DA - Beef Chris

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2009
Scholars
1 Beef DA
Beef DA
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Interlake 12-13 Chris Hua
Beef DA ................................................................................................................................................................. 1 ***Shells*** ......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Beef 1NC .............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Beef consumption declining now health and costs ................................................................................... 5 Increased income leads to greater beef consumption .................................................................................. 5 An increase in beef consumption ensures global food shortages ................................................................. 5 Food shortages break down the international system, culminating in extinction. ...................................... 6 Warming Module..................................................................................................................................................7 Bio-D Module ...................................................................................................................................................... 9 ABR Module ....................................................................................................................................................... 11 Obesity Module................................................................................................................................................... 12 **Uniqueness Wall** .......................................................................................................................................... 14 ***Links*** ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 LinkIncome Boosts Beef Consumption .............................................................................................................. 17 Turns Case ............................................................................................................................................................ 20 Links Obesity ..................................................................................................................................................... 22 ***Bio-D Scenario*** ........................................................................................................................................ 23 I/L - Bio-D ............................................................................................................................................................ 24 Bio-D Terminal ..................................................................................................................................................... 25 ***Warming Scenario***................................................................................................................................... 27 I/L - Warming ....................................................................................................................................................... 28 Warming Impacts Econ ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Warming Terminal ............................................................................................................................................... 37 A2: Warming isnt Real ......................................................................................................................................... 38 ***Food Security Scenario*** ............................................................................................................................ 41 I/L - Food Security................................................................................................................................................ 42 Food Security Terminal ........................................................................................................................................ 43 A2: Beef Solves Food Security .............................................................................................................................. 44 ***ABR Scenario*** .......................................................................................................................................... 46 I/L - ABR............................................................................................................................................................... 47 Resistance = Extinction ........................................................................................................................................ 55 A2 New Drugs Solve...............................................................................................................................................57 ***Obesity Scenario***...................................................................................................................................... 59 I/L Obesity ......................................................................................................................................................... 60 Uniqueness ............................................................................................................................................................ 61 Heg ........................................................................................................................................................................ 62 World Health Turn ............................................................................................................................................... 63 Econ ...................................................................................................................................................................... 65 A2: Obesity Good .................................................................................................................................................. 66 Impacts in Progress ........................................................................................................................................... 67
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Deforestation ........................................................................................................................................................ 68 I/L Deforestation ........................................................................................................................................ 69 Impact ............................................................................................................................................................. 71 Methane ................................................................................................................................................................ 72 I/L .................................................................................................................................................................. 73 Impact ............................................................................................................................................................ 74 Soil Erosion ............................................................................................................................................................75 I/L .................................................................................................................................................................. 76 Impact ............................................................................................................................................................. 77 Soil erosion threatens all life. ...................................................................................................................... 77 ***Aff Answers*** ............................................................................................................................................. 78 ***Link Answers*** ........................................................................................................................................... 79 No Link Alt Cause ........................................................................................................................................... 80 Link Turns ......................................................................................................................................................... 82 *A2 Species* ...................................................................................................................................................... 86 No Impact Bio-D ............................................................................................................................................ 87 ***A2 ABR*** .................................................................................................................................................... 89 A2 ABR - No Impact .......................................................................................................................................... 90 A2 ABR - Alt Cause ............................................................................................................................................. 91 ***A2 Food Security*** ..................................................................................................................................... 94 A2 Food Security - Link Turns .......................................................................................................................... 96 A2 Food Security No Link .............................................................................................................................. 97 ***A2 Bio-D*** .................................................................................................................................................. 99 A2 Bio-D - Impact Takeout .............................................................................................................................. 101 ***A2 Warming*** .......................................................................................................................................... 104 A2 Warming No Link ................................................................................................................................... 106 A2 Warming Alt Cause Deforestation ....................................................................................................... 108 A2 Warming Warming isnt Real ................................................................................................................... 110
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***Shells***
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Beef 1NC
Beef consumption declining now health and costs Scott-Thomas 8/27 (Caroline Scott-Thomas, Food Navigator, What's driving the decline in US meat
consumption? http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/What-s-driving-the-decline-in-US-meatconsumption) Americans still consume more meat than nearly anyone else in the world, but consumption is declining and peoples reasons for eating less meat have evolved in recent years. According to USDA figures , US meat consumption is on track to fall by more than 12% from 2007 to the end of 2012 about 165.5 pounds per person this year, or just under half a pound a day. But why? FoodNavigator-USA spoke to one of the founding partners of the Meatless Monday campaign, Dr. Robert Lawrence, a professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Healths Center for a Livable Future. When the Meatless Monday campaign was founded in 2003, the idea was to help cut saturated fat consumption to USDA-recommended levels, he says, a 15% reduction. Researchers knew most saturated fat in US diets came from animal sources, so this seemed like a sensible place to start. We realized that setting targets, realistic targets, would be a powerful incentive, Lawrence says. It turns out that one day a week is about 15% of the week, so we came up with the idea of avoiding animal products one day a week. He says polling data show that the incentive is still growing, with 18% of Americans claiming to participate in the campaign, and awareness now at 50% of the population. A powerful message In early focus-groups, poorer consumers most at risk of diet-related ill health responded well to the health message, while wealthier consumers were more likely to be concerned about environmental impacts of meat production. For low and low-middle income groups, the most salient message was if it would protect the health of my family, then yes, Ill cut back, he says. The environmental message was presented early on, but was never quite as powerful as the health message. However, the Meatless Monday campaign has grown to include a wide range of issues, including problems of global food security; problems with devoting grain crops to animal feed; water scarcity; water security; animal welfare; and concerns about the impact of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) on rural American communities. You take a general public and you pick off those who are really concerned about public health, those who are concerned about the environment, rural communities, animal welfare, and so on. You add all those up and you are reaching a big sector of the American public, says Lawrence. Has US meat consumption peaked? Some trend watchers have suggested that the cost of meat is a major factor too, particularly as pocketbooks are pinched, and animal feed prices are on the rise, pushing prices higher. But while the dropoff in meat consumption has coincided with recession, Lawrence claims that health remains the number one reason that people are changing their habits.
Increased income leads to greater beef consumption Gossard and York 3 (Marcia and Richard, Professor of Sociology at Washington State University, and
Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, Social Structural Influences on Meat Consumption, Human Ecology Review, 10(1), http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her101/101gossardyork.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL Social class appears to have a substantial influence on meat consumption. Those in laborer occupations eat both more beef and total meat than those in either service or professional occupations.8 Furthermore, education is inversely related to beef and total meat consumption (i.e., people with more education eat less beef and total meat).9 Interestingly, income does not influence total meat consumption.10 Beef consumption, however, does appear to rise with income, which may possibly be explained by the price of beef relative to other types of food. Taken together, these findings support the argument that eating habits reflect an individuals class position (see Bourdieu 1984).
An increase in beef consumption ensures global food shortages Nash and Horowitx 92 (JM and JM, Both Writers for Time Magazine, The beef against Time,
139(16), AD: 7-8-9) BL
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Grain fed to cattle could feed the hungry. "Hunger isn't about actual scarcity," declares Stephanie Rosenfeld, a researcher for San Francisco-based Food First. "It's about the maldistribution of resources. People are hungry for different reasons at different times, but quite often the reasons have to do with beef." The link is often very subtle: in countries like Egypt and Mexico, for instance, farmland that formerly grew staples for human consumption is being switched to grow grain for beef that only the wealthy can afford. Indirectly, then, a growing cattle population threatens humans on the low end of the economic scale with hunger.
Food shortages break down the international system, culminating in extinction. Brown 9 (Lester, President and Founder of the Earth Policy Institute, Masters in Public Administration
from Harvard, Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization? Scientific American, May, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-shortages, AD: 7-8-9) BL As demand for food rises faster than supplies are growing, the resulting food-price inflation puts severe stress on the governments of countries already teetering on the edge of chaos. Unable to buy grain or grow their own, hungry people take to the streets. Indeed, even before the steep climb in grain prices in 2008, the number of failing states was expanding [Purchase the digital edition to see related sidebar]. Many of their problems stem from a failure to slow the growth of their populations. But if the food situation continues to deteriorate, entire nations will break down at an ever increasing rate. We have entered a new era in geopolitics. In the 20th century the main threat to international security was superpower conflict; today it is failing states. It is not the concentration of power but its absence that puts us at risk. States fail when national governments can no longer provide personal security, food security and basic social services such as education and health care. They often lose control of part or all of their territory. When governments lose their monopoly on power, law and order begin to disintegrate. After a point, countries can become so dangerous that food relief workers are no longer safe and their programs are halted; in Somalia and Afghanistan, deteriorating conditions have already put such programs in jeopardy. Failing states are of international concern because they are a source of terrorists, drugs, weapons and refugees, threatening political stability everywhere. Somalia, number one on the 2008 list of failing states, has become a base for piracy. Iraq, number five, is a hotbed for terrorist training. Afghanistan, number seven, is the worlds leading supplier of heroin. Following the massive genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, refugees from that troubled state, thousands of armed soldiers among them, helped to destabilize neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (number six). Our global civilization depends on a functioning network of politically healthy nation-states to control the spread of infectious disease, to manage the international monetary system, to control international terrorism and to reach scores of other common goals. If the system for controlling infectious diseasessuch as polio, SARS or avian flubreaks down, humanity will be in trouble. Once states fail, no one assumes responsibility for their debt to outside lenders. If enough states disintegrate, their fall will threaten the stability of global civilization itself.
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Warming Module
Cows cause 18% of global emissions Friedlander 11/26 (Judith Friedlander, Post-graduate Researcher, Institute for Sustainable Futures at
University of Technology, Sydney, Why arent we talking about meat and climate change?, http://theconversation.edu.au/why-arent-we-talking-about-meat-and-climate-change-6725) Reducing your carbon footprint by eating less red meat rarely gets attention. This strategy has been recommended by the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization, epidemiologists writing in The Lancet and a host of other highly-regarded researchers and organisations. But it appears we dont want to be put off our food by acknowledging the implications of our Western diet. Our own Australian Bureau of Statistics does not seem to deem food consumption analysis as a priority the most recent ABS apparent consumption figures date from 1998 to 1999. The last National Nutrition Survey was conducted in1995-1996. How can government agencies deliberate, recommend and act on food policies when they dont even measure the basics? A preliminary analysis of major Australian newspapers indicates meaty topics mainly revolve around cuisine and culture. (Part of my research is looking at how media deals with this issue.) A study of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald-Sun and The Financial Review from June 2007 to June 2012 examining over 14,700 articles which referred to keywords meat or livestock found less than .01% mentioned meat or livestocks impacts on climate change or greenhouse gases. An in-depth US analysis found that between September 2005 and January 2008, 16 of the United States largest circulation newspapers largely overlooked the food system as one of the most important contributors to global climate change. But we do know that the Food and Agriculture Organization report Livestocks Long Shadow indicates that meat and dairy products are the foods carrying the greatest environmental burden. They account for approximately half of food-generated greenhouse gas emissions and 18% of global emissions. The Australian Department of Climate Changes National Inventory Report (2009) stated th at the agriculture sector produces most of Australias methane and nitrous oxide emissions with agriculture producing an estimated 15.5% of net emissions between 2008 and 2009. Enteric fermentation, primarily from cattle and sheep, contributed 64.4% of agricultural emissions. Manure management contributed 3.9%. Worldwide, livestock and meat production have also been identified as major contributors to intensive water use, high phosphorus use (another urgent and overlooked issue), land degradation and threats to food yields and loss of biodiversity.
Beef production is a huge contributor to global warming Johnston 7 (Tom, Writer for MeatingPlace, Study Links Beef Production To Global Warming, Cattle News,
July 20, 2007, http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=146140, AD: 7-8-9) BL Japanese scientists have concluded that beef production typically contributes more to global warming than cars do. A study commissioned by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and published in the Animal Science Journal, found that producing 2.2 pounds of beef generates more carbon dioxide than an average car does every 160 miles. The main source of greenhouse gas emissions is the methane released from an animal's digestive system. The study showed that producing 2.2 pounds of beef also consumed nearly 170 megajoules of energy, most of it spent on producing and transporting cattle feed. It's the same amount of energy that a 100-watt light bulb would consume if it were left on for 20 days, the U.K.'s New Scientist magazine reported.
Warming culminates in extinction Stein 6 (David, Science Editor for the Guardian, Global Warming Xtra: Scientists Warn about Antarctic
melting, http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/07/14/02463.html, AD: 7-8-9) BL Global Warming continues to be approaches by governments as a "luxury" item, rather than a matter of basic human survival. Humanity is being taken to its destruction by a greed-driven elite. These elites, which include 'Big Oil' and other related interests, are intoxicated by "the high" of pursuing egodriven power, in a comparable manner to drug addicts who pursue an elusive "high", irrespective of the
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threat of pursuing that "high" poses to their own basic survival, and the security of others. Global Warming and the pre-emptive war against Iraq are part of the same self-destructive prism of a political-militaryindustrial complex, which is on a path of mass planetary destruction, backed by techniques of massdeception." The scientific debate about human induced global warming is over but policy makers - let alone the happily shopping general public - still seem to not understand the scope of the impending tragedy. Global warming isn't just warmer temperatures, heat waves, melting ice and threatened polar bears. Scientific understanding increasingly points to runaway global warming leading to human extinction", reported Bill Henderson in CrossCurrents. If strict global environmental security measures are not immediately put in place to keep further emissions of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere we are looking at the death of billions, the end of civilization as we know it and in all probability the end of humankind's several million year old existence, along with the extinction of most flora and fauna beloved to man in the world we share.
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Bio-D Module
Beef consumption is directly tied to a massive loss of biodiversity. Dauvergne 8 (Peter, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental
Politics at the University of British Columbia, The Shadows of Consumption, p. 166, AD: 7-7-9) BL Consuming so much meat is casting ecological shadows over rural ecosystems, global water and food supplies, tropical rainforests, and the earths climate. Billions of animals are multiplying their numbers on industrial farms. To produce more meat more efficiently, feedlots are flooding local ecosystems with antibiotics, hormones, and animal waste. Plantations for animal feed like corn and soybeans are relying on genetically modified seeds as well as on chemical pesticides and fertilizers to ensure cheap crop surpluses. With the technical and financial assistance of multinational corporations, plantations and ranches in places like the Brazilian Amazon are clearing rainforestshotspots of biodiversityto increase exports of cattle and soybeans for beef consumers worldwide, from Canada to Chile to Europe to Egypt to China.
Loss of biodiversity leads to human extinction. Diner 94 (David N. J.D. Recipient. College of Law. Ohio State University. The Army and the Endangered
Species Act: Whos Endangering Whom? Military Law Review. 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161. Winter, 1994, gender edited) BL No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single-minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a
large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and [human]kind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species
increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . .[l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara
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Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.
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ABR Module
Antibiotic resistance from beef is the largest threat cattle are constantly fed antibiotics that lead to human resistance Clancy 6 (Dr. Kate, Managing Director of the Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural and Environmental
Policy at Winrock International. Previously, she was Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Service Management at Syracuse University; Nutritionist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission, Greener Pastures: How grass feeding contributes to health, 2006, http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/smart_pasture_operations/greener-pastures.html) LE
Americans love their beef and milk. With about 70 percent of the population consuming one or the other several times a week, the United States is the largest beef producer and one of the largest dairy producers in the world. But this love affair has serious consequences for the health of consumers, the environment, and the cattle themselves. Many people assume that beef and dairy cows spend most of their lives happily grazing in grassy meadows. The reality is that most cattle in the United States spend significant parts of their lives in crowded feedlots with hundreds or thousands of other animals, eating on pasture rarely get sick, those confined to feedlots and fed grain are prone to disease and most feedlot operators routinely feed antibiotics
feed that contains large amounts of grain (primarily corn). While cattle
to prevent illness and to accelerate growth. This, in turn, increases the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans. In addition, air and water pollution stemming from dust and mountains of feedlot manure, and the many
fertilizers and pesticides used in grain production, exact a heavy toll on the environment and the health of farmers, farm workers, and nearby residents.
Resistance to antibiotics will lead to extinction Davies 8 (Julian, the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia,
Infectious Diseases and the Future of Mankind, June 2008, http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v9/n1s/full/embor200869.html) LE For many years, antibiotic-resistant pathogens have been recognized as one of the main threats to human survival, as some experts predict a return to the pre-antibiotic era. So far, national efforts to exert strict control over the use of antibiotics have had limited success and it is not yet possible to achieve worldwide concerted action to reduce the growing threat of multiresistant pathogens: there are too many parties involved. Furthermore, the problem has not yet really arrived on the radar screen of
many physicians and clinicians, as antimicrobials still work most of the timeapart from the occasional news headline that yet another nasty superbug has emerged in the local hospital. Legislating the use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic applications and curtailing general public access to them is conceivable, but legislating the medical profession is an entirely different matter. In order to meet the growing problem of antibiotic resistance among pathogens, the discovery and development of new antibiotics and alternative treatments for infectious diseases, together with tools for rapid diagnosis that will ensure effective and appropriate use of existing antibiotics, are imperative. How the health services, pharmaceutical industry and academia respond in the coming years will determine the future of treating infectious diseases. This challenge is not to
be underestimated: microbes are formidable adversaries and, despite our best efforts, continue to exact a toll on the human race.
