.(Barnet and Cavanagh 1994:179) In Global Dreams, Richard Barnet and John Cavanagh (1995:22) argue that there is a growing struggle between "the forces of globalization and the territorially based forces of local survival seeking to preserve and to redefine community." Barnet and Cavanagh (1995: 429) conclude that "local citizens' movements and alternative institutions are springing up all over the world to meet basic economic needs to preserve local traditions, religious life, cultural life, biological species, and other treasures of the natural world, and to struggle for human dignity." This increasing conflict between the demands of global industrial civilization and diverse peoples and cultures to protect their way of life and local autonomy is further evidence that the modern industrial world is collapsing.

1AC CapitalismThe rich-poor gap turns and outweighs even nuclear impactsstructural violence from poverty kills more than armed conflict and is the root cause of warGilligan96 [James, Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes, p. 191-196]

The deadliest form of violence is poverty.You cannot work for one day with the violent people who fill our prisons and mental hospitals for the criminally insane without being forcible and constantly reminded of the extreme poverty and discrimination that characterizes their lives. Hearing about their lives, and about their families and friends, you are forced to recognize the truth in Gandhis observation that the deadliest form of violence is poverty. Not a day goes by without realizing that trying to understand them and their violent behavior in purely individual terms is impossible and wrong-headed. Any theory of violence, especially a psychological theory, that evolves from the experience of men in maximum security prisons and hospitals for the criminally insane must begin with the recognition that these institutions are only microcosms. They are not where the major violence in our society takes place, and the perpetrators who fill them are far from being the main causes of most violent deaths.Any approach to a theory of violence needs to begin with a look at the structural violencein this country. Focusing merely on those relatively few men who commit what we define as murder could distract us from examining and learning from those structural causes of violent death that are for more significant from a numerical or public health, or human, standpoint. By structural violence I mean the increased rates of death, and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively low death rates experienced by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of class structure; and that structure itself is a product of societys collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting structural with behavioral violence, by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. Structural violence differs from behavior violence in at least three major respects. *The lethal effects of structural violence operate continuously, rather than sporadically,whereasmurders, suicides, executions,wars, and other forms of behavior violence occur one at a time.*Structural violence operates more or less independently of individual acts; independent of individuals and groups (politicians, political parties, voters) whose decisions may nevertheless have lethal consequences for others. *Structural violence is normally invisible, because it may appear to have had other (natural or violent) causes. [CONTINUED] The finding that structural violence causes far more deaths than behavioral violence does is not limited to this country. Kohler and Alcock attempted to arrive at the number of excess deaths caused by socioeconomic inequities on a worldwide basis. Sweden was their model of the nation that had come closest to eliminating structural violence. It had the least inequity in income and living standards, and the lowest discrepancies in death rates and life expectancy; and the highest overall life expectancy of the world. When they compared the life expectancies of those living in the other socioeconomic systems against Sweden, they found that 18 million deaths a year could be attributed to the structural violence to which the citizens of all the other nations were being subjected. During the past decade, the discrepancies between the rich and poor nations have increased dramatically and alarmingly.The14 to 19 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict.Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those by genocide or about eight million per year, 1939-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-66 (perhaps 575,000 deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973),and even a hypothetical nuclear exchangebetween the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (232 million), it is clear that evenwar cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other words,every fifteen years, on the average,as many people die because ofrelativepoverty as would be killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is,in effect,the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, and accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. Structural violence isalsothe main cause of behavioral violence on a socially and epidemiologically significant scale(from homicide and suicide to war and genocide). The question as to which of the two forms of violence structural or behavioral is more important, dangerous, or lethal is moot, for they are inextricably related to each other, as cause to effect.

