Tournament: Capitol Beltway Classic | Round: 5 | Opponent: Byram Hills | Judge:
Plan Text
Plan text: Resolved: Armenia should ban the production of nuclear power, accepting the EU proposal for preventing the 2026 renewal of Metsamor. Daly 13 http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Armenias-Metsamor-NPP-Built-Near-Fault-Line-Gets-10-Year-Life-Extension.html Armenia’s Metsamor NPP, Built Near Fault Line, Gets 10 Year Life Extension By John Daly - Sep 23, 2013, 6:52 PM CDT In a major piece of bad news for Armenia’s neighbors Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia's energy minister Armen Movsisyan has told journalists that the country’s aging Metsamor NPP, originally scheduled for decommissioning in 2016," will operate until 2026." … The European Union has repeatedly called for the plant to be closed down, arguing that it poses a threat to the region, classifying Metsamor’s reactors as the "oldest and least reliable" category of all the 66 Soviet reactors built in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 2004 the European Union's envoy called Metsamor "a danger to the entire region," but Armenia later turned down the EU's offer of a 200 million euro loan to finance Metsamor's shutdown,
Advantage 1: Meltdowns
The Metsamor power plant – Armenia’s only form of nuclear power – is incredibly dangerous. It uses old tech, is unreliable, and lies on earthquake territory.
Lavelle et al 11 Marianne Lavelle and Josie Garthwaite (National Geographic News) “Is Armenia's Nuclear Plant the World's Most Dangerous?” National Geographic News April 14th 2011 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/04/110412-most-dangerous-nuclear-plant-armenia/
In the shadow of Mount Ararat, the beloved and sorrowful national symbol of Armenia, stands a 31-year-old nuclear plant that is no less an emblem of the country's resolve and its woe. The Metsamor power station is one of a mere handful of remaining nuclear reactors of its kind that were built without primary containment structures. All five of these first-generation water-moderated Soviet units are past or near their original retirement ages, but one salient fact sets Armenia's reactor apart from the four in Russia. Metsamor lies on some of Earth's most earthquake-prone terrain. In the wake of Japan's quake-and-tsunami-triggered Fukushima Daiichi crisis, Armenia's government faces renewed questions from those who say the fateful combination of design and location make Metsamor among the most dangerous nuclear plants in the world. Seven years ago, the European Union's envoy was quoted as calling the facility "a danger to the entire region," but Armenia later turned down the EU's offer of a 200 million euro ($289 million) loan to finance Metsamor's shutdown. The United States government, which has called the plant "aging and dangerous," underwrote a study that urged construction of a new one.
She continues: But the VVER 440s share one characteristic with Chernobyl that has been a continuing concern to many who live nearby: They have no containment structure. Instead, VVER 440s rely on an "accident localization system," designed to handle small ruptures. In the event of a large rupture, the system would vent directly to the atmosphere. "They cannot cope with large primary circuit breaks," the NEI's 1997 Source Book on Soviet nuclear plants concluded. "As with most Soviet-designed plants, electricity production by the VVER-440 Model V230s came at the expense of safety." Antonia Wenisch of the Austrian Institute of Applied Ecology in Vienna, calls Metsamor "among the most dangerous" nuclear plants still in operation. A rupture "would almost certainly immediately and massively fail the confinement," she said in an email. "From that point, there is an open reactor building, a core with no water in it, and accident progression with no mitigation at all."
Armenian Meltdown would cause massive life loss, kill agriculture, and threaten four other countries.
Sahakyan 2 Armine (Human rights activist based in Armenia) “Armenia Continues to Gamble on Aging Nuclear Plant in a Quake-Prone Area” Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/armine-sahakyan/armenia-continues-to-gamb_b_9788186.html
So Armenia continues to make due with the Metsamor plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency has inspected the facility, and declared it safe. But other experts are skeptical. The big worry is that the plant has no containment building — a steel or concrete shell that would prevent radiation from escaping during an accident. If a rupture developed in the reactor’s skin, radiation would have to be vented into the air to prevent a build-up of pressure that could trigger a meltdown or explosion. The longer a nuclear plant operates, the thinner its reactor skin becomes, experts say — and thinner skins are subject to rupture. A rupture would mean “an open reactor building, a core with no water in it (to cool the reactor) and accident progression with no mitigation at all,” said Antonia Wenisch of the Vienna-based Austrian Institute of Applied Ecology in Vienna. The stakes in Armenia’s nuclear gamble are high. An accident at Metsamor would devastate the capital of Yerevan, only 20 miles away and home to a third of Armenia’s population. It would also render unusable the Aras River Valley, Armenia’s premier agricultural area, where Metasamor is situated. In addition, radiation would envelop Turkey, whose border is only 10 miles from the nuclear facility, and Armenian neighbors Georgia and Iran.
