OTEC 1ac
InherencyDespite its potential, there is little investment and a
lack of governmental support for ocean thermal energy conversion in
the status quo.FRIEDMAN, Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Political Review,
2014BECCA, march, Ocean Energy Council, EXAMINING THE FUTURE OF
OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION,
http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-ocean-thermal-energy-conversion/,
accessed 7-7-14, JacobAlthough it may seem like an
environmentalists fantasy, experts in oceanic energy contend that
the technology to provide a truly infinite source of power to the
United States already exists in the form of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion (OTEC). Despite enthusiastic projections and promising
prototypes, however, a lack of governmental support and the need
for risky capital investment have stalled OTEC in its research and
development phase. Regardless, oceanic energy experts have high
hopes. Dr. Joseph Huang, Senior Scientist at the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and former leader of a Department of
Energy team on oceanic energy, told the HPR, If we can use one
percent of the energy [generated by OTEC] for electricity and other
things, the potential is so big. It is more than 100 to 1000 times
more than the current consumption of worldwide energy. The
potential is huge. There is not any other renewable energy that can
compare with OTEC. The Science of OTEC French physicist George
Claude first explored the science of OTEC in the early twentieth
century, and he built an experimental design in 1929. Unfortunately
for Claude, the high maintenance needed for an OTEC plant,
especially given the frequency of storms in tropical ocean
climates, caused him to abandon the project. Nevertheless, his work
demonstrated that the difference in temperature between the surface
layer and the depths of the ocean was enough to generate power,
using the warmer water as the heat source and the cooler water as a
heat sink. OTEC takes warm water and pressurizes it so that it
becomes steam, then uses the steam to power a turbine which creates
power, and completes the cycle by using the cold water to return
the steam to its liquid state. Huge Capital, Huge Risks Despite the
sound science, a fully functioning OTEC prototype has yet to be
developed. The high costs of building even a model pose the main
barrier. Although piecemeal experiments have proven the
effectiveness of the individual components, a large-scale plant has
never been built. Luis Vega of the Pacific International Center for
High Technology Research estimated in an OTEC summary presentation
that a commercial-size five-megawatt OTEC plant could cost from 80
to 100 million dollars over five years. According to Terry Penney,
the Technology Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
the combination of cost and risk is OTECs main liability. Weve
talked to inventors and other constituents over the years, and its
still a matter of huge capital investment and a huge risk, and
there are many [alternate forms of energy] that are less risky that
could produce power with the same certainty, Penney told the HPR.
Moreover, OTEC is highly vulnerable to the elements in the marine
environment. Big storms or a hurricane like Katrina could
completely disrupt energy production by mangling the OTEC plants.
Were a country completely dependent on oceanic energy, severe
weather could be debilitating. In addition, there is a risk that
the salt water surrounding an OTEC plant would cause the machinery
to rust or corrode or fill up with seaweed or mud, according to a
National Renewable Energy Laboratory spokesman. Even
environmentalists have impeded OTECs development. According to
Penney, people do not want to see OTEC plants when they look at the
ocean. When they see a disruption of the pristine marine landscape,
they think pollution. Given the risks, costs, and uncertain
popularity of OTEC, it seems unlikely that federal support for OTEC
is forthcoming. Jim Anderson, co-founder of Sea Solar Power Inc., a
company specializing in OTEC technology, told the HPR, Years ago in
the 80s, there was a small [governmental] program for OTEC and it
was abandonedThat philosophy has carried forth to this day. There
are a few people in the Department of Energy who have blocked
government funding for this. Its not the Democrats, not the
Republicans. Its a bureaucratic issue. OTEC is not completely off
the governments radar, however. This past year, for the first time
in a decade, Congress debated reviving the oceanic energy program
in the energy bill, although the proposal was ultimately defeated.
OTEC even enjoys some support on a state level. Hawaii s National
Energy Laboratory, for example, conducts OTEC research around the
islands. For now, though, American interests in OTEC promise to
remain largely academic. The Naval Research Academy and Oregon
State University are conducting research programs off the coasts of
Oahu and Oregon , respectively. Do the Benefits Outweight the
Costs? Oceanic energy advocates insist that the long-term benefits
of OTEC more than justify the short-term expense. Huang said that
the changes in the economic climate over the past few decades have
increased OTECs viability. According to Huang, current economic
conditions are more favorable to OTEC. At $65-70 per barrel, oil is
roughly six times more expensive than in the 1980s, when initial
OTEC cost projections were made. Moreover, a lower interest rate
makes capital investment more attractive. OTEC plants may also
generate revenue from non-energy products. Anderson described
several additional revenue streams, including natural by-products
such as hydrogen, ethanol, and desalinated fresh water. OTEC can
also serve as a form of aquaculture. You are effectively
fertilizing the upper photic zoneThe fishing around the sea solar
power plants will be among the best fishing holes in the world
naturally, Anderson said. And, he added, these benefits are not
limited to the United States . Look at Africa , look at South
America , look at the Far East . It is a gigantic pot of wealth for
everybody People are crying for power. In fact, as the U.S.
government is dragging its feet, other countries are moving forward
with their own designs and may well beat American industry to a
fully-functioning plant. In India , there has been significant
academic interest in OTEC, although the National Institute of Ocean
Technology project has stalled due to a lack of funding. Japan ,
too, has run into capital cost issues, but Saga University s
Institute of Ocean Energy has recently won prizes for advances in
refinement of the OTEC cycle. Taiwan and various European nations
have also explored OTEC as part of their long-term energy strategy.
