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Our capacity to observe earth is diminishing now: current budget increases are insufficient to maintainand expand the development of environmental monitoring.Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space 2007 (National Research Council, Earth Science andApplications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11820.html)

The extensive scientific and societal contributions of the NOAA-NASA-USGS satellite observing capabilities are evidenced by the thousands of scientific publicationsand applications of the data for environmental forecasts, a record of accomplishment mentioned in Chapter 1 and detailed with numer- ous examples in Part III of this

report. As noted in Chapter 1, perhaps the largest impact of space-based observations to date has been improvedweather forecasting and the many societal benefits stemming from that capability (Hollingsworth et al., 2005). The NationalWeather Services current practice of providing 10 -day weather forecasts is a familiar reminder of the scientific gains made in the past decade. Space-basedobservations have also figured prominently in climate research (NRC, 2004). Factors that drive climate change are usefully separated into forcings and feedbacks. Aclimate forcing is an energy imbalance imposed on the climate system externally or by human activities. Examples include changes in solar energy output, volcanicemissions, deliberate land modification, and anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, aerosols, and their precursors. A climate feedback is an internal climateprocess that amplifies or dampens the climate response to a specific forcing. An example is the increase in atmospheric water vapor that is triggered by warming due torising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, which acts to further amplify the warming because of the greenhouse properties of water vapor. Observations of keyclimate forcings and feedbacks, diagnostics (e.g., temperature, sea level), and the consequences of climate change (e.g., sea ice decrease) have helped to identify

potentially dangerous changes in Earths climate. These observations have catalyzed climate research and enabled substantial improvements in climate models. In fact,these improvements have brought into existence a class of Earth system models1 that couple atmosphere, ocean, land, and cryosphere systems. These models not onlyprovide better estimates of spatially and temporally resolved patterns of climate change but also provide a basis for addressing other environmental challenges, such as

changes in biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen and the effects of these changes now and in the future (Figure 2.5). Despite these advances, theextraordinary foundation of global observations is in decline. Between 2006 and the end of the decade, the

number of operating sensors and instruments will likely decrease by around 40 percent, given that most satellites inNASAs current fleet are well past their nominal lifetimes. Furthermore , the replacement sensors on the National Polar-orbitingOperational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), when they exist, are generally less capable than their EOScounterparts. This decreased quantity of space-borne assets will persist into the early part of the next decade (seeFigures 2.3 and 2.4). Partly causing and certainly amplifying the observational collapse of space-based measurementsis the decline in NASAs Earth science budget. From 2000 to 2006, this part of NASAs budget decreased bymore than 30 percent when adjusted for inflation (Figure 2.6). This reduction, if it persists, translates to approximately $4 billion less to developEarth science missions over the next decade . That decrease could mean, for example, some 8 to 12 fewer space-basedresearch missions and perhaps $1 billion less for associated research and analysis. The NASA-NOAA EOSsatellite system, launched beginning in the late 1990s , is aging, and the existing plan for the future is entirely inadequateto meet the coming challenges. The NOAA budget has been growing (see Figure 2.7), but this growth is nowswamped by the large cost overruns in the NPOESS program. It also appears likely that the GOES-Rprogram will experience cost growth. 2 Completing even the descoped NPOESS program will require several billion dollars beyond thefunding planned as recently as December 2005.3 Thus, NPOESS represents a major lien on future budgets, one that is so great t hat the agencys ability toprovide observations in support of climate research or other noncore missions will be severely compromised. Among the many missions expected to cease overthe next few years, the committee has identified several in NOAA and NASA that are providing critical information now and that need to be sustained into the nextdecade both to continue important time series and to provide the foundation necessary for the recommended future observations. In NOAA, many observationalcapabilities need to be restored to NPOESS, but this topic must be considered as part of a reexamination of the logic, costs, and benefits of the current (September 2006)NPOESS and GOES-R plan. The reexamination of NPOESS and GOES-R will be conducted by a fast-track NRC study to be conducted and concluded in 2007. The

present committees analysis of the implications of NPOESS instrument descopes and cance llations is hampered by the absence of information about changes in keysensors. In particular, the Conical-Scanning Microwave Imager/Sounder (CMIS) instrument on NPOESS, which was to have provided continuity of records of sea-surface temperature and sea ice time series critical to global climate studies has been canceled, and the specifications for its replacement, the Microwave

Imager/Sounder (MIS), are not yet known.4 Similarly, the mitigation plan for the now-demanifested altimeter, ALT, is not yet known. The continuity of several measurements is of sufficient importance to climate research, ozone monitoring, or operationalweather systems to deserve immediate attention. Those for climate include total solar irradiance and Earth radiation; for ozone, ozonelimb sounding capability and total solar irradiance; and for weather, sea-surface vector winds and temperature and water vapor soundings fromgeostationary and polar orbits. As detailed in the committees interim report (NRC, 2005), the substitution of passive microwave sensor data for active scatterometrydata would worsen El Nio and hurricane forecasts and weather forecasts in coastal areas.5 Nevertheless, given the precarious status of existing surface windmeasurements,6 it is imperative that a measurement capability, such as the one on MetOp, be available to prevent a data gap when the NASA QuikSCAT missionterminates.
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GEOSS can address climate change data needs, but more US support is critically lacking.Lewis et. Al. 2010 ( James A., senior fellow and director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at CSIS; Sarah O. Ladislaw, CSIS SeniorFellow, Energy and National Security Program; and Denise E. Zheng, CSIS; Earth Observation for Climate Change: A Report of the CSIS Technology andPublic Policy Program, csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf)

GCOS, GEO, CEOS, and GEOSS have made valuable contributions to improving our ability to monitor climate

change, but they do not add up to a comprehensive approach for responding to climate challenges. In April 2009,the WMO released the Progress Report on the Implementation of the Global Observing System for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC 2004 2008.12 The reportconcludes that while implementation of observation systems in support of the UNFCCC has progressed significantly over thelast five years, sustaining the funding of many important systems is fragile, there has been only limitedprogress in filling observing system gaps in developing countries, and there is still a long way to go to achievea fully implemented global observing system for climate [p. ii]. The future of the GCOS is important, given the lack of progress in other areas of global cooperation on climate issues. The UN negotiations in Copenhagen did not yield global agreement, and reaching global agreement (especially one that

actually has any effect) will be a long, drawn-out process. In the interim, American leadership in creating an expanded multilateralsystem for sharing, analyzing, and operationalizing climate data will strengthen global understanding of climate issues and help build a collaborative approach and common understandings that will support futurenegotiation. Even if nations are unable to agree upon a coordinated approach to mitigation, the need toaddress climate change will still exist, and understanding the effect of inaction on the future course of climatechange remains essential.

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Plan text: The United States Congress should provide all necessary funding for the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to fulfilldevelopmental requirements for the United States component of the Global Earth Observation Systemof Systems.

