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  • Caselist.RoundClass[4]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[10]

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Caselist.RoundClass[4]

EntryDate

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1		-2016-10-14 20:03:48.565
	1	+2016-10-14 20:03:48.0

Caselist.CitesClass[10]

Cites

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	1	+Nuclear power reduces air pollution which hurts quality of life
	2	+Biello 13 – David, writes for the scientific American, Internally Cites James Hansen, Professor at Columbia University (“How Nuclear Power Can Stop Global Warming” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-nuclear-power-can-stop-global-warming/)
	3	+In addition to reducing the risk of nuclear war, U.S. reactors have also been staving off another global challenge: climate change. The low-carbon electricity produced by such reactors provides 20 percent of the nation's power and, by the estimates of climate scientist James Hansen of Columbia University, avoided 64 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution. They also avoided spewing soot and other air pollution like coal-fired power plants do and thus have saved some 1.8 million lives. And that's why Hansen, among others, such as former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, thinks that nuclear power is a key energy technology to fend off catastrophic climate change. "We can't burn all these fossil fuels," Hansen told a group of reporters on December 3, noting that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy source they will continue to be burned. "Coal is almost half the global emissions. If you replace these power plants with modern, safe nuclear reactors you could do a lot of pollution reduction quickly." Indeed, he has evidence: the speediest drop in greenhouse gas pollution on record occurred in France in the 1970s and ‘80s, when that country transitioned from burning fossil fuels to nuclear fission for electricity, lowering its greenhouse emissions by roughly 2 percent per year. The world needs to drop its global warming pollution by 6 percent annually to avoid "dangerous" climate change in the estimation of Hansen and his co-authors in a recent paper in PLoS One. "On a global scale, it's hard to see how we could conceivably accomplish this without nuclear," added economist and co-author Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where Hansen works.
	4	+Taiwanese air pollution uniquely risks cancer exposure
	5	+Cheng 93 - Chao-chan Cheng is Professor, Sun Yat-sen Center for Policy Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC. Known as Akira Harimoto, Dr. Cheng is a native of Taiwan and a naturalized Japanese citizen. Abstract: Taiwan and Japan have faced similar environmental problems at comparable stages in their economic development, and have passed through similar stages in the development of their systems of environmental law. Three phases in the development of environmental law making are distinguished: preparatoryf, ormative and developed. This article compares the relative progress of Taiwan and Japan through these stages, and suggests that Taiwan may benefit by studying Japan's analogous prior experiences with pollution prevention and environmental law. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AIR and WATER POLLUTION CONTROL LAWS IN TAIWAN AND JAPAN Copyright @ 1993 Pacific Rim Law and Policy Association
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	7	+Air pollution is also severe and getting worse. Citing an EPA report, one article noted that "the spread of NO2, CO, 03, dust, and SO 2 in the Taipei Basin, including Taipei City and Taipei County, is such that these areas are now classified as third-level control regions (pollution most severe), primarily because automobile exhausts do not readily dissipate." 65
	8	+The sources and variety of pollutants are increasing too. For instance, in May of 1991 airborne dioxin pollution in Nan-Tzu Kaohsiung caused by the burning of electrical cables affected more than two thousand students and teachers of the K'o-Liao Elementary School. 66 In an accident affecting even more people, a chloride leak at the Handy Chemical Corporation Ltd. in Kaohsiung caused more than seven thousand people to seek emergency treatment in April 1992.67 Radioactive steel bars were discovered in the structure of a building on Long Chiang Street in Taipei in September 1992.68 Finally, in May 1992 the burning of waste circuit board material resulted in a second dioxin air pollution emergency near the K'o-Liao Elementary School which affected more than six hundred students at the school. The manufacturer of the circuit boards, Wu's Printed Circuit Company Ltd., was punished by the Kaohsiung City Bureau of Environmental Protection. 69 Furthermore, most of these types of pollution have measurable impacts on public health. For instance, the Public Sanitary Institute of Taiwan University estimates that because of exposure to high levels of benzene in vehicle exhausts, the cancer rate for students riding motorcycles is between 19/106 and 130/106, and between 66/106 and 130/106 for workers riding motorcycles.70
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	11	+The plan increases emissions – they shift to coal not renewables
	12	+Chen 12 Y.H. Henry Chen (Taiwan Business Topics magazine’s associate editor and reporter. Prior to joining Taiwan Business Topics magazine in 2014, Tim was a frequent contributor, focusing primarily on issues related to energy, economy and technology), "Non-Nuclear, Low-Carbon, or Both? The Case of Taiwan," MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, December 2012 AZ
	13	+Under the non-nuclear policy scenario, fossil-based generation will replace part of the lost electricity output, and this will lead to an increase in Taiwan’s total CO2 emissions, as shown in Figure 7a. While electricity sectors, especially coal-fired power, will contribute to most of the additional emissions, a slight increase in emissions from other industrial sectors reflects that electricity input is substituted by other fossil-based energy input. Figure 7b shows that Taiwan’s total CO2 emissions may increase by more than 3.5 relative to BAU levels from 2035 onwards. The emissions increase is not trivial, which suggests that when pursuing the non-nuclear policy, it is also important to consider effective measures that could curb CO2 emissions.