Perhaps the most interest is in the Philippines , where the
Philippine Department of Energy has worked with Japanese experts to
select 16 potential OTEC sites. The Future of Oceanic Energy Were
its vast potential harnessed, OTEC could change the face of energy
consumption by causing a shift away from fossil fuels.
Environmentally, such a transition would greatly reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and decrease the rate of global warming.
Geopolitically, having an alternative energy source could free the
United States , and other countries, from foreign oil dependency.
As Huang said, We just cannot ignore oceanic energy, especially
OTEC, because the ocean is so huge and the potential is so big No
matter who assesses, if you rely on fossil energy for the future,
the future isnt very brightFor the future, we have to look into
renewable energy, look for the big resources, and the future is in
the ocean. 1AC PlanThe United States Federal Government should
substantially increase its funding for the development and
deployment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion systems.
Advantage 1 WaterWater shocks coming- underground reserves are
depleting Goldenberg 14(Suzanne Goldenberg is the US environment
correspondent of the Guardian Why global water shortages pose
threat of terror and war 2/8/14
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-water-shortages-threat-terror-war
accessed 7/8/14 AZ)There are other shock moments ahead and not just
for California in a world where water is increasingly in short
supply because of growing demands from agriculture, an expanding
population, energy production and climate change. Already a billion
people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe
drinking water. Britain, of course, is currently at the other
extreme. Great swaths of the country are drowning in misery, after
a series of Atlantic storms off the south-western coast. But that
too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus
over 12 years of the Grace satellite record. Countries at northern
latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter. But those
countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on water.
"What we see is very much a picture of the wet areas of the Earth
getting wetter," Famiglietti said. "Those would be the high
latitudes like the Arctic and the lower latitudes like the tropics.
The middle latitudes in between, those are already the arid and
semi-arid parts of the world and they are getting drier." On the
satellite images the biggest losses were denoted by red hotspots,
he said. And those red spots largely matched the locations of
groundwater reserves. "Almost all of those red hotspots correspond
to major aquifers of the world. What Grace shows us is that
groundwater depletion is happening at a very rapid rate in almost
all of the major aquifers in the arid and semi-arid parts of the
world." The Middle East, north Africa and south Asia are all
projected to experience water shortages over the coming years
because of decades of bad management and overuse. Watering crops,
slaking thirst in expanding cities, cooling power plants, fracking
oil and gas wells all take water from the same diminishing supply.
Add to that climate change which is projected to intensify dry
spells in the coming years and the world is going to be forced to
think a lot more about water than it ever did before.Desalination
can alleviate scarcity, but conventional energy sources are
insufficient---OTEC is key to make it viable on a larger
scaleShylesh Muralidharan 12, Former manager of Global Smart Energy
Services at Capgemini Consulting, B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering
from Pondicherry University and Master of Mgmt Studies from the
University of Mumbai, Feb 2012, Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion,
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76927/824363276.pdf?sequence=1In
2011, the increase in population to more than 7 billion translated
into double the water consumption in the last half century and
between 1970 and 1990, per capital of available water decreased by
a third. An increasing demand for water for drinking water
supplies, sanitation, agriculture, energy production and
generation, mining and industry is expected to compete for a
limited supply of fresh water. By 2025, more than half the nations
in the world will face freshwater stress or shortages and by 2050
as much as 75% of the worlds population could face freshwater
scarcity[6]. Regions with intensive agriculture and dense
population as the Asia, Africa and the US have high threat to water
security. According to the US Natural Resources Defense
Council[33], more than one-third of all counties in the lower 48
states of the US will likely be facing very serious water shortages
by 2050. Though water is a renewable resource, only 2.5% of earths
water is potable, and almost two-thirds of that is locked up in
glaciers and permanent snow cover. The Earth has a limited supply
of fresh water in the form of aquifers, surface waters and the
atmosphere. Oceans are an abundant supply of water but the amount
of energy needed to convert seawater to water for human use is
expensive today, explaining why only a very small fraction of the
worlds water supply derives from desalination27. 5.1.Introduction
to seawater desalination The most popular desalination technologies
used on seawater an industrial scale are: Multi-stage flash (MSF)
Multiple Effect distillation (MED) Mechanical Vapor Compression
(MVC) Reverse Osmosis (RO) Of all the above technologies, MSF was
the most prevalent method used for desalination but in recent years
RO has been catching up because of its ability to scale-up
modularly for large capacities. Studies have estimated the typical
capacities and corresponding costs for the various technologies
[34]. Though the installation of MSF reduced in the previous
decades and RO has begun to compete in seawater desalination
markets, MSF still is preferred over RO due to reliability of the
plants, ease of operation and very low degradation of performance
over a long duration of the life of the facility[35]. As the MSF
technology for desalination is very expensive compared to other
technologies, it primarily has been popular in regions such as the
middle-east where the cost of energy for the process is really low.