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Obesity Module
Beef consumption leads to obesity Murphy 11 (Pam Murphy is a writer specializing in fitness, childcare and business-related topics. She is a
member of the National Association for Family Child Care and contributes to various websites. Murphy is a licensed childcare professional and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of West Georgia. EFFECTS OF EATING MEAT AND OBESITY http://www.livestrong.com/article/538228-effects-of-eatingmeat-and-obesity/)
The effects of eating meat and its relationship to your body weight depend on several factors, including your food choices, your lifestyle and the number of calories you typically consume. Factors With the exception of fish -- which is heralded for its omega-3 fatty acid content -- high-
fat, animal-based foods are generally a health concern and not only in terms of body weight. Regularly choosing highfat and heavily processed meats can also increase your risk for other conditions such as heart disease. Even though fat grams are
higher in calories -- 9 calories per 1 gram compared to 4 calories in protein and carbohydrates -- high-fat foods are not necessarily the primary factor in overweight and obesity issues. Your body weight still comes down to the number of calories you burn and the number you consume -- regardless of the source of those calories. Evidence In a Johns Hopkins study led by Dr. Youfa Wang, researchers analyzed potential connections between meat consumption and obesity. Wang's team found participants
who consumed high amounts of meat were 27 percent more likely to be obese than participants who ate less meat. The connection between meat
consumption and obesity is partly attributable to the proportion of meat consumed in relation to fruits, vegetables and whole grains. On average, Americans consume roughly 4.6 servings of meat a day, compared to three servings of fruits and vegetables, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That's much more protein and much less produce than recommended for a balanced diet. Effects The effects of eating
high quantities of meat -- particularly fatty cuts and processed meats -- include a higher risk for obesity in general, as well as for diet-related diseases and central obesity, which is characterized by a
large waist circumference. Eating more than one serving per week of processed meat can put you at increased risk for heart disease and diabetes, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. Offenders include bacon, sausage, hot dogs, salami and other processed deli meats. Obesity itself puts you at increased risk for diabetes, gallstones, certain types of cancer, heart disease and high blood pressure. Considerations The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends adults consume the equivalent of 5 to 6 ounces of protein daily. Most Americans get more than this. Eating more
fruits and vegetables and aligning your meat consumption with recommendations can help you manage your calories and limit saturated fat in your diet. Meeting your protein requirement with a combination of plant
proteins and lean selections of meat can also improve your overall diet quality and benefit your health. MayoClinic.com recommends you include meatless meals in your meal plan at least one or two days per week. References U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010: Chapter Five: Building Healthy Eating Patterns; January 2011 MayoClinic.com; Dietary Fats: Know Which Types to Choose; February 2011 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Diets High in Meat Consumption Associated With Obesity; September 2009 Harvard School of Public Health; Eating Processed Meats, but Not Unprocessed Red Meats, May Raise Risk of Heart Disease and Diabetes; May 2010 "International Journal of Obesity"; Meat Consumption Is Associated With Obesity and Central Obesity Among U.S. Adults; Youfa Wang, et al.; June 2009 ChooseMyPlate.gov: How Much Food From the Protein Foods Group Is Needed Daily? MayoClinic.com; Meatless Meals: The Benefits of Eating Less Meat; September 2009
Obesity undermines the military ALMOND et al 2008 (LCDR Nathaniel Almond, MC USN, NEPMU Five, Naval Station San Diego; Leila Kahwati, MD MPH VA National Center for
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Linda Kinsinger, MD MPH VA National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Deborah Porterfield, MD MPH Department of Social Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Military Medicine, July 15, http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1478028/the_prevalence_of_overweight_and_obesity_among_us_military_veterans/)
Increases in the prevalence of overweight (body mass index [BMI] >/=25 kg/m^sup 2^) and obesity (BMI >/=30 kg/m^sup 2^) in the United States since 1960 are well known.1~3 Clinical examination data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
(NHANES) found the prevalence of overweight in U.S. adults increased from 45% in 1960 to 1962 to 66% in 2003 to 2004, while obesity prevalence increased from 13% in 1960 to 1962 to 32% in 2003 to 2004.1,4,5 Obesity and overweight are associated with increased morbidity and mortality as well as increased economic burden to society. The mortality attributed to obesity has been estimated to be between 111,919 and 365,000 deaths annually.6-9 Comorbid conditions associated with obesity include hypertension, dyslipidemia, stroke, gallbladder disease, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and osteoarthritis, as well as breast, prostate, colorectal, gall bladder, and endometrial cancer.10 The economic cost of obesity exceeds $90 billion dollars annually.11 The
epidemic of obesity significantly aifects the military. First, the potential pool of recruits is decreased due to the increasing proportion of young adults who do not meet military entry standards for weight, estimated at 13 to 18% of U.S. men and 17 to 43% of U.S. women in the general population.12 Retention of active military personnel is also decreased secondary to the disease burden, with 1,419 personnel discharged in 2002 due to failing the body weight standard.13 Lastly, overweight and obesity add to health care costs for the Department of Defense, whose total health care budget is currently estimated at $36 billion with projected costs in 5 years to be $61 billion annually.14
Nuke war
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KHALILZAD 1995 (Zalmay, RAND analyst and now U.S. ambassador to Iraq, The Washington Quarterly)
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would
have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership
more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
Obesity bad worse than smoking, drinking, poverty RAND 2002 (The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and
decisionmaking through research and analysis, The Health Risks of Obesity Worse Than Smoking, Drinking, or Poverty 2002, http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB4549/index1.html)//ctc
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**Uniqueness Wall**
Beef will continue to decline high prices and weak economy Ro 11/21 (Sam Ro, Business Insider writer, America's Hunger For Beef Has Been Falling For Three Decades,
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-beef-consumption-falling-for-30-years-2012-11) In his latest Livestock Update, Morgan Stanley's commodities guru Hussein Allidina writes that he expects demand for beef to continue to fall next year. "We see US beef demand falling for its 7th consecutive year in 2013 as high prices and a bumpy economic recovery (with slow declines in unemployment and per capita real GDP growth of 1.4% in 2013) fail to reverse declining US per-capita consumption modeled down 1.8% YoY to just 36.19 kgpa," he writes. It may be the 7th consecutive year, but demand has actually been falling since the 1980s.
Beef declining Davis 11 (Meredith Davis, Reuters writer, Dec 22, 2011, Where's the Beef: U.S. beef consumption in decline,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-usa-beef-consumption-idUSTRE7BL1MI20111222)
CHICAGO (Reuters) - For the past decade, cattle ranchers and meat packers watched with despair as America's beef consumption steadily declined, ceding ground to leaner meats as well as vegetarian trends among the health-conscious. Most recently, high unemployment in the
world's wealthiest nation had cash-strapped Americans avoiding restaurants where beef is a common entree and had them switching to lower cost non-meat dishes at home. USDA estimates 2011 U.S. per capita beef consumption at 57.4 lbs, down 13 percent from 10 years ago and down about 25 percent from 1980. In 2012, USDA predicts, Americans will eat 54.1 lbs of beef on average
Beef at a 50-year low Zimmerman 1/12 (Jess Zimmerman, editor of Grist List, environmental news and commentary with a
wry twist since 1999, American beef consumption is at a 50-year low, http://grist.org/list/2012-01-12american-beef-consumption-is-at-a-50-year-low/) According to this graph from the Daily Livestock Report, we are way past Peak Beef. U.S. beef consumption has been dropping for the last 40 years, and projections put it back down at 1950s levels this year, which would mean we're eating less meat than at any time in the last 50 years. Americans are eating a lot less meat overall, but beef and to a lesser extent pork have meat-eating uncovered by the food industry's own market research. It turns out that since 2007, there has also been a 12 percent drop in the
number of consumers who report that they have "no problem" eating meat or dairy (a bare majority of respondents currently feel that way).
seen the biggest reductions which is cool, because cattle and pigs are the most resource-intensive livestock. Tom Laskawy speculates about the causes for the drop-off: What really struck me was how this latest news mirrors the trend in consumer attitudes on
High food prices are cutting meat consumption now Charles 6/26 - NPR's food and agriculture correspondent (Dan, 6/26/12, The Making Of Meat-Eating America,
http://culture.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/jun/26/the-making-of-meat-eating-america/)JCP "Why could they sell chilled beef in New York in the 1880s? Because New Yorkers had been getting beef in their markets and butcher shops for at least a hundred years. So we have this new meat coming in? It's a little cheaper, let's give it a try!" Horowitz says. That's been the story ever since:
Technological innovation, more efficient meat production, and Americans kept saying "Hey, it's a little cheaper, let's give it a try!" Now, though, there's a sense that things may be changing. Each year, for the last four years, Americans have been eating less meat per person. There's no consensus on why. Economist Jayson Lusk believes that it's due mostly to the recession and high food prices. Ground beef is 30 percent more expensive today than it was just two years ago. "If something increases in price by 30 percent, we'd certainly expect consumers to buy a whole lot less of it," he says. Yet there's also some evidence that tastes are actually changing. In a new poll conducted by NPR and Truven Health
Analytics, just out this week, 39 percent of the respondents say they're eating less meat than they did three years ago and the main reason, they say, is a desire to eat heathier food. (Check out The Salt tomorrow for more on the survey.) In another historical shift, rich Americans no longer
eat more meat than poor Americans. They do still eat more expensive meat, just as they always have.
More women in the workplace means that beef demand is structurally on the decline. 14/110
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Kansas State University, Focus on Beef Demand, March, http://ag.arizona.edu/arec/wemc/cattlemarket/Focusonbeefdemand.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL
Mintert et al. 2 (James Mintert, Ted Schroeder, and Tom Marsh, Professor of Agricultural Economis at
Changing demographics suggested consumers placed more emphasis on how quickly meat items can be prepared for consumption. The percentage of females in the labor force rose from 52 percent in 1982 to 60 percent in 1998. As a greater proportion of females enter
the labor force, less time is available for at home food preparation. Declining time available for food preparation had a negative effect on beef demand, but a positive effect on poultry demand. Beef demand declined an average of 1.3 percent annually over the 1992-98 period as a result of increasing female labor force participation. Assuming consumer demand for convenience is related to female labor force
participation, these results indicate the poultry sector benefited over time by offering more convenient products to consumers. At the same time,
beef demand suffered as time allocated for food preparation declined and the beef industry failed to offer consumers high quality, convenient, easy-to-prepare beef products.
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***Links***
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Economic problems stop people from buying more meat The New York Times 2012 ( January 10, 2012.
LinkIncome Boosts Beef Consumption
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/were-eating-less-meat-why/)hs
But thats changing, and considering the fairly steady climb in meat consumption over the last half -century, you might say the numbers are plummeting. The department of agriculture projects that our meat
and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007. Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years. Holy cow. Whats up? Its easy enough to round up the usual suspects,
which is what a story in the Daily Livestock Report did last month. It blames the decline on growing exports, which make less meat available for Americans to buy. It blames it on ethanol, which has caused feed costs to rise, production to drop and prices to go up so producers can cover their increasing costs. It blames drought. It doesnt blame recession, which is surprising, because thats a factor also. All of which makes some sense. The report then goes on to blame the federal government for wag[ing] war on meat protein consumption over the last 30-40 years. Is this like the war on drugs? The war in Afghanistan? The war against cancer? Because what I see here is: a history of subsidies for the corn and soy thats fed to livestock a nearly free pass on environmental degradation and animal abuse an unwillingness to meaningfully limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed a failure to curb the stifling power that corporate meatpackers wield over smaller ranchers and what amounts to a refusal despite the advice of real, disinterested experts, true scientists in fact to unequivocally tell American consumers that they should be eating less meat Or is the occasional environmental protection regulation and whisper that unlimited meat at every meal might not be ideal the equivalent of war? Is the U.S.D.A. buying $40 million worth of chicken products to reduce the surplus and raise retail prices the equivalent of war? No. Its not the non-existent federal War on Meat thats making a difference. And even if availability is down, its not as if were going to the supermarket and finding empty meat cases and deli counters filled with coleslaw. The flaw in the report is that it treats American consumers as passive actors who are victims of diminishing supplies, rising costs and government bias against the meat
industry. Nowhere does it mention that were eating less meat because we want to eat less meat.
Poor economy leads to cuts in beef consumption Kaye 2012 (Leon Kaye is a freelance writer, sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com.
He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business. March 14 2012. http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/03/meat-consumption-united-states/)hs
The majority of us are still loathe to replace meat and potatoes with lentils and quinoa, but the United States meat consumption has declined in recent years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average meat intake for Americans peaked at 184 pounds (84.5 kilograms) a person in 2004. By 2011, that amount dropped to 171 pounds, and projections for 2012 indicate even more of a decrease to 166 pounds per person this year. So what is going on? A convergence of forces are at work: a bad economy has
forced families to cut back on their food expenditures; concurrent rising prices due to the increased costs of energy and commodities; and concerns over health, the environment, animal welfare and industrial meat production.
Increased incomes leads to greater beef demandmodels prove. Mintert et al. 2 (James Mintert, Ted Schroeder, and Tom Marsh, Professor of Agricultural Economis at
Kansas State University, Focus on Beef Demand, March, http://ag.arizona.edu/arec/wemc/cattlemarket/Focusonbeefdemand.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL Beef demand was highly responsive to changes in total per capita expenditures on all goods. Changes in total per capita expenditures occur when personal disposable income increases, consumer willingness to spend income increases, or a combination of the two. Consumer
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willingness to spend a larger proportion of total income has been an important source of economic growth for the U.S. economy in recent years. For example, consumer expenditures rose from less than 90 percent of disposable income in the early 1980s to near 98 percent by 1999. Demand model results indicate beef demand increases 0.90 percent for a 1 percent increase in total per capita expenditures. This means beef demand was a major beneficiary of increasing consumer expenditures, but if consumers choose to increase savings in the future (in lieu of consumption), or if disposable income declines, it will have a negative impact on beef demand.
Income increases results in greater beef demand. Peter 9 (Mary, Communications Specialist at Kansas State University, Citing a Professor of Agricultural
Economics at KSU, Beef Demand Study Reveals Importance of Product Convenience, Nutrition, Safety, February 12, http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/story/beef_demand021209.aspx, AD: 7-7-9) BL The research revealed that beef demand is responsive to changes in consumer expenditures on goods and services, Mintert said. On average, a 1 percent increase in U.S. consumer total expenditures results in a 0.9 percent increase in the quantity of beef demanded . The study indicated that, from 1982 through 2007, beef demand benefitted from increases in consumer incomes and from consumer willingness to increase consumption expenditures even more rapidly than income was increasing.
Beef consumption is on the decline but increased incomes will raise consumptionits the key factor. Jarrige and Beranger 92 (Robert and C., Graduate of the National Agricultural Institute of Paris, Beef
cattle production, World Animal Science Series, C5, AD: 7-7-9) BL However, beef consumption has been everywhere, and still is, limited by shortages of the indigenous supply stated previous (Table 1.1) and then by its price and by food habits. It increases with increasing income and standard of living. In most industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America is has risen up to a peak reached in the late 1970s. This increase was very steep in North America (40% between 1960 and 1976) but was followed by a drop within 3 years to a plateau (48 kg( that is only 14% above the consumption in the early 1960s. In Western Europe the increase was much smaller and steady and followed by a plateau (France, Italy, Spain) or a continuous slight decrease (UK, Netherlands, Scandinavian countries). It is now 25 kg in the E.E.C. only 10% greater than in the early 1960s. Beef consumption is very sensitive to changes in income and in prices, as shown by its great variations in North America in the 1970s and by the still larger year-to-year variations in the exporting countries (Australia, New Zealand, Argentina).
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Increased incomes results in increased beef demandeconomic analysis proves. Huang 8 (Kuo, Senior Economist at the USDA, Diet Quality and Food Consumption: Food Demand
Analysis, USDA, July 16, 2008, http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/DietQuality/Demand.htm, AD: 7-7-9) BL ERSs ordinary food demand system for the United States contains 1,640 estimated demand elasticities covering 39 food categories and an aggregate nonfood sector. The demand system, in which food quantities demanded are functions of food prices and per capita income, is an effective model for forecasting food consumption and analyzing the effects of retail price changes on quantities of food purchased. For an outlook projection, information about changes in prices and income can be used to forecast food quantities demanded. For a program analysis, various scenarios of changes in prices and income can be used to evaluate the program effects on food quantities demanded. In table 1, each estimate of price elasticity shows the percentage change of a food quantity demanded in response to a 1-percent change in a food price or per capita income. For example, the own-price elasticities show that for a 1-percent increase in a food price, the demand for its own quantity would decrease by 0.621 percent for beef, 0.728 percent for pork, and 0.372 percent for chicken. The estimates of income elasticities in the last column show that for a 1-percent increase in per capita income, for example, the quantities demanded would increase by 0.392 percent for beef, 0.659 percent for pork and 0.077 percent for chicken.
