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Give me my head please, Rexton, I'll pay 600k...
(Was on a prison server and someone got my head.)
Paste What You Last Copied
- Thread starter PinkStr3ak
- Start date
ThatOnePeanutGuy
Well-Known Member
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
(I had to know.)
(I had to know.)
I just played Good Time with Smule's Magic Piano! http://www.smule.com/p/135076563_66283501 omg i messed up so bad near the end lol............................IDEFK
Yeah... Policy debate, while very fun, takes a lot of work.
Offshore Wind Negative
Offshore Wind Negative. 64
1NC Frontline: Inherency [1/1]. 65
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [1/3]. 66
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [2/3]. 67
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [3/3]. 68
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [1/2]. 69
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [2/2]. 70
1NC Frontline: Solvency [1/1]. 71
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Climate #1 [1/1]. 72
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Climate #2 [1/1]. 73
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #1 [1/1]. 74
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #2 [1/1]. 75
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #3 [1/1]. 76
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Solvency #1 [1/1]. 77
1NC Frontline: Inherency [1/1]
1. Wind energy is rapidly expanding in the status quo
AWEA 2014
[The American Wind Energy Assc. AWEA is the national trade association of the U.S. wind energy industry, with 1,000 member companies, including global leaders in wind power and energy development, wind turbine manufacturing, component and service suppliers. “American wind power sees unprecedented growth entering 2014. Largest-ever crop of wind farms under construction, building U.S. industry’s momentum” 1/30/14 http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=6044]
The American wind energy industry responded to the extension of the Production Tax Credit in 2013 by starting construction on an historic and unprecedented number of new wind farms, backed by Power Purchase Agreements with electric utilities on a record scale by the close of the year.¶ “These results show the Production Tax Credit continues to be an effective and efficient policy, driving billions of dollars in private investment into our economy, fostering a new U.S. manufacturing sector, and creating economic benefits for communities across America,” said AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released its U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2013 Market Report¶ The record growth for wind energy at the end of 2013 resulted not only from the extension of the Production Tax Credit (which provides up-front tax relief of 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of a project), but also from investments in technological advancements that have driven down the cost of wind energy by 43 percent in just four years. “Our current growth demonstrates how powerful the tax credit is at incentivizing investment in wind energy,” Kiernan said. “Now it’s up to Congress to ensure that growth continues by extending this highly successful policy.”¶ Highlights from the U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2013 Market Report include:¶ At the end of 2013 there were more U.S. wind power megawatts(MW) under construction than ever in history: Over 12,000 MW of new generating capacity was under construction, with a record-breaking 10,900 MW starting construction activity during the fourth quarter. The wind projects under construction could power the equivalent of 3.5 million American homes, or all the households in Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.¶ A record number of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) were signed in 2013. At least 60 PPAs for nearly 8,000 MW were signed by utilities and corporate purchasers, of which 5,200 MW have not yet started construction.¶ Some of the states poised for major growth in wind energy in coming years include Texas, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and Michigan.¶ There are now over 5,600 MW of turbine orders placed, with major manufacturing facilities active in places such as Colorado, Kansas, Iowa and South Dakota.¶ U.S. manufacturing production capacity has ramped up dramatically, and the largest turbine order in history of the U.S. wind industry was placed in the Fourth Quarter.¶ The start of 2013 for the wind industry was slowed by uncertainty over the Production Tax Credit, which was allowed to expire momentarily on Dec. 31, then extended the next day by Congress and signed back into law on Jan. 2 as part of the fiscal cliff deal.¶ Historically when the PTC has been allowed to expire, the U.S. industry has faced a 70 to 95 percent drop-off in installations; in 2013, that drop-off amounted to a 92 percent reduction in new wind generating capacity brought online. That dropped from the record 13,131 MW of new capacity installed in 2012, to just 1,084 MW in 2013, a pattern that could repeat unless Congress acts.¶ But the industry quickly rebounded, signing a record number of Power Purchase Agreements and getting projects under construction in the fourth quarter. Of the 1,084 MW of new wind farms installed in 12 states plus Puerto Rico last year, 1,012 MW were completed in the Fourth Quarter.¶ The momentum and excitement toward the end of 2013 will carry over into 2014, as factories fill orders for turbines and construction continues at wind farms, but uncertainty over the tax policy again looms and will deter new project development.