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1AC: Climate Advantage 1/6

Advantage __ is Global Climate Change:

The earth continues to warm as an increasing rate: newest science confirms.Associated Press June 29 (2011, World still warming up, researchers warn) WASHINGTON The worlds climate is not only continuing to warm, its adding heat -trapping greenhouse gases faster,

researchers said yesterday. The global temperature has been warmer than the 20th century average every month formore than 25 years, they said at a teleconference. The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm,Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center , said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010. Thereis a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans, added Peter Thorneof the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University. Carbon dioxide increased by2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl added . Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas accumulating in the air that atmospheric scientists blamefor warming the climate. The warmer conditions are consistent with events such as heat waves and extreme rainfall, Karl said at a teleconference. However, it is more d ifficult to make a directconnection with events such as to rnado outbreaks, he said. Any single weather event is driven by a number of factors, from l ocal conditions to global climate patterns and trends. Climate change is one of these, he said. Itis very likely that large-scale changes in climate, such as increased moisture in t he atmosphere and warming temperatures, have influenced . . . many d ifferent types of extreme events, such as heavy rainfall, flooding, heat

waves and droughts . The report, being published by the American Meteorological Society, lists 2010 as tied with 2005 for thewarmest year on record, according to studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

Warming is happening Sea ice, Glaciers, Ice Sheets, and Tropical Regions. Kills coral reefs andphytoplanktonHansen 2009 , heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at ColumbiaUniversity (James, December, Storms of My Grandchildren, 164-166) In addition to paleoclimate data, my talk covered ongoing observations of five phenomena, all of which imply that an appropriate initial target should be no higher than

350 ppm. In brief, here are the five observations.(1) The area of Arctic sea ice has been declining faster than models predicted .The end-of-summer sea ice area was 40 percent less in 2007 than in the late 1970s when accurate satellite measurements began. Continued growth of atmosphericcarbon dioxide surely will result in an ice-free end-of-summerArctic within several decades , with detrimental effects on wildlife and indigenouspeople. It is difficult to imagine how the Greenland ice sheet could survive if Arctic sea ice is lost entirely in the warm season. Retention o f warm season sea icelikely requiresrestoration of the planet's energy balance. At present our best estimate is there is abo ut 0.5 watt per square meter more energy coming i nto the planet than is being emitted to space as heat radiation. A reduction

of carbon dioxide amount from the current 387 ppm to 350 ppm, all o ther things being unchanged, would increase outgoing radiation by 0.5 watt, restoring planetary energy balance . (2) Mountainglaciers are disappearing all over the world. If business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions continue , most of the glaciers will begone within fifty years . Rivers originating in glacier regions provide fresh water for billions of people. If the glaciers disappear, there will be heavy snowmelt andfloods in the spring, but many dry rivers in the late summer and fall. The melting of glaciers is proceeding rapidly at current atmospheric composition. Probably thebest we can hope is that the restoration of the planet's energy balance may halt glacier recession.(3) The Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets are each losing mass at more than 100 cubic kilometers per year, and sea level is rising at more than 3 centimeters perdecade . Clearly the ice sheets are unstable with the present climate forcing. Ice shelves around Antarctica are melting rapidly. It is difficult to say how far carbondioxide must be reduced to stabilize the ice sheets, but clearly 387 ppm is too much.(4) Data show that subtropical regions have expandedpoleward by 4 degrees of latitude on average. Such expansion is an expected effect of global warming, but the change has been faster thanpredicted. Dry regions have expanded in the southern United States, the Mediterranean, and Australia. Fire frequency and area inthe western United States have increased by 300 percent over the past several decades. Lake Powell and Lake Mead are now only half full. Climate change is amajor cause of these regional shifts, althoughforest management practices and increased usage of freshwater aggravate the resulting problems.(5 ) Coral reefs ,where a quarter of all marine biological species are located, are suffering from multiple stresses, with two of the most important stresses,ocean acidification and warming surface water, caused by increasing carbon dioxide. As carbon dioxide in the airincreases, the ocean dissolves some of the carbon dioxide, becoming more acidic. This makes it more difficult for animals with carbonate shells orskeletons to survive indeed, sufficiently acidic water dissolves carbonates . Ongoing studies suggest that coral reefs would have a better chance of surviving modern stresses if carbon dioxide were reduced to less than 350 ppm.I am often asked: If we want to maintain Holocene-like climate, why should t he target carbon dioxide not be close t o the preindustrial amount, say 300 ppm or 280 ppm? Thereason, in part, is that t here are other climate forcings besides carbon dioxide, and we do not expect those to return to preindustrial levels. There is no plan to remove all roadways, building s, and other human-made effects on

the planet's surface. Nor will we prevent all activities that produce aerosols . Until we know all forcings and understand their net effect, it is premature to be morespecific than "less than 350 ppm," and it is unnecessary for policy purposes. It will take time to turn carbon dioxide around and for it to begin toapproach 350 ppm. By then, if we have been making appropriate measurements, our knowledge should be much improved and we will haveextensive empirical evidence on real-world changes. Also our best current estimate for the planet's mean energy imbalance over the past decade, thus averaged over the so lar cycle, is about+0.5 watt per square meter. Reducing carbon dioxide to 350 ppm would increase emission to space 0.5 watt per square meter, restoring the p lanet's energy balance, to first approximation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

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And, warming is anthropogenic; the scientific consensus is steadily growing to unanimity.Lichter , Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and President of the Center for Media and PublicAffairs, 2008 [Dr. S. Robert Lichter, April 24 2008, Statistical Assessment Service, Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers, and Dont Trust the Medias

Coverage of Climate Change, ]

Over eight out of ten American climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming ,according to a new survey released by the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The researchers also reportthat belief in human-induced warming has more than doubled since the last major survey of American climate scientists in 1991 . However, the survey finds that scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming, and only three percent trust newspaper or television coverageof climate change. The survey, which was conducted for STATS by Harris Interactive, also found increased concern among climate scientists since the Galluporganization asked them many of the same questions in 1991. Between March 19 through May 28, 2007 Harris Interactive conducted a mail survey of a random sampleof 489 self-identified members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union who are listed in the current edition of AmericanMen and Women of Science. A random sample of this size carries a theoretical sampling error of +/- four percentage points. A detailed description of the studysmethodology as well as that of the earlier Gallup survey is available on request. Major Findings Scientists agree that humans cause global warmingNinety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe global average temperatures have increased duringthe past century. Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human- induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that currentlyavailable scientific evidence substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contributeto greenhouse warming ; the rest are unsure. Scientists still debate the dangers A slight majority (54%) believe the warming measured over the last 100 years is notwithin the range of natural temperature fluctuation. A slight majority (56%) see at l east a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or moreduring the next 50 to 100 years. (The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites this increase as the po int beyond which additional warming

would produce major environmental disruptions.) Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth inthe next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous . Seventy percent seeclimate change as very difficult to manage over the next 50 to 100 years, compared to only 5% who see it as not very difficult tomanage . Another 23% see moderate difficulty in managing these changes. A need to know more Overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as afully mature science, but 51% describe it as fairly mature, while 40% see it as still an emerging science. However, ove r two out of three (69%) believe there is atleast a 50-50 chance that the debate over the role of human activity in global warming will be settled in the next 10 to 20 years. Only 29% express a great deal of confidence that scientists understand the size and extent of anthropogenic [human] sources of greenhouse gases, and only 32% are confident about our understandingof the archeological climate evidence. Climate scientists are skeptical of the media Only 1% of climate scientists rate either broadcast or cable television news aboutclimate change a s very reliable. Another 31% say broadcast news is somewhat reliable, compared to 25% for cable news. (The remainder rate TV news as notvery or not at all reliable.) Local newspapers are rated as very reliable by 3% and somewhat reliable by 33% of scientists. Even the national press (New York Times, Wall St. Journal etc) is rated as very reliable by only 11%, although another 56% say it is at least somewhat reliable. Former Vice President Al Go resdocumentary film An Inconvenient Truth rates better than any traditional news source, with 26% finding it very reliable and 38% as somewhat reliable. Other non -traditional information sources fare poorly: No more than 1% of climate experts rate the doomsday movie The Day After Tomorrow or Michael Crichtons novel

State of Fear as very reliable. Are climate scientists being pressured to deny or advance global warming ? Five percent of climate scientists say theyhave been pressured by public officials or government agencies to deny, minimize or discount evidence of human-induced global warming, Three percent say they have been pressured by funders, and two percent perceived pressure fromsupervisors at work . Just three percent report that they were pressured by public officials or government agenc ies to embellish, play up or overstate evidence of global warming: Two percent report such pressure from funders, and two percent from supervisors. Changing scientific opinion In 1991 the Gallup organizationconducted a telephone survey on global climate change among 400 scientists drawn from membership lists of the AmericanMeteorological Association and the American Geophysical Union. We repeated several of their questions verbatim, in order tomeasure changes in scientific opinion over time. On a variety of questions, opinion has consistently shifted toward increasedbelief in and concern about global warming. A mong the changes: In 1991 only 60% of climate scientists believed that averageglobal temperatures were up, compared to 97% today. In 1991 only a minority ( 41%) of climate scientists agreed that then-currentscientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human -induced warming, compared to three out of four ( 74%) today . The proportion of those who see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius has increased from 47% to 56% since 1991. The proportion of scientistswho have a great deal of confidence in our understanding of the human-induced sources of global climate change rose from 22% in 1991 to 29% in 2007. Similarly, theproportion voicing confidence in our understanding of the archeological climate evidence rose from20% to 32%. Despite these expressions of uncertainty, however, theproportion which rating the chances at 50-50 or better that the role of human behavior will be settled in the near future rose from 47% in 1991 to 69% in 2007.