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Turns Case
Beef production increases global poverty. Kasa 3 (Sjur, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, US Trade Policy Power and
Sustainable Consumption: Beef and Cars in North East Asia, US Journal of Consumer Policy, 26(1), AD: 7 -8-9) BL Second, cattle raising is land intensive and labour extensive. In addition to grazing land, which could have been used for other purposes, large land areas are necessary to produce stockfeed crops such as wheat and maize. Today more than 70 per cent of the grain produced in the US is fed to livestock (Rifkin, 1992, p. 160). In developing countries with land scarcity and lots of landless people, large-scale beef production may not only be environmentally harmful by occupying large areas of previously forested land. Beef production may also contribute to poverty by occupying land that could otherwise be cultivated by large numbers of peasants while not providing new jobs in agriculture and agro-industries. Pasture expansion has been a major factor in the increase of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia since the middle of the 1960s. Few jobs have been created, and newly cleared pastures are rapidly degrading (Hecht & Cockburn, 1989).
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Meat linked to obesity Liu 10 (David Liu, PhD, founder of FoodConsumer since 2004, a premiere health & wellness website visited
by millions worldwide. 7/22/2010 Meat Linked to Obesity http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/mobile/2/Obesity/meat_linked_to_obesity_2207100709.html) A new study reported in the June 30, 2010 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that people with obesity who want some weight loss may cut back on their meat consumption. The study led by Vergnaud A.C from School of Public Health, Imperial College Long in United Kingdom and colleagues from nine European countries showed that eating 250 grams of meat or one steak per day for a few years increased body weight by 2 kilograms. For the study, the researchers followed for five years on average 103,455 men and 270,348
women aged 25 to 70 who participated in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition-Physical Activity, Nutrition, Alcohol, Cessation of Smoking, Eating Out of Home and Obesity Project. At baseline, participants were surveyed for their dietary habits and weight and height were measured. Participants reported weight and height at follow-up. Total meat consumption was positively associated
Links Obesity
with weight gain in men and women regardless of their smoking and weight status. Positive associations were observed for red meat, poultry, and processed meat The researchers said in their report that meat is an energy-dense food, which is more likely than other foods to cause obesity. The study suggest that reduced meat
consumption may help obese people to lose weight.
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***Bio-D Scenario***
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I/L - Bio-D
Beef consumption is directly tied to a massive loss of biodiversity. Dauvergne 8 (Peter, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental
Politics at the University of British Columbia, The Shadows of Consumption, p. 166, AD: 7-7-9) BL Consuming so much meat is casting ecological shadows over rural ecosystems, global water and food supplies, tropical rainforests, and the earths climate. Billions of animals are multiplying their numbers on industrial farms. To produce more meat more efficiently, feedlots are flooding local ecosystems with antibiotics, hormones, and animal waste. Plantations for animal feed like corn and soybeans are relying on genetically modified seeds as well as on chemical pesticides and fertilizers to ensure cheap crop surpluses. With the technical and financial assistance of multinational corporations, plantations and ranches in places like the Brazilian Amazon are clearing rainforestshotspots of biodiversityto increase exports of cattle and soybeans for beef consumers worldwide, from Canada to Chile to Europe to Egypt to China.
Beef consumption destroys the environment and global biodiversity. Dauvergne 8 (Peter, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental
Politics at the University of British Columbia, The Shadows of Consumption, p. 166, AD: 7-7-9) BL Producing so much beef involves many ecological costs. Farmers are tilling land with pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough grain to fatten cattle quickly. Waste from feedlots is polluting local waterways and air. Growth hormones are tainting food chains, and antibiotics are flowing through ecosystems. The nutritional value of beef is inconsistent and declining in some places. Ranches and feed crops like soybeans are deforesting biodiversity hotspots like the Amazon. And grazing, fattening, and slaughtering billions of cattle every few years is depleting water supplies and emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.
Beef production massively contributes to climate change and destroys global biodiversity. Dauvergne 8 (Peter, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental
Politics at the University of British Columbia, The Shadows of Consumption, p. 166, AD: 7-7-9) BL Industrial ranching has other consequences for the global environment. The artificial feed leaves the cattle bloated and, without antimicrobial drugs, often sick. Belching and flatulent livestock now account for one-quarter to one-third of worldwide methane emissions from humanrelated activities. Meanwhile, decomposing manure emits nitrous oxide, which, like methane, is a primary greenhouse gas driving climate change. Most of the energy to raise cattle (growing grain for feed), to process the carcasses (running the slaughterhouses), and to distribute beef (trucking and refrigerating) is generated by burning fossil fuels, which adds still more to global emissions of carbon dioxide. Livestock and livestock waste as a whole contribute to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Fattening cattle in feedlots in particular tends to produce large amounts of carbon dioxideby one analysis, more than twice as much as grazing them on open range-or pastureland. Burning down forests to create pastures in places like the Amazon is also an increasingly large source of carbon dioxide emissionsand an increasingly serious threat to biodiversity.
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Loss of biodiversity leads to human extinction. Diner 94 (David N. J.D. Recipient. College of Law. Ohio State University. The Army and the Endangered
Bio-D Terminal
Species Act: Whos Endangering Whom? Military Law Review. 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161. Winter, 1994, gender edited) BL No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single-minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and [human]kind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . .[l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.
The natural balance of the earth is upset by human activity. Artificial destruction of a single species could spell the destruction of the planet. 25/110
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CNN 3 (8/21/03 Strieker, Gary http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html)
CNN) -- The complex web of life on Earth, what scientists call "biodiversity," is in serious trouble. "Biodiversity includes all living things that we depend on for our economies and our lives," explained Brooks Yeager, vice president of global programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. "It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the algae, the insects that make up the living world around us and which we couldn't do without," he said. Nearly 2 million species of plants and animals are known to science and experts say 50 times as many may not yet be discovered. Yet most scientists agree that human activity is causing rapid deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging, mining, agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting nature's balance and driving many species to extinction. There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary, but extinction is figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural "background" extinction. At the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, world leaders signed a treaty to confront this crisis. But its results have been disappointing. According to Yeager, "It hasn't been a direct kind of impact that some of us had hoped for." One hundred eighty-two nations are now parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The United States is the only industrial country that has failed to ratify it. But there is wide agreement that the treaty has had virtually no impact on continuing mass extinction. The treaty is more like a political statement than a plan of action, setting very broad goals instead of real targets, and leaving it to national governments to decide how to reach them.
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***Warming Scenario***
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I/L - Warming
Increased beef production accelerates global warming. Kasa 3 (Sjur, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, US Trade Policy Power and
Sustainable Consumption: Beef and Cars in North East Asia, US Journal of Consumer Policy, 26(1), AD: 7 -8-9) BL Second, beef consumption also contributes to various environmental problems (Durning, 1991, 1992). The main argument is that beef production requires fossil fuels both for on-ranch use and as inputs to the production of crops for stockfeed. Consumption of crops for stockfeed is of particular importance for beef prices and ranching profits, as consumers tend to prefer marbled beef with high fat content (Rifkin, 1992, pp. 96-99). To produce this beef quality, cattle must be fed with grain. As mentioned above, this grain could have provided about seven times more calories if given directly to humans (Rifkin, 1992, p. 160). Moreover as pointed out by Wade and Fajnzylber, the vast amounts of grain necessary to produce beef require much energy and land. Rifkin (1992, p. 225) estimates that one pound of beef produced in the US requires energy corresponding to a gallon of gasoline, and he claims that carbon emission from the fuel necessary to produce enough beef for a US family of four corresponds to the emissions from using an average car during six months of normal operations. The arguments presented above are particularly important because energy consumption is the chief contributor to environmental problems (climate change, acid rain) that are difficult to address through traditional pollution control measures. These problems are rather of a structural kind, linking modes of social organization directly to regional and global environmental problems (Weale, 1992). Cattle ranching also contributes to climate change because cattle manure emits methane and nitrous oxide (Rifkin, 1992, pp. 225-256; Subak & Kelly, 1996).
Beef production is a huge contributor to global warming. Johnston 7 (Tom, Writer for MeatingPlace, Study Links Beef Production To Global Warming, Cattle News,
July 20, 2007, http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=146140, AD: 7-8-9) BL Japanese scientists have concluded that beef production typically contributes more to global warming than cars do. A study commissioned by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and published in the Animal Science Journal, found that producing 2.2 pounds of beef generates more carbon dioxide than an average car does every 160 miles. The main source of greenhouse gas emissions is the methane released from an animal's digestive system. The study showed that producing 2.2 pounds of beef also consumed nearly 170 megajoules of energy, most of it spent on producing and transporting cattle feed. It's the same amount of energy that a 100-watt light bulb would consume if it were left on for 20 days, the U.K.'s New Scientist magazine reported.
Beef production is the biggest internal link to global warming. Fiala 9 (Nathan, Doctoral Candidate in Economics at the University of California at Irvine, How Meat
Contributes to Global Warming, Scientific American, February 2009, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-greenhouse-hamburger, AD: 7-8-9) BL Most of us are aware that our cars, our coal-generated electric power and even our cement factories adversely affect the environment. Until recently, however, the foods we eat had gotten a pass in the discussion. Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry. (Greenhouse gases trap solar energy, thereby warming the earth's surface. Because gases vary in greenhouse potency, every greenhouse gas is usually expressed as an amount of CO2 with the same global-warming potential.) The FAO report found that current
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production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of "CO2-equivalent" greenhouse gases the world produces every year. It turns out that producing half a pound of hamburger for someone's lunch a patty of meat the size of two decks of cards releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.
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Increased beef production dramatically increases global warmingit outweighs other factors. Fiala 9 (Nathan, Doctoral Candidate in Economics at the University of California at Irvine, How Meat
Contributes to Global Warming, Scientific American, February 2009, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-greenhouse-hamburger, AD: 7-8-9) BL But that is nothing compared to beef. In 1999 Susan Subak, an ecological economist then at the University of East Anglia in England, found that, depending on the production method, cows emit between 2.5 and 4.7 ounces of methane for each pound of beef they produce. Because methane has roughly 23 times the global-warming potential of CO2, those emissions are the equivalent of releasing between 3.6 and 6.8 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere for each pound of beef produced. Raising animals also requires a large amount of feed per unit of body weight. In 2003 Lucas Reijnders of the University of Amsterdam and Sam Soret of Loma Linda University estimated that producing a pound of beef protein for the table requires more than 10 pounds of plant protein with all the emissions of greenhouse gases that grain farming entails. Finally, farms for raising animals produce numerous wastes that give rise to greenhouse gases. Taking such factors into account, Subak calculated that producing a pound of beef in a feedlot, or concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) system, generates the equivalent of 14.8 pounds of CO2 pound for pound, more than 36 times the CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emitted by producing asparagus. Even other common meats cannot match the impact of beef; I estimate that producing a pound of pork generates the equivalent of 3.8 pounds of CO2; a pound of chicken generates 1.1 pounds of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases. And the economically efficient CAFO system, though certainly not the cleanest production method in terms of CO2-equivalent greenhouse emissions, is far better than most: the FAO data I noted earlier imply that the world average emissions from producing a pound of beef are several times the CAFO amount.
Livestock cause climate change and destroy the environment

Geoffrey Lean, December 10 2006, Cow Emissions More Damaging To Planet than CO2 Emissions, environmental editor of the independent, (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cowemissions-more-damaging-to-planet-than-cosub2sub-from-cars-427843.html) Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow. A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife . And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs. The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide. Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain. Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert. Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk. Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed over nourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health. The pollution washes down to the sea, killing
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coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi. The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.
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Beef production is a major contributor to global warming. Rifkin and Ostendorf 92 (Jeremy and David, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, and
Executive Director of the Center for a New Community, Are cattle the culprits? Environmental Action, 24 (3), AD: 7-8-9) BL The grain-fed cattle complex is also a significant factor in the emission of three of the four global warming gases--methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides--and is likely to play an even larger role in the coming decades. Millions of acres of tropical forest are being burned, vast stretches of grazing lands are being charred, and large tracts of agricultural wastes from feed crops are being set afire every year, releasing millions of tons of carbon into the heavens, all to secure the grain-fed beef complex. Still the burning of biomass is only part of the story. With 70 percent of all U.S. feed grain production now devoted to livestock feed, primarily for cattle, the energy burned just to produce the feed represents a significant addition to carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, to produce the feed crops for grain-fed cattle requires the use of petrochemical fertilizers, which emit nitrous oxide, another of the greenhouse gases. Finally, cattle emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Methane emissions are responsible for 18 percent of the global warming trend. The world's cattle emit approximately 60 million tons of the total, or 12 percent of all the methane released into the atmosphere. These figures reveal only part of the problem. When tropical forests are cleared and burned to provide pasture land for cattle, they emit methane as well as carbon dioxide. The burning of forests, grasslands, and agricultural wastes worldwide releases an additional 50 to 100 million tons of methane into the atmosphere.
Beef is a major contributor to global warming. China Daily 9 (Beef is the Hummer of All Food Experts, February 17, 2009, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL
When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say. Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week. That's because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada. Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate. By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food. The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit. Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said on Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That's because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said. If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said. Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to.
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Warming strains the global economy by devastating coastal industry and exacerbates poverty. IPCC 07 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, 12/12-17, p.
26) _ The most vulnerable industries, settlements and societies are generally those in coastal and river flood plains, those whose economies are closely linked with climate-sensitive resources and those in areas prone to extreme weather events, especially where rapid urbanisation is occurring. {WGII 7.1, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, SPM} _ Poor communities can be especially vulnerable, in particular those concentrated in high-risk areas. {WGII 7.2, 7.4, 5.4, SPM}
Warming Impacts Econ
Every delay in mitigation of emissions increases inevitable economic damage and increases the risk of warming-induced economic collapse. IPCC 07 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, 12/12-17, p.
47) The macro-economic costs of mitigation generally rise with the stringency of the stabilisation target and are relatively higher when derived from baseline scenarios characterized by high emission levels. {WGIII SPM} There is high agreement and medium evidence that in 2050 globaln average macro-economic costs for multi-gas mitigation towards stabilisation between 710 and 445ppm CO2-eq are between a 1% gain to a 5.5% decrease of global GDP (Table 5.2). This corresponds to slowing average annual global GDP growth by less than 0.12 percentage points. Estimated GDP losses by 2030 are on average lower and show a smaller spread compared to 2050 (Table 5.2). For specific countries and sectors, costs vary considerably from the global average.33 {WGIII 3.3, 13.3, SPM}
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Warming Terminal
Warming culminates in extinction. Stein 6 (David, Science Editor for the Guardian, Global Warming Xtra: Scientists Warn about Antarctic
melting, http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/07/14/02463.html, AD: 7-8-9) BL Global Warming continues to be approaches by governments as a "luxury" item, rather than a matter of basic human survival. Humanity is being taken to its destruction by a greed-driven elite. These elites, which include 'Big Oil' and other related interests, are intoxicated by "the high" of pursuing egodriven power, in a comparable manner to drug addicts who pursue an elusive "high", irrespective of the threat of pursuing that "high" poses to their own basic survival, and the security of others. Global Warming and the pre-emptive war against Iraq are part of the same self-destructive prism of a politicalmilitary-industrial complex, which is on a path of mass planetary destruction, backed by techniques of mass-deception." The scientific debate about human induced global warming is over but policy makers - let alone the happily shopping general public - still seem to not understand the scope of the impending tragedy. Global warming isn't just warmer temperatures, heat waves, melting ice and threatened polar bears. Scientific understanding increasingly points to runaway global warming leading to human extinction", reported Bill Henderson in CrossCurrents. If strict global environmental security measures are not immediately put in place to keep further emissions of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere we are looking at the death of billions, the end of civilization as we know it and in all probability the end of humankind's several million year old existence, along with the extinction of most flora and fauna beloved to man in the world we share.
Warming leads to environmental collapse through biodiversity loss, natural disasters, and destruction of water and food supplies. IPCC 7 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, 12/12-17, p.