2. Inherency is a voting issue because it’s a stock issue that the affirmative must meet, and because if the status quo includes the plan then the negative is unable to argue in favor of no change.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [1/3]
1. Wind power’s not key to the economy
IER 2011
[11/14/2011, Institute for Energy Research, “Rebutting Ms. Bode’s Wind Comments,” http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/11/14/rebutting-bodes-20-percent-by-2030/]
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the number of wind manufacturing jobs has remained relatively flat over the past 3 years at an estimated 20,000 jobs. (See chart below.) The majority of the 75,000 jobs (60 percent) that Ms. Bode quotes are in finance and consulting services, contracting and engineering services, and transportation and logistics. Only 3,500 jobs were in construction and 4,000 in operations and maintenance in 2010.¶ Wind turbine manufacturing is responsible for a very small share (less than 1 percent) of the total manufacturing jobs (11.5 million) in the United States in 2010. According to the DOE report that evaluated the 20 percent wind energy in 2030, turbine assembly and component plants would supply about 32,000 manufacturing jobs in 2026. But the American Wind Energy Association’s assessment is that the number would be 3 to 4 times that amount under a long-term stable policy environment. As CRS notes, the real number will be dependent not only on the demand for wind, but also on corporate decisions of where to produce the needed components. Those decisions could very well result in manufacturing jobs outside of the United States. As CRS notes, imports of wind generating equipment increased from $482.5 million in 2005 to $2.5 billion in 2008, held at $2.3 billion in 2009 and decreased to $1.2 billion in 2010 due to lower relative demand for new wind energy, declining prices, and new manufacturing plants in the United States. While European suppliers were the leaders in wind equipment imports to the United States, South Korea and China are now becoming players in the U.S. market.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [2/3]
2. The United States is not key to the global economy – other nations matter more
Keane 2014
[Tom Keane writes regularly for the Globe. He was a Boston city councilor from 1994 to 1999. “World economy no longer hangs on the US.” 4/13/14. http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...onger-hangs/GRC0rfo0QP2YT5q4qpFw8L/story.html ]
When the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. And when America recovers, the planet has a spring in its step. Or so it used to be.¶ For decades, that metaphor had seemed an accurate description of the global economy. The old USSR may have once shared superpower status with the United States, but that was a function of nuclear weapons, a well-armed military, and a bombastic attitude. When it came to economic matters, however, there had been — at least since World War II’s end — only one true superpower. If that superpower was doing well, its success lifted the rest of the world. If it hit a recession, the world would suffer. That shouldn’t surprise. The United States had by far the biggest slice of the global pie. If Americans weren’t buying, then no one else was selling.¶ In 2008, the United States did more than sneeze. As the Great Recession unfolded and financial markets threatened collapse, it appeared to some that a near-fatal illness had struck the country. And sure enough, the rest of the world had it tough, too. Global economic growth fell. Some countries — notably China — continued to perform well, but most everyone else was hit hard.¶ Now, however, it appears that America is getting back on its feet, its economy about to surge. Granted, we’ve heard this story before. The recession officially ended in June 2009, according the National Bureau of Economic Research. But growth since then has been anemic, with stubbornly high unemployment, tepid job creation, and largely flat incomes. But — really! — 2014 promises to be different. The March jobs report, for example, showed 192,000 new positions created. The US economy seems to be emerging from its winter doldrums, shaking off government shutdowns, sequestration, and tax hikes. Economists from all over the spectrum increasingly agree that this year should be a good year.¶ So now that the United States appears poised to bounce back, does the world bounce back as well?¶ The International Monetary Fund says yes — it expects the US revival to translate to global revival. The fund’s World Economic Outlook, just released this month, figures worldwide economic activity will grow in 2014 by 3.6 percent (up from 2013’s 3.0 percent) and in 2015 by 3.9 percent. “Much of the impetus” for that, the IMF says, is “coming from advanced economies” — namely, the United States.¶ So the metaphor still holds. We matter. We really do matter. But perhaps not as much as we once did.¶ The US economy is big, but relatively speaking, not as big as it once was. Thirty years ago, America accounted for one-quarter of world output. Today it’s down to one-fifth. That’s a meaningful change. Back then we were rich, and everyone else was much less so. Now those countries — especially China — have gotten better off. (In fact, China, with a 15 percent share of global output, is now the second biggest economy in the world.)