Technological changes and alternate reactors won’t solve – can still melt down and causes increased cancer rates.
Idayatova 16 Anakhanum “Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear plant can cause major radiation accident” Trend News Agencyhttp://en.trend.az/world/turkey/2536379.html
Armenia's Metsamor nuclear power plant is a major threat not only for the entire Caucasus region, but it also poses a danger for the Armenian population, Malik Ayub Sumbal, journalist, expert on geopolitical and international conflicts, told Trend via e-mail May 20. Sumbal, who is also the founder of The Caspian Times news platform, said that the international community must learn a lesson from an accident at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and prevent another disaster, which may be caused by Armenia's Metsamor nuclear power plant. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, initiated primarily by the tsunami that was triggered by the earthquake on March 11, 2011."The Metsamor nuclear power plant also poses a great threat for Turkey, as it is located just 16 kilometers off its borders," the expert said. "Moreover, the plant can cause cancer and other dangerous diseases among people living on the border with Armenia."Armenia has a nuclear power plant, Metsamor, built in 1970. The power plant was closed after a devastating earthquake in Spitak in 1988. But despite the international protests, the power plant's operation was resumed in 1995. Moreover, a second reactor was launched there. According to the ecologists and scholars all over the region, seismic activity of this area turns operation of the Metsamor nuclear power plant in an extremely dangerous enterprise, even if a new type of reactor is built.
And, nuclear meltdowns are a high risk threat that can cause massive death rates with time. Ross 11,
Timothy J. Ross (Ph.D, Stanford University Professor, Dept. Of civil engineering, University of New Mexico) Dec. 14, 2011 "Avoiding Apocalypse: Congress Should Ban Nuclear Power." www.law.buffalo.edu/content/dam/law/restricted-assets/pdf/environmental/papers/ross12.pdf
Despite proponents’ claims that it is safe, the history of nuclear energy is marked by a number of disasters and near disasters. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine is one of the most frightening examples of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a nuclear accident. An estimated 220,000 people were displaced from their homes, and the radioactive fallout from the accident made 4,440 square kilometers of agricultural land and 6,820 square kilometers of forests in Belarus and Ukraine unusable. It is extremely difficult to get accurate information about the health effects from Chernobyl. Government agencies in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus estimate that about 25,000 of the 600,000 involved in fire-fighting and clean up operations have died so far because of radiation exposure from the accident.(4) According to an April 2006 report commissioned by the European Greens for the European Parliament, there will be an additional 30,000 to 60,000 fatal cancer deaths worldwide from the accident.(5) In 1979, the United States had its own disaster following an accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor in Pennsylvania. Although there were no immediate deaths, the incident had serious health consequences for the surrounding area. A 1997 study found that those people living downwind of the reactor at the time of the event were two to ten times more likely to contract lung cancer or leukemia than those living upwind of the radioactive fallout.(6) The dangers of nuclear power have been underscored more recently by the close call of a catastrophic meltdown at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio in 2002, which in the years preceding the incident had received a near-perfect safety score.(3) Climate change may further increase the risk of nuclear accidents. Heat waves, which are expected to become more frequent and intense as a result of global warming, can force the shut down or the power output reduction of reactors. During the 2006 heat wave, reactors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Minnesota, as well as in France, Spain and Germany, were impacted. The European heat wave in the summer of 2003 caused cooling problems at French reactors that forced engineers to tell the government that they could no longer guarantee the safety of the country’s 58 nuclear power reactors.(3)
Advantage 2- Turkey-Armenia Relations.
