Verbatim Mac

Air Pollution

1. No Solvency – 1AC Liu evidence indicates that China wind tech can’t compete with oil or coal companies because of grid constraints and lack of transmission infrastructure – even if aff increases amount of wind energy, there’s no storage capacity in China in the squo

2. *Wind turbines are causing blackouts in China

   1. Adding more wind tech ensures future blackouts and grid damage

Follett, 7-21-2016 (Andrew, Energy and Environmental reporter, "China Shuts Down Construction Of New Wind Turbines, Fears Blackouts," Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/china-shuts-down-construction-of-new-wind-turbines/)//SZ

China’s government announced Thursday the country will shut down the production of new wind turbines in five provinces, as they cause serious damage to the electrical grid. China specifically shut down construction in the windiest regions of the country because roughly 26 percent of the country’s wind power was wasted in 2016. Wasted wind power is incredibly problematic, because it damages the power grid and can potentially cause massive blackouts. The government stopped approving new wind power projects in the country’s windiest regions in early March, according to China’s National Energy Administration statement. These regions previously installed nearly 71 gigawatts of wind turbines, more than the rest of China combined. A single gigawatt of electricity is enough to power 700,000 homes. Government statistics show that 33.9 billion kilowatt-hours of wind-power, or about 15 percent of all Chinese wind power, were wasted in 2015 alone. “We estimate that over the course of the first six months, 4.2 billion kilowatt hours of wind and solar power has been wasted, which is equivalent to New Zealand’s electricity use in the whole year of 2015,” Peng Peng, an analyst with the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, told Reuters. Wind turbines are extremely intermittent and don’t produce much power at the times of day when electricity is most needed. This poses an enormous safety risk to grid operators and makes power grids vastly more fragile. Beijing ordered wind operators to stop expanding four times in the last five years, because unreliable wind power was damaging the country’s power grid and costing the government enormous amounts of money. Building the infrastructure to transmit wind energy over long distances is enormously expensive and could cost many times the price of generating the electricity. This is a huge problem because the best areas for wind turbines in China are far away from the coastal provinces where most of its population lives.

2. Blackouts cause economic damage, food scarcity, and crime

Matthewman, S. D., & Byrd, H. (2014). (University of Auckland, pHD, “Blackouts: A Sociology of Electrical Power Failure”. Social Space, 1-25. Retrieved from http://socialspacejournal.eu/Sz%C3%B3sty%20numer/Steve%20Matthewman%2 0Hugh%20Byrd%20- %20Blackouts%20a%20sociology%20of%20electrical%20power%20failure.pdf)//SZ