26) _ The resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this century by an unprecedented combination of climate change, associated disturbances (e.g. flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification) and other global change drivers (e.g. landuse change, pollution, fragmentation of natural systems, overexploitation of resources). {WGII 4.1-4.6, SPM} _ Over the course of this century, net carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems is likely to peak before mid-century and then weaken or even reverse16, thus amplifying climate change. {WGII 4.ES, Figure 4.2, SPM} _ Approximately 20 to 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5C (medium confidence). {WGII 4.ES, Figure 4.2, SPM} _ For increases in global average temperature exceeding 1.5 to 2.5C and in concomitant atmospheric CO2 concentrations, there are projected to be major changes in ecosystem structure and function, species ecological interactions and shifts in species geographical ranges, with predominantly negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services, e.g. water and food supply. {WGII 4.4, Box TS.6, SPM}
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A2: Warming isnt Real

Largest and most recent studies prove global warming is real, anthropogenic and a threat. Fahrenthold 6-17 (David, Staff Writer for the Washington Post, Scientists: Global warming is real, and it
is only getting worse, The Washington Post, June 17, 2009, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/2009348033_warming17.html, AD: 7-8-9) BL Man-made climate change is already lifting temperatures, increasing rainfall and raising sea levels around the United States and its effects are on track to get much worse in the coming century, according to a new report released by federal scientists. The report, "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," covers much of the same ground as previous analyses from U.S. and United Nations science panels. It finds that greenhouse-gas emissions are "primarily" responsible for global warming and that rapid action is needed to avert catastrophic shifts in water, heat and natural life. What's different this time is the report's scope at 196 pages, the report attempts to present the fullest picture yet of the threats to the United States and its timing.
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There is a scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring

Naomi Oreskes 12/3/4 The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case. The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations " [p. 21 in (4)].IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]. Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8). The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it
is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9). The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the
consensus position. Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe
that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point. This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among
climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
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***Food Security Scenario***
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I/L - Food Security

Beef consumption ensures global food shortages. Nash and Horowitx 92 (JM and JM, Both Writers for Time Magazine, The beef against Time, 139(16),
AD: 7-8-9) BL Grain fed to cattle could feed the hungry. "Hunger isn't about actual scarcity," declares Stephanie Rosenfeld, a researcher for San Francisco-based Food First. "It's about the maldistribution of resources. People are hungry for different reasons at different times, but quite often the reasons have to do with beef." The link is often very subtle: in countries like Egypt and Mexico, for instance, farmland that formerly grew staples for human consumption is being switched to grow grain for beef that only the wealthy can afford. Indirectly, then, a growing cattle population threatens humans on the low end of the economic scale with hunger. D. Gale Johnson, an agricultural economist at the University of Chicago, questions this assumption. He notes that in China, beef consumption has risen in tandem with overall improvements in diet.
Beef production is a major contributor to food insecurity. Shaul 94 (DVora, Biologist with a PhD from the University of Texas, Heres the Beef, The Jerusalem Post,
March 2, 1994, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL "If we were to take the land that is today devoted to producing food for fattening beef we could grow enough legumes and grains on it to feed an additional 400 million people. In a world where people are starving to death it is iniquitous to devote so much of our resources to the production of a food that is unnecessary and isn't even healthy." This is Rifkin's message; his executive director at Beyond Beef, Howard Lymon, a former cattle rancher, adds, "The growing of beef for food is one of the most wasteful of all uses to which we devote our resources."
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Food Security Terminal

Food shortages break down the international system, culminating in extinction. Brown 9 (Lester, President and Founder of the Earth Policy Institute, Masters in Public Administration from
Harvard, Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization? Scientific American, May, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-shortages, AD: 7-8-9) BL As demand for food rises faster than supplies are growing, the resulting food-price inflation puts severe stress on the governments of countries already teetering on the edge of chaos. Unable to buy grain or grow their own, hungry people take to the streets. Indeed, even before the steep climb in grain prices in 2008, the number of failing states was expanding [Purchase the digital edition to see related sidebar]. Many of their problems stem from a failure to slow the growth of their populations. But if the food situation continues to deteriorate, entire nations will break down at an ever increasing rate. We have entered a new era in geopolitics. In the 20th century the main threat to international security was superpower conflict; today it is failing states. It is not the concentration of power but its absence that puts us at risk. States fail when national governments can no longer provide personal security, food security and basic social services such as education and health care. They often lose control of part or all of their territory. When governments lose their monopoly on power, law and order begin to disintegrate. After a point, countries can become so dangerous that food relief workers are no longer safe and their programs are halted; in Somalia and Afghanistan, deteriorating conditions have already put such programs in jeopardy. Failing states are of international concern because they are a source of terrorists, drugs, weapons and refugees, threatening political stability everywhere. Somalia, number one on the 2008 list of failing states, has become a base for piracy. Iraq, number five, is a hotbed for terrorist training. Afghanistan, number seven, is the worlds leading supplier of heroin. Following the massive genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, refugees from that troubled state, thousands of armed soldiers among them, helped to destabilize neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (number six). Our global civilization depends on a functioning network of politically healthy nation-states to control the spread of infectious disease, to manage the international monetary system, to control international terrorism and to reach scores of other common goals. If the system for controlling infectious diseasessuch as polio, SARS or avian flubreaks down, humanity will be in trouble. Once states fail, no one assumes responsibility for their debt to outside lenders. If enough states disintegrate, their fall will threaten the stability of global civilization itself.
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Beef is not necessary to maintain food security. Kasa 3 (Sjur, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, US Trade Policy Power and
A2: Beef Solves Food Security
Sustainable Consumption: Beef and Cars in North East Asia, US Journal o f Consumer Policy, 26(1), AD: 7-8-9) BL However, in most industrialized countries, these levels are grossly exceeded. In addition, there is no reason why meat supplies must be secured by keeping large herds of cattle. Poultry and pork, which need far less fodder to fatten and are less dependent on highquality grain for fattening, can provide important parts of this meat reserve.
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***ABR Scenario***
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Increased beef consumption will lead to the spread of superbugs all known antibiotics will be useless Starmer 9 (1-12-09 Agriculture policy/communications consultant, working mostly on how concentration
in food and agricultural markets affects the food system. Elanor, Dope shit: Who to thank, and why, for antibiotics in your veggies, The Ethicurean, 1-12, http://www.ethicurean.com/2009/01/12/antibiotics-inmanure/) That concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) overuse antibiotics is not news. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, as much as 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are fed to animals that arent sick. Many of the drugs theyre fed are the same ones that doctors rely on to cure human illnesses; penicillin, for example, is one of the more widely used antibiotics in the livestock industry. Over 95% of the antibiotics fed to hogs in the United States are human-use drugs. Damn. Recent attention to the antibiotic issue has focused on the role CAFOs play in breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can spread to the human population. When bacteria are exposed repeatedly and over long periods of time to the antibiotics that are fed to animals, they evolve to be resistant to them. Then they breed rapidly. Finally, they hitch a ride to Planet Human on workers, farm families, or the wind. The result? A growing number of illnesses that didnt used to kill humans, back in the day when antibiotics worked, now do. (For background, see my previous post from the American Public Health Association conference here or check out the Pew Commission report here.) The research coming out of UMN adds a new twist to the already depressing story. Both the 2005 study and the 2007 study found that vegetables corn, cabbage, green onions, potatoes and lettuce planted in a mix of soil and antibiotic-laced manure take up small amounts of the antibiotics. The more recent study found that only about 0.1% of the antibiotics in the manure are absorbed by the plants, but researchers worry that if humans eat those low doses repeatedly over long periods of time, they could serve as another breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. That means faster evolution of superbugs. How many fruit and vegetable producers use manure from CAFOs to fertilize their crops? Theres no way to tell. Farmers have traditionally been hesitant to take manure from CAFOs because the nutrient content is inconsistent and because it often contains nasty stuff like heavy metals, hormones, and (ahem) antibiotics. But CAFO manure is becoming a more attractive option as synthetic fertilizer prices rise; see this article from the Environmental News Network. Oh shit! Before you start freaking out, remember that these were two studies performed in a controlled laboratory environment. More research is needed to determine how things play out in real-life conditions. The author of the EHN article told me that the UMN scientists will soon begin a new study in which 11 crops are grown for a full season in a field environment to see which take up antibiotics and to determine which antibiotics are most likely to be absorbed. So wait for their results, and in the meantime, take a deep breath. Now let it out in the form of a loud, piercing scream directed at the industrial livestock industry. The industrys overuse of antibiotics isnt just compromising our strongest line of defense against certain illnesses, though it is certainly doing that, and doing it in the name of pumping out more meat in shorter amounts of time. It may also be exposing many of us to low doses of drugs via a food category that we thought was making us healthier: Produce. And whats more, the industrys drug addiction could be compromising some organic farms. Organic producers rely heavily on manure as a fertilizer because synthetic fertilizers are off-limits. Many wont be using manure from CAFOs that are feeding their animals antibiotics, but some may not know the origin of all of the manure they apply to their land or the feeding practices of all their suppliers. The authors of the study suggest that organic farmers may need to start testing all of their manure for antibiotics, since the drugs are prohibited in organic production. If I may offer my humble opinion: THIS SHOULD NOT BE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. Parents should not be charged with testing every can of their babys formula for melamine, and organic producers shouldnt have to pay to defend their farms from a drug that animals shouldnt be shitting out in the first place.
I/L - ABR
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(And while were at it, it shouldnt be a non-GM farmers responsibility to put up barricades to GM pollen from his neighbors farm. Seeing a trend?) The only real solution is banning subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock production. If that means that CAFOs cant maintain business as usual, too bad. This industrial solution to their industrial problem, just like in so many other areas, is just passing the shit off on the rest of us.
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If use of antibiotics isnt controlled, worldwide resistance to all antibiotics is probable Levy 97 (Stuart MD Center for Adaptation Genetics & Drug Resistance, Tufts University School of Medicine,
Antibiotic Resistance: An Ecological Imbalance, http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/Pubs/Articles/Ciba_article.html) LE Antibiotics are unique therapeutics. They treat more than just the individual. They treat the environment and in that way they affect society. This characteristic of antibiotics is why today's society is facing one of its gravest public health problems; numerous infectious bacteria with resistance to many, and in some cases to all, available antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance exemplifies par excellence Darwinism: surviving strains have emerged under the protection and selection by the antibiotic. Use of the same antibiotics in all parts of the world has led to the emergence of resistant bacteria that find ready havens for propagation wherever they move. Antibiotics have also revealed the genetic fluidity of bacteria in terms of their ability to exchange genetic traits among genera and species which are evolutionarily millennia apart. Antibiotic resistance genes on plasmids and transposons flow to and from Gram-positive and Gramnegative bacteria and among bacteria which inhabit vastly different ecological niches.
Antibiotic resistance from beef is the largest threat cattle are constantly fed antibiotics that lead to human resistance Clancy 6 (Dr. Kate, Managing Director of the Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural and Environmental
Policy at Winrock International. Previously, she was Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Service Management at Syracuse University; Nutritionist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission, Greener Pastures: How grass feeding contributes to health, 2006, http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/smart_pasture_operations/greener-pastures.html) LE Americans love their beef and milk. With about 70 percent of the population consuming one or the other several times a week, the United States is the largest beef producer and one of the largest dairy producers in the world. But this love affair has serious consequences for the health of consumers, the environment, and the cattle themselves. Many people assume that beef and dairy cows spend most of their lives happily grazing in grassy meadows. The reality is that most cattle in the United States spend significant parts of their lives in crowded feedlots with hundreds or thousands of other animals, eating feed that contains large amounts of grain (primarily corn). While cattle on pasture rarely get sick, those confined to feedlots and fed grain are prone to disease and most feedlot operators routinely feed antibiotics to prevent illness and to accelerate growth. This, in turn, increases the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans. In addition, air and water pollution stemming from dust and mountains of feedlot manure, and the many fertilizers and pesticides used in grain production, exact a heavy toll on the environment and the health of farmers, farm workers, and nearby residents.
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Anti-biotics will be used in the cattle. Bogaard and Stobberingh 99 (Anthony and Ellen, Both Faculty in the Department of Medical
Microbiology, University Maastricht, Antibiotic Usage in Animals, Drugs, 58(4), AD: 7-8-9) BL Despite the fact that much attention is being paid to hygiene and prevention of infectious diseases , intensive animal production depends heavily on the usage of antimicrobial agents for veterinary purposes. Apart from veterinary use, antibiotics are added continuously to the feed of animals used as a food source (i.e. food animals) for humans (e.g pigs, poultry and nonruminating veal calves), to enhance their performance and increase growth. In this situation they are called antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP). The term growth promoter is used for feed additives, other than dietary nutrients, which increase growth rate and/or improve feed efficiency in healthy animals fed a balanced diet.[6] AGP are more effective in young than in older animals and the general opinion is that the observed growth and feed efficiency responses to the use of AGP are lower under optimal hygienic and animal husbandry conditions compared with poorer environments.[ 7] However, even under optimal conditions, the positive effects on growth rate and feed efficiency are between 2% and 4%.[8] As a consequence of the improved feed efficiency, the amounts of waste products excreted in faeces and urine by the animals are lowered in proportion to the decreased amount of feed consumed by the animals, that is, by approximately 3 to 4%.[9]
Anti-biotic use in animals leads to anti-biotic resistance in humans. Bogaard and Stobberingh 99 (Anthony and Ellen, Both Faculty in the Department of Medical
Microbiology, University Maastricht, Antibiotic Usage in Animals, Drugs, 58(4), AD: 7-8-9) BL In animals, as with humans, the use of antibiotics causes an increase of resistance both in pathogenic bacteria, and in the endogenous flora of these animals. Resistant bacteria from animals, that is, zoonotic bacteria or intestinal flora, can infect or reach the human population by direct contact, and also via food products of animal origin. These resistant bacteria can colonise humans and/or transfer their resistance genes to other bacteria belonging to the endogenous flora of humans. Moreover, the greater the number of resistant bacteria in the intestinal flora, the greater the likelihood that genes encoding resistance will be transferred to (potentially) pathogenic bacteria, and disseminated into the environment from animals to foods of animal origin. In this respect, one might consider the resistance observed in zoonotic and nosocomial pathogens to be just the tip of the iceberg. As bacteria from the human flora cause not only infections in immunocompromised hosts, but are also considered an important reservoir of resistance genes for human pathogens, it has been proposed that a lowlevel of carriage of resistant strains by humans should be a public health goal in much the same way as a normal blood pressure and a low serum cholesterol level are public health goals.[96] Despite the fact that it is not yet clear to what extent the use of antibiotics in animals contributes to the resistance problems in human medicine, it cannot be disputed that there is a definite link. Because we are now encountering multiresistant microorganisms in the clinical setting which are difficult to combat with currently available antibiotics, every source of resistance must be controlled as efficiently as is feasible. Consequently, a low level of resistance in the intestinal flora of food animals should be thought of as a distinguishing safety and quality mark for food animals.[24,28]
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[File Name] 51/110 Increased use of antibiotics in animals expands resistance worldwide
Levy 97 (Stuart MD Center for Adaptation Genetics & Drug Resistance, Tufts University School of Medicine,
Antibiotic Resistance: An Ecological Imbalance, http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/Pubs/Articles/Ciba_article.html) LE Antibiotic resistance thwarts the treatment of infectious diseases worldwide . Although a number of factors can be identified which contribute to the problem, clearly the antibiotic as a selective agent and the resistance gene as the vehicle of resistance are the two most important, making up a 'drug resistance equation'. Both are needed in order for a clinical problem to arise. Given sufficient time and quantity of antibiotic, drug resistance will eventually appear. But a public health problem is not inevitable if the two components of the drug resistance equation are kept in check. Enhancing the emergence of resistance is the ease by which resistance determinants and resistant bacteria can spread locally and globally, selected by widespread use of the same antibiotics in people, animal husbandry and agriculture. Antibiotics are societal drugs. Each individual use contributes to the sum total of society's antibiotic exposure. In a broader sense, the resistance problem is ecological. In the framework of natural competition between susceptible and resistant bacteria, antibiotic use has encouraged growth of the resistant strains, leading to an imbalance in prior relationships between susceptible and resistant bacteria. To restore efficacy to earlier antibiotics and to maintain the success of new antibiotics that are introduced, we need to use antibiotics in a way which assures an ecological balance that favors the predominance of susceptible bacterial flora. In large part, bacteria live in harmony with other inhabitants of the earth. Although some infections are caused by bacteria for which humans are a specific host, in most instances the infections follow entry of bacteria into the body by chance. Over the past 50 years, the classic treatment of bacterial infectious diseases has been antibiotics, the discovery of which vastly changed the relationship between bacteria and people. Today we are witnessing another change, that is, among the bacteria themselves. While diversity characterizes the microbial flora, antibiotic use has led to a further subgrouping into those bacteria that are susceptible and those that are resistant to antibiotics . Prior to antibiotic introduction, the large majority of commensal and infectious bacteria associated with people were susceptible to these agents. Over the ensuing five decades, the mounting increase in the use of antibiotics, not only in people, but also in animals and in agriculture, has delivered a selection unprecedented in the history of evolution (Levy 1992). The powerful killing and growth inhibitory effects of antibiotics have reduced the numbers of susceptible strains, leading to the propagation of resistant variants. These have eventually evolved into prominent members of the microbial flora. The antibiotic susceptibility profile of bacteria on the skin of people today, and in the environments of hospitals and homes, is very different from what it was in the pre-antibiotic era, and even 10 years ago. Multidrug resistance is commonly found in bacteria which cause infections as well as in commensal organisms which colonize our intestinal tract, skin and upper respiratory tracts. The resistant bacteria are the survivors of the antibiotic selection which has been taking place within various segments of society.