The limited diffusion of MSF in the recent years has been due to
challenges in installing a source of electricity supply at the site
of freshwater production, including the logistics of managing two
separate plants and the environmentally impact of fossil fuels used
in these plants [36]. To reduce the carbon impact of the process,
there has been an interest in recent years, either to reduce energy
requirements for desalination or to replace conventional energy
sources with renewable ones [37]. Though these methods have been
recommended for remote, arid and island settings, the high-cost of
installing conventional renewables usually leads to unfavorable
economics of the technology. OTEC can step in as the technology
which can provide integrated clean and sustainable solutions with
large-scale desalination options with electricity generation
catering to small- and medium-sized communities which are both
energy- and water-constrained.OTEC can alleviate water scarcity
globallyMuralidharan 12(Shylesh Muralidharan B. Tech. Mechanical
Engineering, Pondicherry University, Master of Management Studies
at University of Mumbai. Written for the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion pg.78
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76927/824363276.pdf?sequence=1
accessed 7/8/14 AZ) The discussion of water scarcity indices is
useful when identifying new markets for OTEC plants. Several
countries in the original list of ninety-eight countries[19] which
are within the OTEC resource belt are developing nations where
setting up a capital-intensive base load electricity generation
option might be a difficult economic imperative. But these
countries can consider capital investment if they are able to
extract more value from the OTEC investment in addition to
generation of electricity. Hence the water scarcity indices might
help narrow down a list of countries which are in the OTEC zone and
have a problem of water scarcity in addition to constraints in
electricity generation. When the global plots of water stress and
the OTEC-friendly resource regions are mapped over one another, the
following regions can be short-listed as potential locations for
co-production of electricity and fresh water: * East coast of
Mexico adjoining the Gulf of Mexico including some of the islands
to the east of Mexico, the southwest coastal regions of Mexico
along the Gulf of California. " Coastal regions in the Caribbean
Sea along the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
74 " In the north Atlantic Ocean, the northern coast of Brazil and
the northwestern African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia
" Regions along the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal in the
southern peninsula of India, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand East coast
of Africa in the states of Somalia, Tanzania and Mozambique and the
island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Several of these
locations in the "overlapping" list are Developing/Small Island
Nations across the world. For several island nations across the
world, water resources are quite restricted. This limits the
economic development of the local communities. Tropical islands
that qualify with requisite OTEC temperature differential and depth
criteria are excellent markets for OTEC plants as this solution
will meet their need for both base-load electric power and
freshwater,. There are several other islands which satisfy these
criteria and are good candidates for co-locating the generation of
both these essential utilities. This technology has the potential
to provide a solution for communities with increased potable water
requirements where desalination of existing aquifers cannot meet
demand and the unviable economics prevent import of large
quantities from the nearest mainland.Advantage 2 FoodOTEC
alleviates food insecurity---several internal linksBinger 04(Dr. Al
Binger is a Visiting Professor, Saga University Institute of Ocean
Energy, Saga, Japan. He is Director of the University of the West
Indies Centre for Environment and Development, Kingston, Jamaica.
Potential and Future Prospects for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
(OTEC) In Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) pg. 7-8 2004
http://www.sidsnet.org/docshare/energy/20040428105917_OTEC_UN.pdf
accessed 7/8/14 AZ)In the majority of SIDS, particularly the
smaller islands, the limited availability of land with fertile soil
and limited water availability severely constrains food production.
All SIDS depend on imports of food to meet both domestic and
tourism needs. Food security for SIDS is therefore an issue of
having the foreign exchange availability to import the grains, milk
and protein sources that they are either unable to produce or
cannot produce in adequate quantities for their demand. With
growing population and increasing tourism, the majority of SIDS
will have no option but to increase importation of essential foods.
OTEC has the potential to contribute to food security in SIDS in
many ways. First, direct contribution is the utilization of large
volumes of nutrient rich cold water, which would be discharged from
an operating facility at about 10 degrees Celsius, for Mari-culture
production. This application is demonstrated in Hawaii, US.
Feasibility studies conducted by the University of the West Indies
Centre for Environment and Development (UWICED), based on the
Hawaiian experience, showed that the gross return per unit of land
used for Mari-culture8 would be more than ten times greater than
which accrued from growing bananas for export, and more than thirty
times sugar earning. The employment generated was 300% greater than
for bananas and more than 600% for sugar. Therefore, the first
potential contribution by OTEC to food security would be a
combination of enhanced domestic protein production and foreign
exchange earnings. The second potential contribution would be
through increased availability of fresh water as a coproduct from
the OTEC plant, which would be available to support hydroponics
farming. The third potential contribution would be using some of
the cold seawater discharge to regulate greenhouse temperature and
thereby maximize yield. The fourth potential would be based on the
use of the water discharged from the plant to regulate the
temperature of reefs to maximize photosynthetic activity and
increase natural marine production in the coastal areas and beyond.
The final potential contribution would come from the significant
reduction in the vulnerability of SIDS to the escalating and
volatile prices for petroleum, thereby significantly increasing the
availability of foreign exchange available to import food
supplies.
Global food crisis is inevitable and triggers massive
international instability---US output is key.John Vidal 12 is the
Guardian's environment editor. He joined the paper in 1995 after
working for Agence France Presse, North Wales Newspapers and the
Cumberland News. He is the author of McLibel: Burger Culture on
Trial (1998) and has contributed chapters to books on topics such
as the Gulf war, new Europe and development, UN warns of looming
worldwide food crisis in 2013, The Observer, Saturday 13 October
2012,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/14/un-global-food-crisis-warning,
Accessed Date: 3-6-13 y2kWorld grain reserves are so dangerously
low that severe weather in the United States or other
food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next
year, the United Nations has warned. Failing harvests in the US,
Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their
lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record
heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically
low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year,
says the UN. "We've not been producing as much as we are consuming.