When blackout events happen the electrical supply industries are faced with establishing future mitigation systems. Research and risk analysis is carried out with the aim of producing resilient future supplies. For example, the electricity supply industry produced a book on improving supply security following the previously mentioned Italian power outage in 2003 (IEA 2005). Less research is carried out on the social impact of power outages (for an exception see Nye 2010). Irrespective of cause, the survey of media reports shows that patterns emerge whenever blackouts result. These include measurable economic losses and social costs that are harder to quantify. The main themes to emerge from media reports were: economic damage, food safety, crime, transport and the problems caused by diesel generators are looked at. 3.2. Economic costs For several blackout events the direct monetary cost has been calculated. This is generally measured using an economic model such as loss of sales or production. The examples here show that losses vary considerably from minor inconveniences of ATM machine failure, as in the UK in 2009 when a major bank lost its power supply (Alexander 2009), all the way to major economic failures costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Power outages and quality disturbances are estimated to cause economic losses of between 25,000,000,000 USD (18,000,000,000 EUR) and 180,000,000,000 USD (131,000,000,000 EUR) per annum in America (ASCE 2009: 134). During Easter 2010 Venezuela’s President extended the holiday period in order to reduce the country’s electricity demand. Rolling blackouts were imposed on areas of the country. The business community warned the president of a loss of production and food supply shortages (Guardian 2010). Friday 25thJanuary 2008, the three largest gold mines and two biggest Platinum mines in South Africa were forced to shut down due to a blackout. Within minutes, the world price of these commodities rose by 5% (McGreal 2008b). Power cuts in Iran in September 2008 added to the economy’s woes: ‘Without electricity, the economy continues to self-destruct. In the scorching heat, offices cannot operate without air-conditioners and the little manufacturing done in Iran is threatened with even more disasters. Making deals with China necessitated the opening up of the Iranian market to cheap Chinese goods so at this rate the little of it done at home will be destroyed’ (Cist 2008). Beijing: in July 2004 rolling blackouts occurred as energy demand soared. To compensate, factories operated at night to save energy on air-conditioning use and the state press urged people to stop wearing suits as a means of keeping cool. Driven by an inadequate supply of resources, state governments introduced rationing of electricity with the logic of turning lights off in one place to keep them on in another (BBC 2004a). On Friday 15th August 2003 parts of Canada and the US were hit by blackout. Trading on the stock exchange was described as ‘light’, people struggled to get to work and ATM machines stopped functioning. Car manufacturing was hit hard with 12 General Motors and 24 Ford plants closing. Airports in the US and Canada were closed resulting in 500 flight cancellations and an estimated ‘tens of millions of dollars’ losses (BBC 2003a). 3.3. Food safety Italy was crippled by a grid collapse in the month following the North American outages. The 18 hour blackout exposed the country to almost every aspect of dependency that comes with an addiction. Only a few hours into the blackout it was estimated that the loss of food sales amounted to 50,000,000 EUR with the loss of frozen food adding a further 70,000,000 EUR (BBC 2003b). Blackouts obviously severely impact upon foodstuffs. The need to preserve freshness through fridges and freezers is a priority. Inability to safely store food has a number of consequences. Economic loss is perhaps the most immediate and obvious. To take another example, in May 2008 traders in Zanzibar soon found their stock perishing. Meat went bad due to blackouts. Shopkeepers looked to claw profits back by buying fresh meat at reduced prices, only to find that no market existed for it. Customers were equally reliant on electrical power. They had no means of cooking (BBC 2008a). Blackouts were so frequent in Kenya during 2010 that Nairobi’s restaurants planned menus to accommodate them. With each blackout staff scrambled to get generators running to avoid food spoilage, but cooks never met demand due to the lack of stoves. Hosts noted the frustration of serving restricted offerings to customers while potentially poisoning them (Burnham, Groneworld, 2010). In 2010 authorities imposed electricity rationing to meet energy efficiency targets in Hebei Province, China. Tens of thousands of households were left without electricity for 22 hours out of three days with the consequent loss of refrigeration. Milk curdled and vegetables rotted as the domestic penalty for industries that exceeded energy consumption targets (Watts 2010). A more tragic consequence of a lack of refrigeration was felt in Pakistan in June 2010. Blackouts during a heat wave resulted in 12 hours a day without electricity. Numerous deaths were recorded from food poisoning as people ate bad food from freezers (Iqbal 2010). 3.4. Crime rates When the lights go out, crime rates increase. Security systems fail without electricity. Blackouts provide opportunities for fraud, theft and exploitation (BBC 2009a; b). In South Africa in 2008 an increase in robbery occurred during times of blackouts including premeditated and violent robbery from cars returning home and being delayed in the street while electric gates were opened manually (McGreal 2008a). In Zanzibar, following four weeks of an electricity blackout it was announced that power had at last been restored. But not for many, as the opportunity for making money out of the scrap metal value of electricity cables was too tempting while the cables were not live (Boswell 2008). In 2006 in Tanzania the rains failed and the hydro dams ran almost dry. The Energy Minister realised the value of electricity: ‘It is important to have light at night to curb crime’ (BBC 2006). Auckland suffered a blackout for five weeks (BBC 1998a). The police adopted saturation policing, doubling patrols and using private security guards to prevent looting. It is the only example identified in which crime reportedly reduced during a blackout. The city centre effectively closed down for weeks. Tourists left and the empty streets offered little opportunity for petty criminals. More typically, extended periods without electricity or intermittent periods of rolling blackouts lead to social unrest. In Pakistan it was estimated that 53% of the population went without power for eight hours of the day in 2009. The power cuts usually occur during hot summers. High temperatures and hikes in energy prices are a recipe for unrest. ‘In Karachi and throughout the Punjab … angry mobs went on a rampage and assailed power companies in frustration at the long daily power cuts that have brought modern life to a standstill’ (Iqbal 2010).

3. Wind tech turns environment protesting – 1AC Duggan indicates that most protests stem from metal mining pollution

IER, 10-23-2013, "Big Wind’s Dirty Little Secret: Toxic Lakes and Radioactive Waste," http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/)//SZ

Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials necessary to construct wind turbines. Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily from China. Unfortunately, given federal regulations in the U.S. that restrict rare earth mineral development and China’s poor record of environmental stewardship, the process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health impacts on local communities. It’s a story Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear. Rare Earth Horrors Manufacturing wind turbines is a resource-intensive process. A typical wind turbine contains more than 8,000 different components, many of which are made from steel, cast iron, and concrete. One such component are magnets made from neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals. Simon Parry from the Daily Mail traveled to Baotou, China, to see the mines, factories, and dumping grounds associated with China’s rare-earths industry. What he found was truly haunting: As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming. ‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’ People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed. Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found. As the wind industry grows, these horrors will likely only get worse. Growth in the wind industry could raise demand for neodymium by as much as 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could increase by 2,600 percent, according to a recent MIT study. The more wind turbines pop up in America, the more people in China are likely to suffer due to China’s policies. Or as the Daily Mail put it, every turbine we erect contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.” Big Wind’s Dependence on China’s “Toxic Lakes” The wind industry requires an astounding amount of rare earth minerals, primarily neodymium and dysprosium, which are key components of the magnets used in modern wind turbines. Developed by GE in 1982, neodymium magnets are manufactured in many shapes and sizes for numerous purposes. One of their most common uses is in the generators of wind turbines. Estimates of the exact amount of rare earth minerals in wind turbines vary, but in any case the numbers are staggering. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium. The MIT study cited above estimates that a 2 MW wind turbine contains about 752 pounds of rare earth minerals. To quantify this in terms of environmental damages, consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. In 2012, the U.S. added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity. That means that between 4.9 million pounds (using MIT’s estimate) and 6.1 million pounds (using the Bulletin of Atomic Science’s estimate) of rare earths were used in wind turbines installed in 2012. It also means that between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste were created to make these wind turbines.