	14	+Coal turns case – power plants spew radioactive coal ash that multiple studies confirm is worse than nuclear waste
	15	+Hvistendahl 16 Hvistendahl, Mara. "Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste". Scientific American. N. p., 2016. Web. 23 Aug. 2016.
	16	+Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * See Editor's Note at end of page 2 At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants. The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or hig
	17	+her than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants. McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.
	18	+Global warming definitively causes extinction
	19	+Sharp and Kennedy 14 – (Associate Professor Robert (Bob) A. Sharp is the UAE National Defense College Associate Dean for Academic Programs and College Quality Assurance Advisor. He previously served as Assistant Professor of Strategic Security Studies at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) in the U.S. National Defense University (NDU), Washington D.C. and then as Associate Professor at the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies, collocated with NDU. Most recently at NESA, he focused on security sector reform in Yemen and Lebanon, and also supported regional security engagement events into Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine and Qatar; Edward Kennedy is a renewable energy and climate change specialist who has worked for the World Bank and the Spanish Electric Utility ENDESA on carbon policy and markets; 8/22/14, “Climate Change and Implications for National Security,” International Policy Digest, http://intpolicydigest.org/2014/08/22/climate-change-implications-national-security/)
	20	+Our planet is 4.5 billion years old. If that whole time was to be reflected on a single one-year calendar then the dinosaurs died off sometime late in the afternoon of December 27th and modern humans emerged 200,000 years ago, or at around lunchtime on December 28th. Therefore, human life on earth is very recent. Sometime on December 28th humans made the first fires – wood fires – neutral in the carbon balance. Now reflect on those most recent 200,000 years again on a single one-year calendar and you might be surprised to learn that the industrial revolution began only a few hours ago during the middle of the afternoon on December 31st, 250 years ago, coinciding with the discovery of underground carbon fuels. Over the 250 years carbon fuels have enabled tremendous technological advances including a population growth from about 800 million then to 7.5 billion today and the consequent demand to extract even more carbon. This has occurred during a handful of generations, which is hardly noticeable on our imaginary one-year calendar. The release of this carbon – however – is changing our climate at such a rapid rate that it threatens our survival and presence on earth. It defies imagination that so much damage has been done in such a relatively short time. The implications of climate change is the single most significant threat to life on earth and, put simply, we are not doing enough to rectify the damage. This relatively very recent ability to change our climate is an inconvenient truth; the science is sound. We know of the complex set of interrelated national and global security risks that are a result of global warming and the velocity at which climate change is occurring. We worry it may already be too late. Climate change writ large has informed few, interested some, confused many, and polarized politics. It has already led to an increase in natural disasters including but not limited to droughts, storms, floods, fires etc. The year 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record according to an American Meteorological Society (AMS) report. Research suggests that climate change is already affecting human displacement; reportedly 36 million people were displaced in 2008 alone because of sudden natural disasters. Figures for 2010 and 2011 paint a grimmer picture of people displaced because of rising sea levels, heat and storms. Climate change affects all natural systems. It impacts temperature and consequently it affects water and weather patterns. It contributes to desertification, deforestation and acidification of the oceans. Changes in weather patterns may mean droughts in one area and floods in another. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, sea levels rise but perennial river water supplies are reduced because glaciers are retreating. As glaciers and polar ice caps melt, there is an albedo effect, which is a double whammy of less temperature regulation because of less surface area of ice present. This means that less absorption occurs and also there is less reflection of the sun’s light. A potentially critical wild card could be runaway climate change due to the release of methane from melting tundra. Worldwide permafrost soils contain about 1,700 Giga Tons of carbon, which is about four times more than all the carbon released through human activity thus far. The planet has already adapted itself to dramatic climate change including a wide range of distinct geologic periods and multiple extinctions, and at a pace that it can be managed. It is human intervention that has accelerated the pace dramatically: An increased surface temperature, coupled with more severe weather and changes in water distribution will create uneven threats to our agricultural systems and will foster and support the spread of insect borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue and the West Nile virus. Rising sea levels will increasingly threaten our coastal population and infrastructure centers and with more than 3.5 billion people – half the planet – depending on the ocean for