That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight
across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no
room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a
senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO). With food consumption exceeding the amount grown for six of
the past 11 years, countries have run down reserves from an average
of 107 days of consumption 10 years ago to under 74 days recently.
Prices of main food crops such as wheat and maize are now close to
those that sparked riots in 25 countries in 2008. FAO figures
released this week suggest that 870 million people are malnourished
and the food crisis is growing in the Middle East and Africa. Wheat
production this year is expected to be 5.2% below 2011, with yields
of most other crops, except rice, also falling, says the UN. The
figures come as one of the world's leading environmentalists issued
a warning that the global food supply system could collapse at any
point, leaving hundreds of millions more people hungry, sparking
widespread riots and bringing down governments. In a shocking new
assessment of the prospects of meeting food needs, Lester Brown,
president of the Earth policy research centre in Washington, says
that the climate is no longer reliable and the demands for food are
growing so fast that a breakdown is inevitable, unless urgent
action is taken. "Food shortages undermined earlier civilisations.
We are on the same path. Each country is now fending for itself.
The world is living one year to the next," he writes in a new book.
According to Brown, we are seeing the start of a food supply
breakdown with a dash by speculators to "grab" millions of square
miles of cheap farmland, the doubling of international food prices
in a decade, and the dramatic rundown of countries' food reserves.
This year, for the sixth time in 11 years, the world will consume
more food than it produces, largely because of extreme weather in
the US and other major food-exporting countries. Oxfam last week
said that the price of key staples, including wheat and rice, may
double in the next 20 years, threatening disastrous consequences
for poor people who spend a large proportion of their income on
food. In 2012, according to the FAO, food prices are already at
close to record levels, having risen 1.4% in September following an
increase of 6% in July. "We are entering a new era of rising food
prices and spreading hunger. Food supplies are tightening
everywhere and land is becoming the most sought-after commodity as
the world shifts from an age of food abundance to one of scarcity,"
says Brown. "The geopolitics of food is fast overshadowing the
geopolitics of oil." His warnings come as the UN and world
governments reported that extreme heat and drought in the US and
other major food-exporting countries had hit harvests badly and
sent prices spiralling. "The situation we are in is not temporary.
These things will happen all the time. Climate is in a state of
flux and there is no normal any more. "We are beginning a new
chapter. We will see food unrest in many more places. "Armed
aggression is no longer the principal threat to our future. The
overriding threats to this century are climate change, population
growth, spreading water shortages and rising food prices," Brown
says.
Food crisis is inevitable---US is keyLester R. Brown 12 is a
United States environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch
Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute,
The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realize, 24
July 2012,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/world-food-crisis-closer,
Accessed Date: 3-15-13 y2kIn the early spring this year, US farmers
were on their way to planting some 96m acres in corn, the most in
75 years. A warm early spring got the crop off to a great start.
Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record. The
United States is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the
world's feedgrain. At home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the US
grain harvest. Internationally, the US corn crop exceeds China's
rice and wheat harvests combined. Among the big three grains corn,
wheat, and rice corn is now the leader, with production well above
that of wheat and nearly double that of rice. The corn plant is as
sensitive as it is productive. Thirsty and fast-growing, it is
vulnerable to both extreme heat and drought. At elevated
temperatures, the corn plant, which is normally so productive, goes
into thermal shock. As spring turned into summer, the thermometer
began to rise across the corn belt. In St Louis, Missouri, in the
southern corn belt, the temperature in late June and early July
climbed to 100F or higher 10 days in a row. For the past several
weeks, the corn belt has been blanketed with dehydrating heat.
Weekly drought maps published by the University of Nebraska show
the drought-stricken area spreading across more and more of the
country until, by mid-July, it engulfed virtually the entire corn
belt. Soil moisture readings in the corn belt are now among the
lowest ever recorded. While temperature, rainfall, and drought
serve as indirect indicators of crop growing conditions, each week
the US Department of Agriculture releases a report on the actual
state of the corn crop. This year the early reports were promising.
On 21 May, 77% of the US corn crop was rated as good to excellent.
The following week the share of the crop in this category dropped
to 72%. Over the next eight weeks, it dropped to 26%, one of the
lowest ratings on record. The other 74% is rated very poor to fair.
And the crop is still deteriorating. Over a span of weeks, we have
seen how the more extreme weather events that come with climate
change can affect food security. Since the beginning of June, corn
prices have increased by nearly one half, reaching an all-time high
on 19 July. Although the world was hoping for a good US harvest to
replenish dangerously low grain stocks, this is no longer on the
cards. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end
of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious.
