Dowling High School 1
Langel File Title
Poverty Good 2.0
Well this is awkward
this was gonna be my thing for the team for Westside to make up for not getting my impact d part of the assignment
done b/c I had mba shit to do; chose this file specifically b/c a lot of the Nebraska affs are about poverty and stuff,
but now there’s only 2 teams going. so I guess you can still use this anyways but the purpose kinda got irked
***Defense***
A2: Abu-Jamal / Gilligan
1. Wrong – their evidence doesn’t apply because it specifies as many people die “as in a
nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths,” not any nuclear war in general. Further,
nuclear war kills everything. This isn’t propaganda, it’s the world’s best computer models
Toon and Robock 10, Toon: chair of the Dept of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member of the Laboratory for Atmospheric
and Space Physics at the University of Colorado @ Boulder. Robock is a Proff of atmospheric science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
New Jersey Local Nuclear War, Global Suffering; January 2010; Scientific American Magazine; 8 Page(s),
http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ISSUEID_CHAR=944156A6-237D-9F22-
E8E572150DCA8E65&ARTICLEID_CHAR=97CA0A88-237D-9F22-E861FD76EBEE2611)
Twenty-five years ago international teams of scientists showed that a nuclear war between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union could produce a “nuclear winter.” The smoke from vast fires started by bombs dropped on cities and
industrial areas would envelop the planet and absorb so much sunlight that the earth’s surface would get
cold, dark and dry, killing plants worldwide and eliminating our food supply. Surface temperatures
would reach winter values in the summer. International discussion about this prediction, fueled largely by astronomer Carl Sagan, forced
the leaders of the two superpowers to confront the possibility that their arms race endangered not just themselves but the entire human
race. Countries large and small demanded disarmament. Nuclear winter became an important factor in ending the nuclear arms race.
Looking back later, in 2000, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev observed, “ Models made by Russian and
American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be
extremely destructive to all life on earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and
morality, to act.” Why discuss this topic now that the cold war has ended? Because as other nations continue to acquire nuclear weapons,
smaller, regional nuclear wars could create a similar global catastrophe. New analyses reveal that a conflict between India and Pakistan,
for example, in which 100 nuclear bombs were dropped on cities and industrial areas--only 0.4 percent of the world's more
than 25,000 warheads--would produce enough smoke to cripple global agriculture. A regional war
could cause widespread loss of life even in countries far away from the conflict. Regional War Threatens the
World By deploying modern computers and modern climate models, the two of us and our colleagues have
shown that not only were the ideas of the 1980s correct but the effects would last for at least 10 years,
much longer than previously thought. And by doing calculations that assess decades of time, only now possible with
fast, current computers, and by including in our calculations the oceans and the entire
atmosphere--also only now possible--we have found that the smoke from even a regional war would be
heated and lofted by the sun and remain suspended in the upper atmosphere for years, continuing to
block sunlight and to cool the earth. India and Pakistan, which together have more than 100 nuclear weapons, may be the
most worrisome adversaries capable of a regional nuclear conflict today. But other countries besides the U.S. and Russia (which have
thousands) are well endowed: China, France and the U.K. have hundreds of nuclear warheads; Israel has more than 80, North Korea has
about 10 and Iran may well be trying to make its own. In 2004 this situation prompted one of us (Toon) and later Rich Turco of the
University of California, Los Angeles, both veterans of the 1980s investigations, to begin evaluating what the global environmental
effects of a regional nuclear war would be and to take as our test case an engagement between India and Pakistan. The latest estimates
by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense
Council are that India has 50 to 60 assembled weapons (with enough plutonium for 100) and that Pakistan has 60 weapons. Both
countries continue to increase their arsenals. Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests indicate that the yield of the warheads would be
similar to the 15-kiloton explosive yield (equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT) of the bomb the U.S. used on Hiroshima. Toon and Turco,
along with Charles Bardeen, now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, modeled what would happen if 50 Hiroshima-size
bombs were dropped across the highest population-density targets in Pakistan and if 50 similar bombs were also dropped across India.