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Were reaching a tipping point action now is critical to prevent positive feedbacksHansen 2009 , heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at ColumbiaUniversity (James, December, Storms of My Grandchildren, 72-74)Ice sheet response to global warming is q uite the contrary. Ice sheet size changes litt le at first, and thus sea level changes only slowl y. As the planet gets warmer, the area on the ice sheet with su mmer melt increases. And as

the ocean warms, ice "shelves" tongues of the ice sheet t hat reach out into the ocean and are gro unded on the ocean floor also begin to melt. As ice shelves disappear and the ice sheet is"softened up" by surface warming and meltwater, movement of ice and discharge of giant icebergs via ice "streams" become more

rapid, leading to the possibility that large portions of the ice sheet will collapse. If we continue burning fossil fuels atcurrent rates, ice sheet collapse and sea level rise of at least several meters is a dead certainty . We know thisfrom paleoclimate records showing how large the ice sheets were as a function of global temperature . Theonly question is how fast ice sheet disintegration will occur. Once ice sheets begin to collapse, sea level can rise rapidly . For example, about 14,000 yearsago, as Earth emerged from the last ice age and became warmer, sea level rose at an average rate of 1 meter every 20 or 25 years, a rate that continued for several centuries . The danger today is that wemay allow ocean warming and "softening up" of ice sheets to reach a point such that the dynamical process of collapse takes over.And then it would be too late we cannot tie a rope or build a wall around a mile-thick ice sheet.The third source of inertia is our fossil-fuel-based energysystem. The transitions from wood to coal to oil to gas each required several decades and recently, as oil and gas supplies tightened,we have begun moving back toward more coal use . Indeed, coal is again the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions.The upshot regarding energysystem inertia is this: Humanity today is heavily dependent on fossil fuels coal, oil, and gas for most of our energy. When we realizethat it is necessary to phase out fossil fuels, that transition will not be quick it will take at least several decades to replace our enormousfossil fuel infrastructure. In the meantime more greenhouse gas emissions and more climate change will be occurring. Climate feedbacks interact withinertia. Feedbacks (as discussed in chapter 3) are responses t o climate change that can either amplify or diminish the climate change. There is no inherent reason for our climate to be dominated by amplifying feedbacks.

Indeed, on very long time scales import ant diminishing feedbacks come into play (see chapters 8 and 10).However, it turns out that amplifying feedbacks are dominant on time scales fromdecades to hundreds of thousands of years. Water (including water vapor, ice, and snow) plays a big role. A colder planet has a brighter surfaceand absorbs less sunlight , mainly because of the high reflectivity of ice and snow surfaces. A warmer planet has moregreenhouse gases in the air, especially water vapor, as well as darker vegetated land areas . Dominance of these two amplifyingfeedbacks, the planet's surface reflectivity and the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, is the reason climate whipsawed between glacial and interglacial states inresponse to small insolation changes caused by slight perturbations of Earth's orbit. Amplifying feedbacks that were expected to occur only slowly havebegun to come into play in the past few years. These feedbacks gases from melting permafrost and Arcticcontinental shelves, and include significant reduction in ice sheets, release of greenhouse movement of climatic zones withresulting changes in vegetation distributions. These feedbacks were not incorporated in most climate simulations, such as those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet these "slow" feedbacks are already beginning to emerge in thereal world. Rats! That is a problem. Climate inertia causes more warming to be in the pipeline . Feedbacks will amplify that warming . So "inertia" was aTrojan horse it only seemed like a friend. It lulled us to sleep, and we did not see what was happening. Now we have a situation with big impacts on thehorizon possibly including ice sheet collapse, ecosystem collapse, and species extinction, the dangers of which I will discuss later.What to do? If

we run around as if our hair is on fire, flapping our arms, people will not take us seriously. Besides, we are not in a hopeless situation. Rational, feasibleactions could avert disastrous consequences, if the actions are prompt and strategic. Feedbacks work in both directions ifa forcing is negative, amplifying feedbacks will increase the cooling effect. If we wish to stabilize Earth's climate, we do not need to return itsatmospheric composition to preindustrial levels. What we must do , to first order, is reduce the planet's energy imbalance to near zero . Of course, the climate then would be stabilized at its current state, not at its preindustrial state . Climate may need to be a tad cooler than today, if, forexample, we want ice sheets to be stable. That may require a slight additional adjustment of the human-made climate forcing. But let's not get ahead of the story.

And positive feedbacks cause extinction.Hansen 2009 , heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at ColumbiaUniversity (James, December, Storms of My Grandchildren, 236)The paleoclimate record does not provide a case with a climate forcing of the magnitude and speed that will occur if fossil fuels are allburned . Models are nowhere near the stage at which they can predict reliably when major ice sheet disintegration will begin. Nor can we say how close we are tomethane hydrate instability. But these are questions of when, not if. If we burn all the fossil fuels, the ice sheets almost surely will melt entirely, with the final sea level rise about 75 meters (250 feet), with most of that possibly occurring within a time scale of centuries. Methanehydrates are likely to be more extensive and vulnerable now than they were in the early Cenozoic. It is difficult to imaginehow the methane hydrates could survive, once the ocean has had time to warm . In that event a PETM-like warming could be added on top of thefossil fuel warming. After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouseeffect that would destroy all life on the planet , perhaps permanently ? While that is difficult to say based on present information,I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse .If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale , I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

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This will cause massive biodiversity loss that results in extinctionHansen 2009 , heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at ColumbiaUniversity (James, December, Storms of My Grandchildren, 147)

The current extinction rate is at least one hundred times greater than the average natural rate . So the concern thathumans may have initiated the sixth mass extinction is easy to understand. However, the outcome is still very much up in the air, andhuman-made climate change is likely to be the determining factor. I will argue that if we continue on a business-as-usual path, with a global warming of several degrees Celsius, then we will drive a large fraction of species, conceivably allspecies, to extinction . On the other hand, just as in the case of ice sheet stability , if we bring atmospheric composition undercontrol in the near future, it is still possible to keep human-caused extinctions to a moderate level.