Food prices, already elevated, will follow the price of corn
upward, quite possibly to record highs. Not only is the current
food situation deteriorating, but so is the global food system
itself. We saw early signs of the unraveling in 2008 following an
abrupt doubling of world grain prices. As world food prices
climbed, exporting countries began restricting grain exports to
keep their domestic food prices down. In response, governments of
importing countries panicked. Some of them turned to buying or
leasing land in other countries on which to produce food for
themselves. Welcome to the new geopolitics of food scarcity. As
food supplies tighten, we are moving into a new food era, one in
which it is every country for itself. The world is in serious
trouble on the food front. But there is little evidence that
political leaders have yet grasped the magnitude of what is
happening. The progress in reducing hunger in recent decades has
been reversed. Unless we move quickly to adopt new population,
energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will
remain just that. Time is running out. The world may be much closer
to an unmanageable food shortage replete with soaring food prices,
spreading food unrest, and ultimately political instability than
most people realise.Impacts For Both Advantages
PovertyPoverty leads to disease, increased crime, illiteracy,
and continued social exclusion which causes political instability
and humans rights abuses Poverties 13 ( A organization publicizing
social scientific research & providing quality information on
economic development, public policy, human rights and
discrimination, May, Causes & Effects of Poverty On Society,
Children & Violence
http://www.poverties.org/effects-of-poverty.htmlThe effects of
poverty are most often interrelated so that one problem hardly ever
occurs alone. For instance, bad sanitation makes it easier to
spread around old and new diseases, and hunger and lack of water
make people more vulnerable to them. Impoverished communities often
suffer from discrimination and end up caught in cycles of poverty.
Let's find out just what this means concretely. Crime varies over
time and space; its high in specific areas and low in others,
usually with huge differences in wealth. This has always led
experts to study why and what happens in those places where there
is a concentration of crime. Its unquestionable that crime ranks
high among the effects of poverty, and those impoverished
neighborhoods or entire cities show the same problems with
uneducated adults and kids that nurture more unemployment and
crime, and then leading to chronic, long-lasting poverty. Different
types of poverty for different crimes But to solve these issues,
its fundamental to have a more detailed and in-depth vision of the
poverty cycle here, and what the precise effects of poverty on
crime are in different communities and environments. For example
its been proved that unemployment is a bigger factor for specific
types of crime than income inequality is. Low incomes on the other
side tend to spur property-related crimes (burglary and all that)
but reduce violence. Overall studies have shown very different
effects of poverty, for different types of poverty: from income
inequalities, to social exclusion and unemployment. - Consequences
of poverty on people The vicious cycles of poverty mentioned before
mean that lifelong handicaps and troubles that are passed on from
one generation to another. To name just a few of these hereditary
plagues: no school or education, child labor to help the parents,
lack of basic hygiene, transmission of diseases. Unemployment and
very low incomes create an environment where kids can't simply go
to school. As for those who can actually go to school, they simply
don't see how hard work can improve their life as they see their
parents fail at the task every day. Other plagues associated with
poverty: Alcohol & substance abuse, from kids in African slums
to adults in the US, this is a very common self-destructing habit
often taken as a way to cope with huge amounts of stress and...
well, despair; Crippling accidents due to unsafe working
environments (machinery in factories or agriculture) as well as
other work hazards such as lead poisoning, pesticide poisoning,
bites from wild animals due to lack of proper protection; Poor
housing & living conditions, a classic cause of diseases; Water
and food-related diseases, simply because the poor can't always
afford "safe" foods. Effects of poverty on society as a whole In
the end, poverty is a major cause of social tensions and threatens
to divide a nation because of the issue of inequalities, in
particular income inequality. This happens when wealth in a country
is poorly distributed among its citizens. In other words, when a
tiny minority has all the money. The feature of a rich or developed
country for example is the presence of a middle class, but recently
we've seen even Western countries gradually losing their middle
class, hence the increasing number of riots and clashes. In a
society, poverty is a very dangerous factor that can destabilize
and entire country. The Arab Spring is another good example, in all
of the countries concerned, the revolts started because of the lack
of jobs and high poverty levels. This has led to most governments
being overthrownl). Powerless victims Ever since the 1960s, the
share of children affected by poverty has only got bigger and
bigger. Children are those who have the least choice and ability to
change what happens to them. There isnt much they can do to help
their families, nor should they have to. Until they can stand
firmly on their two legs, usually by the age of 6, then they can be
enrolled willy-nilly in child labor. Nearly all possible effects of
poverty have an impact on children lives. Poor infrastructures,
unemployment, lack of basic services and income reflect on their
lack of education, malnutrition, violence at home and outside,
child labor, diseases of all kinds, transmitted by the family or
through the environment. Children antisocial behavior One of the
effects of poverty on childrens development is to lead them to
build an antisocial behavior that acts as a psychological
protection against their hostile environment. Discrimination and
social exclusion often push them to more aggressiveness and less
self-control and nuance in reaction to stressful events. Having
often been taken advantage of in their early childhood, they rarely
come to a constructive way to deal with conflicts. As they grow up,
these behaviors are more and more entrenched in their personalities
and often considered unrecoverable. This highlights the importance
of taking action as early as possible to improve childrens living
conditions. Policymakers should understand that not just income but
a childs social environment at large (parenting, school violence,
housing, but also sanitation, uncontaminated food and water) play a
big role in creating new effects of poverty. Women and poverty If
in absolute terms (i.e. concerning most basic needs) less women
live in poverty than fifty years ago, in fact there has been an
increasing share of women in poverty in the global worldwide. This
trend is also known as the feminization of poverty. This is yet
another of the clear-cut effects of poverty. The trend toward more
single-parent families has only made things worse and women have
become more and more vulnerable to their environment. They find
themselves forced to feed the poverty cycle by living in poverty
with their children. Feminization of poverty Almost everywhere in
the world, women are segregated, have very limited access to
education (for political, religious or social reasons) and are
sometimes forbidden to work or restricted to tedious ones. There
are obvious (political & social) interests in keeping women in
this state, and its always recommended when fighting against
poverty to start with empowering women in every possible way to
solve a great deal of problems. Being the cornerstone of the
family, women can have a great impact not only on the household
income, but also on the education of children (including
sanitation), and avoiding early child deaths due to bad habits,
sanitation or improper food or water. Backward industry and
lifestyle issues There is no proof that poverty, especially in
cities, has an impact on the environment. On the other hand,
backward (or not so developed) technologies and an industrys energy
efficiency (how much energy it needs to produce an amount of goods)
will greatly affect the environment. On the whole, the middle- and
upper-classes lifestyles are also greatly responsible for the
depletion of natural resources and the production of (toxic) waste.
