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Cellulosic ethanol land-use harms forests, environment, climate

David Schneider. "Loser: Grassoline's Dark Side." IEEE Spectrum. January 2010: "Carpeting the continent with enough switchgrass to displace all that petroleum use is theoretically possible—but it would be an environmental catastrophe on many counts. For one, it would devastate what’s left of the already besieged wilderness. And according to estimates that Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University and his colleagues published in the journal Science in 2008, it would also exacerbate the world’s greenhouse-gas problem, not help solve it. That’s because even if switchgrass agriculture were limited to established cropland, we’d end up having to convert forests and other land to agriculture just to feed ourselves. That in turn would release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

Renewables are mostly unproven, experimental technologies being developed on a small-scale basis that is not ready to take up the gap to move away from fossil fuels under climate change agreements

The renewable sector is a rapidly changing market moving in between micro-renewables and massive offshore projects. It is a fascinating area as an emergent technology field but it lacks stability both in terms of technology and investment. Realistically nuclear power is going to have to play an important role in bridging the gap – at the very least – on the road away from a carbon dependent economy[i]. The technology and funding is simply not in place for any renewable technology to take up the hard lifting from oil and coal yet. [i] G Paschal Zachary. “The Case for Nuclear Power”. SFGate (San Fransisco Chronicle). 5 February 2006.

Genetically modified organisms will prevent starvation due to global climate changes.

The temperature of the earth is rising, and the rate of increase is itself increasing. As this continues, foods that grow now will not be acclimatized to the hotter conditions. Evolution takes many years and we simply do not have the time to starve while we wait for this to occur. Whilst there may be a vast supply of food now, we need to look to the future and how our current crops will withstand our changing environment. We can improve our food supply for the future if we invest in GM crops now. These crops can be made specifically to deal with the hotter conditions. Moreover, Rodomiro Ortiz, director of resource mobilization at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, is currently conducting trials with GM crops to get them to grow is drought conditions.[1] This has already in 2007 been implemented by Monsanto in South Africa and has shown that genetically modified maize can be grown in South Africa and so prevent starvation.[2]    In other countries, this would also mean that foods could be cultured where organic foods would not be able to. This would mean those in third world countries could grow their own crops on their low nutrient content soil. This has the additional benefit of not impacting on the environment as no transport would be needed to take the food to the places where it is needed; this would have to occur with organic foods grown in areas of good soil and weather conditions.[3] [1]Ortiz R., Overview on Crop Genetic Engineering for Drought-prone Environments, published  December 2007, http://www.icrisat.org/journal/SpecialProject/sp3.pdf, accessed 09/05/2011 [2] African Center for Biosafety, Monsanto’s genetically modified drought tolerant maize in South Africa,  http://www.biosafety-info.net/file_dir/4871488837158955b.pdf, accessed 09/02/2011 [3] Rosenthal E., Environmental Costs of Shipping Groceries around the World, published 04/26/2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/business/worldbusiness/26food.html, accessed 09/02/2011

Forcing change in liberal democracies is itself illiberal

The force of proposition’s case is that it is a ‘defense’ of liberalism – allowing all people, no matter who they are, to access rights and freedoms. We clash with this directly, and contend that forcing legislative changes (that bring about marginal benefits to small numbers of society) on a country that is clearly averse to such changes is itself illiberal. And it is precisely those countries in which this debate falls – we are not contesting whether states that already have functioning systems for same-sex marriage should abandon those systems, but whether, in opposition’s words ” bob loblaw”. Liberalism is in essence the preference for self determination at the most personal level. But a state (and the body of laws encapsulated by that state) is merely an abstraction of personal preferences and wills, and hence, in a classical Rousseauian sense (the same beliefs on which US federalism is predicated), a liberal state’s norms, practises, and legislation, must be defined from the bottom up rather than the top down. It is only through determining the rules that bind one at the level of the state that one can truly practise liberal self determination. If we accept proposition’s proposal and force same-sex marriage upon (effectively) all societies, we are in fact incurring a great cost to the very liberal project we are intending to promote and protect, for an as yet unclear benefit. Remember, this is not, as proposition believes, the profound disenfranchising of homosexuals by removing their rights to access economic opportunities or public services and utilities. The reality is that, at present, the majority of people in the ‘contested’ countries of this debate do in fact feel that same-sex marriage should not be allowed (that’s why these countries are the interesting cases). Gallup polls as recent as 2009 show this to be true, and show that in those states which have forced through same-sex marriage legislation against the will of their population have not seen a rapid decrease in resistance to same-sex marriage [[http://www.gallup.com/poll/118378/majority-americans-contine-oppose-gay-marriage.aspx]]. We advocate precisely the attitude of California’s Supreme Court who refused to overturn a public referendum (Prop 8) on homosexual marriages that came down in the negative; it is not the place of legislators or judges to impose, illiberally, legislation on the collective.

its Bernie or bust, We are suck of moderates, WE WANT REAL CHANGE

BERNIE BEATS TRUMP IN 47 OUT OF 50 polls, So he is electable, He could have won in 2016

its Bernie or bust, We are suck of moderates, WE WANT REAL CHANGE

in 206 i was convinced to vote for a moderate clinton, How did thta work out> why not go for the candidate i really supoort? I'm sick of the lesser evil sick sick sick