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Antibiotics administered to livestock lead to resistant pathogens spreading to humans Raloff 98 (J, Livestocks role in antibiotic resistance, Science News Online, 7-18-98,
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/7_18_98/fob7.htm) LE Increasingly, infectious disease specialists have been campaigning against excessive use of antibiotics. They argue, the greater the exposure of bacteria to these drugs, the greater will be the chance that the microbes become resistant to them. While public attention has focused on the prescription practices of doctors, about one-quarter of the antibiotics dispensed in the United States aren't targeted at diagnosed disease. Instead, they're administered in subtherapeutic doses to promote weight gain in apparently healthy livestock. In the past year, several strains of pathogenic bacteria with resistance to nearly all known antibiotics have emerged. Because most human antibiotics are also administered to animals, the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in Washington, D.C., convened an expert panel to explore drug use in livestockespecially growth-promoting, subtherapeutic applicationsas a factor behind antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria. The panel reports that cases of antibiotic-resistant human disease have "clearly occurred" due to bacteria from livestock treated with the drugs. Data indicate that growth-promoting use of antibiotics has fostered at least some of that resistance, says panel member George W. Beran, a veterinarian at Iowa State University in Ames.
Increasing use of antibiotics in animal feed lead to human resistance to pathogens this leaves us vulnerable to outbreaks Davies 8 (Julian, the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia,
Infectious Diseases and the Future of Mankind, June 2008, http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v9/n1s/full/embor200869.html) LE The increased production and decreasing prices of antibiotics encouraged additional applications outside the medical setting. Low concentrations of antibiotics added to animal feeds were found to promote the growth of cattle, pigs and chickens, thereby resulting in increased economic turnover and profits for the meat industryalthough this practice also accelerates antibiotic resistance. At present, approximately 50% of all antibiotics produced worldwide are used for non-human purposes, notably in agriculture and aquaculture. It is not surprising that the development of resistance to antibiotics shows a direct correlation with the extent of antibiotic use . Awareness of this problem has increased over the years and many countries have mounted efforts to educate the public about the threat posed by resistant bacteria, and have instituted measures to control antibiotic use. As long ago as 1969, the Swann report, which was published in the UK, recommended restricting the use of antibiotics in animal feeds (Swann, 1969). Recent progress is most evident in The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, where the use of antibiotics to promote growth in animals has been effectively curtailed. Reduced levels of antibiotic resistance in animals and farm workers indicate the success of these measures; however, despite such controls, resistance has not been eliminated and outbreaks of resistant pathogens still occur frequently.
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Livestock feeding is the main source of human antibiotic resistance this crisis could lead to epidemics that spread globally Sayre, 9. (Lauren, 3-9, The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness, Feb/Mar,
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx. ) You may be familiar with many of the problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farm operations are often criticized for the smell and water pollution caused by all that concentrated manure; the unnatural, grain-heavy diets the animals consume; and the stressful, unhealthy conditions in which the animals live. You may not be aware, however, of the threat such facilities hold for you and your familys health even if you never buy any of the meat produced in this manner. Factory farms are breeding grounds for virulent disease, which can then spread to the wider community via many routes not just in food, but also in water, the air, and the bodies of farmers, farm workers and their families. Once those microbes become widespread in the environment, its very difficult to get rid of them. A 2008 report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a joint project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, underscores those risks. The 111-page report, two years in the making, outlines the public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural livelihood consequences of what they call industrial farm animal production. Its conclusions couldnt be clearer. Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations. Scientists, medical personnel and public health officials have been sounding the alarm on these issues for some time. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have recommended restrictions on agricultural uses of antibiotics; the American Public Health Association (APHA) proposed a moratorium on CAFOs back in 2003. All told, more than 350 professional organizations including the APHA, American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have called for greater regulation of antibiotic use in livestock. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the United States. The FAO recently warned that global industrial meat production poses a serious threat to human health. The situation is akin to that surrounding global climate change four or five years ago: near-universal scientific consensus matched by government inaction and media inattention. Although the specter of pandemic flu in which a virulent strain of the influenza virus recombines with a highly contagious strain to create a bug rivaling that responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, thought to have killed as many as 50 million people is the most dire scenario, antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year. Nature Defeats GM0s December/January 2001
Researchers reporting in the journal Science have ... From one perspective, picking up bugs from our domesticated animals is nothing new. Approximately two-thirds of the 1,400 known human pathogens are thought to have originated in animals: Scientists think tuberculosis and the common cold probably came to us from cattle; pertussis from pigs or sheep; leprosy from water buffalo; influenza from ducks. Most of these ailments probably appeared relatively early in the 10,000-year-old history of animal domestication. Over time, some human populations developed immunity to these diseases; others were eventually controlled with vaccines. Some continued to kill humans until the mid-20th century discovery of penicillin, a miracle drug that rendered formerly life-threatening infections relatively harmless. Other antibiotics followed, until by the 1960s leading researchers and public health officials were declaring that the war on infectious diseases had been won. Beginning in the mid 1970s, however, the numbers of deaths from infectious diseases in the United States started to go back up. Some were from old nemeses, such as tuberculosis, newly resistant to standard antibiotic treatments; others were wholly novel. In recent decades, writes Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States and author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, previously unknown diseases have surfaced at a pace unheard of in the recorded annals of medicine: more than 30 newly identi fied human pathogens in 30 years, most of them newly discovered zoonotic viruses. (Zoonotic viruses are those that can be passed from animals to humans.) Why is this happening? There are many reasons, including the increased pace of international travel and human incursions into wild animals habitats. But one factor stands out: the rise of industrial farm animal production. Factory
farms represent the most significant change in the lives of animals in 10,000 years, Greger writes. This is not how animals were supposed to live. Chicken and pig production are particularly bad. In 1965, the total U.S. hog
population numbered 53 million, spread over more than 1 million pig farms in the United States most of them small family operations. Today, we have 65 million hogs on just 65,640 farms nationwide. Many of these farms 2,538, to be exact have upwards of 5,000 hogs on the premises at any given time. Broiler chicken production rose from 366 million in 1945 to 8,400 million in 2001, most of them in facilities housing tens of thousands of birds. On a global scale, the situation is even worse. Fifty-five billion chickens are now reared each year worldwide. The
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global pig inventory is approaching 1 billion, an estimated half of which are raised in confinement. In China and Malaysia, i ts not unheard of for hog facilities to house 20,000 or even 50,000 animals. Concentrated animal feeding operations are comparable to
poorly run hospitals, where everyone is given antibiotics, patients lie in unchanged beds, hygiene is nonexistent, infections and re-infections are rife, waste is thrown out the window, and visitors enter and leave at will, write Johns Hopkins researchers Ellen Silbergeld. Graham and Lance Price in the 2008 Annual Review of Public Health. By concentrating large numbers of animals together, factory farms are terrific incubators for disease. The stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; the lack of sunlight and fresh air as well as the genetic uniformity of industrial farm animal populations facilitates the spread of pathogens. The addition of steady doses of antibiotics to this picture tips the balance from appalling to catastrophic. Poultry producers discovered by accident in the 1940s that feeding tetracycline fermentation byproducts accelerated chickens growth. Since then, the use of antibiotics as feed additives has become standard practice across much of the industry. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that non-therapeutic animal agriculture use (drugs given to animals even when they are not sick) accounts for 70 percent of total antibiotic consumption in the United States. The medical community has been cautioning for years against irresponsible antibiotic use among people, but in terms of sheer numbers, livestock use is far more significant. Its a simple scientific fact that the more antibiotics are used especially prolonged use at low doses as in factory farms the more antibioticresistant microbes will become. Bacteria and viruses are also notoriously promiscuous, swapping genes across species and even across genera, creating what the Johns Hopkins researchers call reservoirs of resistance. In some pathogens, selection for resistance also results in increased virulence, they note. In other cases, otherwise harmless microbes can transfer resistance genes to pathogenic species.
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Resistance to antibiotics will lead to extinction
Resistance = Extinction
Davies 8 (Julian, the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia,
Infectious Diseases and the Future of Mankind, June 2008, http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v9/n1s/full/embor200869.html) LE For many years, antibiotic-resistant pathogens have been recognized as one of the main threats to human survival, as some experts predict a return to the pre-antibiotic era. So far, national efforts to exert strict control over the use of antibiotics have had limited success and it is not yet possible to achieve worldwide concerted action to reduce the growing threat of multi-resistant pathogens: there are too many parties involved. Furthermore, the problem has not yet really arrived on the radar screen of many physicians and clinicians, as antimicrobials still work most of the timeapart from the occasional news headline that yet another nasty superbug has emerged in the local hospital. Legislating the use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic applications and curtailing general public access to them is conceivable, but legislating the medical profession is an entirely different matter. In order to meet the growing problem of antibiotic resistance among pathogens, the discovery and development of new antibiotics and alternative treatments for infectious diseases, together with tools for rapid diagnosis that will ensure effective and appropriate use of existing antibiotics, are imperative. How the health services, pharmaceutical industry and academia respond in the coming years will determine the future of treating infectious diseases. This challenge is not to be underestimated: microbes are formidable adversaries and, despite our best efforts, continue to exact a toll on the human race.
Untreatable viruses lead to human extinction Daswani 96 (Kavita, Health Analyst, Leading the way to a cure for AIDS, 1-4, South China Morning
Post, A.D.: 7/1/09) JH Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a
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preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
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A2 New Drugs Solve

Low income and bureaucracy have stopped research for new treatments NGP 7 (Next Generation Pharmaceutical, 7-9-7, Superbugs Require New Drugs,
http://www.ngpharma.com/article/Issue-9/Sales-AND-Marketing/Superbugs-require-new-drugs---antibioticresistance/) LE There exist many reasons to explain the dropoff in antimicrobial development, particular in the pharmaceutical industry. Steve Projan of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals stated in an article from Current Opinion in Microbiology (2003)1 that the pharmaceutical industry has found better ways to invest research dollars. Although the market is the primary driving force for any business, anticipation and foresight to fulfill future needs should also play a significant role. Dr. Projan states, The view that there is not a compelling need to address bacterial antibiotic resistance with novel agents and strategies is not only wrong, but also dangerous. Many pharmaceutical companies have slowed or halted their antimicrobial research and development programs over the past decade, a policy in direct contrast to the boom in antimicrobial development research observed in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. Primary reasons that are often given for this change in direction include: high risk, low reward (development has not been particularly successful and even if it were, the revenue is comparatively low) increasing bureaucracy (harder to gain FDA approval, increased regulation regarding antimicrobial usage)The continued emergence of drug resistance among commonly encountered pathogens and the evolution of multidrug resistant pathogens refractory to the majority of currently utilized therapeutics represents a challenge for the treatment of infectious disease both today and in the future. Infectious diseases remain the second leading cause of death worldwide and are the third leading cause of death among the developed world.2 These developments have created an increasing need for new antimicrobials that will enable clinicians to better manage infections caused by these pathogens. However, antimicrobial research and development has been less of a focus of the pharmaceutical industry than in the past. Although new leads continue to be generated from both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries that have remained committed to generating new antimicrobials, the climate both within their own companies and within the regulatory agencies has made it more difficult to get these compounds through the drug development pipeline and into the market.
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***Obesity Scenario***
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Meat consumption causes obesity WILSON 2008 (Dr. Deborah, Obesity and Weight Loss, Last Mod Oct 3,
http://www.goveg.com/obesity.asp) Researchers have found that overweight people consume about the same number of calories as slim peoplebut they dont consume the same kinds of food. Animal products contain much more fat than plant-based foodsanimal flesh, after all, is designed to store calories, which makes it one of the worst things that a dieter can eat. Because vegetarian diets are the only diets that work for long-term weight loss, its no surprise that population studies show that meat-eaters have three times the obesity rate of vegetarians and nine times the obesity rate of vegans. Its possible to be an overweight or obese vegan, of course, just as its possible to be a thin meat-eater, but adult vegans are, on average, 10 to 20 pounds lighter than adult meat-eaters.
I/L Obesity
Meat consumption causes obesityhormones WEIS 2008 (Peter, creator of truehealth.org, Obesitythe real cause, http://www.truehealth.org/obesity.html)
Growth hormones! What do you expect! We
give our livestock - beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkeys, asf. - growth hormones so they gain weight faster and can be sold sooner. And in the case of dairy cows, we also give them estrogen hormones, so they give more milk. It works, it works wonderfully well. Both hormones result in rapid weight gain of the animals, and consequently, we too are now expressing these added hormones in our food - in rapidly growing bulk. In addition, we
also give anti-biotics to most, if not all, of our livestock (70% of all anti-biotics produced are sold to ranchers and farmers ). This has the most welcome side effect - at least to farmers - that their livestock also gain weight quicker, and thus, can be sold sooner (the live stock, that is; not the farmers). And that's not all. We also give our crops N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) - the fundamental and "major" nutrients of all of our crops. Here too, the intent is on rapid growth and greater productivity. This amounts to giving our crops "speed" - resulting in nutrient empty, overgrown bloat, since all of the other 13 known nutrients are replaced only when absolutely necessary, and the still unknown - but crucially vital - 64 trace elements not at all. The result is a massive drop in nutrients in our daily food (more below). We
haven't got a chance. We are fed growth hormones in our meat and dairy products, and bloated, nutrient-empty fodder in our grains, fruit and vegetables. And we are now beginning to reflect the nature and quality of our daily food - empty bloat - in an epidemic of obesity.
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Obesity rates are stabilizing TRUST FOR AMERICAS HEALTH 2008 (non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health
of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority, F as in Fat, August, http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/081908.3424.fasinfat.pdf)
Uniqueness
In the past year, there has been one reason for cautious optimism. According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), after years of increases, childhood and adolescent obesity rates remained level between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006.17 It is too early to determine if this is a result of obesity-prevention programs, but it does provide encouragement.
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The impact is enough to disrupt U.S. hard power SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 2003 (January 7)
An overweight America is killing itself with excess, and all that can save it is a major cultural transformation led by individuals and
families, the U.S. surgeon general said Monday. Speaking to more than 1,000 educators, doctors and public health officials in San Diego at the largest-ever conference on childhood obesity, Dr. Richard Carmona called obesity the fastest growing cause of illness and death in the United States and said it deserved more attention than any other epidemic. "We need to lead a cultural transformation, and we can't let it be dwarfed by the other headlines of the day," he told the gathering. The
Heg
health implications in a country where two out of three adults are obese or overweight and the number of overweight kids has jumped by 50 percent in the decade are severe enough to threaten national security, he said. "Our preparedness as a nation depends on our health as individuals," he said, noting that he had spent some of his first months in office working with military leaders concerned about obesity and lack of fitness among America's youth. "The military needs healthy recruits," he said. He was, in many ways, preaching to the choir. The experts gathered
for the conference, sponsored by the California Department of Health Services and UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health, face the fallout of a fat nation on a daily basis. They have seen severe jumps in the frequency of stroke, heart disease and diabetes among adults and children.
Low troop levels collapse deterrence of regional aggression and hinder U.S. power worldwide PERRY AND FLOURNOY 2006 (William, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, was U.S. secretary of
defense from 1994 to 1997, Michele, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and threat reduction, National Defense, May) The all-volunteer force is now in historically uncharted waters - fighting a protracted conflict with volunteers rather than draftees. What
will happen if the current surge for Iraq becomes the steady state, and the Army and Marines are not resourced with the people, units and equipment they need for a long-term fight? When will the dedication and sacrifice of our troops run up against the needs of families and
communities? Will they vote with their feet? Most of our active duty military has chosen to stay in the force after one or even two tours, but it is reasonable to fear that after a third year-long deployment in a compressed period, many Vietnam era and its aftermath believe that if
will choose to leave the force. Many senior military officers who lived through the significant numbers of senior non-commissioned officers and field grade commanders begin to leave the force, this could set off a mass exodus and lead to a "hollowing out" of the Army. Meanwhile, the United States has only limited ground forces ready to respond to contingencies outside the Afghan and Iraqi theaters. As a global power with global interests, the United States must be able to deal with challenges in multiple regions of the world simultaneously. If the Army were ordered to send significant forces to another crisis today, its only option would be to deploy units at readiness levels far below what operational plans would require. As stated rather blandly in one Defense Department presentation, the Army "continues to accept risk" in its ability to respond to crises on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere. The absence of a credible, sizable strategic reserve increases the risk that potential adversaries will be tempted to challenge the United States. Although the United States can still deploy air, naval, and other more specialized assets to deter or respond to aggression, the visible overextension of our ground forces could weaken our ability to deter aggression.