Armenia/Turkey Relations are strained- there has been a recent outbreak of anti-Armenia sentiment after German recognition of the Armenian genocide- action needs to be taken now. MacDonald 16
Alex MacDonald, “New footage implicates alleged coup plotters in Dink murder,” September 7, 2016 http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/new-footage-implicates-alleged-coup-plotters-murder-turkish-armenian-activist-791069797
Activists have warned that Armenians in Turkey continue to face suspicion and discrimination. A poll released in 2011 suggested that 73.9 of Turks held negative views about Armenians, just ahead of Jews and Greeks. Some Armenians have expressed fear over a surge in nationalist sentiment in Turkey, which often targets Armenians. “I stopped wearing my necklace that has an ornamental cross on it a few months back. Not because I wanted to but due to fear,” said Turkish-Armenian Jaklin Solakyan, speaking to Middle East Eye in April. “I am really fed up of being denigrated and discriminated against. This is my country, and I am an equal citizen. Why do we need to be constantly targeted because we are minorities?” In particular, the issue of the Armenian genocide is a taboo subject in Turkey, where the government continues to argue that the killings that took place in 1915 did not constitute a genocide and saw an equal number of Turks, Kurds and Armenians killed. Turkish government officials threatened to break off ties with Germany after the parliament voted to recognise the Armenian genocide in early June.
Also means another impact of the aff is Armenia Turkish improve relations would help alleviate conditions of systemic racism in Turkey.
Daily News 14
“Turkey wants nuclear plant in Armenia to be shut down,” March/21/2014, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-wants-nuclear-plant-in-armenia-to-be-shut-down~-~-~-~-~-~-.aspx?pageID=238andnid=63928
The Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia is outdated and should be urgently closed down, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız has said, re-voicing concerns about the safety of the plant. Speaking with reporters during a visit to the Turkish province of Iğdır near Turkey’s eastern border on March 21, Yıldız said Turkey had sent an official appeal to the International Atomic Energy Agency concerning the shutdown of the plant. “The nuclear plant, which was put online in 1980, has had a lifespan of 30 years. This plant has expired and should be immediately closed,” Yıldız said. He stressed Metsamor is just 16 kms away from Turkey’s border, and it was necessary to bring the issue to international attention and obtain support for the plant’s closure.
Armenia-Turkey relations are key to both improving Turkish relations to other countries and improving economic growth in Armenia. Giragosain 09
Richard Giragosian, Director of the Armenian Centre for National and International Studies (ACNIS) in Yerewan, “Changing Armenia-Turkish Relations1,” 2009 http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/georgien/06380.pdf
Changing Armenia-Turkish Relations February 2009 Richard Giragosian is Director of the Armenian Centre for National and International Studies
(ACNIS) in Yerewan. After nearly a decade and a half of tense relations, closed borders and a lack of diplomatic relations, Armenia and Turkey are moving quickly to normalize relations. Following an official invitation extended in July 2008 by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, Turkish President Abdullah Gul became the first-ever Turkish head of state to visit Armenia. The September 2008 visit marked the public opening of a new process of engagement after months of secret meetings between Armenian and Turkish officials in Switzerland. The changing relationship between Armenia and Turkey can result in a “win-win” situation for both countries. For Armenia, it provides a much-needed foreign policy success and a new economic opportunity. For Turkey a possible rapprochement in Turkish-Armenian relations would do much to improve Turkey’s standing in the eyes of both the European Union and the United States. A border opening and subsequent diplomatic relations would enhance Turkey’s record of domestic reform. Just as crucially, the regional landscape has also changed in the wake of the August 2008 conflict in Georgia, offering a new impetus for opening the Armenian-Turkish border and heralding a new level of Russian support for a breakthrough between Armenia and Turkey.
Turkish-US Relations are extremely fragile now – improving relations is key to the fight against ISIS.
The Jerusalem Post. Where does the US and Turkey’s complex relationship stand? Reuters August 2016 8/27/16
A weakening of the US-Turkish alliance is a concern for the United States, which is counting on support from Turkey - which has NATO's second-biggest military - in the battle against Islamic State.
American worries may have been compounded by Erdogan restoring ties with Russia and even discussing military cooperation with President Vladimir Putin. Meeting with Erdogan and Turkey's prime minister in Ankara on Wednesday, Biden delivered a message of alliance and conciliation. "Let me say it for one last time: The American people stand with (Turkey) you ... Barack Obama was one of the first people you called. But I do apologize. I wish I could have been here earlier," Biden said. He said US officials would cooperate in investigating evidence against Fethullah Gulen, the US-based cleric Erdogan has blamed for masterminding the coup bid with his followers. Erdogan has demanded that Washington hand over Gulen, who has denied any involvement in the coup, but US authorities have said Turkey must first provide evidence of his wrongdoing.
