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Obama Defends Presence at Climate Change Talks While Syria War Rages

President Obama said on Tuesday that the United States was obligated to undertake climate talks in the midst of a war in Syria “because this one trend, climate change, affects all trends.”

Developed countries have a moral obligation to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Thanks for accepting this debate I hope we have a great debate! Evidence is only to be presented when asked for Last speeches, no new evidence is to be presented 1st speech- opening 2nd- rebuttals 3rd- more rebuttals 4th- summary 5th- Closing statement Good luck! PRO- Case Definitions First, we offer the CIA World Factbook's definition of "developed countries," which includes just over thirty nations that are generally first-world and feature service-oriented economies. Standard- The standard of today"s debate, or weighing mechanism, should be deontology. Since this topic is about moral obligations and deontology is about the morality of actions and its justification, we believe that the team that adheres to this standard should win this debate. 1. Alternative- Adaptation Adapting is the correct way to go in the process of mitigating. Since today"s topic is about mitigating the effects of climate change, and not mitigating climate change, as the affirmative team, it is our ground to be able to "adapt" to the effects of climate change. According to epa.gov, some of the effects of climate change are that heavy rainfall or flooding can increase water-borne parasites that are sometimes found in drinking water. These parasites can cause, in severe cases, death. One instance to mitigating the effects of climate change includes vaccinating, which is cheap and extremely effective. According to givewell.org, it costs only $14 to vaccinate a child, and The UNICEF states that 9 million lives are saved from vaccines annually. The impact is clear. It would be better to adapt to the effects of climate change. One of the effects is disease, and if we can save all these people from disease by administering vaccines, for a small price of $14 per child, we should win this debate. 2. Economy If developed countries mitigate the effects of climate change, the economy will grow. According to the UN, Renewable energy generates more jobs than fossil fuels. Worldwide, jobs in renewable energy industries exceeded 35 million in 2010. $211 billion were invested in the renewable industries in 2010. Obviously, the renewable energy industries create a bigger impact than fossil fuels, and are capable to generate more jobs in the future than fossil fuel industries will be able to. A study done by the Natural Resource Defense Council said that if present trends continue, these four global warming impacts alone will come with a price tag of almost 1.9 trillion annually (in today"s dollars), by 2100. The Impact is that Mitigating the effects of climate change is important because of how much it is costing the world. With more jobs being created, the economy is being reboosted. Obviously countries have a moral obligation if climate change is costing them money. 3. Moral Obligation Developed countries have the obligation to fix the mess that they created. After all, it is the developed country"s fault, and they should fix it. The United states is making nearly 5,500 million tonnes CO2 emissions (Guardian). Developed Countries should also have the moral obligation to not contribute to campaigns that kill human beings. For example, terrorism: It is oil money that enables Saudi Arabia [and many other countries] to invest approximately 40% of its income on weapons procurement. In July 2005 undersecretary of the Treasury, Stuart Levey, testifying in the Senate noted "Wealthy Saudi financiers and charities have funded terrorist organizations and causes that support terrorism and the ideology that fuels the terrorists' agenda. Even today, we believe that Saudi donors may still be a significant source of terrorist financing." - Institute for the Analysis of Global security. Over 12,000 people were killed by terrorist attacks in 2011- according to the National Counter Terrorism Center Judge, what this means is that many patrons of terrorism happen to be oil and gasoline investors. If we buy gasoline, these supporters of terrorism would earn money, and stuff their profits into supporting terrorist groups, leading to deaths inside our own country and other places around the world. But if we switch to green energy, we would significantly decrease the profits of these terrorism supporters, and as a result, save many lives. The Impact is clear. Countries have the moral obligation to solve the problems that they have created, and also to try and save the lives of their own citizens from acts like terrorism, by trying to mitigate the effects of climate change. 4. The Environment Climate Change causes the environment to be affected. All the more reason for countries to mitigate its effects. According to Nasa, Approximately 20-30% of plant and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceeds 1.5-2.5"C. We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson [PhD in Chemistry, Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility] told the Guardian last month.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. The Impact is that if the Earth"s temperatures rises just the slightest amount, millions might die! We must mitigate these effects before it is too late.