Only a prioritization of Earth observation satellites can provide the necessary data, verification, andpolitical will to solve global climate change.Lewis et. Al. 2010 (James A., senior fellow and director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at CSIS; Sarah O. Ladislaw, CSIS Senior Fellow,Energy and National Security Program; and Denise E. Zheng, CSIS; Earth Observation for Climate Change: A Report of the CSIS Technology and Public PolicyProgram, csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf)

Climate change poses a dilemma for space policy . If we accept that climate change poses credible and major risks to regional stability, nationalsecurity, and economic health, the United States needs to reconsider how it spends its money for civil space. Earthobservation data are critical to understanding the causes and effects of climate change and quantifyingchanging conditions in the environment. The shortage of satellites actually designed and in orbit to measureclimate change is unacceptable if we are serious about climate change. Until this year, U.S. space policy was on autopilot. The Bush space policy did not differ mark- edly fro m the space policy of Jimmy Carter. The hallmark of this period was heavy investment in the shut tle and space station. The commitment to these 1970s technologieseroded public interest in space. A science report er for a national newspaper said that when he wrote on the unmanned Mars explorers, t housands of readers would look at t he story on th e newspapers Web site, but when hewrote about the shuttle, t here would be only a few hundred hits. T he overlong commitment to t he shuttle and the station ended in final years of the Bush administration, but unfortunately it was replaced with an unworkablevision for manned explora- tion that would have consumed a major portion of t he space budget. In fact, a mission to Mars is beyond t he technical capabilities of any nation. Leonardo d a Vinci could draw helicopters andaircraft, but they were made of wood and cloth. Until breakthroughs in materials, chemistry, and physics, his ideas could not be implemented. The same is now true for manned planetary explora- t ion. Our propulsion and lifesupport systems will not support a manned flight to Mars. In contrast, a return to the Moo n is achievable. The dilemma is that NASA wou ld need another $15 0 billion to return to the moon more than 40 years after the firstvisit. There is no doubt that a return to the moon would bring prestige to the United States and that if another nation such as China was to get there beforehand it will be interpreted as another sign of U.S. decline. Years of astatic approach to space policy have put us in this uncomfortable situation. From the perspective of the national interest, however, the United States would be better served by building and main- taining a robust space capacity

for monitoring climate change . This is a question of priorities. Manned flight should remain a priority, but not the firstpriority. Earth observation data is critical to understanding the causes and effects of climate change andquantifying changing conditions in the environment. The paucity of satellites actually designed and in orbit tomeasure climate change is disturbing. The United States does not have a robust climate-monitoringinfrastructure. In fact, the current infrastructure is in decline. Until that decline is reversed and an adequatespace infrastructure put in place, building and launching satellites specifically designed for monitoringclimate change should be the first priority for civil space spending . Manned spaceflight provides prestige, butEarth observation is crucial for security and economic well-being. The United States should continue to fundas a priority a more robust and adequate space infrastructure to measure climate change, building andorbiting satellites specifically designed to carry advanced sensors for such monitoring. Satellites provideglobally consistent observations and the means to make simultaneous observations of diverse measurements that are essential for climatestudies . They supply high-accuracy global observations of the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface that cannot be acquired by any other method. Satelliteinstruments supply accurate measurements on a near-daily basis for long periods and across broad geographic regions. They can reveal global patterns that ground or airsensors would be unable to detect as in the case of data from NASA satellites that showed us the amount of pollution arriving in North America from Asia as equal to

15 percent of local emissions of the United States and Canada. This sort of data is crucial to effective management of emissions

the United States, for example, could put in place regulations to decrease emissions and find them neutralizedby pollution from other regions .15 Satellites allow us to monitor the pattern of ice-sheet thickening and thinning. While Arctic ice once increased a fewcentimeters every year, it now melts at a rate of more than one meter annually. This knowledge would not exist without satell ite laser altimetry from NASAs ICESat

satellite.16 Satellite observations serve an indispensable role they have provided unprecedented knowledge of inaccessible regions. Of the 44 essential climate variables (ECV) recognized as necessary to support the needs of the parties to the UNFCCC for the purposesof the Convention, 26 depend on satellite observations. But deployments of new and replacement satellites have not kept pacewith the termination of older systems. Innovation and investment in Earth observation technology have failedto keep pace with global needs for monitoring and verification . Much of our data comes from satellites put in orbit for other purposes,such as weather prediction and monitoring. The sensors on these weather satellites provide valuable data, but they are not optimized for monitoring climate change orfor adequately assessing the effect of mitigation efforts. More precise and specialized data are needed to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_professorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

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understand and predict climate change, and getting these data will require new orbital sensors. Countries have improved many of their climateobservation capabilities, but reports suggest little progress in ensuring long-term continuity for severalimportant observing systems. The bulk of climate data is collected by the United States, and NASAsinvestment in the Earth Observing System missions has provided the climate-quality data used to establish trends in sealevel, ozone concentrations, ocean color, solar irradiance, Earths energy balance, and other key variables. While this investment has made aninvaluable contribution, it is not an operational system. Many satellites currently in orbit are operating wellpast their planned lifetimes. In the next eight years, half of the worlds Earth observation satellites will be pasttheir useful life . One reason for this is that many of the satellites that provide critical data for monitoring climate change are experimental satellites (such asTRMM the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission). Satellites built as research efforts provide real benefit, but if they are notreplacedwhen their service life ends and if a permanent operational capability for Earth observation is not put inplace, we will face insurmountable problems for observing capabilities and our ability to manage climatechange. Many missions and observations for collecting climate data are at risk of interruption . These includemeasurements of ocean color that are critical for studying phytoplankton bloom and the role of ocean biomassas a carbon source and sink and data on the role o f forests in the carbon cycle. Perhaps the most important shortcoming involves t he monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions andgreenhouse gases. Reduction and regulation of CO2 emissions are part of every discussion on how to manage climate change, but the crash of NASAs Orbiting CarbonObservatory (OCO) satellite left the world essentially bereft of the ability to make precise measurements to

assess emissions reduction efforts. OCO cost approximately $278 million,17 which was about 2 percent of NASAs annual budget for manned space flight in 2009. Its loss will crippleglobal carbon monitoring until we have its replacement, finally funded this year and scheduled for launch no later t han February 2013 . Existing GHG monitoring networks andprograms are predominantly ground-based, but they are not truly adequate to the task . Ground-based networks arelimited because they can only provide disjointed pieces of a larger picture. Moreover, these systems are aging, and investment for replacement has declined. Wenow rely on Japans GOSAT, the European Space Agencys SCIAMACHY sensor, and Canadasmicrosatellite, CanX-2, for observations of atmospheric concentrations of carbon; however, these sensors are not advancedenough to meet data requirements needed to understand critical aspects of the carbon cycle, and they arehighly constrained by their range of coverage . For example, the carbon produced from a fossil fuel power plant is too small to measure withGOSAT, and low spatial resolution and high uncertainty of measurements limit the monitoring capabilities of SCIAMACHY.18 The implications are serious for

measuring the effectiveness of climate policies . If reduction in GHG emissions (the most significant being carbon dioxide) isthe centerpiece of mitigation efforts and a goal for both national legislation and international agreement, weare woefully unprepared to assess the effectiveness of these measures . It will be difficult to assess and adjust CO2-reducingmeasures without greater investment in orbiting sensors.19 The need for information has never been greater, but there aresignificant gaps in global Earth monitoring capabilities .20 Although more than 50 nations operate or plan tooperate Earth observation satellites, most of these are basic electro-optical satellites, essentially orbitingdigital cameras that lack the necessary sensors for precise climate monitoring. There are only a handful of dedicated satellites for monitoring climate change, and the time has passed when general-purpose weathersatellites can meet our informational needs . Japan, Europe, and the United States operate satellites with some of the sensors needed to monitorclimate change, but a recent National Academies study found that of the 26 essential climate variables that can be monitored fromspace, we have coverage of only 16 .21 Only a coordinated federal policy and investment, including revisedpriorities for our civil space programs, can change this. For most of the last decade, NASA was unable toreplace its climate-monitoring satellites. Re- placing these satellites is crucial to avoid a drastic decline incollecting the most valuable information for monitoring climate change. The Obama administration hasproposed a budget for NASAs Earth science programs of $2.4 billion in new funding over the next five years,an increase of more than 60 percent. The new funding, which requires congressional approval, will help replace OCO and allow NASA to replacethe twin GRACE satellites that make detailed measurements of Earths gravity field that can provide important climate data. The request for NOAAsbudget for climate-related activities has been increased as well. NOAA will be spending $2.2 billion tomaintain and further develop satellites and to support climate research; $435 million has been requested to support the U.S.Global Change Research Program, with $77 million in new increases for core climate services and observations. Spending on space has always beena question of priorities. Until recently, those priorities were frozen in time, reflecting political needs that weredecades out of date. Our national priorities have changed. A new priority, reflecting the new challenges to oursecurity and national interest, involves monitoring and understanding climate change . Debate over climate change is fierceand there are many skeptics, but the signs of major changes are undeniable. Warnings of catastrophe are likely overblown, but we