Some people maintain that nuclear weapons would be used in only a measured way. But in the wake of chaos, fear and broken
communications that would occur once a nuclear war began, we doubt leaders would limit attacks in any rational manner. This
likelihood is particularly true for Pakistan, which is small and could be quickly overrun in a conventional conflict. Peter R. Lavoy of the
,Dowling High School 2
Langel File Title
Naval Postgraduate School, for example, has analyzed the ways in which a conflict between India and Pakistan might occur and argues
that Pakistan could face a decision to use all its nuclear arsenal quickly before India swamps its military bases with traditional forces.
Obviously, we hope the number of nuclear targets in any future war will be zero, but policy makers and voters should know what is
possible. Toon and Turco found that more than 20 million people in the two countries could die from the blasts, fires and radioactivity--a
horrible slaughter. But the investigators were shocked to discover that a tremendous amount of smoke would be generated, given the
megacities in the two countries, assuming each fire would burn the same area that actually did burn in Hiroshima and assuming an
amount of burnable material per person based on various studies. They calculated that the 50 bombs exploded in Pakistan would produce
three teragrams of smoke, and the 50 bombs hitting India would generate four (one teragram equals a million metric tons). Satellite
observations of actual forest fires have shown that smoke can be lofted up through the troposphere (the bottom layer of the atmosphere)
and sometimes then into the lower stratosphere (the layer just above, extending to about 30 miles). Toon and Turco also did some "back
of the envelope" calculations of the possible climate impact of the smoke should it enter the stratosphere. The large magnitude of such
effects made them realize they needed help from a climate modeler. It turned out that one of us (Robock) was already working with
Luke Oman, now at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who was finishing his Ph.D. at Rutgers University on the climatic effects
of volcanic eruptions, and with Georgiy L. Stenchikov, also at Rutgers and an author of the first Russian work on nuclear winter. They
developed a climate model that could be used fairly easily for the nuclear blast calculations. Robock and his colleagues, being
conservative, put five teragrams of smoke into their modeled upper troposphere over India and Pakistan on an imaginary May 15. The
model calculated how winds would blow the smoke around the world and how the smoke particles would settle out from the atmosphere.
The smoke covered all the continents within two weeks. The black, sooty smoke absorbed sunlight, warmed and rose into the
stratosphere. Rain never falls there, so the air is never cleansed by precipitation; particles very slowly settle out by falling, with air
resisting them. Soot particles are small, with an average diameter of only 0.1 micron (μm), and so drift down very slowly. They also rise
during the daytime as they are heated by the sun, repeatedly delaying their elimination. The calculations showed that the smoke would
reach far higher into the upper stratosphere than the sulfate particles that are produced by episodic volcanic eruptions. Sulfate particles
are transparent and absorb much less sunlight than soot and are also bigger, typically 0.5 μm. The volcanic particles remain airborne for
about two years, but smoke from nuclear fires would last a decade. Killing Frosts in Summer The climatic response to the
smoke was surprising. Sunlight was immediately reduced, cooling the planet to temperatures lower
than any experienced for the past 1,000 years. The global average cooling, of about 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees
Fahrenheit), lasted for several years, and even after 10 years the temperature was still 0.5 degree C colder than normal. The models also
showed a 10 percent reduction in precipitation worldwide. Precipitation, river flow and soil moisture all decreased
because blocking sunlight reduces evaporation and weakens the hydrologic cycle. Drought was largely
concentrated in the lower latitudes, however, because global cooling would retard the Hadley air circulation
pattern in the tropics, which produces a large fraction of global precipitation. In critical areas such as
the Asian monsoon regions, rainfall dropped by as much as 40 percent. The cooling might not seem
like much, but even a small dip can cause severe consequences. Cooling and diminished sunlight
would, for example, shorten growing seasons in the midlatitudes. More insight into the effects of cooling came
from analyses of the aftermaths of massive volcanic eruptions. Every once in a while such eruptions produce temporary cooling for a
year or two. The largest of the past 500 years, the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia, blotted the sun
and produced global cooling of about 0.5 degree C for a year; 1816 became known as "The Year
2. Even if they win it kills the same amount, key timeframe distinction; their evidence says
poverty kills equal people every fifteen years, compared to a number of days of nuclear
weapons scouring the earth’s surface and transforming everything into hellfire; nuclear
war is infinitely more destructive.