US leadership in the Middle East solidifies international peace – loss of influence causes war across the globe – leads to extinction. Bresler 15
Robert J. Bresler, Obama-led US withdrawal has destabilized the world, 6/24/15, http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/obama-led-us-withdrawal-has-destabilized-the-world/article_1c73c828-19d4-11e5-ab00-d32898937e9a.html VC
American leadership need not mean involvement in endless wars. Past history gives us examples. The Marshall Plan allowed worn-torn allied governments to provide their people with political stability and economic development. NATO was an effort to build Western European unity, end the quarrels that had produced two world wars, and deter Soviet aggression. The United Nations, disappointing in many ways, was a vehicle for broad international efforts against disease, illiteracy and regional wars. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs were designed to facilitate international trade, prevent currency wars and assist in economic development. These initiatives prevented another great power war, achieved a large degree of European reconciliation, and eased the transition for post-colonial countries in Africa and Asia. None would have happened without strong and persistent American leadership. The U.S. negotiated a series of defense treaties with more than 35 nations, designed to deter aggression, that also eased their burden of self-defense and allowed them to place more resources into the reconstruction of their economies. In the Middle East, the Arab States and Israel saw the U.S. as an honest broker, assisting in the negotiation of peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan. During the Obama administration there has been a steady American retreat from world leadership. NATO is far less effective. Allies such as Israel, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, the Baltic States and Iraq are no longer confident of American support. Hence, China, Russia and Iran are asserting hegemonic claims. The world is now torn by devolution and fractionalization. The forces of global and regional cooperation are in disrepair. The United Nations stands helpless against Russian aggression, civil war in Syria and Libya and atrocities by the Islamic State across the Middle East and North Africa; the European Union is facing possible revolts and threats of secession by the United Kingdom and Greece and waning allegiance in much of Europe; and NATO offers Ukraine no more than its good wishes as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military swallows the country bit by bit. Our allies are far from steadfast. Their governments are weaker, and vivid world leaders are hard to find among them. Putin, the insane leaders of the Islamic State and the Iranian mullahs have put fear in the hearts of our allies. Why are these second- and third-rate powers able to intimidate their neighbors far more effectively than did the far more powerful Soviet Union? Our democratic allies in Europe, lacking a clear sense of direction, are ruled by unstable coalitions. Even Germany, perhaps the strongest of our European allies, refuses to confront Putin in his efforts to destabilize Ukraine. When the Obama administration made concession after concession to the Iranians over its nuclear program, our negotiating partners in Europe lost any interest in taking serious steps to keep Iran out of the nuclear club. In the Middle East tribalism and religious fanaticism have left Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen virtually ungovernable. Iraq, left to its won devices by Obama’s withdrawal after American troops sacrificed so much to establish a nascent democracy, is now falling apart. In Egypt, a military regime is trying to forcibly contain the boiling pot that is the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, feeling abandoned by Obama’s rush to a nuclear agreement with Iran, are sensing the quicksand beneath their feet. Warlordism and radical Islam plague the economically depressed countries of sub-Saharan Africa. A combination of devolution and chaos becomes normal state of affairs absent a strong centripetal leadership. In the last half of the 20th century, America provided that force with persuasion, assistance, assurance and trust. As the Obama administration allows the U.S. to slip into the shadows world politics, the danger of war increases.
US-Turkey relations key to create Middle East stability which prevents radical violence. UPI 13
UPI, “Israel 'seeks to repair ties with Turkey,” Feb 27, 2013 http://www.upi.com/Israel-seeks-to-repair-ties-with-Turkey/38621361997592/?spt=su
The Americans are keen for strategic reasons to have the two non-Arab military powers in the eastern Mediterranean back together to possibly restore a modicum of stability in a region that's swirling with conflict, sectarian hatreds and political turmoil. Obama is to visit Israel in March. Kerry is on his maiden trip as top U.S. diplomat and is to visit Ankara, where he's expected to raise the issue of Turkish-Israeli relations. There appears to be an effort by both sides to patch up a relationship, encouraged by the United States which viewed the Turkey-Israeli alliance as vitally important for regional stability.
Framework
Part two is Framework: The standard is Util, First, Human decision-making is governed by principles of biology and physics, denying the existence of free will and proving determinism. Coyne 12
The first is simple: we are biological creatures, collections of molecules that must obey the laws of physics. All the success of science rests on the regularity of those laws, which determine the behavior of every molecule in the universe. Those molecules, of course, also make up your brain — the organ that does the "choosing." And the neurons and molecules in your brain are the product of both your genes and your environment, an environment including the other people we deal with. Memories, for example, are nothing more than structural and chemical changes in your brain cells. Everything that you think, say, or do, must come down to molecules and physics. True "free will," then, would require us to somehow step outside of our brain’s structure and modify how it works. Science hasn't shown any way we can do this becausebut "we" are simply constructs of our brain. and We can't impose a nebulous "will" on the inputs to our brain that can affect its output of decisions and actions, any more than a programmed computer can somehow reach inside itself and change its program.
