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

Thanks for debating. I will first refute my opponents arguments and strengthen our own. Their first contention was that other individuals and organizations can helo They stated how Gas comapnies will lose their industries. My response is 1. Are you going to let the climate go on how it is going and have a 1.9 trillion dollar cost of global warming in the next century. This completly outweighs their gas companies going out of buisness 2. the renewable industries created 35 M jobs in 2011- UN 3. If we cut funding into oil, then terrorists will lose money and stop killing innocent lives. I value lives greatly over money, Judge Their second contention was that developed countries shouldn't be the only ones mitigating. My response is 1. The topic doesn't limit developing countries, which i believe you are refering to. They can mitigate, but developed countries have the obligation as they created this mess. 2. Also, developed countries emmitted a lot of C02 into the atmosphere during their industrial revolution. Now the developing countries are going through their's and since the developed countries have emmitted so much, they have the moral obligation. Now they refuted my case They said to my terrorism subpoint that oil comapnies will lose their induestries and that green energy is not linked. My responses are 1. Are you going to let the climate go on how it is going and have a 1.9 trillion dollar cost of global warming in the next century. This completly outweighs their gas companies going out of buisness 2. the renewable industries created 35 M jobs in 2011- UN 3. If we cut funding into oil, then terrorists will lose money and stop killing innocent lives. I value lives greatly over money, Judge They said against my moral obligation impact that developing nations should do this too My response is 1. The topic doesn't limit developing countries, which i believe you are refering to. They can mitigate, but developed countries have the obligation as they created this mess. 2. Also, developed countries emmitted a lot of C02 into the atmosphere during their industrial revolution. Now the developing countries are going through their's and since the developed countries have emmitted so much, they have the moral obligation. They said that someone should not clean someone else's mess My response is 1. The topic doesn't limit developing countries, which i believe you are refering to. They can mitigate, but developed countries have the obligation as they created this mess. 2. Also, developed countries emmitted a lot of C02 into the atmosphere during their industrial revolution. Now the developing countries are going through their's and since the developed countries have emmitted so much, they have the moral obligation. 3. This has nothing to do with the contention at hand. They said to my moral obligation and mess argument that developed nations shouldn't clean up someone else's mess My response is 1. The topic doesn't limit developing countries, which i believe you are refering to. They can mitigate, but developed countries have the obligation as they created this mess. 2. Also, developed countries emmitted a lot of C02 into the atmosphere during their industrial revolution. Now the developing countries are going through their's and since the developed countries have emmitted so much, they have the moral obligation. Thus as you can see, we are saving many lives with vaccines, controlling the enviorment, and through terrorism. Thanks for debating, opponent and thanks for Judging this round, Judge/Judges

Global Climate Change is a problem and needs to be addressed.

Ok first off you have proven in other debates that you don't read between the lines that well. Plus you have taken attitudes towards me that are not to kindly either. So don't patronize me. She cited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the second or third line. Their research Plus you have taken attitudes towards me that are not to kindly either. So don't patronize me. She cited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the second or third line. Their research is enclosed here http://www.esrl.noaa.gov... Rhett Butler the founder of mongbay is an environmental writer that is featured in several newspapers and is endorsed by several scientists. But here is the same research presented on a different site. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov... All of the articles I have posted you can find any where else on the internet. You just need to look. Plus the internet is a bad place to look for good scientific journals. I am now going to list several books and journals that maybe you should read. Tim Flannery, Weather Maker G. Tyler Miller Jr., Sustaining the Earth Fritjof Capra-Systems Theories Fritjof Capra-Gaia Curtis Moore, Green Revolution in the making Jeremy Rifkin, The hydrogen economy There, start with that. Many of those points that I made are happening. We are experiencing warming and rapid change to our various ecosystems. Clear cutting eliminates wind breaks , destroys soil quality, and enables erosion. I don't see how just nitpicking my evidence helps your cause. A separate point aside. Avery and Singer fail to address several important factors Solar Dimming Carbon accumulation and acceleration I mean the point where they day the Atmosphere is "saturated with CO2" is wrong. There is still C02 being pumped into the air today, right now. Plus they were funded by Natural Gas.

The Chicago Climate Exchange is a success and model.

Jason Margolis. "My Kind of Down Chicago Climate Exchange paves the way for U.S. emissions trading". 14 Jun 2005 - "City officials are not sitting idly by waiting to see if or when such things could happen. This spring, Oakland became the second U.S. municipality to join the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) -- North America's first and only voluntary, but legally binding, emissions-trading market.

Global Warming is Real and is Manmade!