3. Removing the state is a prerequisite to stopping poverty – their author
Abu-Jamal, 98 (Mumia, 9/19/98, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” JPL)
They did not lose because landowners were immune to burning and preaching and rioting. They
lost because the usurpations
of owners were regularly defended by the legal authority and the armed force of the state. It was the
state that imposed increased taxes or enforced the payment of increased rents, and evicted or jailed
those who could not pay the resulting debts. It was the state that made lawful the appropriation by
landowners of the forests, streams, and commons, and imposed terrifying penalties on those who
persisted in claiming the old rights to these resources. It was the state that freed serfs or emancipated
sharecroppers only to leave them landless. (52) The "Law", then, was a tool of the powerful to protect
their interests, then, as now. It was a weapon against the poor and impoverished, then, as now. It punished retail
violence, while turning a blind eye to the wholesale violence daily done by their class masters . The law
was, and is, a tool of state power, utilized to protect the status quo, no matter how oppressive that status was, or is.
Systems are essentially ways of doing things that have concretized into tradition, and custom, without regard to the rightness of those
ways. No system that causes this kind of harm to people should be allowed to remain, based solely upon its time in existence. Systems
must serve life, or be discarded as a threat and a danger to life. Such systems must pass away, so that their great and terrible violence
passes away with them.
4. All of their masking and invisibility arguments are amplified when dealing with
existential risk; it’s irreversible and lack of experience means we can’t fully comprehend it
,Dowling High School 3
Langel File Title
Bostrom 2 (Nick Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Yale.. www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html.)
Risks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it is useful to distinguish them
from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms, either biologically or culturally, for managing such risks. Our
intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous animals,
hostile individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World
War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred many times and
our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to
the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even
the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life. They haven’t significantly
affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined the long-term fate of our species. With the
exception of a species-destroying comet or asteroid impact (an extremely rare occurrence), there were probably no significant existential
risks in human history until the mid-twentieth century, and certainly none that it was within our power to do something about. The
first manmade existential risk was the inaugural detonation of an atomic bomb. At the time, there was some concern that
the explosion might start a runaway chain-reaction by “igniting” the atmosphere. Although we now know that such an outcome was
physically impossible, it qualifies as an existential risk that was present at the time. For there to be a risk, given the knowledge and
understanding available, it suffices that there is some subjective probability of an adverse outcome, even if it later turns out that
objectively there was no chance of something bad happening. If we don’t know whether something is objectively risky or
not, then it is risky in the subjective sense. The subjective sense is of course what we must base our decisions on.[2]At any given
time we must use our best current subjective estimate of what the objective risk factors are.[3]A much greater existential risk
emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial
probability and with consequences that mighthave been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry
among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might
annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used
in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear
arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would
not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to
be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the
existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century . The special nature of the challenges posed by existential
risks is illustrated by the following points: Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-
error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach – see what happens, limit
damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This
requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the
costs (moral and economic) of such actions. We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national
security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a different kind of beast.
We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed
such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat. Reductions in existential
risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for
everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to
take countermeasures against a major existential risk. If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the
harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we
discount future benefits [15,16]. In view of its undeniable importance, it is surprising how little systematic work has been done in this
area. Part of the explanation may be that many of the gravest risks stem (as we shall see) from anticipated future
technologies that we have only recently begun to understand. Another part of the explanation may be the unavoidably
interdisciplinary and speculative nature of the subject. And in part the neglect may also be attributable to an aversion against thinking
seriously about a depressing topic. The point, however, is not to wallow in gloom and doom but simply to take a sober
look at what could go wrong so we can create responsible strategies for improving our chances of
survival. In order to do that, we need to know where to focus our efforts.
A2: Moral Obligation
1. The warrant in their cards is that poverty is a moral obligation because lots of people
suffer and die. That’s it. They don’t have a single piece of evidence that compares poverty
with extinction. Their evidence that says we should act regardless of consequences doesn’t
assume that those consequences result in more people being killed.