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [3/3]
3. Economic decline doesn’t result in conflict
Brandt and Ulfelder 2011
[Patrick T. Brandt, Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. **Jay Ulfelder, Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, is an American political scientist whose research interests include democratization, civil unrest, and violent conflict, April, 2011, “Economic Growth and Political Instability,” Social Science Research Network)]
These statements anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis of 2008–2010 reflect a widely held view that economic growth has rapid and profound effects on countries’ political stability. When economies grow at a healthy clip, citizens are presumed to be too busy and too content to engage in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with revenues they can use to enhance their own stability by producing public goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit. When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies alike are presumed to grow frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to respond effectively. The expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil war, coup attempts, and regime breakdown. Although it is pervasive, the assumption that countries’ economic growth rates strongly affect their political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from social science research to date does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars, coups d’etat, and transitions to and from democracy often specify slow economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but empirical studies on the effects of economic growth on these phenomena have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic growth on the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been studied in recent years, as empirical analysis of contentious collective action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of protest and repression. This paper helps fill that gap by rigorously re-examining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the occurrence of several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over the past few decades. In this paper, we do not seek to develop and test new theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful empirical scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a broad sense. In effect, we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects from economic growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the relationship between political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours is the first statistical study of this relationship to simultaneously address the possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity. As such, we believe this paper offers what is probably the most rigorous general evaluation of this argument to date. As the results show, some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional assumptions, we find that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of slow economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and results from our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted claim that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy. While we would hardly pretend to have the last word on any of these relationships, our findings do suggest that the relationship between economic growth and political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the conventional wisdom(s) presume(s). We think these findings also help explain why the global recession of 2008–2010 has failed thus far to produce the wave of coups and regime failures that some observers had anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest associated with the crisis.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [1/2]
1. Wind power doesn’t solve climate change – it risks making the problem worse
Lea 2012
[Ruth. Director and Economic Advisor at the Arbuthnot Banking Group. “Electricity Costs: The Folly of Wind Power” 2012 http://www.civitas.org.uk/economy/electricitycosts2012.pdf]
Wind-power is not effective in cutting CO 2 emissions ¶ At first glance it could be assumed that wind-power could play a major part in cutting CO 2 emissions. Once the turbines are manufactured (an energy-intensive business in itself) and installed then emissions associated with the electricity could be expected to be zero - as indeed for nuclear power.¶ But, as pointed out in chapter 2, wind-power is unreliable and intermittent and requires conventional back-up plant to provide electricity when the wind is either blowing at very low speeds (or not at all) or with uncontrolled variability (intermittency). Clearly the CO 2 emissions associated with using back-up capacity must be regarded as an intrinsic aspect of deploying wind turbines. This is all the more relevant given the relatively high CO2 emissions from conventional plants when they are used in a back-up capacity. ¶ As energy consultant David White has written:5¶ “... (fossil -fuelled) capacity is placed under particular strains when working in this supporting role because it is being used to balance a reasonably predictable but fluctuating demand with a variable and largely unpredictable output from wind turbines. Consequently, operating fossil capacity in this mode generates more CO2 per kWh generated than if operating normally.”¶ “... it seems reasonable to ask why wind-power is the beneficiary of such extensive support if it not only fails to achieve the CO2 reductions required, but also causes cost increases in back-up, maintenance and transmission, while at the same time discouraging investment in clean, firm generation.” 6 In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. 7,8 Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power.