In ROUND 3 I will continue my ROUND 2 response, where I will show the link between carbon dioxide emitted by human activity and the increase in global surface temperatures. In the final ROUND I will go over the effects of climate change caused by global warming. Carbon Dioxide (and Other Green House Gases) are Causing Global Warming and Climate Change With the advent of the industrial revolution, human-induced global warming--through such actions as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation--has led to an unprecendented increase in CO2 concentrations and other green house gases [1][2]. However, climate scientists overwhelmingly pin the blame of global warming on carbon dioxide because it is the most widely and most abundantly emitted green house gas of human activity [3]. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon dioxide and methane are responsible for more than 84% of the warming being inflicted on our planet because of green house gases [3]. The remaining percent of warming can be attributed to green house gases like nitrous oxide and flourinated gases [3]. By itself, the IPCC has affirmed that carbon dioxide is reponsible for 54.7% of the global warming caused by green house gases; that's because it is the most abundantly produced green house gas of human activity and because it has an enormous radiative impact compared to other green house gases when accounting for its abundance in the atmosphere, its indirect heating effects, and because of the CO2 molecule's long lifetime in the atmosphere [3][4]. In fact, only water vapor has a stronger green house gas effect than carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, but unlike CO2 water vapor isn't being emitted naturally by any known source at a large enough scale to be blamed for global warming [4]; water vapor does contribute to global warming, but this is because of a feedback loop caused as other green house gasses in our atmosphere increase in concentration and heat up the Earth's lower atmosphere [5]. As the Earth's atmosphere and surface become warmer because of green house gas emissions, this drive's more water vapor to be absorbed into the air, further heating our planet; this water vapor loop is well-understood and contributes to anthropogenic (human induced) global warming [5]. However, other green house gases emitted by human activity drive this loop and are primarily responsible for global warming. As the statistic above shows, carbon dioxide is responsible for 54.7% of the warming being inflicted on our planet because of human activity. As I demonstrated with the graph on carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere in ROUND 2 (and as I reported in ROUND 1), never in the last 400,000 years has the CO2 concentration been quite so high as it is today! Ice core analysis shows that in the last half-million years the peak concentration (the highest concentration) of CO2 was almost 300 parts per million--and that was 300,000 years ago [1]. Today the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is 398 parts per million! Nearly 33% higher than it has ever been in the last half-million years [1]! This unprecedented increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide can be attributed almost entirely to human activity, such as through large-scale deforestation, land use changes (such as methane emission from ammonia-based fertilizers), and the burning fossil fuels (which include coal and gasoline) [2]. The IPCC reports that in the last 150 years, human activity has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 398 parts per million today [2]! According to the United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA), humans largely emit carbon dioxide and other green house gases from the production of electricity and from transportation; in the U.S. these two behaviors contribute to 60.8% of all the nation's emitted green house gases in a single year [3]. Other behaviors, such as those of industry, businesses, of agricultural, and of energy use in homes, contribute to the remaining 39% of the nation's green house gas emissions [3]. Global warming is produced when green house gases in the atmosphere--water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide--accumulate in the atmosphere and act as a thermal blanket for the Earth, absorbing the sun's radiative heat and warming the Earth's surface [2]. Nature uses green house gases to facilitate heat trapping from the sun's rays to warm the Earth and make biological life on the planet possible. But if the concentrations of green house gases in the atmosphere become excessive, this can overheat the planet, alter the Earth's climate system, injure natural ecosystems, and make it harder for biological processes to take place and be maintained. This is exactly what's happening now and generating planet-altering climate change (these effects will be explicated in the final ROUND). Volcanes and Changes in the Sun's Solar Output are Not Contributing to Global Warming Some skeptics claim that erupting land and submarine volcanoes are causing global warming. But reports by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows that volcanoes primarily emit gases, like sulfur dioxide, at high enough concentrations so as to encourage global cooling [6]. In fact, the USGS takes the position that erupting volcanoes typically emit gases that are more likely to lead to global cooling[6]! The USGS asserts that CO2 emission by human activity dwarfs the output of CO2 by all volcanoes worldwide [6]. Some opponents of manmade global warming claim that the Sun's solar output is responsible for the current rise in atmospheric temperatures--that humans are not responsible for the modern warming trend. But this is a view that the scientists firmly dispute, based on a variety of evidence (2): --Scientists point out that, since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the sun either remained constant or increased only slightly. --If the warming were caused by increased radiation coming from the sun, then scientists would expect to see warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead what they observe is a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere. Scientists say that this is a strong indication that green house gases are responsible for global warming, because they trap heat in the lower atmosphere. --Computer climate models that include solar irradiance changes can't reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in green house gases. All of these bits evidence demonstrate that solar irradiance is not responsible for the rise in Earth's surface temperatures over the last century or more. Elevations in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentrations have been responsible for Prehistoric Rises in Global Surface Temperatures Scientists that study prehistoric ice ages and warming ages point out that carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by geologic activity or other natural events has consistently led to warming trends in Earth's history. For example, the Ice Age that stretched during most of the Cryogenian Period (840 - 635 million years ago) had the potential to cover the entire globe and would have been a major setback for biological life and evolution in general had it been this severe. Scientists that study the period point out that this extreme condition never occured because, as the Earth froze, atmospheric oxygen was forced into the oceans, which oxidized organic matter and released CO2 into the atmosphere, preventing temperatures from falling any lower [7]. Presently scientists have no other plausible model to explain how the atmosphere was able to maintain warmth while the Earth froze [7]. Scientists also point out that a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have led to prehistoric Warming Ages. 55 million years ago, the Earth entered a sudden and rapid global warming event, which scientists call the the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Analysis firmly demonstrates that the quantity of carbon and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose significantly at the beginning of this period [8] [9]. The increasing concentration of CO2 is considered the chief reason why the atmosphere warmed so rapidly during PETM [8] [9]. Ice core analysis also attributes the end of the last ice age to an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels[10]. That carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas is sound; its heat-trapping effects have been studied in laboratories throughout the world. Its contribution to prehistoric global warming has long been understood, even before the concept of man-made global warming entered the imagination [11]. [1] (http://climate.nasa.gov...) [2] (http://climate.nasa.gov...) [3] (http://www.epa.gov...) [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org...) [5] (http://www.nasa.gov...) [6] (http://volcanoes.usgs.gov...) [7] (http://news.softpedia.com...) [8] (http://en.wikipedia.org...) [9] (http://smithsonianscience.org...) [10] (http://www.livescience.com...) [11] (http://en.wikipedia.org...)