2. Moral obligation to prevent nuclear war regardless of probability
Schell, 82, professor at Wesleyan University , 1982 (Jonathan, , former writer and editor at the New Yorker, “The Fate of the Earth,” pg. 93-
94)
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, Dowling High School 4
Langel File Title
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which we are as yet unaware, may be severe, that the ecosphere may suffer catastrophic breakdown,
and that our species may be extinguished. We are left with uncertainty, and are forced to make our
decisions in a state of uncertainty. If we wish to act to save our species, we have to muster our resolve
in spite of our awareness that the life of the species may not now in fact be jeopardized. Ont h
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significance that is categorically different from, and immeasurably greater than, that of any other risk,
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A2: Poverty Bad – Terrorism
The level of political freedom of a country effects terrorism, not economic standing
Connelly, 8 Erin Connelly, 12/2/08, research coordinator at the Helfgott Research Institute at the National College of Natural Medicine,
“Is Poverty linked to Terrorism?”, http://www.globalenvision.org/2008/12/02/poverty-linked-terrorism
Back in 2002, the general consensus was that poverty relief efforts could be a leading tactic in the fight
against terror. Since then, however, a number of researchers have taken issue with this correlation, starting
with the fact that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by middle-to-upper-class men. (A 2003 paper
suggests that terrorist groups may recruit well-educated, well-off members because they can blend into their
Western targets.) Harvard professor Alberto Abadie ties the rate of terror events to a nation's political
freedom as well as its size, elevation and weather — but not its economic status.
Political rights in a country gauges the level of terrorism
Lozada, 5 Carlos Lozada, associate editor at Foreign Policy Magazine, 05/2005, “Does Poverty Cause Terrorism?”,
http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/printit?uri=/digest/may05/w10859.html
Langel File Title
Poverty Good 2.0
Well this is awkward
this was gonna be my thing for the team for Westside to make up for not getting my impact d part of the assignment
done b/c I had mba shit to do; chose this file specifically b/c a lot of the Nebraska affs are about poverty and stuff,
but now there’s only 2 teams going. so I guess you can still use this anyways but the purpose kinda got irked
***Defense***
A2: Abu-Jamal / Gilligan
1. Wrong – their evidence doesn’t apply because it specifies as many people die “as in a
nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths,” not any nuclear war in general. Further,
nuclear war kills everything. This isn’t propaganda, it’s the world’s best computer models
Toon and Robock 10, Toon: chair of the Dept of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member of the Laboratory for Atmospheric
and Space Physics at the University of Colorado @ Boulder. Robock is a Proff of atmospheric science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
New Jersey Local Nuclear War, Global Suffering; January 2010; Scientific American Magazine; 8 Page(s),
http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ISSUEID_CHAR=944156A6-237D-9F22-
E8E572150DCA8E65&ARTICLEID_CHAR=97CA0A88-237D-9F22-E861FD76EBEE2611)
Twenty-five years ago international teams of scientists showed that a nuclear war between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union could produce a “nuclear winter.” The smoke from vast fires started by bombs dropped on cities and
industrial areas would envelop the planet and absorb so much sunlight that the earth’s surface would get
cold, dark and dry, killing plants worldwide and eliminating our food supply. Surface temperatures
would reach winter values in the summer. International discussion about this prediction, fueled largely by astronomer Carl Sagan, forced
the leaders of the two superpowers to confront the possibility that their arms race endangered not just themselves but the entire human
race. Countries large and small demanded disarmament. Nuclear winter became an important factor in ending the nuclear arms race.