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Obesity world-wide will kill millions and ensure global poverty THE TORONTO STAR 2-4-2008
It's already being called the next deadly global pandemic. Projected to be a bigger threat to life than AIDS and malaria combined, obesity is quickly becoming the world's most severe health-care crisis. As waistlines grow alarmingly, so do concerns over the impact an unhealthy population could have on everything from medicine to the economy.The numbers paint a disturbing picture. The United Nations says there are now more overweight people in the world than starving people. Cardiovascular disease - commonly caused by obesity - kills 17 million people every year. Type II diabetes fatalities are expected to grow by 50 per cent in the next decade. Obesity is not new, but what's surprising is that it now plagues the developing world, too. Obesity is on a dramatic rise in poor states, as impoverished locals are increasingly introduced to mass-produced imported food that's often cheaper than their local fare. "It's a huge
problem," says Erin Blanding, a development expert and head of Life in Action, a Toronto-based health and lifestyle program. "Eating unhealthy food is what you do when you are poor." Processed
World Health Turn
food is becoming a staple in the diets of many developing countries, much of it coming from Western factories. Visit a local market in places like Ecuador or Malawi and you're just as likely to see imported sugary cereals and juices as local produce. Outside, Big Macs are taking the place of traditionally prepared plantains and sweet potato biscuits. Food high in fat and low in nutrients is cheaply made and easily shipped, which undercuts local prices. But shoppers who cannot afford anything else buy it. Even rural farmers with access to their own healthy livestock or produce commonly trade what they can for larger quantities of processed food, just to ensure their families have enough to eat. With this cycle, Blanding explains, "We aren't giving people the choice to create better and healthier lives for themselves ." Obesity once was
a symbol of Western abundance and indulgence. Today, just as many people are overweight because they are filling their stomachs with whatever they can afford - and what they can afford is making them obese. By
2030, obesity will be the Number 1 killer of poor people around the world, the World Health Organization says. This will be an enormous burden on countries struggling to escape poverty. As health-care costs skyrocket and the size of healthy workforces shrink, their hardfought progress toward development will be in jeopardy.
Obesity will reduce life expectancy for decades and the trend is only getting worsethe impact is equivalent to major war or pandemic and outweighs all other causes of death LALASZ 2008 (Robert, senior editor at Population Reference Bureau, Will Rising Childhood Obesity Decrease U.S. Life Expectancy?
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/WillRisingChildhoodObesityDecreaseUSLifeExpectancy.aspx?p=1) A new study contends that rising years in the coming decadesa magnitude of decline last seen in the United States during the Great Depression. The study, published in the March 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, contradicts recent government projections that U.S. life expectancy will reach at least the mid-80s by the year 2080.1 Such forecasts, write lead author S. Jay Olshansky and his nine co-authors, are a "simple but unrealistic extrapolation of past trends in life expectancy into the future." In turn, other demographers have characterized the Olshansky team's analysis as largely unsupported by evidence, and the article has spotlighted a long-standing debate about whether there are biological limits to an individual human lifespan all amidst a recent flurry of contradictory research about how obesity effects morbidity and mortality rates. One new study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even argues that being overweight has a positive effect on life expectancy.2 But Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois-Chicago, remains convinced by his team's conclusions. " If
childhood obesity rates will cut average U.S. life expectancy from birth by two to five
anything, we're being conservative in our estimates," he says. "We're assuming no change in obesity levels from 2000 levels, and actually, they've gotten worse."
Obesity and the Future of Medicine Projecting life expectancy is more than an academic exercise. Many U.S. government agenciesincluding the Social Security Administration, Congress, and the militaryuse such forecasts to guide policymaking on issues from tax rates to the solvency of age-based entitlement programs. And almost all these projections assume that U.S. life expectancy will continue to rise as steadily as it has since the 1930s, spurred by new medical approaches and technology as well as behavioral shifts towards healthier lifestyles. But Olshansky and his co-authors question whether medicine and public health interventions can counter the rapid increases in U.S. obesity rates over the last two decades, especially among children. The
incidence of obesitywhich researchers have linked to an elevated risk of typeapproximately 50 percent in the United States in both the 1980s and 1990s. Two-thirds of all U.S. adults are now classified as overweight or obese, as are 20 percent to 30 percent of all children under age 15. And Olshansky argues that this rapid rise in obesity rates will cause a "pulse event" of mortality in the United Statesakin to the large number of deaths caused by an influenza pandemic or a war, but spread out over the next four or five decades. "Any time there's an increase in early-age mortality [deaths before age 50], it has an effect
2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, cancer, and other health complications rose on overall life expectancy," says Olshansky. "And when these children reach their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, they'll face a higher risk of death. It's roughly equivalent to discovering that a large segment of our young people who never smoked suddenly decided to smoke." The Surprising Impact of Obesity Today To demonstrate the future effects of rising obesity levels, Olshansky and his co-authors first calculated how current rates of adult obesity are diminishing overall U.S. life expectancy. Using studies that argue being obese reduces your life expectancy by nearly 13 years, the researchers estimated by how much overall rates of death would fall if every obese person in the United States lost enough weight to reach the optimal Body Mass Index (BMI) of 24. (Obesity is generally defined as having a BMI of 30 or above.) "In other words, to find out the effects of obesity, we statistically wiped out obesity," says Olshansky. They found that obesity now slices one-third to three-quarters of a year off overall life expectancy,
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depending on one's race and gender (see figure). These figures don't sound like much, says Olshansky, until you put them into context. " They
are larger than the negative effect of all accidental deaths as well as homicides and suicides," he says. "If you wiped out cancer, that would only add 3.5 years to overall U.S. life expectancy." And the effect of obesity will only grow, write Olshansky and his co-authors, as its prevalence further rises and children and young adults "carry and express obesity-related risks for more of their lifetime than previous generations have done." Even eliminating a major disease such as cancer, they conclude, would not counter the negative consequences for life expectancy caused by this wave of deaths. "They will overwhelm the positive influences of technology ," says
Olshansky.
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Econ
Failure to reduce obesity will destroy the U.S. economy KAHAN AND ROBERTS 2007 (SCOTT KAHAN is a physician and postdoctoral fellow with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and
works part-time for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. SUSAN ROBERTS is a registered dietitian and attorney, Des Moines Register 8-22) Congress is struggling with how to address rising
health-care costs, which are busting federal and state budgets and eating into corporate profits. Already nearly $1 of every $6 of our economy is spent on health care. Then there are the staggering epidemics of obesity and chronic disease. These are intimately linked: The best way to decrease health-care costs is to prevent the most costly diseases. Poor diet and obesity are key causes for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, numerous cancers and other chronic diseases. Given kids' poor diets, the majority of American teens already have some degree of atherosclerosis (clogged arteries). Eighty percent of diabetes cases and at least one-third of heart-disease cases and cancers could be avoided by lifestyle changes, including improved nutrition and maintaining a healthy weight . Obesity and diet-related diseases threaten the health of our economy. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates obesity costs American families, businesses and governments more than $115 billion yearly. And the problem is getting worse. One-third of American children and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. Obesity rates have tripled in children and doubled in adults over the past two decades. If the progression of obesity and related chronic diseases continues to grow unchecked, it will break the bank.
Economic collapse causes nuclear war BEARDEN 2000 (Lt. Col. Tom, PhD in Nuclear Engineering, Zero-Point Energy, April 25,
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/042500%20-%20modified.htm) Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy, with the crumbling well underway and rising, it is inevitable that some of the weapons of mass destruction will be used by one or more nations on others. An interesting result thenas all the old strategic studies used to showis that everyone will fire everything as fast as possible against their perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try to destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic unleashing of the long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare arsenals of the nations as they feel the economic collapse , poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to immediately draw in the major nations also, and literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get the great Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie. Right now, my personal estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some modified version of it, resulting.
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Obesity is not goodstudies were all distorted by the media POPULAR SCIENCE 6-5-2005 (http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-06/flabby-coverage)
The headlines read like a dream: Govt Overstated Danger of Obesity, Fat May Be Good. Two New York Times columnists said that the fight against obesity had lost the scientific high ground. They taunted people who work out, eat responsibly, those saladmunching health nuts who, they gloated, would die young because, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people. But
A2: Obesity Good
wait: Only a month earlier, the Washington Post had reported a highprofile University of Illinois study showing that skyrocketing obesity rates are shortening life spans [more] than the impact of car accidents, homicides and suicides combined. And major news outlets said studies revealed that obesity triples the risk of dementia and causes breat hing problems. So whats the deal? The deal is that the media didnt push to analyze the CDC report-they just jumped on good headlines. The study is titled Excess Deaths Associated
with Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity. How anyone could read that and reduce it to Studies Show: Being Fat Is Not So Bad is beyond me. These results corroborated an overwhelming body of research: Obesity
is linked to deadly diseases. The CDC did find that fewer people died in 2000 from obesity-related causes (111,909) than had been previously estimated (365,000). But estimating obesity deaths, as the study points out, raises complex methodologic issues, and its own methodology has important
limitations. One of these is controlling for underlying disease. Many diseases and medications cause people to gain or lose weight, notes Tobias Kurth, a Harvard University obesity researcher. If you dont control for these and just look at whos dying and how big they are, you can ge t a skewed view of the world. Using this study to say being overweight is protective is simply overstating the scientific data. Theres also the well -known obesity paradox, that being slightly overweight can offer protection for the elderly, though the truly obese are less likely to grow old enough to see any such benefit. The
studys most obvious limitation is its use of the unreliable body mass index (BMI)-a number determined by a persons height and weight-to define normal and
overweight. A BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9 is normal, between 25 and 29.9 overweight, and 30 or more obese. But BMI doesnt take into account many important factors: physical activity, fat versus muscle, gender, diet. This means George W. Bush-a nearly-six-foot-tall 200-pound guy who eats well and works out regularlyhas the same BMI as a six-foot-tall 200-pound guy who sits on the couch all day eating junk. With a BMI of 27.1, theyre both overweight. But President Bush has precisely the right amount of body fat for his age, and hes in great cardiovascular health. Id like to see the same study use some kind of body fat index. Bushs percentage of body fat is 18.3, which is considered excellent for his age. Not the case for that out-of-shape guy on the couch. Major-media
coverage didnt raise these questions. Instead it tended to compound the problem with fuzzy math, often reporting that 25,814 Americans died from obesity, though the actual number was 111,909. Because the CDC study
documented fewer deaths in the overweight category than in the normal category, the media subtracted the number of overweight people who didnt die from the number of obese people who did-as if deaths that dont happen somehow cancel out deaths that do. A companion study did find that overweight and obese people have lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure than they did in the past. This doesnt show that obesity is inherently less dangerous; it shows that medicine has gotten better at treating some of its effects. Obese people may be living longer, but those extra years are full of heavy medication, diabetes, sleep apnea, stroke, asthma, blood clots, heart disease and cancer. And obesity is still one of the top causes of preventable death, which is why the CDC cautioned that people shouldnt use this study as an excuse to be overweight. Its good news that people can live longer with obesity, but thats no excuse to blow off exercise and order more pie-precisely what the coverage has encouraged. And dont get me started on those huge
fast-food-industry-funded ads declaring that obesity is officially hype. They make me want to scream. There is no science saying that obesity is OK. Thats not hype. Its scientific fact.
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Deforestation
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Beef production is one of the largest reasons for deforestation that leads to global warming. UCS 6/28 (Jun 28 2012. The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a
healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices. http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-30/report-links-beef-production-deforestation-threats-climateand-health)hs Cattle ranching requires large tracts of land. In Brazilthe biggest net exporter of meat in the worldand other Latin American countries, ranchers clear-cut tropical forests to provide pasture land for their herds. This contributes to global warming in two ways. First, when ranchers cut down trees, much of the
carbon they store goes into the atmosphere. Second, grazing cattle produce methane a powerful gas that has 23 times the warming effect of carbonwhich is released from their stomachs and manure. Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 15 percent of the worlds heat-trapping emissionsmore carbon pollution than the emissions from every car, truck, plane, ship and train on Earth. As demand for beef goes up, so too does
deforestation. And conversely, because beef production is a global market, as the demand for beef is reduced in the United States or anywhere else, the price of beef will decline and the incentives to deforest for beef production will also be reduced. There are many tasty alternatives to the beef hamburger said Boucher. Why not try spare ribs, a pulled pork sandwich, a turkey burger, chicken kebabs, or a veggie burger? If you want fewer cancers, less heart disease, more forests, and less global warming, eat less beef. Note: Grade A Choice? is the second in series of reports highlighting the major causes of deforestation. The first report, Recipes for Success, analyzed the connection between vegetable oils and deforestation. The third report, about the wood products industry, is expected this fall. Producing meat, especially beef, requires large amounts of land. Global meat consumption has increased in recent years and much of the new land for meat production has come from clearing tropical forests. This trend is a leading driver of deforestation and a
significant contributor to global warming emissions. Beef in particular requires vastly more land than meats like chicken and pork, which use much less land to produce the same amount
of protein. Thus a simple diet shift from beef toward chicken would greatly reduce the pressure on land and the resulting pressure for deforestation. Even without a dietary shift, a variety of other practical solutions can help significantly reduce the impacts of meat production.
Beef production is a main cause of deforestation Kamel 7/6 (Yasmine Kamel is a staff writer for Intellectualyst. Intellectualyst is a new e-newspaper built on
the ideas that the world needs change and progress to grow, and that thinking critically about who we are and what we do are the tools for that change July 6, 2012. http://intellectualyst.com/scientists-say-reducing-beefconsumption-can-help-save-the-planet-192/)hs Since beef production requires massive amounts of land for pasture, it is a powerful driver of deforestation. Newly cleared forest land tends to have soil of poor quality which is not conducive
to growing crops. That land becomes profitable when sold to meat producers as pasture, thus providing high incentive to ranchers in the Amazon to sell and allow deforestation while growing consumer demand for beef encourages expansion of the beef industry. In a press release about the report the UCS underscores effects of deforestation and its connection to the beef industry, Tropical deforestation is responsible for
about 15 percent of the worlds heat-trapping emissionsmore carbon pollution than the emissions from every car, truck, plane, ship and train on Earth. As demand for beef goes up, so too does deforestation.
Meat consumption leads to water pollution and deforestation Sarasota 2011 (Jason K., Sarasota is a writer for Scientific American. December 28, 2011.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meat-and-environment. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meat-and-environment)hs Our meat consumption habits also cause other environmental problems. A 2009 study
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found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms (also called concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs)whereby pigs and other livestock are contained in tight quarters can produce as much sewage waste as a small city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Further, the widespread use of antibiotics to keep livestock healthy on those overcrowded CAFOs has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that threaten human health and the environment in their own right.
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DEFORESTATION CAUSES MASSIVE EXTINCTION GENESIS OF EDEN DIVERSITY ENCYCLOPEDIA, 2002, p.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/saceve.htm (WFU73)
By some estimates, a million species will have died out during the last century, but even this is possibly a vast under-estimate because the number of uncharacterized species in many small species, from insects to bacteria, may exceed the known ones by an order of magnitude. "It is hard to be accurate about extinctions, since most are unrecorded; the vast majority of the world's species have neither been named nor classified" (Lean 136). These difficulties are sometimes exploited by opponents of biodiversity conservation, but the arguments do not hold. The sheer scale of the devastation caused as whole forests are systematically burned and cleared of their natural diversity and large habitats fragmented into small islands is qualitatively devastation, which will have a very significant impact on diversity. The more species there are on Earth the worse the scale of the loss becomes.
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Methane
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Beef production leads to an increase of methane Kamel 7/6 (Yasmine Kamel is a staff writer for Intellectualyst. Intellectualyst is a new e-newspaper built on
the ideas that the world needs change and progress to grow, and that thinking critically about who we are and what we do are the tools for that change July 6, 2012. http://intellectualyst.com/scientists-say-reducing-beefconsumption-can-help-save-the-planet-192/)hs Beef production doesnt only require more land to produce, it also yields more waste. During their digestive process cattle produce methane, which the report defines as a potent heat trapping gas that exits the cow from both ends and causes about 23 times as much global warming per molecule as carbon dioxide. The report adds that cattle also produce large amounts of manure which is an additional source of methane and a leading cause of water pollution. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that US livestock and
poultry generate 63.8 tons of manure every year. Since the 1800s meat production has increase by 25 times, and since the 1960s meat consumption has tripled, with the US today consuming more than 120 KG (264.5 lbs) of meat per capita. The USDA valued the American cattle and beef industry at $74 billion in 2010. The UCS report concludes with suggested solutions to the climate effects of meat production. Among them, that meat producers exhaustively use land already deforested and acquired, and that policy makers eliminate subsidies or any tax incentives that encourage beef production on new lands. The report emphasizes the influence of increasing global demand for beef and urges consumers to shift from beef as a staple in their diet.