1AC CapitalismCapitalism destroys value to life our only purpose is to produce and consumeSancho, 11 chair of the Annual World Conferences on the Science of Duality[Louis Sancho; Fukyshima: Dying for Japan Inc.; published 3/29/2011; http://www.cerntruth.com/?p=257 ] JayI know you dont believe me. I know you think and believe the experts of the system. This is what you have learned. Those are your memes to keep you happy. And that is right. It is what it is expected of you. Especially if you are a Japanese living close to the death zone. Because the world you live in is NOT a world in which life has an infinite value. You live in the Financial-Military-Industrial Complex (called in newspeak the Free market, the FMI system in complexity), a perfectly organized system that we complexity theorists study scientifically as an evolving organic system, whose functions, equations, evolution and purpose is crystal clear to us though all this might be hidden to you. So if you want to keep happy, dont worry and dont read. Probably mankind is beyond salvation. And yet there is a certain beauty in knowing the truth, in being free at least in your mind, even if you are prisoner on the iron jail the FMI complex has built for all of us. Before II world war, the FMI complex was more obvious. The Matrix of fictions and marketing built today to appease the sheeple was not yet in place. Men had not been devolved into a short attention-span, visual neopaleolithic and ego-centric, anthropomorphic belief on our self-centered position in the Universe. But now the FMI system controls our information, so we believe what it tells us. There is no confabulation theory here, but emergence, a concept of systems sciences that discharges full responsibility in the individuals and yet creates the same effect. We humans have become completely dependent on machines organic systems of metal, more complex than we are, to which we transfer our form and evolve to reach higher degrees of energy and information to exist and what is far worse, our beliefs have adapted to them subconsciously since the Bronze age in which we discovered the power of weapons. There was an age that has resurfaced from time to time in religions of love and social, ecological movements in which people were aware that metal, weapons that kill our body, gold that hypnotize our mind and today machines that make us increasingly obsolete were dual fruits of the tree of science, some good some bad, and by not distinguishing and pruning the bad fruits, such as the nuclear industry, in a free market where all goes, in an economic ecosystem in which weapons could predate on man, we would become extinct. All this wisdom was lost and soon selfish egocentric tribes that relied on weapons to impose their power (Indo-Europeans) or money to hypnotize and slave people (cananeans), came on top of all societies. And for 5000 years they built a matrix of ideological, self-centered fictions which now are common-sense, the ultimate beliefs. Those are the ideologies that sustain the Financial-Military-Industrial complex in which we live. They justify all the wrong paths with the same self-centered, myopic, short-span, individualist egotism that corporations, nations, nuclear scientists, bankers you name it show in everyday behavior. Yet behind those selfish memes of metal imprinted in our mind, there is still a natural genetic, biological program of love for nature, natural food, clean air, social love the genetic program of human evolution. And so a great deal of newspeak takes place within the Financial-Military-Industrial Complex and the die-hard believers that worship with messianic zeal the evolution of weapons, machines and money as the future of mankind, to appease and convince people that the FMI system cares for us, that corporations serve us, that nations are the supreme meaning of our existence. And this duality between a brain-washed mankind who adores the wrong memes and a newspeak of caring is specially present in Japan; a nation founded by iron-horse warriors coming from Korea, who became samurais and emperors (but this cannot be said, Japanese are kept in a state of neoteny, with infantile myths and self-restrain, and worship their traditions, the jail of their mind; displaying an extreme aggressive-passive behavior to people who might offend their sensibilities) and imprinted the happy peasants of the sun-god with an absolute slavery to the master. This samurai today rules japan and its corporations that manufacture machines with a submissive population that likes more their robots than the foreigners, because it has become lobotomized to a point in which so much restrain of otherwise natural feelings and inner emotions, makes them in external behavior closer to their robots than to human beings. How this is possible is obvious: today the imprinting of our mind with the ideologies that make us love the FMI complex that is killing gaia starts at 3, when you are put in front of a TV. From then on, the nervous system of simultaneous indoctrination will imprint your brain with mass-media propaganda and the 3 ideologies that make of its 3 networks, the idols of mankind. The financial system has an ideology called capitalism that tells us money is NOT just a system of metal-information (evolved from gold, the most informative atom of the Universe into e-money, data in a computer), but the invisible hand of go(l)d, the meaning of it all, and its values must be respected. To explain you really the meaning of economics I would need an entire web-blog on complex economics which I have, so I will not insist on it. But the FMI complex is an evolving system independent of man, which merely constructs it. So it has its own organization and goals. It has a global, digital brain called the world stock-market and a type of citizen called the corporation; but in system sciences I prefer to call it by its biological function so we shall call corporations company-mothers of machines. 90% of the stock-market is dedicated to re=produce those machines, feed them with energy, provide them with information and within that scheme, we humans have only 2 functions: to work=reproduce those machines and to test=consume them. Every time we work, we reproduce a machine or a part of it, every time we consume it we test it and vitalize it. Because the FMI system is an evolving ecosystem of machines that is terraforming the Earth and substituting us, the super-organism of history as we substituted our fathers, the organism of life. That simple chain is the world you live in, evolving unrelentlessly: Gaia->History->The Metal-Earth (FMI complex). And only if you are aware of that arrow of evolution we have set in motion, and we back with the 3 ideologies of mechanism (machines are the future of man, not organic systems of metal that substitute and make obsolete human beings), capitalism (money is the language of god, not a language whose values are different from those of words and give zero value to life and maximal value to machines and weapons) and nationalism (the idea that we are different races according to a piece of cloth, called a flag, so we must not love each other and evolve together as members of the same species, but use weapons to come up on top), we can interpret the world as it is, including Fukushima.