Offshore Wind Negative. 64
1NC Frontline: Inherency [1/1]. 65
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [1/3]. 66
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [2/3]. 67
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [3/3]. 68
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [1/2]. 69
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [2/2]. 70
1NC Frontline: Solvency [1/1]. 71
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Climate #1 [1/1]. 72
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Climate #2 [1/1]. 73
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #1 [1/1]. 74
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #2 [1/1]. 75
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Harms – Economy #3 [1/1]. 76
2NC / 1NR Extensions: Solvency #1 [1/1]. 77
1NC Frontline: Inherency [1/1]
1. Wind energy is rapidly expanding in the status quo
AWEA 2014
[The American Wind Energy Assc. AWEA is the national trade association of the U.S. wind energy industry, with 1,000 member companies, including global leaders in wind power and energy development, wind turbine manufacturing, component and service suppliers. “American wind power sees unprecedented growth entering 2014. Largest-ever crop of wind farms under construction, building U.S. industry’s momentum” 1/30/14 http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=6044]
The American wind energy industry responded to the extension of the Production Tax Credit in 2013 by starting construction on an historic and unprecedented number of new wind farms, backed by Power Purchase Agreements with electric utilities on a record scale by the close of the year.¶ “These results show the Production Tax Credit continues to be an effective and efficient policy, driving billions of dollars in private investment into our economy, fostering a new U.S. manufacturing sector, and creating economic benefits for communities across America,” said AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released its U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2013 Market Report¶ The record growth for wind energy at the end of 2013 resulted not only from the extension of the Production Tax Credit (which provides up-front tax relief of 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of a project), but also from investments in technological advancements that have driven down the cost of wind energy by 43 percent in just four years. “Our current growth demonstrates how powerful the tax credit is at incentivizing investment in wind energy,” Kiernan said. “Now it’s up to Congress to ensure that growth continues by extending this highly successful policy.”¶ Highlights from the U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2013 Market Report include:¶ At the end of 2013 there were more U.S. wind power megawatts(MW) under construction than ever in history: Over 12,000 MW of new generating capacity was under construction, with a record-breaking 10,900 MW starting construction activity during the fourth quarter. The wind projects under construction could power the equivalent of 3.5 million American homes, or all the households in Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.¶ A record number of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) were signed in 2013. At least 60 PPAs for nearly 8,000 MW were signed by utilities and corporate purchasers, of which 5,200 MW have not yet started construction.¶ Some of the states poised for major growth in wind energy in coming years include Texas, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and Michigan.¶ There are now over 5,600 MW of turbine orders placed, with major manufacturing facilities active in places such as Colorado, Kansas, Iowa and South Dakota.¶ U.S. manufacturing production capacity has ramped up dramatically, and the largest turbine order in history of the U.S. wind industry was placed in the Fourth Quarter.¶ The start of 2013 for the wind industry was slowed by uncertainty over the Production Tax Credit, which was allowed to expire momentarily on Dec. 31, then extended the next day by Congress and signed back into law on Jan. 2 as part of the fiscal cliff deal.¶ Historically when the PTC has been allowed to expire, the U.S. industry has faced a 70 to 95 percent drop-off in installations; in 2013, that drop-off amounted to a 92 percent reduction in new wind generating capacity brought online. That dropped from the record 13,131 MW of new capacity installed in 2012, to just 1,084 MW in 2013, a pattern that could repeat unless Congress acts.¶ But the industry quickly rebounded, signing a record number of Power Purchase Agreements and getting projects under construction in the fourth quarter. Of the 1,084 MW of new wind farms installed in 12 states plus Puerto Rico last year, 1,012 MW were completed in the Fourth Quarter.¶ The momentum and excitement toward the end of 2013 will carry over into 2014, as factories fill orders for turbines and construction continues at wind farms, but uncertainty over the tax policy again looms and will deter new project development.