1. Solar panels require rare metals concentrated in China – An increase in the production means an increase in mining

Yale Environment 13 (Nicola Jones, “A Scarcity of Rare Metals Is Hindering Green Technologies” Nov 18, a freelance journalist based in Pemberton, British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver. With a background in chemistry and oceanography, she writes about the physical sciences, most often for the journal Nature. She has also contributed to Scientific American, Globe and Mail, and New Scientist and serves as the science journalist in residence at the University of British Columbia. Previously for Yale Environment 360, she wrote about the challenges ofpredicting sea level rise far into the future.

Now you can make a more reliable wind turbine that doesn’t need a gearbox at all, King points out, but you need a truckload of so-called "rare earth" metals to do it, and there simply isn’t the supply. Likewise, we could all be using next-generation fluorescent light bulbs that are twice as efficient as the current standard. But when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) tried to make that switch in 2009, companies like General Electric cried foul: they wouldn’t be able to get hold of enough rare earths to make the new bulbs.  The move toward new and better technologies — from smart phones to electric cars — means an ever-increasing demand for exotic metals that are scarce thanks to both geology and politics. Thin, cheap solar panels need tellurium, which makes up a scant 0.0000001 percent of the earth’s crust, making it three times rarer than gold. High-performance batteries need lithium, which is only easily extracted from briny pools in the Andes.

2. R.E.M mining leads to environmental degradation

Bonds and Downey 12 (Eric Bonds & Liam Downey, University of Mary Washington & University of Colorado at Boulder, ““Green” Technology and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: The Environmental and Social Consequences of Ecological Modernization in the World-System”, http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/482/494, Summer 2012) CJun

It is important to note that we are not claiming that the violence associated with copper mining in Indonesia and Ecuador, and with nickel mining in Indonesia, New Caledonia, and Guatemala, is necessarily connected with hybrid vehicle production. However, because hybrid vehicles currently use much larger quantities of these minerals compared to conventional vehicles, the large-scale replacement of conventional autos with hybrids will increase demand and likely exacerbate the environmental destruction and violence associated with copper and nickel mining. The large-scale production of hybrids may increase demand for other minerals as well, raising similar concerns. For instance, hybrid cars currently utilize an estimated 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of rare earth minerals for the rechargeable battery pack alone, far more than that used in conventional vehicles (National Research Council 2008). Rare earth minerals are mined almost exclusively in Inner Mongolia and Southeastern China. Inner Mongolia is a mineral-rich area colonized by China, where pastoral Mongolians have long been targeted by government repression (Sneath 2000) and, more recently, have been forcibly moved from their land and resettled (York 2008). In Southeastern China, rare earth mines are “some of most environmentally damaging in the country,” producing toxic and radioactive waste that contaminates water and soils, destroying rice and aquiculture production (Bradsher 2009). Furthermore, hybrid vehicle manufacturers may increasingly use lithium-ion batteries, which are lighter-weight and have greater energy-storage capacities compared to nickelcadmium batteries. But here too increased demand might mean increased environmental degradation and state violence, given that some of the world’s largest lithium reserves are found in Chinese-occupied Tibet (Ladurantaye 2008). Colonized people rarely passively accept the extraction of wealth from land they claim as their historic right, nor do they often passively accept the environmental degradation that accompanies it (Geddicks 1992; Klare 2002). The presence of large amounts of lithium in Tibet then, combined with the Chinese state’s willingness to utilize violence to extract mineral resources, means that the widespread commercialization of hybrid vehicles may pose increased hardships for the people of that region. Taken together, these cases suggest that increasing demand for hybrid cars and, as a result, increasing demand for certain minerals critical to their production will result in the displacement of environmental harm across nations from the core to the periphery. If hybrid vehicles largely replaced conventional vehicles in car-dependent wealthy nations, these nations may produce less air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It is no simple accounting practice to determine if these gains outweigh the increased environmental degradation and human rights abuses people living near copper, nickel, lithium, and rare earth mineral deposits would likely face. The case of hybrid vehicle technology underscores the importance of placing inequality and aspects of uneven development at the center of any analysis of the possible benefits and harms of the widespread adoption of “green” technologies in the world-system.