1AC CapitalismCapitalism causes endocrine disruption resulting in extinctionDouthwaite 99[Richard Douthwaite, economist employed by Jamaica and Montserrat, journalist, 1999, in Critical DevelopmentTheory, ed. Munck and OHearn, p. 158]A third reason that the world economy is unsustainable is that some of the chemicals it employs mimic human hormones and disrupt the bodys endocrine system. As a result, the sperm counts of European men have been falling at 3 per cent per year since these chemicals came into use after the Second World War (Swan et al. 1997). The same chemicals are also causing increases in testicular and breast cancer (European workshop 1996) and are causing fewer boys to be born relative to girls. Moreover, a higher proportion of these boys than ever before have defective genitals. In short, the world economic system is undermining humanitys ability to reproduce itself. If the human race is not sustainable then neither is its economic system.

1AC CapitalismEconomic Collapse is the only way to completely rid ourselves of capitalismTrainer 2k[Ted Trainer 2000 DEMOCRACY & NATURE: The International Journal ofINCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/dn/vol6/trainer_where.htm JULY]There is a world of difference between the Marxist vision of a post-capitalist society that is still centralised and industrialised and in which people do specialised work and officials manage, and on the other hand the alternative or Simpler Way in which there is radical decentralisation of production andcontrol into very small self-governing regions, which will requirea great deal of conscientious participation and goodwill on the part of most if not all citizens. Such communities cannot function satisfactorily unless almost all people work enthusiastically at keeping their local ecological, agricultural, industrial, commercial, social and cultural systems in good shape.These systems will not be run by external or centralised governments. They will only function if local people take responsibility, research, plan, organise, manage, evaluate and govern well. These functions will require of the average citizen far more skills, social responsibility and public spirit than most of us have today in consumer society.

The Economy has to fail if we are to rid ourselves of capitalism De Blas 2000: 22/07/00 Natural Capitalism Challenged. (Radio Transcript.) Alexandra de Blas: Dr Ted Trainer from the University of New South WalesWhile the idea of 'Natural Capitalism', is gaining popularity. It does have its critics. Dr Ted Trainer believes that the levels of production and consumption in developed country's is unsustainable. He thinks that the only way to help the environment is to do away with capitalism as we know it and 'to almost completely scrap this economy'.

1AC BiodiversityContention 3: The EnvironmentEconomic growth is the root cause of biodiversity lossRosales 06[Jon Rosales 2006. Journal of Conservation Biology, Vol. 20, No. 4, . Department of Environmental Studies, St. Lawrence University. Economic Growth and Biodiversity in an Age of Tradable Permits. http://www.steadystate.org/Rosales_on_EG_and_Tradeable_Permits.pdf]

The main cause of environmental decline is economic growth. Efforts to stem biodiversity loss will ultimately fail unless the flow of natural resources through the economy, from extraction to waste, is capped and diminished. The economy depends on the biosphere for the natural resources necessary for the production of goods and services. The economy also discharges waste into the biosphere. Economic growth occurs when natural resources are depleted and waste builds up in the biosphere. This material relationship between the economy and the biosphere has been well established for over 30 years (Georgescu-Roegen 1971; Meadows et al. 1972; Daly 1977). The physical properties of the economy cannot escape the laws of thermodynamics as economic growth successively contributes to higher entropy. Ecological properties are also affected by economic growth as human and natural economies compete for resources. Czech (2000:5) points out that economic growth has reached a scale that it can be considered the limiting factor for conservation. And yet, he continues, there is a paucity of discussion in natural resource journals [on economic growth]. . . as if the topic were taboo.