2. Inherency is a voting issue because it’s a stock issue that the affirmative must meet, and because if the status quo includes the plan then the negative is unable to argue in favor of no change.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [1/3]
1. Wind power’s not key to the economy
IER 2011
[11/14/2011, Institute for Energy Research, “Rebutting Ms. Bode’s Wind Comments,” http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/11/14/rebutting-bodes-20-percent-by-2030/]
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the number of wind manufacturing jobs has remained relatively flat over the past 3 years at an estimated 20,000 jobs. (See chart below.) The majority of the 75,000 jobs (60 percent) that Ms. Bode quotes are in finance and consulting services, contracting and engineering services, and transportation and logistics. Only 3,500 jobs were in construction and 4,000 in operations and maintenance in 2010.¶ Wind turbine manufacturing is responsible for a very small share (less than 1 percent) of the total manufacturing jobs (11.5 million) in the United States in 2010. According to the DOE report that evaluated the 20 percent wind energy in 2030, turbine assembly and component plants would supply about 32,000 manufacturing jobs in 2026. But the American Wind Energy Association’s assessment is that the number would be 3 to 4 times that amount under a long-term stable policy environment. As CRS notes, the real number will be dependent not only on the demand for wind, but also on corporate decisions of where to produce the needed components. Those decisions could very well result in manufacturing jobs outside of the United States. As CRS notes, imports of wind generating equipment increased from $482.5 million in 2005 to $2.5 billion in 2008, held at $2.3 billion in 2009 and decreased to $1.2 billion in 2010 due to lower relative demand for new wind energy, declining prices, and new manufacturing plants in the United States. While European suppliers were the leaders in wind equipment imports to the United States, South Korea and China are now becoming players in the U.S. market.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [2/3]
2. The United States is not key to the global economy – other nations matter more
Keane 2014
[Tom Keane writes regularly for the Globe. He was a Boston city councilor from 1994 to 1999. “World economy no longer hangs on the US.” 4/13/14. http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...onger-hangs/GRC0rfo0QP2YT5q4qpFw8L/story.html ]
When the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. And when America recovers, the planet has a spring in its step. Or so it used to be.¶ For decades, that metaphor had seemed an accurate description of the global economy. The old USSR may have once shared superpower status with the United States, but that was a function of nuclear weapons, a well-armed military, and a bombastic attitude. When it came to economic matters, however, there had been — at least since World War II’s end — only one true superpower. If that superpower was doing well, its success lifted the rest of the world. If it hit a recession, the world would suffer. That shouldn’t surprise. The United States had by far the biggest slice of the global pie. If Americans weren’t buying, then no one else was selling.¶ In 2008, the United States did more than sneeze. As the Great Recession unfolded and financial markets threatened collapse, it appeared to some that a near-fatal illness had struck the country. And sure enough, the rest of the world had it tough, too. Global economic growth fell. Some countries — notably China — continued to perform well, but most everyone else was hit hard.¶ Now, however, it appears that America is getting back on its feet, its economy about to surge. Granted, we’ve heard this story before. The recession officially ended in June 2009, according the National Bureau of Economic Research. But growth since then has been anemic, with stubbornly high unemployment, tepid job creation, and largely flat incomes. But — really! — 2014 promises to be different. The March jobs report, for example, showed 192,000 new positions created. The US economy seems to be emerging from its winter doldrums, shaking off government shutdowns, sequestration, and tax hikes. Economists from all over the spectrum increasingly agree that this year should be a good year.¶ So now that the United States appears poised to bounce back, does the world bounce back as well?¶ The International Monetary Fund says yes — it expects the US revival to translate to global revival. The fund’s World Economic Outlook, just released this month, figures worldwide economic activity will grow in 2014 by 3.6 percent (up from 2013’s 3.0 percent) and in 2015 by 3.9 percent. “Much of the impetus” for that, the IMF says, is “coming from advanced economies” — namely, the United States.¶ So the metaphor still holds. We matter. We really do matter. But perhaps not as much as we once did.¶ The US economy is big, but relatively speaking, not as big as it once was. Thirty years ago, America accounted for one-quarter of world output. Today it’s down to one-fifth. That’s a meaningful change. Back then we were rich, and everyone else was much less so. Now those countries — especially China — have gotten better off. (In fact, China, with a 15 percent share of global output, is now the second biggest economy in the world.)