4. CCP won’t collapse

Mattis, 12 – Editor of the China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation (Peter, “The Foundations of China’s Future Stability,” Asia Pacific Bulletin, 2/9/2012, http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/21972/APB%20no.%20149.pdf?sequence=1)

The recently ended standoff between the villagers of Wukan in Guangdong province and local government officials has refocused attention on China’s future stability. The more than 100,000 officially reported incidents of unrest each year gives observers the false impression that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing barely holds the country together. Pressure may be building, but China’s stability is like a champagne bottle. Until the cork pops, the bottle and its contents are stable. The question is how much pressure is building and how much wine is spilt when the cork flies out. Point predictions offer little value unless the factors underpinning the state’s power and the CCP’s ability to manipulate socio-political dynamics are assessed. China’s future will depend more on Beijing’s ability to prevent local crises from cascading nationally, than preventing the emergence of a political rival to the CCP. While the vagaries of the economy may raise or lower the pressure, revolutionary unrest in a country the size of China requires more than just resentment. Some modicum of connectivity and coordination is necessary to prevent Beijing from secretly applying differing doses of coercion and co-option. The CCP leadership understands the nature of this challenge and has responded accordingly with a variety of public order policies that increase its internal monitoring capabilities and ability to shape public discourse. These policies amount to a three- pronged strategy for maintaining control and countering dissent. The first is to prevent localized grievances from congealing into a national crisis like what happened in 1989. The second prong is the resuscitation of the domestic intelligence system. The final element is guiding and controlling the public discourse. The first element regarding stability maintenance is to encourage the perception that local grievances have local causes and that the central government will side with the demonstrators. So long as the protestors still believe their problems do not have roots in the national system, the belief is that there is less likelihood of unrest stirring up in neighboring localities. This first element is a guiding principle for maintaining stability, and there are specific policy choices associated with it. For example, local governments control the police while Beijing controls the military. The buildup of paramilitary capabilities gives provincial and local governments more capability to deal with incidents of unrest, but also shields Beijing from any ostensible responsibility for the violence. Since the early 2000s, rebuilding the domestic intelligence apparatus has been a priority for Beijing. After several years of local-level experimentation, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in 2008 held a ministry-wide conference to establish “public security informatization” as a guiding principle of police work. This included both human and technical components. The former included a new Domestic Security Department and new spending on domestic informant networks. These measures supplement the electronic integration of records on individuals’ movements and automated systems, like the “Golden Shield” network and databases, that alert local police when persons of interest register in hotels, buy plane tickets, or anything else requiring identification. While these capabilities give local authorities greater awareness, most importantly they supplement the political means to isolate grievances by tracking activists across different geographic localities. Finally, modern communication technology has forced the central government propaganda system to evolve to the new environment. Controlling the public discourse now requires more than just pre-publication censorship of newspapers and, arguably, the system has moved toward post-publication crackdowns to encourage self-censorship through uncertainty. Beijing also has moved to reduce the anonymity of the Internet— most recently, requiring true name registration for microblogging—and deployed increasingly sophisticated systems to scrub or discredit unpalatable information. More importantly, the expanded sphere for public discourse has forced the government at all levels to expose itself by engaging society through microblogs, editorials, and selective open government initiatives more frequently to try to shape how the public converses. While the aforementioned policies will affect how well the Chinese government deals with civil unrest, the failure of these strategies does not necessarily mean the CCP will lose power. The longevity of police-states has confounded some observers, but states generally survive while the government maintains legitimacy and control over mass violence. Put into observables, the key questions revolve around central government credibility and the loyalty of the military. Despite the tens of thousands of protests each year—many related to official corruption— Chinese demonstrators like those in Wukan still appeal to Beijing for succor. Continuing appeals indicate two things. First, the central government maintains some popular legitimacy. Second, Beijing’s strategy of localizing grievances while insulating the center from blame is working. When protestors no longer appeal to Beijing, then the CCP’s ability to maintain control will rest on the state’s coercive power to keep the cork in the bottle.

5. Duggan cites protests resulting from landfill pollution and hazardous chemical aerosols, not air pollution in the context of CO2 emissions

6. Their air pollution impact claims are scientifically incorrect – no impact

Jack Dini 15, 6-9-2015, "Air Pollution And Not-So -Premature-Deaths," No Publication, http://canadafreepress.com/article/air-pollution-and-not-so-premature-deaths