Or at least lifestyles based on over-consumption are the true
responsible, which is often disregarded in public debates (as
humans it is kind of hard to resist to so much temptation). No
consequences of poverty on the environment? If there is any common
association of poverty with bad environment, it's probably because
of those pictures of children running around in waste dumps. In
fact there is no link between any effects of poverty and the
environment, quite the opposite. Those toxic places prove very
harmful to the poor, who actually tend to reuse, recycle or resell
whatever they can find in there, thus getting us rid of that
dangerous garbage. Good governance and good management of resources
remains the best way to tackle both problems of environment and
poverty. Its in fact quite ironic that thanks to poverty and the
very low levels of consumption it implies, the extent of the damage
done to the environment and the depletion of natural resources have
been relatively limited. Its only with the rise of China, India and
other BRICs that rich countries have started worrying about limited
resources for everyone and problems of over-consumption and energy
efficiency. Much shorter lives A universal and simple measure of
poverty consists in looking at different populations health and
life expectancy. Its no surprise that anywhere on earth, poorer
communities fare worse than richer ones. But people's health is
affected not only by material poverty but also by social exclusion,
yet another of the neglected effects of poverty. No matter if
poverty affects someone's mental or physical health, the end result
is the same: on average the poor live shorter lives than the rich.
This is all the more true of ethnic minorities in whichever
country, where theyre often the first groups to suffer from
discrimination and unfair treatments. This implies that the impact
of poverty is not exclusively physical but also very much
psychological: it affects in many ways mental health and human
behavior. Every form of poorness, every form of social exclusion be
it material or racial has its impact on peoples health. After all,
philosophers and sociologists often agree that man is but a social
animal. So, living without a society or a group you belong to can
have a huge impact on your mental health (though we wouldn't know
for hermits). This has massive consequences for policymakers
concerned not just about poverty but also about reinforcing social
cohesion.
Poverty especially effects childrens development leading to
further cycles of poverty and violence Princeton Brookings 97 (A
collaboration of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings
Institution. The best social science research about children and
youth into information that is useful to policymakers,
practitioners, grant-makers, advocates, the media, and students of
public policy, Children and Poverty Volume 7 Number 2 Summer/Fall
1997,
http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=53&articleid=284§ionid=1868)It
is not difficult to document that poor children suffer a
disproportionate share of deprivation, hardship, and bad outcomes.
(See Table 1 in the article by Brooks-Gunn and Duncan in this
journal issue.) As Sophie Tucker once observed, I have been poor
and I have been rich. Rich is better.13 Not only do poor children
have access to fewer material goods than rich or middle-class
children, but also they are more likely to experience poor health
and to die during childhood. In school, they score lower on
standardized tests and are more likely to be retained in grade and
to drop out. Poor teens are more likely to have out-of-wedlock
births and to experience violent crime. Finally, persistently poor
children are more likely to end up as poor adults. Public concern
for poor children has focused both on their material well-being and
on the relationship between poverty and important child outcomes
that the public values such as success in school. However,
accurately measuring the effects of poverty on many important child
outcomes is a challenge. Despite the evidence that poor children
experience undesirable outcomes across a wide variety of
indicators, many studies lack the precision needed to disentangle
the effects on children of the array of factors other than low
income associated with poverty. For example, as has been discussed,
poor families are more likely to be headed by a parent who is
young, single, has low educational attainment, is unemployed, and
has low earnings potential. These parental attributes, separately
or in combination, may account for some of the observed negative
consequences of poverty for children. In addition, at any point in
time, the population of poor families is a mix of families who are
temporarily poor and families who have experienced chronic
hardship. Although the majority of poor families are only
temporarily poor, the experiences of the persistently poor fit
better the stereotype of an underclass trapped in concentrated
poverty neighborhoods, beset by high crime rates, poor schools,
substance abuse, and other social pathologies. Failure to take
account of the differences in the duration of poverty children
experience may lead to either an under- or overestimate of the
effects of poverty on children. Understanding the relationships
among income, other parental characteristics, community factors,
and environmental hazards and child outcomes is key to designing
effective policies to ameliorate the problems of poor children.
Programs that alter family income may not have intended benefits
for children if the importance of family income has been
misconstrued. Children need some minimum level of resources to
survive, grow, and develop normally, but many Americans appear to
discount the importance to child outcomes of above-subsistence
levels of income.14 The recent welfare reform debate, for example,
echoed some of these sentiments in the comment cited above by
Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Lew to the effect
that poor children would be better off if their parents worked
rather than depending on public assistance, even if the withdrawal
of welfare support led to a reduction in their material well-being.