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Methane Emissions cause extinction The Sun News, 2008 (Scientist uncovers methane menace Wesley Hughes, 06/07/08)
He calls it the Doomsday Scenario. Imagine alligators swimming at the North Pole. It happened once and it could happen again if Martin Kennedy's hypothesis comes true. And if Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" made you nervous, imagine something 50 times worse. If we as a society can't stop it, it could mean the end of civilization. Kennedy says, "I don't know how a nuclear power could survive if most of its population is dying." Kennedy is no nut case. He's a highly respected professor of geology at UC Riverside; and his scenario was published recently in the journal Nature. It involves something no one had paid much attention to before: methane. We in the Inland Empire are familiar with it as a byproduct of cow poop. But Kennedy's methane is no BS, cowboy. It's trapped in the permafrost under the ice cap in high latitudes at the top of the world. If the ice cap melts - as the Greenland ice sheet rapidly is - the methane will be released and methane is 50 times more active than carbon as a greenhouse gas, the scientist said. The Earth has 5,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide in its deposits of oil and natural gas. Big numbers. But there are 10,000 gigatons of methane under the ice sheets and in the ocean floor near the coasts. That's twice the amount of the carbon dioxide and 100 times more powerful. Methane lingers in the atmosphere for five or 10 years before oxidation converts it to carbon dioxide. The more methane released as the ice melts, the warmer it becomes, melting more ice releasing increasingly more methane. As the ice melts, the planet loses its reflectability - the albedo effect - absorbing more of the heat from the sun and increasing the warmth. It's like putting your hand on a white car in the hot summer sun and then putting it on a black one. "Ouch." Total meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet would deepen the oceans by 20 feet, flooding places like New York City and turning Florida into a reef. Kennedy began working on his hypothesis five years ago and his research took him back to his native Australia. There he found ancient methane seeps that could be tied to earlier global ice melts and the "Snowball Earth" of 635 million years ago. That occurred just before animal life appeared on Earth, Kennedy said, "suggesting some kind of environmental link." The life possibly kick-started by the first methane age could be wiped out by a second. The tipping point for that phenomenon is unknown, Kennedy said. It occurred the first time when methane was loosed in a runaway feedback. The tipping point for a new methane age could occur in a decade, Kennedy said. But we are primed for it and when it occurs the world could warm at a rate of tens of degrees. "It's an abrupt mechanism," Kennedy said. "It's an entirely different climate- warming scenario. In the first global warming from carbon dioxide, the Earth didn't go through catastrophic change. "We think we are increasing the probability of abrupt climate change," the scientist said. "When we understand the tipping point," Kennedy said, we'll be able to better predict the climate's future in the next century." He said the Greenland ice sheet is not stable and is melting rapidly. Fourteen of the past 20 years have been the hottest in world history, Kennedy said. A methane age would wreak havoc with the climate, plant and animal life and humanity, Kennedy said. The results are unpredictable and could be catastrophic with more Hurricane Katrinas, dust bowls, monsoons, floods and famine. The scientist is director of the Global Climate and Environmental Change Program, a two-year master's degree program at UCR.
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Soil Erosion
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Beef production creates a laundry list of problems soil erosion, water pollution, loss of BioD, and warming. Gossard and York 2003 (Marcia Hill Gossard works at Department of Sociology at Washington State
University and Richard York works at the Department of Sociology at University of Oregon. Human Ecology Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2003. http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her101/101gossardyork.pdf)s The environmental literature identifies industrial meat production as a leading cause of many ecological problems (Durning and Brough 1991; Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Daily 1995; Goodland
1997; Pimentel and Pimentel 1996; Rifkin 1992; Subak 1999). Modern, intensive meat production places a burden on ecosystems since it requires the use of large quantities of natural resources particularly land, energy, and water used to produce feed grain (Durning and Brough 1991; Dutilh and Kramer 2000; Fiddes 1991). Relative to the production of grain and other vegetable matter for human consumption, meat production is extremely resource inefficient several times more people can subsist on a vegetarian diet than can on a meat centered diet (Durning and Brough 1991; Dutilh and Kramer 2000; Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Daily 1995; Lapp 1991; Rifkin 1992). Beef production is particularly resource intensive, having an even greater impact on the environment than is suggested by the amount of grain and the resources that go into producing grain that it requires (Subak 1999). Livestock grazing contributes to many
environmental problems including soil erosion, desertification, water pollution, and loss of biological diversity (Durning and Brough 1991; Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Daily 1995; Pimentel and
Pimentel 1996; Rifkin 1992). For example, millions of acres of tropical forest in Latin America have been cleared for cattle grazing (Durning and Brough 1991; Harrison and Pearce 2000; Myers 1981). Additionally,
due to their digestive physiology, cattle also emit a large quantity of methane, a greenhouse gas, and their manure expels gaseous ammonia into the air, contributing to acid rain (Durning and Brough 1991; Harrison and Pearce 2000; Subak 1999).
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Soil erosion threatens all life. Horne and McDermott 2001 (James E., PhD and Maura, The next green revolution, p 69)
Conserving healthy soil by guarding it against erosion or other forces that would degrade it is the most basic step. This step has as its corollary actively building soil health, because soil used for agricultural purposes today is not as healthy as it could be. It is both less diverse and less active biologically. Without healthy topsoil, the world cannot begin to feed its billions. Although American popular culture discourse in recent years has speculated the fate of line on earth in case of alien invasion, asteroid bombardment, or rampaging killer viruses, the slow loss of quality soil is more of a threat to life on the planet than any of these scenarios.
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***Aff Answers***
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No Link Alt Cause

Demand isnt keyexternal factors determine beef production. Gossard and York 3 (Marcia and Richard, Professor of Sociology at Washington State University, and
Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, Social Structural Influences on Meat Consumption, Human Ecology Review, 10(1), http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her101/101gossardyork.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL A critical macro-level approach suggests that the production of meat cannot simply be explained as a direct response to consumer demand, since production is affected by government subsidies and industry groups, such as the beef and pork councils. Political economists argue that the economic elite control consumer preferences through means of social, psychological, and cultural manipulation for example, by the use of advertising (Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). Therefore, production may generate consumption because producers, processors, and marketers have cultural hegemony, that is, control over the values and beliefs of a culture. Consequently, from this perspective, the structural power of the meat industry is expected to be a major determinant of levels of meat consumption. Cronons (1991) analysis of how the U.S. meat industry grew throughout the 19th Century by transforming American agriculture provides clear support for the argument that consumer habits are greatly influenced by powerful corporate interests. However, although this perspective may explain aggregate levels of production and consumption in a society, it does not explain variation of consumer behavior among individuals within a shared political economic context.
Income doesnt determine productioncultural factors are key. Gossard and York 3 (Marcia and Richard, Professor of Sociology at Washington State University, and
Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, Social Structural Influences on Meat Consumption, Human Ecology Review, 10(1), http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her101/101gossardyork.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL A micro-level approach to understanding consumer patterns focuses on the social psychological factors that lead to meat consumption. Dietz et al. (1995) and Kalof et al. (1999) argue that social psychological factors, such as values and beliefs, have a substantial influence on consumer demand for various food types. The results of their analyses suggest that values and beliefs have a greater influence on the choice of a vegetarian diet than do demographic factors. Consistent with these results, other researchers have found that social psychological factors have a greater influence on consumer demand than do demographic and economic factors (Breidenstein 1988; Guseman et al. 1987; Sapp and Harrod 1989). However, social structural factors form the context in which psychological factors operate. Social structural position (for example race, class, and gender) likely plays an important role in shaping each individuals socialization, life experiences, and psychological attributes. Recognizing the intertwined importance of social structure and psychology is necessary to understand behavior.
There is no single factor that controls demand. Peter 9 (Mary, Communications Specialist at Kansas State University, Citing a Professor of Agricultural
Economics at KSU, Beef Demand Study Reveals Importance of Product Convenience, Nutrition, Safety, February 12, http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/story/beef_demand021209.aspx, AD: 7-7-9) BL There is no single dominant beef demand driver on which the industry should focus all of its attention, but this study did identify and quantify the key factors affecting beef demand, Mintert said. We recommend maintaining a portfolio of beef demand enhancement programs designed to address the key drivers in this study.
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Increased income decreases beef consumptionmore diet-health knowledge. Lin et al. 3 (Biing-Hwan Lin, Jayachandran N. Variyam, Jane Allshouse, and John Cromartie, Lin was an
Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho, Now a Senior Economist for the USDA, Food and Agricultural Commodity Consumption in the United States: Looking Ahead to 2020, USDA, February, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer820/, AD: 7-7-9) BL For the at-home market, per capita consumption is predicted to increase between 2000 and 2020 for poultry, fish, yogurt, all fruits, nuts and seeds, tomatoes, lettuce, other vegetables, and grains. Per capita consumption of beef, pork, other meat, eggs, milk, cheese, fried potatoes, other potatoes, and sugar is predicted to fall. As expected, income plays an important role in commodity consumption. For example, growth in income dampens at-home beef, pork, and egg consumption directly and indirectly. As income rises, Americans eat less at home and accumulate more diethealth knowledge, both of which have negative effects on at-home consumption of beef, pork, and eggs (see the Tobit results in the appendix tables, p. 34-58). The aging of the U.S. population will increase per capita consumption of fish, eggs, fruits, other potatoes, lettuce, and other vegetables at home. The changing racial composition of the U.S. population affects eating out and diet-health knowledge, and hence directly and indirectly affects consumption of several commodities at homepositive effects for poultry, fish, eggs, and fruits; negative effects for dairy and potato products. As household heads become more educated and their diet-health knowledge improves, per capita at-home consumption of fruits is expected to rise but consumption of beef, pork, and eggs is expected to decline.
Increased income will lower beef consumptionstatistical analysis proves. Lin et al. 3 (Biing-Hwan Lin, Jayachandran N. Variyam, Jane Allshouse, and John Cromartie, Lin was an
Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho, Now a Senior Economist for the USDA, Food and Agricultural Commodity Consumption in the United States: Looking Ahead to 2020, USDA, February, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer820/, AD: 7-7-9) BL As consumers accumulate better diet-health knowledge, they are predicted to consume, both at home and away from home, less beef, pork, other meats, and fried potatoes, but consume more grains, tomatoes, and nuts and seeds (table 16). With increased knowledge, consumers are predicted to consume less poultry but more fish away from home and consume fewer eggs but more fruits and dairy products, mainly at home. Direct and Indirect Effects of Income Household income affects eating out and diet-health knowledge, and hence indirectly affects commodity consumption. The total effects of rising household income over the next two decades are decomposed into three components: direct effect, indirect effect through eating out, and indirect effect through diethealth knowledge (fig. 11 and table 17, p. 28). All three income-induced effects will contribute to a lower per capita consumption of pork and other meat, but contribute to a higher consumption of cheese and lettuce. Eating out favors beef consumption, but the other two effects outweigh eating out and result in lower per capita beef consumption. On the other hand, income has a positive direct effect, as well as a positive indirect effect through diet-health knowledge, but a negative indirect effect through eating out on the consumption of fish, milk, yogurt, all fruits, nuts and seeds, tomatoes, other vegetables, and grains.
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Increased incomes results in lower beef consumption. Davis and Lin 5 (Christopher and Biing-Hwan, Economist for the USDA, and Former Assistant Professor of
Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho, Senior Economist for the USDA, Factors Affecting U.S. Beef Consumption, USDA, October, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ldp/Oct05/ldpm13502/ldpm13502.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL In the CSFII, households were classified into three income brackets using the Federal poverty guidelines. The Census Bureau reported that the weighted average poverty income threshold for a four-person household was $15,961 annually during 1994-98 (USDC, U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). The poverty guideline was developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for implementation of Federal food programs. Some of these programs, such as the Food Stamp Program, have used annual household income at 130 percent of the poverty level to determine eligibility. This study uses the same eligibility level to define the low-income category, which accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. households. About 39 percent of households had income exceeding 350 percent of the poverty level (highincome), while 42 percent of households had income falling between 130 and 350 percent of the poverty level (middle income). The CSFII results indicate that low-income consumers ate 72 pounds of beef yearlymore than did middle- and high-income consumers by at least 4 pounds (table 2). Ground beef was the dominant beef product eaten per capita, regardless of income level, followed by steaks (fig. 3). High-income households were big consumers of steaks, while middle-income households ate relatively more stew beef.
Increased income results in lower beef consumptiondemand theory proves. Davis and Lin 5 (Christopher and Biing-Hwan, Economist for the USDA, and Former Assistant Professor of
Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho, Senior Economist for the USDA, Factors Affecting U.S. Beef Consumption, USDA, October, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ldp/Oct05/ldpm13502/ldpm13502.pdf, AD: 7-7-9) BL Based on demand theory, low-income consumers are likely to buy a greater proportion of food for home consumption than middle- or high-income consumers because of the high price of restaurant-prepared food compared with unprepared retail food. As expected, the CSFII results revealed that low-income consumers tended to eat more beef at home than did middle- or high-income consumers. Low-income consumers ate 70 percent of their beef at home. Across products, stew beef had the largest share of at-home consumption (table 6). Like lowincome consumers, middle-income consumers purchased a larger share of stew beef from retail stores for home consumption than they did ground beef, steaks, prepared beef dishes, or other beef products. Consumers in all three income classes purchased a larger share of their ground beef away from home than they did any other beef product.
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*A2 Species*
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No Impact Bio-D
Numbers about species loss are exaggerated, actual extinctions remain low and dont threaten human survival Rothbard and Rucker 97 (David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, The rainforest issue: Myths
and facts CFACT Briefing Paper #102. http://www.cfact.org/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=5&idarticle=214) Another real-world observation that casts doubt on the Wilson theory actually comes
from an island, Puerto Rico, where according to Lugo, human activity reduced the area of primary forest by 99%. "But because of extensive use of coffee shade trees in the coffee region and secondary forests, forest cover was never less than 10 to 15%...[and] in an analysis of bird fauna, [it was] concluded that seven bird species (four of them endemic) became extinct after 500 years of human pressure...and that exotic species enlarged the species pool. In the 1980's, more birds were present on the island (97 species) than were present in pre-Columbian times (60
species)...Secondary forests in Puerto Rico have [also] served as refugia for primary forest tree species as well." (Lugo, "Biodiversity," p.66) So what do real-world observations say about the worldwide loss of species? Well in response to questions about species extinction, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) commissioned a book in 1992 to look into the matter. According to Simon, all the authors are ecologists who
express concern abut the rate of extinction. Nevertheless, they all agree that the rate of known extinctions has been and continues to be very low. They found, "60 birds and mammals are known to have become extinct between 1900 and 1950," "actual extinctions remain low...many species appear to have either an almost miraculous capacity for survival , or a guardian angel watching over their destiny," and not "a single known animal species...could be properly declared as extinct, in spite of the massive reduction in area and fragmentation of their habitats in the past decades and centuries of intensive human activity." (Simon, Scarcity or
Abundance, pp. 200-202) So given all of this, why do environmentalists persist in using grandiose numbers to express their concerns about species loss? Dr. Julian Simon notes that "biologists with whom I have discussed this material agree that the numbers in
question are most uncertain. But they say the numbers do not matter scientifically. The conclusion would be the same, they say,
if the numbers were different even by several orders of magnitude. If that is so, why mention any numbers at all? The answer, quite clearly is that these numbers do matter in one important way; they have they power to frighten in a fashion that numbers much smaller would not. The [Congressional Office of Technology Assessment] OTA 1986 document says: `Conveying the importance of biological diversity will require a formulation of the issue in terms that are easily understandable and convincing.' These frightening numbers meet that test. I can find no
scientific justification for such use of numbers." Thus, the lack of any evidence for mass extinctions causes no hesitation on the part of those environmentalists calling for quick and draconian action.