Chinese cities have some of the worst air pollution in the world. Two are Xi’an and Shanghai. Yet reports claim life expectancy in both these cities is higher than the US. According to a 2012 report, even though the air in Xi’an is, on average, 9-10 times more polluted in terms of PM2.5 particles than the median PM2.5 levels of the two most polluted cities in a 112 US city study (Rubidoux, CA and Los Angeles, CA), it is safer than US air by a factor of five. (1) Special: John Goodman Loses 100lbs - So Skinny He's Unrecognizable Then there’s Shanghai. On December 6, 2013, Shanghai’s PM2.5 level exceeded 600 micrograms per cubic meter—about 60 times the average level of PM2.5 in US air. (2) According to the EPA, every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 raises the death rate by about 1%. So Shanghai’s death rate should be quite high, e.g., 60 times higher on December 6, 2013 alone. (3) But no such death rate was reported. In fact, no increase in deaths at all was reported. And, like with Xi’an it’s worth noting that the life expectancy in Shanghai (82.47 years) is higher than that in the US. (4) Special: Smart Pill Proven To Boost Your IQ Over 140 In 3 Weeks. Yes, the air in Xi’an and Shanghai is foul. Is it killing people? There is no evidence of that. Yet, EPA claims that natural and man-made PM2.5 causes as many as 500,000 deaths annually. Think about this statistic for a moment. This figure represent 25% of all US annual deaths. (5) How many people do you know who died from air pollution? I’m hard pressed to come up with one name, yet 25%? Really! EPA’s position is that: - any inhalation of PM2.5 can cause death - death from PM2.5 may occur within hours of inhalation - long-term (i.e., years or decades) exposure to PM2.5 can cause premature death Steve Milloy says, “This is shocking since if air pollution really was deadly, one would expect to see this phenomenon operating in high gear in the respiratory horror that exists in Xi’an and Shanghai.” (6) What about health effects? There’s no evidence to support EPA’s long-standing claim that fine airborne particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrograms or less (PM2.5) is killing thousands of Americans every year, according to the first comprehensive study of its kind. The study compared air quality data collected statewide by the California Air Resources Board on 854,109 death certificates issued by the State Department of Public Health documenting 94 percent of all deaths in California between 2007 and 2010. No correlation was found between changes in ambient PM2.5 and mortality for any cause of death. The study also found ‘no evidence’ to support EPA claims that the elderly and those with heart and lung disease were more vulnerable than the general population to the effects of PM2.5 (7) A study by UCLA’s Dr. James Enstron of the long-term relationship between PM2.5 air pollution followed nearly 50,000 elderly Californians over a 30-year period., from 1973 through 2002. In concluded that there was no death effect from current atmospheric levels of PM2.5 in California. (8) Scientific reality: PM2.5 does not kill anyone. The EPA’s claims of PM2.5 lethality rank among the most nonsensical fraudulent and readily disprovable scientific claims ever.

7. Solving air pollution gets rid of aerosols which are key to slow warming

Harris 11 (Richard, award-winning journalist who has reported on a wide range of topics in science, medicine and the environment, earned a bachelor's degree at the school in biology, with highest honors. “Air Pollution: Bad For Health, But Good For Planet?” NPR. November 11. http://www.npr.org/2011/11/11/142218650/air-pollution-bad-for-health-but-good-for-planet, PN)

Cleaning up the air, while good for our lungs, could make global warming worse. That conclusion is underscored by a new study, which looks at the pollutants that go up smokestacks along with carbon dioxide. These pollutants are called aerosols and they include soot as well as compounds of nitrogen and sulfur and other stuff into the air. Natalie Mahowald, a climate researcher at Cornell University, says so far, scientists have mostly tried to understand what those aerosols do while they're actually in the air. "There are so many different kinds of aerosols and they have many different sources," she says. "Some warm and some cool. But in the net, humans are emitting a lot of extra aerosols, and they tend to cool for the most part." The aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, or they stimulate clouds that keep us cool. But it turns out that's not all they do. These aerosols also influence how much carbon dioxide gets drawn out of the air by plants on land and in the sea. "They can add nutrients, for example, to the oceans or to the land," Mahowald says. "But also while they're in the atmosphere they can change the climate, and so that also can impact the amount of carbon the land or the ocean can take up. So there are quite a few different ways that aerosols can interact." In an article published in Science magazine, she concludes that those effects add up to quite a bit. At the moment, aerosols are not only helping reduce global warming by cooling the atmosphere, but they're helping reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that stays in the air once we emit it.

Trade

1. Escalation of multiple trade disputes with China is inevitable

Connars 5/7

(Jon, JUNE 7, The trade war with China is already here, http://atimes.com/2016/06/the-trade-war-with-china-is-already-here/)

What Trump and his opponents fail to acknowledge, however, is that the US is already engaged in a vicious trade battle with China centered on steel exports. China’s overproduction has decimated steel producers all over the world after the country upped its output from 128 million tons in 2000 to 822 million tons in 2014. American steel makers have already lost billions of dollars as a result of China dumping its steel exports on the US economy, while their counterparts in countries from Brazil to Britain have been left facing bankruptcy. Unsurprisingly, American and European steel mills are pushing their governments to take action.

In the face of growing international pressure, Beijing has repeatedly promised to slow its steel output, but the numbers tell their own story. March saw the highest level of Chinese steel production in history. The China Iron & Steel Association revealed the country churned out 70.65 million tons in just that one month alone. Despite falling back in April overall, average daily production rose from 2.279 million tons to 2.314 million tons, another record high, according to Reuters.