Looking back later, in 2000, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev observed, “ Models made by Russian and
American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be
extremely destructive to all life on earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and
morality, to act.” Why discuss this topic now that the cold war has ended? Because as other nations continue to acquire nuclear weapons,
smaller, regional nuclear wars could create a similar global catastrophe. New analyses reveal that a conflict between India and Pakistan,
for example, in which 100 nuclear bombs were dropped on cities and industrial areas--only 0.4 percent of the world's more
than 25,000 warheads--would produce enough smoke to cripple global agriculture. A regional war
could cause widespread loss of life even in countries far away from the conflict. Regional War Threatens the
World By deploying modern computers and modern climate models, the two of us and our colleagues have
shown that not only were the ideas of the 1980s correct but the effects would last for at least 10 years,
much longer than previously thought. And by doing calculations that assess decades of time, only now possible with
fast, current computers, and by including in our calculations the oceans and the entire
atmosphere--also only now possible--we have found that the smoke from even a regional war would be
heated and lofted by the sun and remain suspended in the upper atmosphere for years, continuing to
block sunlight and to cool the earth. India and Pakistan, which together have more than 100 nuclear weapons, may be the
most worrisome adversaries capable of a regional nuclear conflict today. But other countries besides the U.S. and Russia (which have
thousands) are well endowed: China, France and the U.K. have hundreds of nuclear warheads; Israel has more than 80, North Korea has
about 10 and Iran may well be trying to make its own. In 2004 this situation prompted one of us (Toon) and later Rich Turco of the
University of California, Los Angeles, both veterans of the 1980s investigations, to begin evaluating what the global environmental
effects of a regional nuclear war would be and to take as our test case an engagement between India and Pakistan. The latest estimates
by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense
Council are that India has 50 to 60 assembled weapons (with enough plutonium for 100) and that Pakistan has 60 weapons. Both
countries continue to increase their arsenals. Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests indicate that the yield of the warheads would be
similar to the 15-kiloton explosive yield (equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT) of the bomb the U.S. used on Hiroshima. Toon and Turco,
along with Charles Bardeen, now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, modeled what would happen if 50 Hiroshima-size
bombs were dropped across the highest population-density targets in Pakistan and if 50 similar bombs were also dropped across India.
Some people maintain that nuclear weapons would be used in only a measured way. But in the wake of chaos, fear and broken
communications that would occur once a nuclear war began, we doubt leaders would limit attacks in any rational manner. This
likelihood is particularly true for Pakistan, which is small and could be quickly overrun in a conventional conflict. Peter R. Lavoy of the
,Dowling High School 2
Langel File Title
Naval Postgraduate School, for example, has analyzed the ways in which a conflict between India and Pakistan might occur and argues
that Pakistan could face a decision to use all its nuclear arsenal quickly before India swamps its military bases with traditional forces.
Obviously, we hope the number of nuclear targets in any future war will be zero, but policy makers and voters should know what is
possible. Toon and Turco found that more than 20 million people in the two countries could die from the blasts, fires and radioactivity--a
horrible slaughter. But the investigators were shocked to discover that a tremendous amount of smoke would be generated, given the
megacities in the two countries, assuming each fire would burn the same area that actually did burn in Hiroshima and assuming an
amount of burnable material per person based on various studies. They calculated that the 50 bombs exploded in Pakistan would produce
three teragrams of smoke, and the 50 bombs hitting India would generate four (one teragram equals a million metric tons). Satellite
observations of actual forest fires have shown that smoke can be lofted up through the troposphere (the bottom layer of the atmosphere)
and sometimes then into the lower stratosphere (the layer just above, extending to about 30 miles). Toon and Turco also did some "back
of the envelope" calculations of the possible climate impact of the smoke should it enter the stratosphere. The large magnitude of such
effects made them realize they needed help from a climate modeler. It turned out that one of us (Robock) was already working with
Luke Oman, now at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who was finishing his Ph.D. at Rutgers University on the climatic effects
of volcanic eruptions, and with Georgiy L. Stenchikov, also at Rutgers and an author of the first Russian work on nuclear winter. They
developed a climate model that could be used fairly easily for the nuclear blast calculations. Robock and his colleagues, being
conservative, put five teragrams of smoke into their modeled upper troposphere over India and Pakistan on an imaginary May 15. The
model calculated how winds would blow the smoke around the world and how the smoke particles would settle out from the atmosphere.