Governments should require that funded climate data be posted

The full resolution is: "In all countries, governments should impose a condition on climate research grants and aid related to climate research that source data collected or analyzed under the grant, and all software developed under the government support shall be posted on the Internet within one month of publication or announcement of the results by any means." The resolution was abbreviated to meet the character limits, and the full resolution is the one to debate. The purpose of this resolution is address one of the issues raised by Climategate, the scandal in which e-mail and software at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia. http://www.climate-gate.org... It's not known whether the CRU data was exposed by a hacker or by a whistleblower, but however revealed, issues persist. The scientists were revealed to be trash-talking about climate crisis skeptics, and apparently conspiring to subvert the peer review process. Those issues are put aside here to discuss another problem, the concealment of software and data from the scientific community. The revealed documents includes a README file of a scientist, "Harry," trying to reproduce the climate data published by CRU, documenting enormous difficulty doing so. the file is posted at http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com.... CRU's mission is to obtain temperature data from various sources around the world, validate and correct the data, and convert it into a gridded format useful for scientific and practical purposes. The validation and correction steps are important because the raw data includes clerical errors, instrument errors, and errors due to the heat effects of new construction near the individual collection stations. "Gridding" converts the temperature data from the randomly located collection stations to regular increments of latitude and longitude using interpolation techniques. CRU performs all of the processing functions. For research on global warming, small errors are important because the total amount of global warming examined is on the order of only a degree per century. Moreover, scientists look for "natural experiments" in which local conditions may have local climate effects. For example, rapid growth of a city many increase local pollutants or local CO2 levels, and scientists like to examine the possible local effects on temperature. Britain has a Freedom of Information Act (FIA) similar to that in the United States. FIA requests can be filed to obtain certain documents and other data developed at government expense. In Britain, someone filed a request for the data used to support claims of CO2 global warming. CRU had great difficulty complying, Climategate revealed, because the software and data files were such a mess that they could not reconstruct the results they had published. he tale of woe begins with a guy copying 11,000 files and trying, unsuccessfully, to make something of them. He discovers, for example, that there are alternate files with the same name and no identification of which file is the one that should be used, or why. NASA has similar responsibilities for climate data in the United States, and a similar FIA request was filed for supporting climate data. After nearly three years, NASA has still not complied with the request, and a lawsuit is now threatened to attempt to force compliance. http://www.thenewamerican.com... I suspect that the problems of data compliance at CRU and NASA are due to professional incompetence, not a conspiracy to cover up errors they know to have been made. What has been revealed at CRU clearly shows incompetence. Moreover, there is nothing novel about incompetently written software. A product of human nature and schedule pressures is the method of hacking at software until it appears to work, then calling it done. In the commercial world, demands from users limit incompetence through calls for bug fixes, and ultimately user abandonment of one vendor in favor of another. Those mechanisms do not apply to climate data. In the case of climate research, the tendency will be to hack at the software until it meets the expectations of developer, in this case the global warming believers at CRU. They could be innocently making a dozen small errors that tend to inflate temperatures in recent times, and no one would question the results, because expectations are met. The remedy lies in immediate public disclosure. If the software must be posted regularly, which it will have to be because new results are released regularly, then peer pressure will greatly encourage sound software engineering practices like the use of software configuration control systems. Moreover, the details of the methodologies employed for processing and analysis will be subject to peer review. CRU deals mainly with data rather than climate models, however the resolution applies to climate modeling software as well. The basic physics of carbon dioxide only accounts for about a third of the global warming it is claimed to cause, and that's not enough to cause a climate crisis. The models contain multiplying factors that are not verified by experimental measurement. All of the mechanisms should be subject to peer review and public scrutiny. A few institutions have made their model code public, but only a very few. Aside from the concerns for good science and good professional practice, the public has a right to access what it paid for, for no reason beyond the fact that they paid for it. There are exemptions allowed in FIA legislation. The exemptions are for national security, independent proprietary data, and information sealed in lawsuits. None of the exemption apply to climate research. The requests to CRU and NASA were not denied under exemptions, they just not fulfilled. Requiring disclosure before publication or within a month after publication will guarantee that the public gets what it has a right to. Climate research strongly affects public policy, so while good professional practices are important in all areas, the situation addressed by the resolution is exceptionally important. The resolution is affirmed.