China mills defiant

So far, party bosses have been unable to stem the tide of steel producers. Mills in Hebei province have repeatedly flouted orders from Beijing to slash their output, while new power plants meant to support increased levels of production popped up in the region. The reason? While the Central Committee does exact a level of control over the biggest SOEs, many small or mid-sized local producers have sprouted up as a result of the advantageous crediting conditions China’s 2008-2009 stimulus package contained. These companies have increased their share of the steel market, growing from 55% in 2012 to 66% in 2015.

China’s failure to rein in its steel producers has prompted US regulators to launch an investigation into complaints received from United States Steel Corp that its Chinese competitors stole its secrets and rigged prices. U.S. Steel claims it has evidence that Chinese hackers stole confidential data on production processes involved in the manufacture of a new high-strength, super-lightweight steel that is popular among car makers. Among the 40-odd Chinese producers investigated are some of the biggest SOEs, such as Baosteel Group, Hebei Iron and Steel Group, and Jiangsu Shagang Group. The launch of the probe comes after the Department of Commerce slapped more duties on corrosion-resistant steel and cold rolled steel imported from China, hiking tariffs on the latter to an eye-watering 500%. U.S. Steel is pushing for a halt to nearly all steel imports from China under section 337 of the main US tariff law.

And it’s not just the US. In February, thousands of steel workers held a protest in Brussels, calling on the European Union to protect them against cheap imports from China, which they claim are destroying European jobs. The European Parliament reacted promptly and passed a resolution that dealt a deathblow to hopes Beijing would receive Market Economy Status later this year. The much-coveted designation would have eased the access of Chinese exports to the European bloc, and China threatened a trade war with the EU if MES is not awarded.

Environmental toll

Frayed relations with the West aside, China’s rampant overproduction of steel and other commodities is having a devastating impact on the country’s already gravely polluted environment. Shockingly, nearly 75% of the country’s steel producers fail to meet China’s rather lax environmental standards. It is no coincidence that China’s smoggiest province is the steel heartland of Hebei, home to hundreds of steel mills operating with little oversight. The top steel-making city of Tangshan has even ordered mills in the area to reduce production temporarily in a last ditch attempt to cut air pollution and set up dust removal teams.

Despite China imposing stricter penalties on firms that violate new environmental laws introduced last year to cut the deadly smog that engulfs many of its cities, private and public companies alike have kept the wheels of industry turning, looking to turn a quick profit. Sierra Club, an American environmentalist group, released a video exposing the 21 industrial tycoons responsible for 10% of China’s CO2 emissions. These businessmen have amassed billions by flaunting environmental regulations, leading some commentators to suggest the increased fines are still not punitive enough to force manufacturers to adopt greener processes and that the Chinese government’s “War on pollution” is little more than window dressing.

While paying lip service to cracking down on companies that contribute most to its rampant carbon emissions – which are now higher than those produced by the US and Europe combined – the Chinese government continues to prop up industries from paper to steel with subsidies that result in below-cost production, contributing to the overproduction that is blighting so many industries around the world, along with the environment.

With its economy slowing, China is unlikely to kill the subsidies that allow its commodity producers to turn out products at below-market prices, making an escalation of its trade war with the US and the continued destruction of its environment all but inevitable.

2. Domestic pressures and tons of other disputes means the aff can’t spill over

Talley and Magnier 5/2

(IAN and MARK, U.S.-China Trade Troubles Grow, June 2, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-trade-troubles-grow-1464887897

The U.S. and China, facing mounting political pressures at home, are seeing economic tensions flare to their worst point in years over currency and trade practices.

China has pushed the yuan to a five-year low against the dollar, reviving charges from American firms of currency manipulation to gain a competitive advantage for Chinese goods. The Obama administration has fired off a series of trade complaints and levied duties on several Chinese industries, from chicken feet to cold-rolled steel used in appliances and auto parts.

The friction between the world’s two largest economies could worsen as domestic politics collide with already weak growth.

The U.S., seeing heightened anti-China rhetoric in the presidential election, wants China to press ahead with promised policies to open up its markets and allow greater international investment.

Chinese leaders, worried about a deeper economic slowdown, are trying to keep factories humming and prevent the kind of market unrest that gripped global investors over the past year.