The smoke covered all the continents within two weeks. The black, sooty smoke absorbed sunlight, warmed and rose into the
stratosphere. Rain never falls there, so the air is never cleansed by precipitation; particles very slowly settle out by falling, with air
resisting them. Soot particles are small, with an average diameter of only 0.1 micron (μm), and so drift down very slowly. They also rise
during the daytime as they are heated by the sun, repeatedly delaying their elimination. The calculations showed that the smoke would
reach far higher into the upper stratosphere than the sulfate particles that are produced by episodic volcanic eruptions. Sulfate particles
are transparent and absorb much less sunlight than soot and are also bigger, typically 0.5 μm. The volcanic particles remain airborne for
about two years, but smoke from nuclear fires would last a decade. Killing Frosts in Summer The climatic response to the
smoke was surprising. Sunlight was immediately reduced, cooling the planet to temperatures lower
than any experienced for the past 1,000 years. The global average cooling, of about 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees
Fahrenheit), lasted for several years, and even after 10 years the temperature was still 0.5 degree C colder than normal. The models also
showed a 10 percent reduction in precipitation worldwide. Precipitation, river flow and soil moisture all decreased
because blocking sunlight reduces evaporation and weakens the hydrologic cycle. Drought was largely
concentrated in the lower latitudes, however, because global cooling would retard the Hadley air circulation
pattern in the tropics, which produces a large fraction of global precipitation. In critical areas such as
the Asian monsoon regions, rainfall dropped by as much as 40 percent. The cooling might not seem
like much, but even a small dip can cause severe consequences. Cooling and diminished sunlight
would, for example, shorten growing seasons in the midlatitudes. More insight into the effects of cooling came
from analyses of the aftermaths of massive volcanic eruptions. Every once in a while such eruptions produce temporary cooling for a
year or two. The largest of the past 500 years, the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia, blotted the sun
and produced global cooling of about 0.5 degree C for a year; 1816 became known as "The Year
2. Even if they win it kills the same amount, key timeframe distinction; their evidence says
poverty kills equal people every fifteen years, compared to a number of days of nuclear
weapons scouring the earth’s surface and transforming everything into hellfire; nuclear
war is infinitely more destructive.
3. Removing the state is a prerequisite to stopping poverty – their author
Abu-Jamal, 98 (Mumia, 9/19/98, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” JPL)
They did not lose because landowners were immune to burning and preaching and rioting. They
lost because the usurpations
of owners were regularly defended by the legal authority and the armed force of the state. It was the
state that imposed increased taxes or enforced the payment of increased rents, and evicted or jailed
those who could not pay the resulting debts. It was the state that made lawful the appropriation by
landowners of the forests, streams, and commons, and imposed terrifying penalties on those who
persisted in claiming the old rights to these resources. It was the state that freed serfs or emancipated
sharecroppers only to leave them landless. (52) The "Law", then, was a tool of the powerful to protect
their interests, then, as now. It was a weapon against the poor and impoverished, then, as now. It punished retail
violence, while turning a blind eye to the wholesale violence daily done by their class masters . The law
was, and is, a tool of state power, utilized to protect the status quo, no matter how oppressive that status was, or is.
Systems are essentially ways of doing things that have concretized into tradition, and custom, without regard to the rightness of those
ways. No system that causes this kind of harm to people should be allowed to remain, based solely upon its time in existence. Systems
must serve life, or be discarded as a threat and a danger to life. Such systems must pass away, so that their great and terrible violence
passes away with them.
4. All of their masking and invisibility arguments are amplified when dealing with
existential risk; it’s irreversible and lack of experience means we can’t fully comprehend it
,Dowling High School 3
Langel File Title
Bostrom 2 (Nick Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Yale.. www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html.)
Risks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it is useful to distinguish them
from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms, either biologically or culturally, for managing such risks. Our
intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous animals,
hostile individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World
War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred many times and
our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to
the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even
the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life. They haven’t significantly
affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined the long-term fate of our species. With the
exception of a species-destroying comet or asteroid impact (an extremely rare occurrence), there were probably no significant existential
risks in human history until the mid-twentieth century, and certainly none that it was within our power to do something about. The
first manmade existential risk was the inaugural detonation of an atomic bomb. At the time, there was some concern that
the explosion might start a runaway chain-reaction by “igniting” the atmosphere. Although we now know that such an outcome was
physically impossible, it qualifies as an existential risk that was present at the time. For there to be a risk, given the knowledge and
understanding available, it suffices that there is some subjective probability of an adverse outcome, even if it later turns out that
objectively there was no chance of something bad happening. If we don’t know whether something is objectively risky or
not, then it is risky in the subjective sense. The subjective sense is of course what we must base our decisions on.[2]At any given
time we must use our best current subjective estimate of what the objective risk factors are.[3]A much greater existential risk
emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial
probability and with consequences that mighthave been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry
among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might
annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used
in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear
arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would
not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to
be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the
existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century . The special nature of the challenges posed by existential
risks is illustrated by the following points: Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-
error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach – see what happens, limit
damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This
requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the
costs (moral and economic) of such actions. We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national
security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a different kind of beast.