If determinism is true, the only coherent moral framework is utilitarianism, since it does not assign moral responsibility to the free will of individual actors, but instead simply evaluates the goodness or badness of overall states of affairs. Greene and Cohen 04
Even if there is no intuitively satisfying solution to the problem of free will, it does not follow that there is no correct view of the matter. Ours is as follows: when it comes to the issue of free will itself, hard determinism is mostly correct. Free will, as we ordinarily understand it, is an illusion. However, it does not follow from the fact that free will is an illusion that there is no legitimate a place for responsibility. Recall from x 2 that there are two general justifications for holding people legally responsible for their actions. The retributive justification, by which the goal of punishment is to give people what they really deserve, does depends on this dubious notion of free will. However, the consequentialist approach does not require a belief in free will at all. As consequentialists, we can hold people responsible for crimes simply because doing so has, on balance, beneficial effects through deterrence, containment, etc. It is sometimes said that if we do not believe in free will then we cannot legitimately punish anyone and that society must dissolve into anarchy. In a less hysterical vein, Daniel Wegner argues that but free will, while illusory, is a necessary fiction for the maintenance of our social structure (Wegner 2002, ch. 9). We disagree. There are perfectly good, forward-looking justifications for
Second, Governments has a specific obligation to be utilitarian, Woller 97
Moreover, virtually all public policies entail some redistribution of economic or political resources, such that one group's gains must come at another group's ex- pense. Consequently, public policies in a democracy must be justified to the public, and especially to those who pay the costs of those policies. Such but justification cannot simply be assumed a priori by invoking some higher-order moral principle. Appeals to a priori moral principles, such as environmental preservation, also often fail to acknowledge that public policies inevitably entail trade-offs among competing values. Thus since policymakers cannot justify inherent value conflicts to the public in any philosophical sense, and since public policies inherently imply winners and losers, the policymakers' duty is to the public interest requires them to demonstrate that the redistributive effects and value trade-offs implied by their polices are somehow to the overall advantage of society. At the same time, deontologically based ethical systems have severe practical limitations as a basis for public policy. At best, Also, a priori moral principles provide only general guidance to ethical dilemmas in public affairs and do not themselves suggest appropriate public policies, and at worst, they create a regimen of regulatory unreasonableness while failing to adequately address the problem or actually making it worse
Third, only states of affairs give teleological relevance to ethics Ariansen 98
Suspending for a while the idea of morality as a game, one could approach the question of the nature of ethics from another angle. One could try to seek out a set of necessary and sufficient condi- tions for ethics to be operative. What traits of ethics cannot be lacking without ethics losing its meaning? Will ethics be meaningful in a world where no suffering (to focus on the duty to alleviate suffering rather that promote happiness) is known to anyone? Technically it would be possible to tell a lie or break a promise in such a society, but the difference between lying and telling the truth or breaking and keeping promises would have no moral significance, since any outcome of any event is just as good (rather, as indifferent) as any other outcome of the event. In such a world any mention of responsibilities and duties would be meaningless. Ethics clearly needs to relate to joy and suffering. This axiological orientation is necessary to give meaning to the ethical project, to mark it out as an ethical project in contrast to other projects of rationalization.
Teleology outweighs and is a litmus test for ethical theories – if other ethics are meaningless then we should use consequentialism anyways. Also if there in any moral uncertainty default to minimizing existential risk, Bostrom 12
These reflections on moral uncertainty suggests an alternative, complementary way of looking at existential risk; they also suggest a new way of thinking about the ideal of sustainability. Let me elaborate. Our present understanding of axiology might well be confused. We may not now know — at least not in concrete detail — what outcomes would count as a big win for humanity; we might not even yet be able to imagine the best ends of our journey. If we are indeed profoundly uncertain about our ultimate aims, then we should recognize that there is a great option value in preserving — and ideally improving — our ability to recognize value and to steer the future accordingly. Ensuring that there will be a future version of humanity with great powers and a propensity to use them wisely is plausibly the best way available to us to increase the probability that the future will contain a lot of value. To do this, thus we must prevent any existential catastrophe.