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do not fully understand the implications of climate change or the util- ity of various measures to mitigate it. Climate change is occurring, and itcreates new risks. In this context, the recent decision to scale back spending on human space flight andincrease spending on Earth observation is a better match for national priorities and interests. It updates aspace policy that has been badly out of date for years . Observation of climate change began more than a century ago with simple measurements of the Earths averagetemperature. These were interesting, but inadequate. The breakthrough in understanding climate change came with Eart h observation satellites. Satellites pro vide global awareness in ways that ot her technologies cannot match.The monitoring needed for a serious effort requires observations that can only be do ne from space. Recommendations Climate change will have pervasive and u navoidable effects on economic and national security.Managing these consequences and mitigating them when p ossible are new and difficult tasks for governments. Progress in mitiga ting and adapting to climate change will require the worlds countri es to agree to coordinate

their actions. Reaching such agreement will be no easy t ask. That said, climate change offers a unique opportunity for the United States to engageother nations in pursuing common interests and addressing future challenges. Not only is the United Stateswell positioned to lead on this issue because of its significant space and scientific capacity, it also faces globalexpectations that it should shoulder the leadership burden for climate change . A commitment to building the space and informationinfrastructure needed to manage climate change could demonstrate the U.S. leadership, based o n competence and advancing the global go od, that the world respects and ad mires. Operationalization is the next st ep for dealingwith climate change to make the data and knowledge generation by satellites and science easier to use in policymaking. Operationalization requires a new appro ach. Climate change has largely been an issue o f science. The

existing vehicles for international cooperation and da ta sharing are aimed at the scientific co mmunity . Effective global management of climate requires a newapproach with three integrated elements space, networks, and collaboration. Our belief is that a concertedeffort to analyze and share data from the many national efforts could significantly advance our understandingof the risks and causes of climate change, better measure the effects of mitigation policies, and guide planningon how to adapt to changes in the environment. Achieving such a concerted effort will require coordination must occur on several different levels if it is to have a meaningfuleffect. The first the collection and measurement of relevant data depends largely on satellites. Without t he proper data, it would be very difficult to develop and aggregate a global picture of climate change and its nat ureand pace. It would be difficult to measure the effects of mitigation efforts, determine when or whether policies are effective, or predict when and how climate effects will affect local communities. The second level is toexpand the analysis and sharing of information. In some ways, we are only in t he early stages of developing a g lobal enterprise for assessing climate change. Much of the research and analysis conduct ed thus far has beenfocused on understanding the nature and pace o f climate change, forecasting future changes in Earths natural systems based o n changes in differ ent variables, and substant iating theories about how human efforts to reducethe effects of climate change might actually have so me effect. More work is needed in each area to improve our understanding and updat e it as the natural environment continues to change. Finally, data must move from thescientific community to the policy community to governments and policymakers if data are to guide change. While the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tailored analysis to meet policymakers needs inthe hopes of reaching a global consensus for action, the challenge today is to extend and st rengthen connections between the science and policy co mmunities. A coordinated multinational effort to bett er inform the policyprocess can change this. Our belief is t hat a concerted effort to analyze and share data from the many national efforts could sig - nificantly advance our understanding of the r isks and causes of climate change, better measurethe effects of mitigation, and guide p lanning on adapting to changes in the environment. To this end, our recommendations follow: The U.S. approach to climate change policy needs to inform decisionmakers and p lanners inboth government and the private sector by pro viding understandable metrics and analyses of the e ffectiveness of, and compliance with, mitigation programs and adaption plans. The custo mers for this should include federal

agencies, state and local governments, private sector users, and other nations. To better serve t he national interest, the United States should increase its Earthobservation capabilities especially space-based sensors for carbon monitoring to improve our ability tounderstand the carbon cycle and to inform any future international agreement. This means that until thesecapabilities are adequate for monitoring climate change, investment in Earth observation satellites shouldtake precedence over other space programs. Increased spending on earth observation satellites specificallydesigned for climate change should be maintained until the current capability shortfall is eliminated. The United Statesshould accelerate, expand, and reinforce a National Climate Service to im- pro ve climate information management and decisionmaking. In a related effort, t he United States should support the World MeteorologicalOrganization in its efforts to create a World Climate Service System. The United States shou ld complement its national effort by supporting and expanding mul- tilateral efforts to coordinate Earth observation for climatechange, building on existing international efforts such as GCOS. This could entail coordinated investment in space and, subsidies for ground facilities in developing countries, recognizing that the United States, EU, Japan,and Canada will bear the largest share of t he cost at this time.

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1AC Disasters Advantage 1/5

Advantage __ is Disasters

Natural and technical disasters are increasing at an alarming rate. The globe is becoming a field of intensifying death and destruction.Brunsma and Picou 2008 ( David, University of Missouri, and J. Steven, University of South Alabama, Disasters in the Twenty-First Century:Modern Destruction and Future Instruction Social Forces Volume 87, Number 2, December 2008) Sociologists are becoming increasingly aware of the changing nature of risk in late modernity and the shifting landscape of the sociological study of disasters. Thisincreased "consciousness of catastrophe" is directly related to the empirical fact that the number of "natural"and "technological" disasters have increased substantially over the past 30 years. In the past eight years, some422 disaster declarations have been issued in the United States alone etching disasters as an important partof contemporary American experience (Bogues 2008). The number of people and communities affected by thismost recent spate of catastrophic events reflects a global intensification of death and destruction that invites analytical andempirical application of a critical sociological imagination. While affecting society as a whole, these "focusing events," or "destabilizing events," have also had an impact on scholarly enterprises, shifting the attention of sociologists from more traditional areas of professional inquiry to the expansion and application of innovative concepts and methods to the study of disasters (Birkland 1997; Picou and Marshall 2007). This paradigm shiftmeans that disaster research is being actively re-imagined t hroughout the broader discipline.

We have turned away from recognizing the responsibility of the government to care for its mostvulnerable populations, especially in the face of uncontrollable environmental changes. Therefusal to hold the government responsible for disaster preparedness and response result in themarking of racialized populations as expendable in favor of the smooth functioning of themarket.Giroux 2006 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department, ReadingHurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability, College Literature 33.3 (2006) 171-196) Soon after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast , the consequences of the long legacy of attacking big government andbleeding the social and public service sectors of the state became glaringly evident as did a government thatdisplayed a "staggering indifference to human suffering " (Herbert 2005). Hurricane Katrina made it abundantly clear thatonly the government had the power, resources, and authority to address complex undertakings such as dealing withthe totality of the economic, environmental, cultural, [End Page 174] and social destruction that impacted the Gulf Coast. Given the Bush administration's disdain for the legacy of the New Deal , important government agencies were viewed scornfully asoversized entitlement programs, stripped of their power, and served up as a dumping ground to provide lucrative

administrative jobs for political hacks who were often unqualified to lead such agencies. Not only was FEMAdownsized and placed under the Department of Homeland Security but its role in disaster planning and preparation was subordinatedto the all-inclusive goal of fighting terrorists. While it was virtually impossible to miss the total failure of the government response in the aftermathof Katrina, what many people saw as incompetence or failed national leadership was more than that. Something more systemic and deep-rootedwas revealed in the wake of Katrina namely, that the state no longer provided a safety net for the poor, sick,elderly, and homeless. Instead, it had been transformed into a punishing institution intent on dismantling the welfarestate and treating the homeless, unemployed, illiterate, and disabled as dispensable populations to be managed, criminalized, and made to disappear into prisons,ghettos, and the black hole of despair. The Bush administration was not simply unprepared for Hurricane Katrina as it deniedthat the federal government alone had the resources to address catastrophic events; it actually felt no responsibilityfor the lives of poor blacks and others marginalized by poverty and relegated to the outskirts of society. Increasingly,the role of the state seems to be about engendering the financial rewards and privileges of only some members of society, while the welfare of those marginalized by race and class is now viewed with criminal contempt . The coupling of the market state with the racial state under George W. Bush means that policies are aggressively pursued to dismantle the welfare state, eliminate affirmative action,model urban public schools after prisons, aggressively pursue anti-immigrant policies, and incarcerate with impunity Arabs, Muslims, and poor youth of color. Thecentral commitment of the new hyper-neoliberalism is now organized around the best way to remove or makeinvisible those individuals and groups who are either seen as a drain or stand in the way of market freedoms, free trade,consumerism, and the neoconservative dream of an American empire . This is what I call the new biopolitics of disposability: the poor,especially people of color, not only have to fend for themselves in the face of life's tragedies but are also supposed todo it without being seen by the dominant society. Excommunicated from the sphere of human concern, they havebeen rendered invisible, utterly disposable, and heir to that army of socially homeless that allegedly no longerexisted in color-blind America.