These sentiments also find some support in a recently published
book, What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life
Chances, in which sociologist Susan Mayer concludes that increasing
family income above the minimum required to meet children's basic
material needs is not likely to correct the problems associated
with child poverty and significantly improve a child's chances for
success.15 In this journal issue, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Greg
Duncan reach somewhat different conclusions based on a review of
recent research on the effects of family income on a number of
child outcomes. They review studies based on large longitudinal
surveys that attempt to measure the effects of income on children
independent of the effects of other conditions that might be
related to growing up in a poor household. In general, Brooks-Gunn
and Duncan find that family income can substantially affect child
and adolescent outcomes but that the negative effects of poverty
are more pronounced for some outcomes than for others and vary
depending on the depth and duration of a child's exposure to
poverty. Income seems to be strongly related to children's physical
health, cognitive ability, and school achievement in the early
grades even after controlling for a number of other parental
characteristics, and these effects of income are most pronounced
for children who experience persistent and extreme poverty.
Brooks-Gunn and Duncan also suggest that the timing of poverty is
important: low income during the preschool and early school years
is more predictive of low rates of high school completion than low
income during later childhood and adolescence. Brooks-Gunn and
Duncan also report that much of the beneficial effect of family
income on cognitive outcomes in young children is mediated by
improvements in the home environment associated with higher income.
Neighborhood characteristics and environmental hazards (such as
lead exposure) are other pathways through which income may
influence child outcomes. Identification of these pathways suggests
alternative strategies to address some of the negative outcomes
associated with child poverty. In thinking about policies to
address the problems of child poverty, it is useful to keep the
areas of agreement in recent research in perspective. Almost no one
believes that money and/or the material resources money can provide
do not matter to children. Food, shelter, health care, and other
necessities are crucial for children's well-being, and extra income
can make life more enjoyable. The important question about which
there is debate is whether the things that extra money, above a
subsistence level of income, would buy make a big difference in
child outcomes. The answer to this question is a qualified yes. The
qualification reflects the facts that income seems to have a
larger, more consistent independent effect on some outcomes (such
as school achievement in the early grades) than others (such as
teenage childbearing) and that the timing and persistence of
poverty are important factors in the size of its impact. These
issues are explored further in the ensuing discussion of policies
for poor children, which includes recommendations for specific
interventions.Poverty hurts decision making skills and cognitive
ability preventing upward mobility Dennis 13 (Bradly, Health and
science contributor at the Washington post, 8/29, Poverty strains
cognitive abilities, opening door for bad decision-making, new
study finds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/poverty-strains-cognitive-abilities-opening-door-for-bad-decision-making-new-study-finds/2013/08/29/89990288-102b-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html)Poverty
consumes so much mental energy that people struggling to make ends
meet often have little brainpower left for anything else, leaving
them more susceptible to bad decisions that can perpetuate their
situation, according to a study published Thursday in the journal
Science. Past research has often blamed [poverty] on the personal
failings of the poor. They dont work hard enough; theyre not
focused enough, said University of British Columbia professor
Jiaying Zhao, who co-authored the study as a Princeton University
graduate student. oWhat were arguing is its not about the
individual. Its about the situation. As part of the study,
researchers conducted experiments on two groups of subjects: low-
and middle-income shoppers in a mall in New Jersey, and sugar cane
farmers in rural India. In the mall experiment, shoppers underwent
a battery of tests to measure IQ and impulse control. However, half
the participants were first given a teaser question what they would
do if their car had broken down and needed $1,500 worth of repairs
designed to put a pressing financial concerns at the forefront of
their thoughts. In India, researchers tested the cognitive capacity
and decision-making of farmers before the sugar cane harvest, when
they were most strapped for money, and afterwards, when they had
fewer financial woes. The results showed that people wrestling with
the mental strain of poverty suffered a drop of as much as 13
points in their IQ roughly the same found in people subjected to a
night with no sleep. Poverty is the equivalent of pulling an
all-nighter, said Harvard economist Sandhil Mullainathan, another
of the studys authors. Picture yourself after an all-nighter. Being
poor is like that every day. Mullainathan said previous research
often has assumed that poor people are poor because they are
somehow less capable than others, whether inherently or because of
past trauma or other environmental factors in their lives. But, he
said, what the latest study suggests is that the strain of poverty
can tax the cognitive abilities of anyone experiencing it and that
those abilities return when the burden of poverty disappears. While
the poor may be experiencing a scarcity of money, at some level
what they may really be experiencing is a scarcity of bandwidth, of
cognitive capacity, he said. Its the situation thats creating the
stress. Zhao and Mullainathan said that their findings, if
accurate, could have profound implications for public policy. For
starters, policymakers should beware of imposing cognitive taxes on
the poor just as they avoid monetary taxes on the poor, the paper
states. Filling out long forms, deciphering complicated rules or
undergoing lengthy interviews can consume scarce cognitive
resources. You are captured by these monetary issues how to pay
rent, how to pay bills, Zhao said. As a result, youre less
attentive to other problems. You neglect other things in life that
deserve your attention.