1NC Frontline: Harms – Economy [3/3]
3. Economic decline doesn’t result in conflict
Brandt and Ulfelder 2011
[Patrick T. Brandt, Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. **Jay Ulfelder, Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, is an American political scientist whose research interests include democratization, civil unrest, and violent conflict, April, 2011, “Economic Growth and Political Instability,” Social Science Research Network)]
These statements anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis of 2008–2010 reflect a widely held view that economic growth has rapid and profound effects on countries’ political stability. When economies grow at a healthy clip, citizens are presumed to be too busy and too content to engage in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with revenues they can use to enhance their own stability by producing public goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit. When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies alike are presumed to grow frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to respond effectively. The expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil war, coup attempts, and regime breakdown. Although it is pervasive, the assumption that countries’ economic growth rates strongly affect their political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from social science research to date does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars, coups d’etat, and transitions to and from democracy often specify slow economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but empirical studies on the effects of economic growth on these phenomena have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic growth on the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been studied in recent years, as empirical analysis of contentious collective action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of protest and repression. This paper helps fill that gap by rigorously re-examining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the occurrence of several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over the past few decades. In this paper, we do not seek to develop and test new theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful empirical scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a broad sense. In effect, we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects from economic growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the relationship between political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours is the first statistical study of this relationship to simultaneously address the possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity. As such, we believe this paper offers what is probably the most rigorous general evaluation of this argument to date. As the results show, some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional assumptions, we find that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of slow economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and results from our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted claim that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy. While we would hardly pretend to have the last word on any of these relationships, our findings do suggest that the relationship between economic growth and political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the conventional wisdom(s) presume(s). We think these findings also help explain why the global recession of 2008–2010 has failed thus far to produce the wave of coups and regime failures that some observers had anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest associated with the crisis.
1NC Frontline: Harms – Climate [1/2]
1. Wind power doesn’t solve climate change – it risks making the problem worse
Lea 2012
[Ruth. Director and Economic Advisor at the Arbuthnot Banking Group. “Electricity Costs: The Folly of Wind Power” 2012 http://www.civitas.org.uk/economy/electricitycosts2012.pdf]
Wind-power is not effective in cutting CO 2 emissions ¶ At first glance it could be assumed that wind-power could play a major part in cutting CO 2 emissions. Once the turbines are manufactured (an energy-intensive business in itself) and installed then emissions associated with the electricity could be expected to be zero - as indeed for nuclear power.¶ But, as pointed out in chapter 2, wind-power is unreliable and intermittent and requires conventional back-up plant to provide electricity when the wind is either blowing at very low speeds (or not at all) or with uncontrolled variability (intermittency). Clearly the CO 2 emissions associated with using back-up capacity must be regarded as an intrinsic aspect of deploying wind turbines. This is all the more relevant given the relatively high CO2 emissions from conventional plants when they are used in a back-up capacity. ¶ As energy consultant David White has written:5¶ “... (fossil -fuelled) capacity is placed under particular strains when working in this supporting role because it is being used to balance a reasonably predictable but fluctuating demand with a variable and largely unpredictable output from wind turbines. Consequently, operating fossil capacity in this mode generates more CO2 per kWh generated than if operating normally.”¶ “... it seems reasonable to ask why wind-power is the beneficiary of such extensive support if it not only fails to achieve the CO2 reductions required, but also causes cost increases in back-up, maintenance and transmission, while at the same time discouraging investment in clean, firm generation.” 6 In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. 7,8 Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power.
Essentially, I have to underline and highlight important speaking points in a document that's around 10-20 times larger than that chunk of text (~30,000 words), all for a two hour debate on government policy. Fun.
inappropriate
--Was really tired and forgot how to spell inappropriate so I just searched it up and copied it..
--Was really tired and forgot how to spell inappropriate so I just searched it up and copied it..
D
Deleted member 8554
Guest
等 <- ETC. In Chinese ( I have a chinese keyboard on my iPad ;) )
Was listing something and added, the word is děng.
Was listing something and added, the word is děng.
Golygfeydd 21ain ganrif
My friend asked me what something was in Welsh, so I just google translated it instead of using the brain I'm meant to have.
My friend asked me what something was in Welsh, so I just google translated it instead of using the brain I'm meant to have.
Wow, Welsh people use numbers as letters?
Paste:
Give me my head please, Rexton, I'll pay 600k...
(Was on a prison server and someone got my head.)
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