Taking a Stand Against Climate Change with Greener Technologies

Before I begin, I would like to bring up a prior statement you made from Round One: "Correlation is always an argument in this debate...It seems hard to argue CO2 causes the warming when it fails to correlate to a degree of ‘good’ and its rivals for the title—the sun and the PDO—correlate much better then it." (See Round one for full quote.) . I would like to point out that this is true, but the Regression Factor of CO2 would of course not be as effectual as the Irradiance of the Sun, as that is where all energy on our planet originates. The r=.44 of Carbon is not as large as the PDO and AMO (Pacific and Atlantic Decadal Oscillation), but .44 still means that there is a strong enough correlation, that it may affect our mean temperature. Of course, the .83 r factor of our currents is more effectual, since a large amount of our world’s heat is stored in our oceans as shown in the following chart: [2] Notice that there are more high temperature areas in the oceans (mostly since the ocean is 75% of the Earth's surface area), and that they go farther North and South than the land masses do. This was meant to be included in my last round, I'm sorry for including it now. 1. Climate Change is real and is a threat There definitely have been natural warmings of our planet, but never as fast as these last 162 years in which we have kept records of our planet's weather. In the last 7 years alone, Carbon counts globally have risen 18ppm according to various studies. [1, 3] In regards to the end of a noticeable rise in temperature being 1995, I still wholly agree. However: it is well known that just because one thing happens, the effects of it are not immediately felt. Just as how we are only now seeing light from stars that shone that light millions of years ago. The ocean's currents will not change immediately, but slowly over a few years, as will sea level. Though sea levels aren't rising worldwide, they are growing by an average rate of 3.11mm per year, an increase in the average (documented prior to 2000) of 1.63mm more per year. [4] "However, the effects of our changing climate are growing each year, as showing by increases in hurricane severity in the last 60 years," is a quote from my Round Two which you referenced in your rebuttal: "Regardless...the average was 8.4 hurricanes—an overall downward trend [2]." (See Round two for full quote) I would like to point out that I never said there were more hurricanes, only that these storms were stronger than before. Again, I will cite this: [5] As for your claim that hurricane intensity has flat lined, realize that your source only documents hurricanes post-landfall. Landfall is when the eye of the hurricane is only on land, and hurricanes begin to lose force as the storm's boundaries cross the shore line, so most hurricanes are documented at a weaker strength after they have already done the majority of the damage they can. [6] Allow me to define climate: noun. 1. The composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years. 2. The prevailing attitudes, standards, or environmental conditions of a group, period, or place: a climate of political unrest. [7] According to this, the dust bowl was an effect of climate change, and my opponent even says that it was caused by humans through over-farming. 2. Humans are the cause of climate change First thing I would like to say in this section is that your source 7 is out of date, as many more have been released since then that contradict what is put forth here. [3, 8] As for Carbon ppm being 3000ppm 60mya, I must cry false, as 3000ppm is only a few thousand ppm lower than during the Cambrian era, in which the mean temperature was 7 degrees centigrade higher than today. 60mya, Carbon ppm was, at its highest peak, 1700ppm during the last years of Cretaceous era, and 500ppm only 6 million years later in the Paleocene era. [9-11] In accordance to your claim that glaciers are growing, I will argue that, saying that they grow in height, but not enough to compensate for the amount lost -- or not even gained in the first place -- each year. I can agree that these ice masses slowed their ice loss, but they resumed to lose more after your source 8 and 9 were published. [12, 13] 3. Fixing the problem Renewable energy sources are continuing to become more efficient. Remember: it took us, as Hominids, 400,000 to achieve the level of efficiency we have today in combustion. [14, 15] To dismiss our strides in renewable energy so quickly is rash and immature as a species. Sure, wind turbines are dangerous to avian life. Hydro plants are obtrusive and change the local climate due to human interference. [16] Solar cells are expensive and large, and the output is not always sufficient. However! These innovations are from the last century, and in the next decade, we will have technologies that will far surpass what we have today as a renewable source. Even now, the photovoltaics which Con so easily dismissed are being produced and developed more than any renewable source (nuclear excluded, not renewable) with 1/100th the cost and 50% more efficiency. These are simply trial versions as well. [17] Wind kites can harness energy for the average home with no human maintenance and a 30-50-killowatt/hour range, with even more effective versions in development. [18] Biomass fuels are becoming more common [19] and soon may be one of the must substantial sources of fuel. Nuclear energy is the best we have (for now) in lieu of a completely clean renewable energy. If these energies were more substantial in countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, etc., the crisis we may be facing in the next decade can be stopped before it even starts. New Section: 4. The animal effect Concentrated atmospheric pollution kills millions of animals and gives humans living there life-threatening complications. [20] As these animals die from new diseases, pollution, and habitat loss (also climate change), we face a grim future. The complex chain of animals in our environment is so precarious, that one extinction or introduction could topple a whole ecosystem, throwing that climate in to turmoil, domino-ing the whole planet. In Conclusion! I believe that this round gives a broader view of the problem than Con is willing to propose, but cannot be neglected. VOTE PRO [1] http://wattsupwiththat.com... [2] http://www.physicalgeography.net... [3] http://climate.nasa.gov... [4] http://climate.nasa.gov... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] NationalHurricaneCenter (2009). Glossary of NHC Terms: Landfall. Retrieved on 2009-02-05. [7] http://dictionary.reference.com... [8] http://climate.nasa.gov... [9] http://en.wikipedia.org... [10] http://en.wikipedia.org... [11] http://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://climate.nasa.gov... [13] http://climate.nasa.gov... [14] Price, David. "Energy and Human Evolution". Retrieved 2012 December 10. [15] James, Steven R. (February 1989). "Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene: A Review of the Evidence". [16] http://en.wikipedia.org... [17] Streep, Abe. "The Brilliant Ten: Greg Nielson." Popular Science: The Future Now. 2012: 47. Print. [18] North, Dave. "Blueprint: Higher Power." Popular Science: The Future Now. 2012: 18. Print. [19] http://www.tgdaily.com... [20] Gabbard, Alex (2008-02-05). "Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger". Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Retrieved 2008-10-22. *for sources 9-11, use chart in upper-right hand corner