***Poverty Bad Child Labor***Poverty induces child laborEdmonds
and Pavcnik, 5, Assistant Professor @Dartmouth College, 05 (Eric V
Edmonds, Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Arts &
Sciences, Dartmouth College, MA, PhD, BA, Nina Pavcnik, Associate
Professor, Economics Department, Arts & Sciences, PhD, BA,
Winter 2005, Child Labor in the Global Economy The Journal of
Economic Perspectives, Vol. 19, Iss. 1, pg 199, Proquest)Evidence
on three facets of poverty is particularly compelling. First, child
labor seems to decline dramatically with improvements in household
living standards. Some of the evidence from household responses to
trade liberalization is particularly interesting here. Despite
rising employment opportunities for children, we observe declines
in child labor as family incomes rise with trade. Second, child
labor seems to be highly responsive to unexpected changes in the
family's economic environment. Difficulty in transferring income
over time (through saving or borrowing) is a common correlate of
poverty, and research from several countries suggests that credit
constraints and financial market imperfections increase the number
of children who have to work. Third, poor local institutions such
as ineffective or expensive schools associated with poverty may
leave children with few sensible options other than work. We
describe the evidence on how these three facets of poverty affect
child labor in this section.
Child labor is dehumanizationHolland, 9, part of the
International Rescue Committee, 09 (Emily Holland, part of the
International Rescue Committee, 3/5/2009, Fighting Child Labor and
Trafficking in Liberia, )Poverty is a major (but not the only)
reason child labor and trafficking is rampant in Liberia.
Traditional beliefs about child labor also play a role. In rural
villages, working hard, and becoming strong are seen as positive
goals for young boys and girls. Part of the IRC's strategy is to
convince parents to keep and send their children to school--but
that requires a shift in attitude: that children have rights, that
trafficking and child labor are dehumanizing, and that the money a
child makes is not worth the toll on his or her body, mind and
spirit.
Dehumanization is the greatest evil, worse than all other
impacts.Berube 97 (David M. Berube, June to July 1997, Professor,
PCOST Coordinator Ph.D, Nanotechnological Prolongevity: The Down
Side, Nanotechnology Magazine,
http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/faculty/berube/Nanotechnological%20Prolongevity.pdf)This
means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise
on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn: "its destructive toll
is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural
calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the quality of
life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For
that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the
Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the
holocaust lay a dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of
deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a
dehumanized image of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p.
xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact
dehumanizing ethics may have had on humanity, it is safe to
conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities
which would be foregone. When we calculate the actual losses and
the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value
greater than any tools which we can currently use to measure it.
Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse, and
international genocide. When people become things, they become
dispensable. When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity
can be justified. Once justified, they seem to be inevitable for
every epoch has evil and dehumanization is evil's most powerful
weapon
Solvency
OTEC can produce 800,000 gallons of freshwater per MW of
installed gross electric power capacity OTE 14 (Ocean Thermal
Energy Corporation, Last Updated 2014, Future Initiatives, Date
Accessed: 7/8/14.
http://www.otecorporation.com/future_strategic_initiatives.html
//gg)The associated production of large quantities of fresh water
is one of the great attendant benefits of both Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion (OTEC) plants and Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC)
facilities. An OTEC plant can produce up to 800,000 gallons per day
of fresh water per Megawatt (MW) of installed gross electric power
capacity. Thus, a 5MW OTEC facility could potentially produce as
much as 4 million gallons of fresh drinking water each day. Fresh
water production in conjunction with OTEC and SWAC systems is also
environmentally superior to traditional water production methods
utilizing local surface water sources to feed the desalination
units. This environmental advantage arises from the more efficient
multi-use of the source water, as well as the extreme dilution of
brine (water containing large amounts of salt), thus rendering such
brine discharge concentrations nearly undetectable and harmless to
the environment. With the worlds demand for fresh water growing
rapidly, the economic opportunities and humanitarian benefits of
this technology are substantial. Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation
stands ready to meet that growing demand.
OTEC solves food scarcitythree warrantsit facilitates
aquaculture, boosts fish stocks, and creates coldwater
agricultureFinney, 8 (Karen Anne Finney, University of Guelph,
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada, Finney. Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion. Guelph Engineering Journal, (1), 17 - 23. ISSN:
1916-1107. 2008, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
http://www.soe.uoguelph.ca/webfiles/gej/articles/GEJ_001-017-023_Finney_Ocean_Thermal_Energy.pdf,
jj)C. Aquaculture and Mariculture Another possibility for taking
advantage of OTEC plants is the use of the water pipes to harvest
marine plants and animals for the purpose of food. This proposition
is still under investigation however it is proposed that seawater
life including salmon, abalone, American lobster, flat fish, sea
urchin and edible seaweeds could be harvested for ingestion using
the cold water pipes that would be readily available from the OTEC
power plants (Takahashi and Trenka, 1996). Mariculture is another
possibility that is currently being researched that would take
advantage of the cold deep ocean water being transferred to the
oceans surface. This water contains phytoplankton and other
biological nutrients that serve as a catalyst for fish and other
aquatic populations (Takahashi and Trenka, 1996). This water could
serve to increase native fish populations through the recycling of
trace nutrients that would not be otherwise available. D. Coldwater
Agriculture Because the coastal areas suitable for OTEC are in
tropic regions there is a potential to increase the overall food
diversity within an area using the cold water originating from the
deep ocean. It has been proposed that burying a network of
coldwater pipes underground the temperature of the ground would be
ideal for spring type crops like strawberries and other plants
restricted to cooler climates (Takahashi and Trenka, 1996). This
would not only supply the costal populations with an increased
variety of food but reduce the cost of transport of cooler climate
foods that would otherwise have to be shipped.