ExtinctionDiner 94[David N. Diner 1994, Judge Advocates Generals Corps of US Army, Military Law Review, Winter, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161, l/n, David N.]In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world [should] be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

1AC BiodiversityBiodiversity loss itself outweighs human extinction. We have a moral imperative to protect the other species on Earth.Elliott`97 [Herschel, University of Florida Emeritus Philosophy, 1997 A General Statement of the Tragedy of the Commons, February 26, http://www.dieoff.org/page121.htm]Third, all systems of ethical beliefs are hypotheses about how human beings can live on Earth. As such, they make factual claims. And like all factual claims, their truth or falsity depends on empirical evidence. For this reason, the sequence of biological events which the general statement of the tragedy of the commons describes is of decisive importance for ethical theory. It shows (1) that moral behavior must be grounded in a knowledge of biology and ecology, (2) that moral obligations must be empirically tested to attain necessary biological goals, (3) that any system of moral practices is self-inconsistent when the behavior, which it either allows or makes morally obligatory, actually subverts the goal it seeks. Thus empirical criteria give a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition for acceptable moral behavior. Regardless of the human proclivity to rationalize, any system of ethical beliefs is mistaken if its practice would cause the breakdown of the ecosystem which sustains the people who live by it. Indeed, biological necessity has a veto over moral behavior. Facts can refute moral beliefs Fourth, ecosystems are in dynamic equilibrium. In addition, technology and human institutions are constantly evolving in novel and unpredictable ways. Furthermore, living things must compete with each other for space and resources; yet each organism also depends symbiotically on the well-being of the whole for its own survival and well-being. Indeed the welfare of all organisms -- including human beings -- is causally dependent on the health and stability of the ecosystems which sustain them. As a consequence, the stability and well-being of the Earth's biosystem has moral priority over the welfare of any of its parts -- including the needs and interests of human societies and individuals.

1AC WarmingGrowth necessitates the never-ending quest for energy and consumption only a shift away can solveTrainer 95Dr. Ted. Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, University of New South Wales (Australia); lecturer and author of books regarding the transition to a sustainable society. The Conserver Society: Alternatives for Sustainability. Zed Books. 1995. Accessed 7/2/11. Pages 3-4. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jc2vNO6WIMwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA2&dq=ted+trainer&ots=HCDaObS8wc&sig=lWdRlgLZOtw8XuPh8Di0Vv0IhWI#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed through Google Books.The fundamental cause of the accelerating destruction of the global ecosystems is simply over-production and over-consumption. The 20 tonnes of new materials the average American uses every year must come from the environment and will be dumped back into it as pollution and waste. The need for reduction is evident in the greenhouse problem. This is caused primarily by gases from the burning of fossil fuels, most of which takes place in the rich countries. Atmosphere scientists have agreed that use of these fossil fuels must be cut by at least 60 per cent. To achieve that goal in a world of 11 billion people would mean that average per capita fuel use would have to be cut to one-eighteenth the present rich-world average. There is no plausible solution to the greenhouse effect or to most of the other serious problems apart from drastically reducing the amount of fuel being burnt, and therefore the level of producing and consuming going on. Now, consider the environmental impact in relation to the growth economy. If an economy grows at a mere 3 per cent p.a. then in 70 years it will be churning out eight times as much as it was p.a. the start. All respectable economists and politicians would much prefer a 5 per cent growth rate which would mean 32 times as much output p.a. after 70 years! How many wild rivers and forests would be left in 2060 at that rate? Continued growth in living standards and GNP is of course the top priority of virtually all nations. Yet present levels of production and consumption and environmental damage are unsustainable. If we want to save the ecosystems of this planet we must embrace not just a zero-growth economy, but a considerable long-term reduction in the amount of producing and consuming going on.

1AC WarmingWarming leads to extinctionOliber Tickell 08[Oliber, Climate Researcher, 8/11/08 On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction, The Guardian, pg. Np]We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die. Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years captured under melting permafrost is already under way. To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth.