3. Solar tariff dispute was played up by media – US-China trade interdependency mitigates trade conflicts

Ikenson 12 (quoting a podcast of Dan Ikenson, the director at Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at American think-tank, the Cato Institute, “Dan Ikenson: U.S.-China Trade War Is More Roar Than Dragon Fire”, http://newsdog.today/a/article/577e1297129071072fb670e3/)//SZ

Q: Just earlier this week, the U.S. Commerce Department released preliminary decisions to impose duties on solar panel imports from China. How bad is the current U.S.-China trading relationship? A: Certainly, the disputes the two countries have been having have been played up a lot in the media. This is an election year in the U.S. There will be a change of leadership in China at the beginning of next year. So scapegoating and pointing the fingers at each other is part-and parcel of that political process. When we have these trade disputes, we tend to inflate the meaning of them all. For example, the solar panel case. That is just an anti-dumping case in the U.S. In other words, the WTO permits the U.S. and other member countries to have certain anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws, where domestic industries can file for duties to be imposed, provided that they demonstrate that the domestic industry is materially injured and the cause of the injury is unfair trade. So that doesn’t reflect government policy. It’s not like it’s an Obama administration initiative. It’s the U.S. solar panel producers. Q: Give us some historical perspectives. For instance, President Obama’s decision on tires in 2009. Have there been precedents? A: The tires case is unique. When China joined the WTO in 2001, it agreed to allow the U.S. and other standing WTO members to treat it differently with respect to several issues. Under one circumstance, China allowed the U.S. to have a so-called China Specific Safeguard. There was concern in the U.S. about surged imports from China that would injure some U.S. industries. So China allowed the U.S. to have this law until 2013. During the Bush administration, the domestic industries brought cases under that safeguard five times. And, President Bush was recommended to impose duties on Chinese products four times. And each time, he said no. On the tires case, President Obama agreed to impose duties. That was the first time in history that a U.S. president signed off personally on protectionist measures against China. I think that was the spark that initiated a series of tit-for-tat actions between the two countries. Q: Do you see the trading relationship get worse in the future? A: It could worsen. But people tend to miss the fact that the U.S.- China trade relationship is the largest in the world. And most of our trade creates no waves. It’s only a small percentage of our trade that creates frictions. The U.S. and China have brought 18 cases to the WTO. The U.S. brought 12 cases against China. China brought six cases. But there have been fifty-four cases between the U.S. and Europe under the WTO. So I don’t think these actions necessarily reflect deterioration in the relationship as much as it reflects a maturing of the relationship.

4. No trade war- Vincent ev indicates automobile industry flare up barely caused an economic stir

5. Trade doesn’t solve war

Martin et al. 8 (Phillipe, University of Paris 1 Pantheon—Sorbonne, Paris School of Economics, and Centre for Economic Policy Research; Thierry MAYER, University of Paris 1 Pantheon—Sorbonne, Paris School of Economics, CEPII, and Centre for Economic Policy Research, Mathias THOENIG, University of Geneva and Paris School of Economics, The Review of Economic Studies 75)
Does globalization pacify international relations? The “liberal” view in political science argues that increasing trade flows and the spread of free markets and democracy should limit the incentive to use military force in interstate relations. This vision, which can partly be traced back to Kant’s Essay on Perpetual Peace (1795), has been very influential: The main objective of the European trade integration process was to prevent the killing and destruction of the two World Wars from ever happening again.1 Figure 1 suggests2 however, that during the 1870–2001 period, the correlation between trade openness and military conflicts is not a clear cut one. The first era of globalization, at the end of the 19th century, was a period of rising trade openness and multiple military conflicts, culminating with World War I. Then, the interwar period was characterized by a simultaneous collapse of world trade and conflicts. After World War II, world trade increased rapidly, while the number of conflicts decreased (although the risk of a global conflict was obviously high). There is no clear evidence that the 1990s, during which trade flows increased dramatically, was a period of lower prevalence of military conflicts, even taking into account the increase in the number of sovereign states.

6. No internal link to economic decline- Trade war leads to a focus on local businesses and domestic production

7. No internal link to overall trade—they don’t have a card that establishes a spillover from solar to the broader trade relationship

8. And economic decline doesn’t cause war

Morris Miller, Professor of Administration @ the University of Ottawa, ‘2K

(Interdisciplinary Science Review, v 25 n4 2000 p ingenta connect)

The question may be reformulated. Do wars spring from a popular reaction to a sudden economic crisis that exacerbates poverty and growing disparities in wealth and incomes? Perhaps one could argue, as some scholars do, that it is some dramatic event or sequence of such events leading to the exacerbation of poverty that, in turn, leads to this deplorable denouement. This exogenous factor might act as a catalyst for a violent reaction on the part of the people or on the part of the political leadership who would then possibly be tempted to seek a diversion by finding or, if need be, fabricating an enemy and setting in train the process leading to war. According to a study under- taken by Minxin Pei and Ariel Adesnik of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there would not appear to be any merit in this hypothesis. After studying ninety-three episodes of economic crisis in twenty-two countries in Latin America and Asia in the years since the Second World War they concluded that:19 Much of the conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises may be wrong ... The severity of economic crisis – as measured in terms of inflation and negative growth – bore no relationship to the collapse of regimes ... (or, in democratic states, rarely) to an outbreak of violence ... In the cases of dictatorships and semi-democracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression (thereby using one form of violence to abort another).