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The refusal to engage in disaster preparedness exacerbates the global vulnerability to environmentalchange, ensuring the global poor can never escape the devastating cycle of poverty.Briceo 08 (Slvano Director, United Nations, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Linking Disaster Risk Reduction and Poverty Reduction ) Disasters are often portrayed as acts of nature, or of a natural order. Yet this is mostly far from reality . The majorfactors influencing disaster risks are human and social vulnerability, matched with the overall capacity to respond toor reduce the impact of natural hazards . Poverty is therefore a major factor increasing disaster risk, by increasing vulnerabilityto disasters and reducing existing coping capacities. It is only by addressing these two issues together that we canmake the difference between a community trapped in a grinding poverty cycle, and one with secure lives andlivelihoods. Another patch of common ground is that the poor suffer the most from disasters.1 94.25% of all people killed by disasters in from1975-2000 were low income or lower-middle income people. The poorest people comprised 68% of deaths from disasters . These plainnumbers are an indictment of socioeconomic inequality, and a telling signpost to where disaster risk reduction must concentrate its efforts as of moral necessity.

Furthermore, drought, cyclones, and flood seasons are repeatedly depriving the poor of their assets, livelihoods, andlabour force, all too often locking them into endemic poverty cycles. Even in the poorest communities, however, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience on how to break this negative feedback cycle. From this set of good practices, for instance, water and environmental management emerge asa very prominent link between disaster risk reduction and poverty reduction. The examples of drought risk reduction initiatives highlighted in this publication areequally inspiring, and make intuitive sense. There is a need to further promote these initiatives, so that they can be scaled up or replicated on a wider scale.

Our affirmative is a mechanism by which we can reclaim public spaces to demand transformation of thebiopolitics of disposability towards a politics of democratic inclusion. Recognition of the responsibility totransform our relation to natural disaster and how it renders populations vulnerable and expendable iskey to transformative politics.

Giroux 2006 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in theEnglish and Cultural Studies Department, Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and theBiopolitics of Disposability, College Literature 33.3 (2006) 171-196)Katrina reveals that we are living in dark times. The shadow of authoritarianism remains after the stormclouds and hurricane winds have passed, offering a glimpse of its wreckage and terror. The politics of adisaster that affected Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi is about more than government incompetence,militarization, socio-economic polarization, environmental disaster, and political scandal . Hurricane Katrinabroke through the visual blackout of poverty and the pernicious ideology of color-blindness to reveal thegovernment's role in fostering the dire conditions of largely poor African-Americans, who were bearing thehardships incurred by the full wrath of the indifference and violence at work in the racist, neoliberal state .Global neoliberalism and its victims now occupy a space shaped by authoritarian politics, the terrors inflicted by a police state, and a logic of disposability that removes

them from government social provisions and the discourse and privileges of citizenship. One of the most obvious lessons of Katrina thatrace and racism still matter in America is fully operational through a biopolitics in which "sovereigntyresides in the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who may die" (Mbembe 11-12). Those poor minorities of co lor and class, unableto contribute to the prevailing consumerist ethic, are vanishing into the sinkhole of poverty in desolate and abandoned enclaves of decaying cities, neighborhoods, and rural spaces, or in America's ever-expanding prisonempire. Under the Bush regime, a biopolitics d riven by the waste machine of what Zygmunt Bauman defines as "liquid modernity" registers a new and brutal racism as part of the emergence of a contemporary and savage

authoritarianism. [End Page 188 ] Any viable attempt to challenge the biopolitical project that now shapes American life andculture must do more than unearth the powerful antidemocratic forces that now govern American economics,politics, education, media, and culture; it must also deepen possibilities of individual and collective strugglesby fighting for the rebuilding of civil society and the creation of a vast network of democratic public spheressuch as schools and the alternative media in order to develop new models of individual and social agency that can expandand deepen the reality of democratic public life . This is a call for a d iverse "radical party," following Stanley Aronowitz's exhortation, a part y that prioritizes democracy as aglobal task, views hope as a precondition for political engagement, gives primacy to making the political more pedagogical, and understands the importance of the totality of the struggle as it informs and articulates within and

across a wide range of sites and sectors of everyday life domestically and globally . Democratically minded citizens and social movements must returnto the crucial issue of how race, class, power, and inequality in America contribute to the suffering andhardships experienced daily by the poor, people of color, and working- and middle-class people. The fight forequality offers new challenges in the process of constructing a politics that directly addresses poverty, classdomination, and a resurgent racism . Such

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a politics would take seriously what it means to struggle pedagogically and politically over both ideas andmaterial relations of power as they affect diverse individuals and groups at the level of daily life. Such struggleswould combine a democratically energized cultural politics of resistance and hope with a politics aimed at offering workers a living wage and all citizens a guaranteed

standard of living, one that provides a decent education, housing, and health care to all residents of the United States. Biopolitics is not just about thereduction of selected elements of the population to the necessities of bare life or worse; it is also potentiallyabout enhancing life by linking hope and a new vision to the struggle for reclaiming the social, providing alanguage capable of translating individual issues into public considerations, and recognizing that in the age of the new media the terrain of culture is one of the most important pedagogical spheres through which tochallenge the most basic precepts of the new authoritarianism . The waste machine of modernity, as Bauman points o ut, must be challenged within a newunderstanding of environmental justice, human rights, and democratic politics (2000, 15). Negative globalization with its attachment to the mutually enforcing modalities of militarism and racial segregation must be exposedand dismantled. And this demands new forms of resistance that are both more global and d ifferentiated. But if these struggles are going to emerge, especially in the United States, then we need a politics and pedagogy of hope, one that takes seriously Hannah Arendt's call to use the [E nd Page 189] public realm to throw light on the "dark times" that threaten to extinguish t he very idea of democracy. Against the tyranny o f marketfundamentalism, religious dogmatism, unchecked militarism, and ideological claims to certainty, an emancipatory biopolitics must enlist education as a crucial force in t he struggle over democratic identities, spaces, andideals. Central to the biopolitics of disposability is the recognition that abiding powerlessness atrophies the public imagination and leads to political paralysis. Consequently, its policies avidly attack critical education at alllevels of cultural production in an all-out effort to undermine critical thought, imagination, and substantive agency. To significantly confront the force of a biopolitics in the service of the new authoritarianism, intellectuals,artists, and others in various cultural sites from schools to higher education to the media will have to rethink what it means to secure the conditions for critical education both within and outside of the schools. In the

context of formal schooling, this means fighting against the corporatization, commercialism, and privatization of publ ic schools. Higher education has to be defended in t he same terms. Against thebiopolitics of racial exclusion, the university should be a principal site where dialogue, negotiation, mutualunderstanding, and respect provide the knowledge and experience for students to develop a shared space foraffirming differences while simultaneously learning those shared values necessary for an inclusive democraticsociety . Similarly, both public and higher education must address with new courage the history of American slavery, the enduring legacy of racism in t he United States, and its interface with both political nationalismand the enduring market and religious fundamentalisms at work in contemporary society. Similarly, racism must be not be reduced to a private matter, a case of individual prejudice removed from the d ictates of state violence