1AC WarmingAnd, independently of warming, growth causes oxygen depletion which causes famines and extinction Tatchell, 08 [Peter, The Guardian UK. The oxygen crisis 8-13-08. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.climatechange]The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects. Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis. I am not a scientist, but this seems a reasonable concern. It is a possibility that we should examine and assess. So, what's the evidence? Around 10,000 years ago, the planet'sforest coverwas at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen. Desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this long-term loss of oxygen sources. The story at sea is much the same. Nasa reports that in the north Pacific ocean oxygen-producingphytoplankton concentrationsare 30% lower today, compared to the 1980s. This is a huge drop in just three decades. Moreover, the UN environment programme confirmed in 2004 that there were nearly 150 "dead zones" in the world's oceans where discharged sewage and industrial waste, farm fertiliser run-off and other pollutants have reduced oxygen levels to such an extent that most or all sea creatures can no longer live there. This oxygen starvation is reducing regional fish stocks and diminishing the food supplies of populations that are dependent on fishing. It also causes genetic mutations and hormonal changes that can affect the reproductive capacity of sea life, which could further diminish global fish supplies. ProfessorRobert Bernerof Yale University has researched oxygen levels in prehistoric times by chemically analysing air bubbles trapped in fossilised tree amber. He suggests that humans breathed a much more oxygen-rich air 10,000 years ago. Further back, the oxygen levels were even greater.Robert Sloanhas listed the percentage of oxygen in samples of dinosaur-era amber as: 28% (130m years ago), 29% (115m years ago), 35% (95m years ago), 33% (88m years ago), 35% (75m years ago), 35% (70m years ago), 35% (68m years ago), 31% (65.2m years ago), and 29% (65m years ago). ProfessorIan Plimerof Adelaide University and ProfessorJon Harrisonof the University of Arizona concur. Like most other scientists they accept that oxygen levels in the atmosphere in prehistoric times averaged around 30% to 35%, compared to only 21% today and that the levels are even less in densely populated, polluted city centres and industrial complexes, perhaps only 15 % or lower. Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. The Professor of Geological Sciences at Notre Dame University in Indiana,J Keith Rigby, was quoted in 1993-1994 as saying: In the 20th century, humanity has pumped increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning the carbon stored in coal, petroleum and natural gas. In the process, we've also been consuming oxygen and destroying plant life cutting down forests at an alarming rate and thereby short-circuiting the cycle's natural rebound. We're artificially slowing down one process and speeding up another, forcing a change in the atmosphere. Very interesting. But does this decline in oxygen matter? Are there any practical consequences that we ought to be concerned about? What is the effect of lower oxygen levels on the human body? Does it disrupt and impair our immune systems and therefore make us more prone to cancer and degenerative diseases? Surprisingly, no significant research has been done, perhaps on the following presumption: the decline in oxygen levels has taken place over millions of years of our planet's existence. The changes during the shorter period of human life have also been slow and incremental until the last two centuries of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Surely, this mostly gradual decline has allowed the human body to evolve and adapt to lower concentrations of oxygen? Maybe, maybe not. The pace of oxygen loss is likely to have speeded up massively in the last three decades, with the industrialisation of China, India, South Korea and other countries, and as a consequence of the massive worldwide increase in the burning of fossil fuels. In the view of ProfessorErvin Laszlo, the drop in atmospheric oxygen has potentially serious consequences. A UN advisor who has been a professor of philosophy and systems sciences, Laszlowrites: Evidence from prehistoric times indicates that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12 to 17% over the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to develop. And at 6 to 7% life can no longer be sustained.

1AC WarmingWarming means guaranteed extinction by 2016Guardian Weekly, 8[Andrew Simms, Guardian Weekly: Just 100 months left to save Earth: Andrew Simms on a New Green Deal that could forestall the climate change tipping point, 8/15, L/N]Because in just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change. That said, among people working on global warming, there are countless models, scenarios, and different iterations of all those models and scenarios. So, let us be clear from the outset about exactly what we mean.The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth's atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a "tipping point" - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control. Faced with circumstances that clearly threaten human civilization, scientists at least have the sense of humour to term what drives this process as "positive feedback". But if translated into an office workplace environment, it's the sort of "positive feedback" from a manager that would run along the lines of: "You're fired, you were rubbish anyway, you have no future, your home has been demolished and I've killed your dog." In climate change, a number of feedback loops amplify warming through physical processes that are either triggered by the initial warming itself, or the increase in greenhouse gases. One example is the melting of ice sheets. The loss of ice cover reduces the ability of the Earth's surface to reflect heat and, by revealing darker surfaces, increases the amount of heat absorbed. Other dynamics include the decreasing ability of oceans to absorb CO2 due to higher wind strengths linked to climate change. This has already been observed in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic, increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and adding to climate change. Because of such self-reinforcing positive feedbacks (which, because of the accidental humour of science, we must remind ourselves are, in fact, negative), once a critical greenhouse concentration threshold is passed, global warming will continue even if we stop releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If that happens, the Earth's climate will shift into another, more volatile state, with different ocean circulation, wind and rainfall patterns. The implications of which, according to a growing litany of research, are potentially catastrophic for life on Earth. Such a change in the state of the climate system is often referred to as irreversible climate change. So, how exactly do we arrive at the ticking clock of 100 months? It's possible to estimate the length of time it will take to reach a tipping point. To do so you combine current greenhouse gas concentrations with the best estimates for the rates at which emissions are growing, the maximum concentration of greenhouse gases allowable to forestall potentially irreversible changes to the climate system, and the effect of those environmental feedbacks.