Resolved: Climate change is, on balance, anthropogenic in origin

C1) Climate sensitivity is likely high Climate sensitivity is the key argument to this debate. Everyone agrees that CO2 has some direct effect, at least 1 degree C per doubling of CO2 concentration. This is what former climate modeler turned skeptic David Evans argues. “[All] serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2. The argument is entirely about the feedbacks.” [1] What are feedbacks? Feedbacks are important because they tell us how much warming we will have in the future. They amplify -- or dampen -- the warming effect of CO2. Changes in albedo, cloud cover, water vapor, and greenage can all affect warming. If sensitivity is 2-3 degrees C, CO2 can explain most of the warming since the late 70s. If it is lower it still causes a significant amount. My opponent needs to pretty much argue that the amplification effects are under one in order to win. Let us assume that climate sensitivity is low. Say, feedbacks are around zero (no positive or negative feedbacks); every doubling of CO2 leads to roughly 1.1 degrees C increase in temperature. Even this unrealistically low climate sensitivity does not harm the AGW hypothesis. Nir Al Shaviv, a skeptical physicist, wrote a paper assuming the feedback effect was 1.1 degrees. He calculated that CO2 actually caused slightly over half of the modern warming trend [2] (about 57%). The famous Lindzen and Choi (and Spencer) results are really the only ones which cast doubt on the fact that CO2 is responsible for the warming. But Nir Al Shaviv told me in an email, “[m]y best estimate is that the sensitivity is higher than Lindzen and Choi, actually closed to no net amplifier, with the 50% of the CO2 doubling, the Anthropogenic contribution is also around 50%.” [3] Essentially, he verified what I sent to him in an email with calculations I had done assuming the amplifier was flat. My data found that it caused about 49.5% of the warming, but I failed to take into account the logarithmic effect of CO2, which makes the effect over 50%. Even then, these assumptions are incorrect. Sensitivity is higher, and if it is, CO2 pretty much causes far more than 50% of the warming, but both estimates are enough to win me the debate. Research by Patrick Michaels, now a libertarian, CATO scholar found the amplifier to be 1.6 degrees C [4]. More than the 1.1 above. This puts the man made contribution to global warming above 50%, and certainly above 57%. This is not even including other gases which amplify the greenhouse effect. The burgeoning evidence suggests that the net amplifier is around 2-3 degrees C. Based on multiple lines of evidence, stemming from volcanic eruptions, instrumental records, paleoclimatology, and more, the mean sensitivity sits firmly at about 3 degrees C. The following picture demonstrates the evidence. As seen, the average never dips below 2 degrees C. The mean is 2 - 4.5 degrees C, all of which are enough for me to win the debate. 2 degrees C probably puts you around 70% of the warming is due to CO2, and 3 at nearly 100%, though I have not done the math (yet…). Some studies find fairly high sensitivity, around 4 degrees C. JD Annan, a leading climatologist, uses a Bayesian statistical technique, the predominant methodology in both the skeptic and realist literature. He found a mean sensitivity of 3 degrees C, with upper estimates at 4 degrees C, though still possible, but very unlikely below 3 degrees C [5]. The following graph [6], which I like because since I have used it pretty much everyone else has stolen it, shows the results from 3 leading studies. Although the results are uncertain, they are certain in that sensitivity is above 2 degrees C. A new paper, published in 2012, actually went against the consensus and found low sensitivity. Despite this, their results concluded that “[h]umanity is . . . responsible for the most recent period of warming from 1976 to 2010.” [7] Sensitivity is high. That means I win the debate. If it is low, I still win the debate because it caused 50% of more of the modern warm period. C2) Evidence from paleoclimatology I love paleoclimatology. I like geology and come from a family of geologists who are also oil entrepenueres (maybe why I still have skeptic leanings). And pretty solid evidence in the paleoclimatological record actually shows a strong CO2 effect. I am just going to c/p my debate with Roy. There is significant evidence from paleoclimate records that CO2 can have an effect on changes in the climate. Climate skeptic and paleoclimatologist Bob Carter emphasizes the importance of paleoclimate data. He compares climate to a piece of string. The current instrumental data (1850 – present) is a very short period of time, according to Carter. And when the ‘string’ is lengthened, we