Global Warming is Real and is Manmade!

In this ROUND--the final ROUND--I will explain what it is about carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow them to be heat-trapping greenhouse gases. I will also briefly explain how global warming facilitates climate change and then go over the various effects of climate change that are occurring because of rising surface temperatures. Carbon Dioxide (and other Green House Gases) Generate the Greenhouse Effect by Absorbing and Emiting Infrared Radiation (a.k.a. Heat) Atoms and molecules can absorb electromagnetic radiation, but only at certain energies (wavelengths) [1]. The electromagnetic spectrum is illustrated directly below. When the sun emits energy it principally does so in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Our human eyes can only detect radiation between 300 and 800 nanometers in wavelength (1 billion nanometers = 1 meter); this is called the "visible portion" of the spectrum [1]. Radiation of a different wavelength can also be detected, but not visibly by our eyes. Radiation that falls between 700 nanometers to 1 millimeter is infrared radiation, and it can be detected indirectly as heat, or the vibrational-rotational movements of molecules [2]. (Other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum also contribute to heat.) Carbon dioxide (illustrated below) is special because it absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation in the infrared portion of the spectrum [3]; this means that it has an inclination to trap heat radiation coming both from the sun and bouncing off the Earth's surface [1]. Because CO2 absorbs heat radiation (which is a form of energy), that means the molecule will rotate and vibrate fiercely to contribute to heating (kinetic motion) and the greenhouse gas effect [1]. CO2 absorbs infrared "heat" radiation at 4.26 micrometers and 15.0 micrometer wavelengths; this causes the molecule to vibrate in several possible ways (illustrated directly below) [1]. When the molecule absorbs a photon of radiation at 4.26 micrometers wavelength, this causes it stretch either symmetrically (A in the picture above) or asymmetrically (B); when it absorbs a photon of radiation at 15.0 micrometers wavelength, this causes it to undergo one of two bending vibrations (C or D) [1]. It's this molecular phenomena that contributes to the greenhouse gas effect and to gradual global warming, as carbon dioxide and other other green house gases increase in concentration in the atmosphere [1][3]. Water vapor, methane and other greenhouse gases have identical methods of trapping heat [3]. Even though there are a variety of natural "sinks" to take up carbon dioxide and remove it from the atmosphere, the molecule continues to accumulate because of human activity and is forcing the current global warming trend [3][4]. Carbon dioxide is regarded as the fiercest driver of global warming because it is the most emitted green house gas by human activity and because it remains in the atmosphere far longer than the other major global warming gases [4]. Where it takes methane a decade to leave the atmosphere (unfortunately it converts to carbon dioxide), it takes carbon dioxide about a century to exit the atmosphere, though 20% of what is emitted will remain 800 years from now [4]. Water vapor on the other hand only stays in the atmosphere for a couple of days before it falls to Earth; this is why it's rarely discussed as a driver of global warming [4]. The Link Between Global Warming and Climate Change Rising global temperatures caused by human activity are having a drastic impact on physical and biological processes across the Earth. Besides those effects I went over in ROUND 2, there are numerous other consequences that are occurring as a result of global warming. Increasing global temperatures are causing polar sea ice and worldwide land ice to melt, which is causing oceanic sea levels to rise and coastal land to disappear. But global warming is having other adverse effects on the globe too, which includes alterations to the Earth's climate systems, changes in bird migration, greater intensity in forest fires, and a reduction in local freshwater supplies throughout the planet. According to two recent independent studies--one conducted by NASA in collaboration with the University of California, Irvine and the other by the University of Washington--the rate of sea level rise is accelerating and the oceanic sea level should be expected to rise by as much as 10 feet within the next two centuries [5]. The reason for the