and the broader realm of politics, and left to matters of "taste, preference, and ultimately, of consumer, or lifestyle choice" (Gilroy 2005, 146-47). What must be instituted and foughtfor in higher education is a critical and anti-racist pedagogy that unsettles, stirs up human consciousness,"breeds dissatisfaction with the level of both freedom and democracy achieved thus far," and inextricablyconnects the fates of freedom, democracy, and critical education (Bauman 2003, 14). Hannah Arendt once argued that "the publicrealm has lost the power of illumination," and one result is that more and more people "have retreated from the world and their obligations within it" (1955, 4). Thepublic realm is not merely a space where the political, social, economic, and cultural interconnect; it is alsothe pre-eminent space of public pedagogy that is, a space where subjectivities are shaped, publiccommitments are formed, and choices are made. As sites of cultural politics and public pedagogy, public spaces offer a unique opportunity for critically engaged citizens,young people, academics, [End Page 190] teachers, and various intellectua ls to engage in pedagogical struggles t hat provide the cond itions for social empowerment. Such struggles can be waged t hrough the new media, films,publications, radio interviews, and a range of other forms of cultural production. It is especially crucial, as Mark Poster has argued, that scholars, teachers, public intellectuals, artists, and cultural theorists take on the

challenge of understanding how the new media technologies construct subjects differently with multip le forms of literacy that engage a range of intellectual capacities (2001 ). This also meansdeploying new technologies of communication such as the Internet, camcorder, and cell phone in political andpedagogically strategic ways to build protracted struggles and reclaim the promise of a democracy that insistson racial, gender, and economic equality . The new technoculture is a powerful pedagogical tool that needs tobe used, on the one hand, in the struggle against both dominant media and the hegemonic ideologies theyproduce, circulate, and legitimate, and, on the other hand, as a valuable tool in treating men and women asagents of change, mindful of the consequences of their actions, and utterly capable of pursuing trulyegalitarian models of democracy. The promise of a better world cannot be found in modes of authority t hat lack a vision of social just ice, renounce the promise of democracy, and reject t hedream of a better future, offering instead of dreams the pale assurance of prot ection from the nightmare of an all-embracing t errorism. Against this stripped-down legitimation of authority is the pro mise of public spheres,which in their diverse forms, sites, and content offer pedagogical and political possibilities for strengthening the social bonds of democracy, new spaces within which to cultivate the capacities for critical modes of individualand social agency, and crucial opportunities to form alliances to collectively struggle for a biopolitics that expands the scope of vision, operations of democracy, and the range of democratic institutions that is, a biopoliticsthat fights against the t errors of totalitarianism. Such spheres are about more than legal rights guaranteeing freedom of speech; they are also sites that demand a certain kind of citizen informed by particular forms of

education, a citizen whose education provides t he essential conditions for democratic public spheres to flourish. Cornelius Castoriadis , the great philosopher of democracy , argues that if publicspace is not to be experienced not as a private affair, but as a vibrant sphere in which people learn how toparticipate in and shape public life, then it must be shaped through an education that provides the decisive

traits of courage, responsibility, and shame, all of which connect the fate of each individual to the fate of others, the planet, and global democracy (1991, 81-123). In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the biopolitical calculus of massive powerdifferentials and iniquitous market relations put the scourge of poverty and racism on full display. To confront [End Page 191] the biopolitics of disposability, we need to recognize the dark times in which we live and offer up a vision of hope that createsthe conditions for multiple collective and global struggles that refuse to use politics as an act of war andmarkets as the measure of democracy. Making human beings superfluous is the essence of totalitarianism, and democracy is the antidote in urgentneed of being reclaimed . Katrina should keep the hope of such a struggle alive for quite some time because for manyof us the images of those floating bodies serve as an desperate reminder of what it means when justice, as thelifeblood of democracy, becomes cold and indifferent in the face of death.

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Earth Observation Satellites decentralize the state monopoly on information, allowing citizen groups to bemeaningfully engaged in state politics.Litfin 1999 ( Karen T., Professor of Political Science, University of Washington, The Status of the Statistical State: Satellites and the Diffusion of Epistemic Sovereignty, Global Society, Vol. 13, No.1, 1999) The ability to control the flow of information, or what I have called epistemic sovereignty, is central to the exercise of control and authority within a territorial

jurisdiction. The transparency and the global perspective of ERS technologies entail multiple, and sometimes contradictory, implications for epistemic sovereignty_ The

primary challenges are from the private sector, global science, and popular movements. On the one hand, ERS contributes to theunbundling, but not the abolition, of territoriality, often deterritorialising state practices. The principle of non-intervention, upon which traditional norms of sovereignty have relied, is at least called into question bythe global gaze and the ubiquity of ERS images. On the other hand, ERS has also strengthened the territorial sovereignty of a few developingcountries in their remote regions. Yet the greatest contribution of ERS to the reconfiguration of epistemic sovereigntymight very well be in its applications to the proliferation of information and political practices beyond thestate-most importantly, in the decentralised networks which constitute global science and the local efforts of community, environmental and peace groups .81 While state-funded ERS programmes have their roots in thebalance-of-power politics characteristic of the national security state, today they tend to exemplify the sorts of sovereignty bargains required by scientific and environmental co-operation . The availability of high-resolution data on thecommercial market has forced states to make a trade-off between traditional security objectives and industrial competitiveness. While none of these developments

entails an outright "erosion" of sovereignty, they do highlight the importance of the epistemic dimension of sovereignty. The control over the flow of

information, which is essential to the modern scientific state, appears to be shifting beyond the scientific state.If modernity is interpreted as the enclosure of the globe via the twin institu tions of state sovereignty and private property, then ERS technologies at once epitomise andchallenge that trend. On the one hand, by making visible the invisible, satellite imagery renders nature subject to claims of ownership and control--whether by states or

by oil and mining companies. On the other hand, in light of the globality and transparency inherent in ERS technologies andthe emphasis on environmental co-operation, ERS has the potential to become a tool in the revisioning of nature as a global commons . Indeed, this is the thrust of much of the discourse surrounding environmental ERS. Likewise, the commercialavailability of high-resolution satellite images opens the door for a host of non-state actors, especially citizens'groups and the news media, to involve themselves in the high-stakes national security issues which were oncethe sole purview of states' military establishments. There is also an interesting tension between the universal, totalising perspective of theplanetary gaze, and the application of ERS technologies to popular sovereignty through the decentralis ation of scientific and political control.

And such mechanisms of participatory democracy are crucial to the creation of responsible andengaged citizens. The alternative is injustice and powerlessness.Dr. Henry A. Giroux 2009 (Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies @ McMaster University; Received his Doctorate fromCarnegie- Mellon in 1977. Obama's View of Education Is Stuck in Reverse , TruthOut, July 24th, Available at http://www.truthout.org/072409A

Situated within a broader context of issues concerned with social responsibility, politics and the dignity of human life, education should be engaged as a site that offers students the opportunity to involve themselves inthe deepest problems of society, to acquire the knowledge, skills and ethical vocabulary necessary for modesof critical dialogue and forms of broadened civic participation . This suggests developing classroom conditions for students to come toterms with their own sense of power and public voice as individual and social agents by enabling them to examine and frame critically what they learn in the classroom

"within a more political or social or intellectual understanding of what's going on" in the interface between their lives and the world at large.(4) At the veryleast, students need to learn how to take responsibility for their own ideas, take intellectual risks, develop asense of respect for others different than themselves, and learn how to think critically in order to function in awider democratic culture. At issue here is providing students with an education that allows them to recognizethe dream and promise of a substantive democracy , particularly the idea that as citizens they are "entitled to public services, decent housing,safety, security, support during hard times, and most importantly, some power over decision making."(5) This is a view of education that treatsteachers as critical and supportive intellectuals, not technicians, students as engaged citizens, not consumers,and schools as democratic public spheres, not training sites for the business world. It is also a view of education in which matters of power, equality, civic literacy and justice are central to any viable notion of education that addresses the future in terms of its democratic possibilities, rather than the bottom line .(6)
http://www.truthout.org/072409Ahttp://www.truthout.org/072409Ahttp://www.truthout.org/072409Ahttp://www.truthout.org/072409A