see a lot of climactic variability. Instead of looking at the recent past, we should look at the entire temperature record in order to get an accurate picture of the climate [8]. I will provide evidenc, contrary to what Carter believes, lengthening the string supports AGW theory. Over the Cenozoic Era, which began 66 million years ago, we see clear warming and cooling cycles caused by changes in CO2 concentrations. The sun increased slightly over that time period, whereas temperatures cooled. CO2, however, fell steadily through that time period. Plate tectonics was also accounted for. With natural forcings an unlikely cause, “CO2 was the dominant climate forcing in the Cenozoic” [9]. When you lengthen the ‘string’ over the course of the entire Phanerozoic (500 million years; begins at the Cambrian) there is still evidence of CO2 driving multiple climate changes. The GEOCARB study, published in 2001, is one of the definitive proxy records for CO2 concentrations within the last 500 million years. The study notes that “over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and paleotemperature” [10]. Evidence from the Vostok ice cores (specifically 240,000 before present), proves that CO2 has had an effect on temperatures. Although the initial forcing was orbital changes in the sun, CO2 “plays . . . a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing” and “the CO2 increase clearly precedes the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation”. The study also notes that these forcings “are also at work for the present-day and future climate” [11]. There is also proof that it is warmer now than it has been since the MWP. In fact, it is warmer now than any year since 1400 AD [12]. Newer reconstructions continue to support this finding, and even extends the dataset. It finds that the Roman warm period (RWP) and the MWP as much cooler than today, and claims to have replicated previous ‘hockey stick’ studies [19]. The results are depicted below. Looking into the geologic past, we see strong evidence in favor of the idea that carbon dioxide can increase temperature. It logically follows that if humans continue to emit CO2, and other greenhouse gasses, that human emissions will increase temperatures. C3) Consensus Before I continue, I would like to note this argument in and of itself does not prove that global warming is caused by man. Actual evidence should be the driving force behind this debate. The reason I chose to put this in my argument is simple: the science is not clear because of consensus, but a consensus exists because the evidence is clear. This evidence will be discussed later. A study published in Science reviewed the ISI web of science in order to take a survey of relevant climate literature as to what the causes of climate change are. The study failed to find a single paper which was in opposition to the consensus position, that the main driver of climate change is anthropogenic. 75% of the papers supported the consensus position, whereas 25% had no position (they were focused on things other than forgings, like impacts or paleoclimate) [14]. The study also noted how many organizations have come out supporting the idea of anthropogenic climate change. The IPCC, the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all concluded that the evidence for AGW is overwhelming [15]. NASA furthers this argument, noting “most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position”. They also argue “[n]inety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities” [16]. A 196 page report representing 13 governmental agencies, and written by 28 authors from scientific institutions, has stated “[t]he global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases” [17]. 1. https://mises.org... 2. http://www.phys.huji.ac.il... 3. Personal Correspondence. 4. http://www.int-res.com... 5. http://www.jamstec.go.jp... 6. http://www.skepticalscience.com... 7. http://www.scirp.org... 8. Bob Carter. Climate: The Counter Consensus (London: Stacey International, 2011). 9. http://www.columbia.edu... 10. http://earth.geology.yale.edu... 11. http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu... 12. http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca... 13. http://www.skepticalscience.com... 14. http://www.sciencemag.org... 15. Ibid. 16. http://climate.nasa.gov... 17. http://downloads.globalchange.gov...

US Should Engage More With China Concerning Climate Change

Us should definetely engage more with China concerning climate change since these two countries are at the top of the most influential countries in the world. And climate change is a global problem that can only be soluted if major countries cooperate and try to solve together this issue that doesn't affect one country in specific but the whole Humanity