their primary source of food, ocean acidification may dangerously undercut critical natural food systems which would result in reduced rations. Climate change also carries significant inertia. Even if emissions were completely halted today, temperature increases would continue for some time. Thus the impact is not only to the environment, water, coastal homes, agriculture and fisheries as mentioned, but also would lead to conflict and thus impact national security. Resource wars are inevitable as countries respond, adapt and compete for the shrinking set of those available resources. These wars have arguably already started and will continue in the future because climate change will force countries to act for national survival; the so-called Climate Wars. As early as 2003 Greenpeace alluded to a report which it claimed was commissioned by the Pentagon titled: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for U.S. National Security. It painted a picture of a world in turmoil because global warming had accelerated. The scenario outlined was both abrupt and alarming. The report offered recommendations but backed away from declaring climate change an immediate problem, concluding that it would actually be more incremental and measured; as such it would be an irritant, not a shock for national security systems. In 2006 the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) – Institute of Public Research – convened a board of 11 senior retired generals and admirals to assess National Security and the Threat to Climate Change. Their initial report was published in April 2007 and made no mention of the potential acceleration of climate change. The team found that climate change was a serious threat to national security and that it was: “most likely to happen in regions of the world that are already fertile ground for extremism.” The team made recommendations from their analysis of regional impacts which suggested the following. Europe would experience some fracturing because of border migration. Africa would need more stability and humanitarian operations provided by the United States. The Middle East would experience a “loss of food and water security (which) will increase pressure to emigrate across borders.” Asia would suffer from “threats to water and the spread of infectious disease. ” In 2009 the CIA opened a Center on Climate Change and National Security to coordinate across the intelligence community and to focus policy. In May 2014, CNA again convened a Military Advisory Board but this time to assess National Security and the Accelerating Risk of Climate Change. The report concludes that climate change is no longer a future threat but occurring right now and the authors appeal to the security community, the entire government and the American people to not only build resilience against projected climate change impacts but to form agreements to stabilize climate change and also to integrate climate change across all strategy and planning. The calm of the 2007 report is replaced by a tone of anxiety concerning the future coupled with calls for public discourse and debate because “time and tide wait for no man.” The report notes a key distinction between resilience (mitigating the impact of climate change) and agreements (ways to stabilize climate change) and states that: Actions by the United States and the international community have been insufficient to adapt to the challenges associated with projected climate change. Strengthening resilience to climate impacts already locked into the system is critical, but this will reduce long-term risk only if improvements in resilience are accompanied by actionable agreements on ways to stabilize climate change. The 9/11 Report framed the terrorist attacks as less of a failure of intelligence than a failure of imagination. Greenpeace’s 2003 account of the Pentagon’s alleged report describes a coming climate Armageddon which to readers was unimaginable and hence the report was not really taken seriously. It described: A world thrown into turmoil by drought, floods, typhoons. Whole countries rendered uninhabitable. The capital of the Netherlands submerged. The borders of the U.S. and Australia patrolled by armies firing into waves of starving boat people desperate to find a new home. Fishing boats armed with cannon to drive off competitors. Demands for access to water and farmland backed up with nuclear weapons. The CNA and Greenpeace/Pentagon reports are both mirrored by similar analysis by the World Bank which highlighted not only the physical manifestations of climate change, but also the significant human impacts that threaten to unravel decades of economic development, which will ultimately foster conflict. Climate change is the quintessential “Tragedy of the Commons,” where the cumulative impact of many individual actions (carbon emission in this case) is not seen as linked to the marginal gains available to each individual action and not seen as cause and effect. It is simultaneously huge, yet amorphous and nearly invisible from day to day. It is occurring very fast in geologic time terms, but in human time it is (was) slow and incremental. Among environmental problems, it is uniquely global. With our planet and culture figuratively and literally honeycombed with a reliance on fossil fuels, we face systemic challenges in changing the reliance across multiple layers of consumption, investment patterns, and political decisions; it will be hard to fix!

EntryDate

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	1	+2016-10-14 20:03:50.103

Judge

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	1	+Martin Sigalow

Opponent

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	1	+Gilmour SW

ParentRound

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	1	+4

Round

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	1	+1

Team

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	1	+Lexington Balachundhar Neg

Title

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	1	+SEPOCT- DA- Taiwan Fossil Shift

Tournament

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	1	+Bronx