1AC WarmingAnd, de-dev solves. Collapse causes a shift away from growth to harmony with natureKassiola 90[Joel Jay Kassiola, Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, San Francisco State University, 1990, The Death of Industrial Civilization, p. 196]To sum up the main thrust of this chapter, I believe that the current industrial crisis centering on the limits to growth can be instrumental in getting citizens of advanced industrial societies to recognize the erroneous nature of the dominant postindustrial social paradigm, its way of life, and values. As a consequence, this crisis will stimulate these citizens to be conscious of their societys deficiencies inspiring the destruction of the limitless growth illusion as well as the illusory materialist reductionism of humanity, society, and politics. What I have in mind here is that the entire growth-addictive conceptual apparatus that supports postindustrial society, the industrial ideology containing the Hobbesian conception of humanity, liberalism, materialism, and competitivenessall must be destroyed as well. Such a cleansing process will pave the way to begin the necessary transformation of postindustrial society to a transindustrial one; one not burdened by these weaknesses that are potentially fatal to our planet and all of its inhabitants.

1AC WarContention 4 is war

Economic collapse does not cause wartheir historical arguments are wrongFerguson 06[Niall FERGUSON 2006 MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Reseach Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct]Nor can economic crises [cant] 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.

And, Dedev ends all war and violenceTrainer 95[Ted Trainer, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Social Work, University of New South Wales, 1995, The Conserver Society, p. 16]If the foregoing analysis is valid, not much needs to be said about the alternative. We must develop ways of life in which all can live well without taking more than their fair share and therefore without living in fear of someone else threatening what we have. That is precisely what a radical conserver society involves. A world made up of relatively small communities which were supplying their own needs mostly from their local resources, and concerned primarily with enjoying a life rich in cultural and craft and community activities, without any interest in constantly increasing the amount they consume, would be a far more secure world. There would be no point in you attacking anyone, because you would not want much and what you did want you would have in abundance from local sources. Similarly you would not feel any need for weapons with which to defend yourself, because you would know that others were living comfortable and interesting lives without wanting more resources than they could supply for themselves and therefore they would have no interest in attacking you. Security is an impossible goal if it is conceived in terms of developing the arms needed to defend our imperial interests and to defend ourselves against attack while we insist on lifestyles which inevitably involve us in taking more than our fair share and therefore asserting control over ours oilfields in the Middle East and in turn having to be armed to the teeth to fight off threats to them. Real security consists in knowing no one has any desire to threaten you.

1AC WarGrowth causes water overconsumptiononly localization solves.Barlow 01[Maude Barlow, Spring 2001. National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and IFG Committee on the Globalization of Water. BLUE GOLD: The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply, http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/BlueGold.pdf.]Economic globalization's values of unlimited growth and increased global trade are totally incompatible with the search for solutions to water-scarcity. Designed to reward the strongest and most ruthless, economic globalization locks out the forces of local democracy so desperately needed for a water-secure future. If we accept the principle that to protect water we must attempt to live within our watersheds, the practice of viewing the world as one seamless consumer market must be abandoned. Economic globalization undermines local communities by allowing for easy mobility of capital and the theft of local resources. Liberalized trade and investment enables some countries to live beyond their ecological and water resource means; others abuse their limited water sources to grow crops for export In wealthy countries, cities and industries are mushrooming on deserts. A water-sustainable society would denounce these practices. Global sustainability can only be reached if we seek greater regional self-sufficiency, not less. Building our economies on local watershed systems is the only way to integrate sound environmental policies with peoples' productive -capacities and to protect our water at the same time.

This makes global nuclear war inevitable we control the biggest internal link to warNASCA 04[NASCA, National Association for Scientific and Cultural Appreciation, 2004, Water shortages - Only a matter of time, http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html]Water Shortage According to the latest estimates nearly 70% of the Earths population will struggle to find an adequate water supply by the year 2025. Many authorities now believe that tension over water consumption will be the major catalyst for the wars of the future. Water shortage. Its just around the corner. Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In fact a recent report commissioned by the United Nations has emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66% of the worlds population will be without an adequate water supply. Incalculable damage. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished, and it is thus imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid. Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the not too distant future. Bleak future The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage. While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. Drought conditions. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires raged out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experienced their worst droughts on record. These conditions also extended throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions. Moreover it will be one for which there is no easy answer. Dangers. The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations warns that disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! Power shift. It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. Nightmare situation. In the long term the implications do not look encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.