We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed
such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat. Reductions in existential
risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for
everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to
take countermeasures against a major existential risk. If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the
harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we
discount future benefits [15,16]. In view of its undeniable importance, it is surprising how little systematic work has been done in this
area. Part of the explanation may be that many of the gravest risks stem (as we shall see) from anticipated future
technologies that we have only recently begun to understand. Another part of the explanation may be the unavoidably
interdisciplinary and speculative nature of the subject. And in part the neglect may also be attributable to an aversion against thinking
seriously about a depressing topic. The point, however, is not to wallow in gloom and doom but simply to take a sober
look at what could go wrong so we can create responsible strategies for improving our chances of
survival. In order to do that, we need to know where to focus our efforts.
A2: Moral Obligation
1. The warrant in their cards is that poverty is a moral obligation because lots of people
suffer and die. That’s it. They don’t have a single piece of evidence that compares poverty
with extinction. Their evidence that says we should act regardless of consequences doesn’t
assume that those consequences result in more people being killed.
2. Moral obligation to prevent nuclear war regardless of probability
Schell, 82, professor at Wesleyan University , 1982 (Jonathan, , former writer and editor at the New Yorker, “The Fate of the Earth,” pg. 93-
94)
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, Dowling High School 4
Langel File Title
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holocaust, that the adversaries may use all their weapons, that the global effects, including effects of
which we are as yet unaware, may be severe, that the ecosphere may suffer catastrophic breakdown,
and that our species may be extinguished. We are left with uncertainty, and are forced to make our
decisions in a state of uncertainty. If we wish to act to save our species, we have to muster our resolve
in spite of our awareness that the life of the species may not now in fact be jeopardized. Ont h
eo t
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we wish to ignore the peril, we have to admit that we do so in the knowledge that the species may be in
danger of imminent self-destruction. Whent heex
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the energy in mass—of "the basic power of the universe"—and of a means by which man could release
that energy altered the relationship between man and the source of his life, t h
ee a
rt
h. In the shadow of
this power, the earth became small and the life of the human species doubtful. In that sense, the
question of human extinction has been on the political agenda of the world ever since the first nuclear
weapon was detonated, andt her
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uncertainty, which is to say the zone of risk of extinction. But the mere risk of extinction has a
significance that is categorically different from, and immeasurably greater than, that of any other risk,
and as we make our decisions we have to take that significance into account. Up to now, every risk has
been contained within the frame of life; extinction would shatter the frame. It represents nothedef eato
f
somep ur
pos
eb utan abyss in which all human purposes would be drowned for all time. We have no right to
place the possibility of this limitless, eternal defeat on the same footing as risks that we run in the
ordinary conduct of our affairs i nourpar
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a fraction of infinity is still infinity. I
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we have no right to gamble, because if we lose, the game will be over, and neither we nor anyone else
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to our species. I
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A2: Poverty Bad – Terrorism
The level of political freedom of a country effects terrorism, not economic standing
Connelly, 8 Erin Connelly, 12/2/08, research coordinator at the Helfgott Research Institute at the National College of Natural Medicine,
“Is Poverty linked to Terrorism?”, http://www.globalenvision.org/2008/12/02/poverty-linked-terrorism
Back in 2002, the general consensus was that poverty relief efforts could be a leading tactic in the fight
against terror. Since then, however, a number of researchers have taken issue with this correlation, starting
with the fact that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by middle-to-upper-class men. (A 2003 paper
suggests that terrorist groups may recruit well-educated, well-off members because they can blend into their
Western targets.) Harvard professor Alberto Abadie ties the rate of terror events to a nation's political
freedom as well as its size, elevation and weather — but not its economic status.
Political rights in a country gauges the level of terrorism
Lozada, 5 Carlos Lozada, associate editor at Foreign Policy Magazine, 05/2005, “Does Poverty Cause Terrorism?”,
http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/printit?uri=/digest/may05/w10859.html