*Solvency

1. No Solvency – eliminating tariffs increases demand for subsidized Chinese panels, means that prices will spike post-plan – that makes solar even less competitive against oil prices

2. Solar isn’t competitive in squo

Platzer 15 (Specialist in Industrial Organization and Business at the Congressional Research Service)

(Michaela D., U.S. Solar Photovoltaic Manufacturing: Industry Trends, Global Competition, Federal Support, January 27, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42509.pdf)

Major developments affecting the domestic photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing sector include technological advances, improved production methods, dramatically lower prices for PV modules, and trade frictions, particularly with China.1 These volatile industry trends have adversely affected the operations of many solar companies, forcing some to reassess their business models and others to close factories or declare bankruptcy.2 In addition, the rapid growth in shale gas production has the potential to affect the competitiveness of solar power, as cheap natural gas possibly may provide an alternative source of energy at a lower price. If oil and gas prices stay low, demand for renewable energy, including solar, might be hurt. These trends affect the ability of the United States to build a sustained domestic production base for PV equipment.

3. Can’t solve in time—they don’t have a card that says that solar energy alone is able to bring warming below 2 degrees before their impacts kick in

4. Proliferating solar energy is too expensive and inefficient

Lomborg 16 [Bjørn Lomborg President, Copenhagen Consensus Center The Huffington Post Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School as well as President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/bjorn-lomborg]

We constantly hear how solar and wind energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels. A few months ago, Bloomberg Business declared that “wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce in both Germany and the U.K., even without government subsidies.” If renewable energy is cheaper than dirty fossil fuels, why isn’t everyone adopting them? Are we so irrationally addicted to polluting energy sources that we won’t even embrace cheaper and cleaner alternatives? Well, as you might have guessed, it turns out that wind and solar energy isn’t cheaper than fossil fuels in the real world. Quite the opposite. A new report from the same Bloomberg now warns that if subsidies are phased out by 2020 in the U.K, the renewable industry will dry up and drop off a cliff. But if they’re already cheaper now, why on earth would it matter if we stop paying even more for wind after 2020? With formidable doublespeak, Greenpeace tries to square this circle by saying that renewables are both competitive and need subsidies for many years after 2020: “Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs.” That is a claim we’ve heard many times since the 1970s - just a few more years of subsidies, and we’ll be off. In 1976 Lovins told us that “a largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic.” And it still isn’t. Truth is, wind and solar PV will be trivial contributions to global energy for the next quarter century. The International Energy Agency estimates that today just about 0.5 per cent of global energy comes from solar and wind (see graphic below). Even in 2040, even if everyone does everything they’ve promised at the Paris climate summit, the world will get just 2.4% of its energy from solar and wind. Still, it will cost a fortune. This year the world will spend about $106 billion on subsidies for solar and wind, and even by 2040 it will not be cheaper than fossil fuels - we will still have to pay $84 billion in subsidies annually.

5. Cost of renewable energy is uncompetitive because of grid modifications needed to implement renewables

Robert Fares, 11-24-2015, "Deep De-Carbonization Would Increase Electricity Costs 20–90 Percent, Says J.P. Morgan," Scientific American Blog Network, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/deep-de-carbonization-would-increase-electricity-costs-20-90-percent-says-j-p-morgan/)//SZ

J.P. Morgan’s analysis confirms the findings of many in the academic community that levelized cost of energy becomes less and less meaningful for renewable energy technologies as they take on a larger role in the electricity mix. While the cost of energy generated by a solar panel or wind turbine might be competitive with the cost of energy generated from a gas or coal plant, the cost of energy from a grid dominated by renewable energy is almost certainly higher than the cost of energy from a grid powered by conventional sources—about 20–90 percent higher according to J.P. Morgan. Heavy-Renewable Grids Would Require the Same Amount of Thermal Power Plants—but They Would Be Used a Lot Less Often A primary driver for the higher cost of heavy-renewable grids versus conventional grids is the fact that backup power plants are required to meet demand during periods when renewable energy is not available. J.P. Morgan found that energy generated from renewables reduces the amount of gas or coal that is burned in power plants by about 50 percent, but approximately the same number of power plants are required to ensure adequate electricity supplies 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Energy Storage Can Reduce Overall Emissions and the Amount of Backup Power Plants Required, but It Increases Overall Costs One technology that can mitigate the amount of backup thermal generation required by a heavy-renewable electric grid is energy storage. J.P. Morgan analyzed three of the most common energy storage technologies: pumped-hydro energy storage, battery energy storage, and hydrogen energy storage. The key advantage of energy storage in a heavy-renewable grid is its ability to store renewable energy that otherwise would have been wasted at times when renewable energy supplies exceed electric demand. By storing surplus renewable energy during these periods, energy storage can offset the need for backup generation from conventional coal or gas power plants, and reduce emissions. However, because energy storage capital and operating costs are higher than the benefits from avoided coal or gas consumption, adding energy storage increased the overall cost in all of the scenarios J.P. Morgan considered.