acceleration, the researchers say, is because the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting and it now appears to be unstoppable. The source of the problem is that warmer water (generated by anthropogenic global warming) stirred by Antarctic winds is melting the underside of the ice sheet, which is causing it to retreat and become thinner over time [5]. A 10-foot rise in sea levels would force much of Southern Florida under water (picture below) and it would cause large swathes of New York city's densely populated areas to become swamped [5]; 20 percent of Los Angeles would also find itself under water [6]. Just recently, on March 20th, NASA announced that sea level rise is threatening most of its launch pads and multi-billion dollar complexes; currently the space agency is building sea walls and moving some buildings further inland to avoid the rising sea line [7]. As the picture directly below illustrates, global warming is altering physical and biological processes in numerous ways. Global warming is generating less snow and land ice, which is resulting in a reduced freshwater supply in numerous locations around the world (including the U.S.) [8]; it is also changing rain and snow patterns and resulting in stronger storms [9]. Scientists say this is because storms feed off of latent heat energy; extra heat in the atmosphere or in the oceans (generated by global warming) nourishes storms and strengthens them [9]. There is some speculation that global warming may be decreasing the frequency of storm systems, but there is also strong evidence that storms are becoming more severe and developing more rapidly than just a few decades ago [9][10]. Besides increasing global temperatures, the current manmade warming trend is also resulting in more heat waves, more frequent droughts and intensifying wildfires [11]. Says geoscientist Jonathan Overpeck at the University of Arizona: "The [recent] fires in [Southern] California and here in Arizona are a clear example of what happens as the Earth warms, particularly as the West warms, and the warming caused by humans is making fire season longer and longer with each decade. It's certainly an example of what we'll see more of in the future" [11]. Global warming is also making seas and oceans warmer, damaging natural coral reefs [12], and melting permafrost [13]. As global temperatures rise and the oceans get warmer and become more concentrated in carbon dioxide, natural corals erode which diminishes biodiversity in the planet's oceans; global warming poses a direct threat on the coral reefs surrounding Florida, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii [12]. Global warming and climate change are having a major effect on animal and plant life around the world. Researchers with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies show that trees are now leafing earlier and that some species are retreating into higher latitudes as the Earth warms [13]. Among the alarming findings [13]: polar bears are seeing their numbers plummet and their sources of food become scare, which is causing them to resort to cannibalism; earlier breeding and migration of birds worldwide; earlier peak migration of Atlantic salmon; earlier spring flight of butterlies and mollusks in California; earlier breakup and later freezing dates in lake and river ice cover; marmots are emerging 38 days earlier in the Rockies; earlier egg-laying of birds; long-term changes within fish communities; earlier pollen release in some plant species; a rapid decline in the Emperor penguin population in Antarctica; long-term decline in krill stock in the Southern Oceans; rising plankton abudance in cooler ocean waters, the opposite in warmer waters. Global warming and climate change clearly has a large array of effects [13]. The effects on human life are numerous, but global warming is also currently transforming agricultural yields around the world; the picture below illustrates the long-term impact of global warming on agricultural output around the world [14]. [1] (http://www.wag.caltech.edu...) [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org...) [3] (http://en.wikipedia.org...) [4] (http://www.ucsusa.org...) [5] (http://www.thestreet.com...) [6] (http://www.businessinsider.com...) [7] (http://news.yahoo.com...) [8] (http://news.mongabay.com...) [9] (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov...) [10] (http://www.accuweather.com...) [11] (http://news.yahoo.com...) [12] (http://www.nwf.org...) [13] (http://www.giss.nasa.gov...) [14] (http://www.imf.org...)