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Furthermore, only the investment in Earth Observation Satellites allow us to respond to catastrophe notretrospectively, but rather through a connection to our shared communities that provides the basis forthe preparation for global environmental change, mitigating inegalitarian sacrifice.Wigbels et. Al., 2008 ( Lyn, G. Ryan Faith, and Vincent Sabathier; Senior Fellow/Assistant Professor at the Center for Aerospace PolicyResearch at George Mason University; research analyst at the space foundation at CSIS; senior associate with the CSIS Technology and Public PolicyProgram EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND GLOBAL CHANGE Why? Where Are We? What Next?, A Report of CSIS Space Initiatives,

csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080725_wigbels_earthobservation_web.pdf)

Is it possible to predict or alleviate the impacts of natural and manmade disasters ? From the recent earthquake in China tothe cyclone in Myanmar to the rapid changes in our climate to the ongoing violence in Darfur, environmental and national security events are occurring around theglobe. Can we learn to adapt to and mitigate the water shortages and droughts that, combined with crop failures and exacerbated by soaring energy prices and a growingdemand for biofuels, have led to an unprecedented global food crisis? Will we be able to understand and take actions to minimize the impact of changing climate andassociated weather events on the health of human populations from addressing rising sea levels to the accelerated spread of disease? Will we be able to balance theneed for a wider array of alternative energy sources with respect to surging energy prices, simultaneously managing the implementation of carbon emission agreements

including carbon cap and trade agreements? These questions, and many others, demonstrate the complex management challenges presented by global change.1 Inorder for decisionmakers to address these management challenges, they must have reliable, continuous long-term data about our planet and environment . Earth observations including sensors in space, on land, in the air, andat sea, as well as associated data management and dissemination systems, Earth system models, and decisionsupport tools provide the infrastructure to deliver the data needed to understand ongoing global changes. Inthe half century since the dawn of the space age, space-based technologies from communications satellites to the global position system (GPS) which underpin the

success of globalization in recent decades have been instrumental in knitting our civilization more closely together. Similarly, we have started to rely onEarth observations as another global public good. Earth observations are critical in a number of areasincluding dramatic applications in managing the effect of disasters, monitoring global agriculturalproductivity, assessing natural conditions including the state of the Earths fresh water supplies, andmonitoring the indirect effects of global energy policies on Earths climate. These are all part of the vast effort involved inunderstanding and managing the 20 percent to 80 percent of the U.S. economy (representing $2.75 trillion to $11 trillion in 2007) sensitive to weather in the shortterm, let alone the evolving risk profile associated with longer-term global change. We have successfully developed and integrated space-based communications and

navigation capabilities to bring us closer together. While we have made great strides in developing and using Earth observationcapabilities, many challenges remain to provide equivalent accomplishments in the operational and sustaineduse of Earth observations for global security. While we have started to use Earth observations in predictingand responding to disasters, such as the Indonesian tsunami or Hurricane Katrina, we are far from secure inhaving an operational ability to systematically monitor, predict, mitigate, or understand in order to take the

actions necessary to prevent the challenges caused by the ever-increasing pace of global change . If we are tounderstand and plan intelligently for global change, we must take every opportunity to build on our pastsuccesses and redress our existing shortcomings. Today, there are a number of steps the United States must undertake to deliver on thepotential of Earth observations. First, the United States has the opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership within theU.S. Earth observation community through coherent, integrated planning, budgeting, and management of anEarth observation system providing long-term, continuous data acquisition. Second, the United States mustlead the world toward effective international cooperation on Earth observations and, consequently, globalchange . Like any other kind of strong international leadership, leadership in Earth observations enhances our national foreign policy capabilities from providing datato manage global resources to economic security enabled by Earth observation capacity building. Third, the United States must ensure that Earth observations meet theneeds of all users and that the public and private sectors reinforce not inhibit each other to enable us to take advantage of the ingenuity and innovation that the

private sector can offer. Rather than learning to adapt to natural and [hu]manmade disasters, the changing climate,the global food crisis, and our growing appetite for energy, dealing only with the consequences after the fact,

we need to start focusing our efforts on the Earth observation systems that will better connect humanity andits home, allowing us to prevent, predict, and mitigate the increasingly dramatic impacts of global change on aroutine basis.

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The United States must fulfill its commitment to GEOSS in order to provide accurate data and theleadership necessary to resolve the mounting environmental changes we are experiencing.Killeen 2005 Timothy L. Director @ the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NASA Earth Science 4-28-05. CQ Congressional Testimony. AccessedVia Lexis/Nexis

The first example is probably well known to you. The ozone "holes" in the Antarctic and Arctic were monitored from space by various NASA satellite systems,

including the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS). The diagnosis of the physical and chemical mechanisms responsible for these dangerous changes to ourprotective ozone shield was made possible by the combination of observations, modeling, and theory supported by NASA. In fact, it was a NASA high-altitude aircraft that made the "smoking gun" measurements that convinced the scientific and policycommunities that chlorine compounds produced by various human activities were centrally responsible for theobserved ozone loss . Following these observations, international protocols were put in place that are beginning to ameliorate the global-scale ozone loss. TheTOMS instrument has provided an ongoing source of data that permits us to track the level of ozone in the stratosphere, the annual opening and closing of the "ozone

hole," and how this phenomenon is changing over time. These continuing measurements and analyses and the effective regulatoryresponse have led, among other things, to a reduction in projected deaths from skin cancer worldwide. Last week,President Bush mentioned proposed rules to limit air pollution from coalfired power plants. Air pollution is clearly an important concern. NASA has played amajor role in the development of new technologies that can monitor the sources and circulation patterns of airpollution globally . It is another tremendous story of science serving society through innovation. In this case, through an international collaboration, NASAdeployed a one-of-a-kind instrument designed to observe global carbon monoxide and its transport from the NASA Terra spacecraft. These animations show the first

global observations of air pollution. Sources of carbon monoxide include industrial processes (see, for example, source regions in the Pacific Rim) and fires (forexample in Amazonia). These global-scale data from space have helped change our understanding of the relationshipbetween pollution and air quality - we now know that pollution is not solely or even primarily a local orregional problem. California's air quality is influenced by industrial activity in Asia, and Europe's air quality is influenced by activities here in America. Fromsuch pioneering work, operational systems can now be designed to observe pollution events, the global distribution of chemicals and particulate matter in theatmosphere, and the ways in which these substances interact and affect the ability of the atmosphere to sustain life - such a system will undoubtedly underpin futureefforts to understand, monitor, and manage air quality globally. Without NASA's commitment to innovation in the Earth sciences, it is hard to believe that such anincredible new capability would be available today. The Promise of Earth Observations in the Next Decade The achievements of the last several decades have laid thefoundation for an unprecedented era of discovery and innovation in Earth system science. Advances in observing technologies have been accompanied by vastimprovements in computing and data processing. When the Earth Observing System satellites were being designed, processing and archiving the data was a centralchallenge. The Terra satellite produces about 194 gigabytes of raw data per day, which seemed a daunting prospect at the time of its definition. Now laptop memoriesare measured in gigabytes, students can work with remote sensing datasets on their laptops, and a large data center like NCAR increases our data holdings by about1000 gigabytes per day. The next generation of high performance computing systems, which will be deployed during the next five years or so, will be petascalesystems, meaning that they will be able to process millions of gigabytes of data. The ongoing revolution in information technology has provided us with capabilities wecould hardly conceive of when the current generation of Earth observing satellites was being developed. We have just begun to take advantage of the synergies betweenthese technological areas. The U.S., through NASA, is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this technological opportunity. Example 3: Weather Forecasting

Weather forecasting in the Southern Hemisphere has been dramatically improved through NASA'scontrib

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