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Their impacts have a horrible timeframe and risk weve used antibiotics for 60 years, any disease are easily prevented Rozeboom 8 [Dale Rozeboom et. al.Michigan State Swine Specialist and Prof. of Animal Science at
Michigan State University, April, 2008 Antibiotics in the Environment and Antibiotic Resistance, Michigan State University http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/8/biosecurity-disinfection/2220/antibiotics-in-theenvironment-and-antibiotic-resistance] Antibiotics have been used in animals over 60 years. However, antibiotic resistance only recently has become a major medical concern in hospitals. Whenever a population of bacteria, of importance to animals or humans, into humans, but many barriers stand in their way. Most bacteria that cause animal diseases are specialized for that species (species-specific) and poorly invade humans. Zoonotic bacteria, such as certain species of Escherichia coli and Salmonella are of greater concern as they are transmissible from animals to humans. Usual precautions of washing hands and thoroughly cooking of foods eliminate the spread of these to humans, but these procedures do not help
prevent environmental transmission (e.g., to drinking water).
is exposed to an antibiotic it encourages the predominance of the most resistant strains of the bacteria. The most well-known example of this is how rapidly gonorrhea became resistant to penicillin. It is possible for resistant bacteria from animals to make their way
The scenario is non-uniqueoveruse of anti-biotics already. Lazarova 5 (Daniela, Reporter for Radio Prague, Antibiotic resistance threatens public health, March 16,
2005, http://www.radio.cz/en/article/64424/limit, AD: 7-8-9) BL The overuse of antibiotics in recent decades has resulted in a sharp rise in antimicrobial resistance, in other words -many antibiotics are no longer effective and illnesses which were considered easily curable may once again become life-threatening. There is now a network of antibiotics centres across the Czech Republic which cooperate closely with GPs and specialists, monitoring antibiotics prescriptions and giving doctors important feedback on the effects of overuse. However there is another important aspect to be considered - the amount of antibiotics that we get from the food chain.
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Drug resistance is caused by hospitals, not beef PBS Frontline No Date Given [Antibiotic Debate
Overview http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/overview.html]
For its part, the meat-production industry contends that there is not enough conclusive evidence to support measures like the FDA's proposed ban against flouroquinolones. Although none deny that the spread of antibacterial resistance is a real problem, proponents of sub-therapeutic antibiotic use in animals point out that the problem stems from overuse of all antibiotics, including therapeutic and preventative use in both animals and humans. Agricultural use may contribute to the problem, but it is impossible to determine to what extent. In its recent report, the World Health
Organization blamed the worldwide upswing in resistance to antibiotics on a combination of factors that included "overuse in many parts of the world, particularly for minor infections," and "misuse due to lack of access to appropriate treatment." The factors involved in the problem are clearly not limited to antibiotic use in animal feed. "When someone's sick and goes to the doctor, they still expect to get a prescription," said National Chicken Council spokesman Richard Lobb. He said that people should look to themselves for the causes of antibiotic resistance, referring to the American practice of prescribing antibiotics for even the most minor of illnesses. Increased use in hospitals may also contribute to the resistance problem. "Today, especially in intensive care wards, the amount of antibiotics in the environment can become high enough that people in the vicinity of patients receiving antibiotics are exposed continuously to low levels of antibiotics," microbiologist Abigail Salvers of University of Illinois told Scientific American. This low level of exposure, she contends, is one reason why highly resistant bacteria are developing in hospitals. She says that a similar phenomenon may be taking place in
agriculture. According to Alexander S. Matthews, president and CEO of the Animal Health Institute (AHI), removal of antibiotics from animals' feed and water "would lead to increased animal disease, a reduction in food safety and gain little, if anything, in the effort to control resistance." He suggests developing "prudent use principles."
Impact inevitable and non-uniqueantibiotic resistance is ubiquitous.

Davies 8 - Professor of Microbiology and Immunology @ University of British Columbia [Julian Davies, Resistance redux. Infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance and the future of mankind, EMBO reports 9, S1, S18S21 (2008), pg.http://www.nature.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/embor/journal/v9/n1s/full/embor200869.html] Cases of pig-related community-acquired multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in The Netherlands confirm the inevitability of antibiotic resistancebacteria are omnipotent. The problem of antibiotic resistance is not only man-made; resistance genes were already present in the bacterial population long before humans started to use antibiotics to fight bacterial infections (Abraham & Chain, 1940). The
widespread resistance due to the cefotaxime (CTX-M) -lactamases is a good example; the ancestral gene is thought to have been picked up from a strain of Kluyvera sp. and subsequently transmitted to other bacteria (Barlow et al, 2008).
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Alt cause- antibiotic resistance is a consequence of natural protein engineering and are found in multiple other settings.
Davies 8 - Professor of Microbiology and Immunology @ University of British Columbia [Julian Davies, Resistance redux. Infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance and the future of mankind, EMBO reports 9, S1, S18S21 (2008), pg.http://www.nature.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/embor/journal/v9/n1s/full/embor200869.html] There is now a veritable pandemic with hundreds of different CTX-Ms being found in bacterial pathogens around the world. This is natural protein engineering on a grand scale, which David Livermore refers to as "the zeitgeist of resistance" (Livermore, 2007). Although these genes were first detected in bacterial strains in hospital settings, resistant bacteria with various CTX-M genes are being found increasingly in the community. Was this series of events inevitable? Could it have been stopped? After all, -lactamases had
been recognized for many years. The costs in terms of mortality, morbidity and economic losses are significant, but hard to estimate. So, despite an armamentarium of antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral agents for the treatment of most infectious diseases, the biggest threats today are resistant pathogens, especially those in hospitals.
Empirically decreasing the amount of antibiotics in feed or humans doesnt decrease drug resistance Soulsby 8 [Ernest Soulsby, emeritus professor of animal pathology and member of the Specialist Advisory
Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance, 4-29-2008 Resistance to antimicrobials in humans and animals Cambridge,University, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7527/1219?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=1 0&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&volume= 331&firstpage=1219&resourcetype=HWCIT]
The idea that reducing antibiotic use would redress the problem formed part of a positive response on the part of the United Kingdom government to the House of Lords report,1 including a public information campaign, surveillance of resistance along the food chain, targets with respect to hospital acquired infections, and setting up of an overarching advisory body on all aspects of antibiotic use. However, the concept of overuse has proved too simplistic, for, although the evidence of overprescribing as the main driver of resistance is overwhelming,4 reductions in antibiotic use
have not necessarily resulted in lowered levels of resistance: some pathogens' resistance has remained stable, and with others it may even have increased. For example, although penicillin resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae has been declining,5 macrolide resistance in S pneumoniae has remained stable,6 and other species such as Haemophilus influenzae have shown no evidence of a fall in resistance.7 Resistance to fluoroquinolones in Escherichia coli has increased sharply despite a reduction in prescribing.8 Such resistant strains are thought to originate from patients' gut flora.4 The advent of extended spectrum
lactamases in E coli isolates resistant to cephalosporins through CTX-M enzymes now pose problems with urinary tract infections being resistant to the fluoroquinolones. The relation of E coli with extended spectrum lactamases in animals to human infection is not yet clear. Such E coli can cause severe diarrhoea and death in calves, but it also has the ability to confer resistance to a wide range of lactam compounds such as penicillin and cephalosporins.
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***A2 Food Security***
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A2 Food Security - Link Turns

Beef production is key to food security. Kasa 3 (Sjur, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, US Trade Policy Power and
Sustainable Consumption: Beef and Cars in North East Asia, US Journal of Consumer Policy, 26(1), AD: 7-8-9) BL For beef, Bairoch (1975, pp. 23-49) points out that certain minimum levels of livestock production are necessary to protect food security. If grain harvests fail, livestock provides a valuable food reserve that may prevent hunger. Moreover, from a public health point of view, it can be argued that certain levels of meat consumption are advisable because of meats nutritional value.
Turnbeef production is key to prevent food shortages. Herscovici 92 (Alan, Executive Vice President of the Fur Council of Canada, Is the hamburger evil
incarnate?, The Toronto Star, April 11, 1992, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL A central theme is that meat-eating is "evil" because 1.28 billion cattle now graze on 25 per cent of the planet's surface and eat substantial quantities of grain - while millions of people go hungry. In fact, cattle are raised on land that is too hilly, cold or dry for other agriculture - this is why they have always been so valuable. It is true that most North American cattle now also eat grain, bringing them to market weight faster and producing more tender meat. But this does not prevent famine relief: Canadian (and U.S.) grain surpluses consistently exceed the quantities fed to cattle. Without a market for cattle feed (including damaged and poorer quality grains), there would not be more available for third-world countries. There would simply be fewer North American farmers and less grain produced. It's appealing to think we can solve the world's woes by turning to tofu-burgers, but it simply ain't so.
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A2 Food Security No Link

Beef production doesnt lead to food shortages. Avery 93 (Dennis, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, Beefing up the diet
diatribe, The Washington Times, February 18, 2003, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL Mr. Rifkin's claims, however, are false. No one in the Third World is being starved to fatten beef for rich Americans. The only countries in the world that feed grain to beef cattle (the United States, Western Europe and Japan) have big grain surpluses. More important, thanks to the Green Revolution, the whole world currently has a surplus grain capacity of perhaps 200 million tons per year. (The famines you see on TV are primarily due to "mistakes of government," such as shooting wars.)
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***A2 Bio-D***
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A2 Bio-D - Impact Takeout

Cattle improve the ecosystem and protect biodiversity. Donovan 1 (Peter, Freelance Writer, Biodiversity: Where's the beef?,
http://www.managingwholes.com/biodiversity-beef.htm, AD: 7-7-9) BL Since 1980 a Rhodesian wildlife biologist, Allan Savory, has challenged our assumptions about grazing, particularly for the arid grasslands that cover most of the earth's land surface. During his career-long struggle against desertification, Savory was forced to conclude that periodic disturbance by herds of grazing animals plays an important ecological role in these environments. There is little debate about the mechanism of this disturbance. Hooves chip or break the surface of the soil, compact the soil, and knock down old and dead plants. Mouths prune plants, often severely. Stomachs, molars, and intestines reduce and recycle the forage into dung. If this disturbance is properly timed and controlled--if it is used as a tool--Savory has found that it can benefit biodiversity on dry grasslands, where decay, soil formation, and ecological succession are slow. In the American plains and the African savannas, the grassland evolved under periodic disturbance by large herds which were often kept tightly bunched by predators. Many species of perennial grasses cannot thrive without this disturbance. In the arid grasslands, the four basic ecosystem processes--the water cycle, the mineral cycle, solar energy flow, and ecological succession--can all benefit from this kind of disturbance. Large herbivores help cycle vegetative carbon back to the soil. Hoof impact puts litter on the ground. The compaction assists germination of seeds, and breaking the crust can help rainfall penetrate the soil. Recovery periods are necessary.
Beef production in the US does not lead to deforestation. Avery 93 (Dennis, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, Beefing up the diet
diatribe, The Washington Times, February 18, 2003, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL The only rain forest ever cleared for cattle pasture was due to an ill-advised subsidy from the Brazilian government (long since eliminated). America imports very little of its beef, and virtually no imported beef is served in our restaurants. (The quality of scrawny rainforest cattle would be too poor for American tastes, even aside from the public-relations problem.)
Biological history disproves that each species is key to survival DALLAS MORNING NEWS 97, (October 27, 1997, p. lexis-nexis. (BLUEOC 0114)
Even though populations are disappearing quickly, Hughes said that the second "Science" paper is "a bright spot in all this," describing how the tree of life could survive serious pruning. Even if 95 percent of all species are lost, 80 percent of the underlying evolutionary history remains intact, write Nee and Sir Robert May, also a biologist at Oxford. The scientists came up with equations to describe how much evolutionary history would remain after some species went extinct. And they found that it didn't really matter whether they killed off species at random or in a particular pattern. Choosing particular species to save didn't preserve much more evolutionary history than saving species at random, the research shows. The work has implications for conservation biologists, who struggle with choosing which species are the most important to protect. "It turns out that it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference," Dr. Nee said.
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Sedjo 0 ( Roger, Sr. Fellow, Resources for the Future, Conserving Natures Biodiversity: insights from
biology, ethics and economics, eds. p. 114) As a critical input into the existence of humans and of life on earth, biodiversity obviously has a very high value (at least to humans). But, as with other resource questions, including public goods, biodiversity is not an either/or question, but rather a question of how much. Thus, we may argue as to how much biodiversity is desirable or is required for human life (threshold) and how much is desirable (insurance) and at what price, just as societies argue over the appropriate amount and cost of national defense. As discussed by Simpson, the value of water is small even though it is essential to human life, while diamonds are inessential but valuable to humans. The reason has to do with relative abundance and scarcity, with market value pertaining to the marginal unit. This waterdiamond paradox can be applied to biodiversity. Although biological diversity is essential, a single species has only limited value, since the global system will continue to function without that species. Similarly, the value of a piece of biodiversity (e.g., 10 ha of tropical forest) is small to negligible since its contribution to the functioning of the global biodiversity is negligible. The global ecosystem can function with somewhat more or somewhat less biodiversity, since there have been larger amounts in times past and some losses in recent times. Therefore, in the absence of evidence to indicate that small habitat losses threaten the functioning of the global life support system, the value of these marginal habitats is negligible. The value question is that of how valuable to the life support function are species at the margin. While this, in principle, is an empirical question, in practice it is probably unknowable. However, thus far, biodiversity losses appear to have had little or no effect on the functioning of the earths life support system, presumably due to the resiliency of the system, which perhaps is due to the redundancy found in the system. Through most of its existence, earth has had far less biological diversity. Thus, as in the water-diamond paradox, the value of the marginal unit of biodiversity appears to be very small.
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A2 Warming No Link
New production methods prevent beef production from leading to warming. Avery and Avery 8 (Alex and Dennis, Director of Research and Education at the Center for Global Food
Issues at the Hudson Institute, and Director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, Updated:New Beef Eco-Report, April 21, http://www.cgfi.org/2008/04/21/the-environmental-safety-andbenefits-of-growth-enhancing-pharmaceutical-technologies-in-beef-production/, AD: 7-8-9) BL More than 95% of beef produced in the United States is raised on grain-based diets in feedlots, using supplemental growth hormones, both natural and synthetic. The report details the extensive human and environmental safety requirements for the use of supplemental hormones on feedlots, as well as the growing body of environmental monitoring studies showing no significant negative impacts from their use. Instead, the data show major environmental benefits of this production system: Saving 2/3rds more land for nature and producing 40% fewer greenhouse gas emissions per pound of beef produced.
New production methods dramatically decrease ghg emissions. Avery and Avery 8 (Alex and Dennis, Director of Research and Education at the Center for Global Food
Issues at the Hudson Institute, and Director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, Updated:New Beef Eco-Report, April 21, http://www.cgfi.org/2008/04/21/the-environmental-safety-andbenefits-of-growth-enhancing-pharmaceutical-technologies-in-beef-production/, AD: 7-8-9) BL Grain feeding combined with growth promotants also results in a nearly 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) per pound of beef compared to grass feeding (excluding nitrous oxides), with growth promotants accounting for fully 25 percent of the emissions reductions. In short, growth promoting implants safely and responsibly allow humanity to produce more beef from less feed, using less land, and creating less waste.
Cattle dont have an effect on climate change. Avery 93 (Dennis, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, Beefing up the diet
diatribe, The Washington Times, February 18, 2003, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL Mr. Rifkin claims that cattle are forcing global warming by producing methane. Ruminant animals do produce methane, but U.S. beef cattle produce about 0.0003 percent of atmospheric change. (A cow's impact on global warming is almost exactly that of a 75-watt light bulb.) To sum it up, Mr. Rifkin's campaign has no scientific basis. His book, "Beyond Beef," has footnotes, but none of them offer any scientific proof for his claims. Still, he plays to packed press conferences because reporters know he's always good for a byline, fraud or not.
Cattle dont lead to climate changescientific consensus. Debusmann 92 (Bernd, Columnist for Reuters, Fighting for a steak in the future, The Advertiser, May 11,
1992, Lexis, AD: 7-8-9) BL Agricultural scientists, critical of the anti-beef campaign, have dismissed some of its arguments as outright spurious, others as distorted. Take global warming, for instance: "The effects of cow flatulence on the atmosphere has been greatly exaggerated," say Cornell University's Duane Chapman and Thomas Drennan. "The methane (gas) emitted by one cow in a year has the same effect on global warming as the fuel burned to power a single 75-watt lightbulb." Rifkin blames cows for 12 per cent of all the methane - a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming - released into the atmosphere. "Cattle are transforming the biosphere into a wasteland of deadly gases," he says in his book. Its dire warnings prompted one critic to call Rifkin "the Stephen King of food horror tales." But agricultural scientists agree that methane produced by cows ranks third on the list of methane gas sources in the world, behind wetlands and rice paddies but before the burning of vegetation and gas drilling.
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A2 Warming Alt Cause Deforestation

No Solvency- Majority of carbon emissions come from deforestation not energy
Daniel Howden, May 14 2007, Deforestation: The Hidden Cause Of Global Warming, deputy foreign editor of The Independent, (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/deforestation-thehidden-cause-of-global-warming-448734.html) Most people think of forests only in terms of the CO2 they absorb. The rainforests of the Amazon, the Congo basin and Indonesia are thought of as the lungs of the planet. But the destruction of those forests will in the next four years alone, in the words of Sir Nicholas Stern, pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than every flight in the history of aviation to at least 2025 . Indonesia became the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world last week. Following close behind is Brazil. Neither nation has heavy industry on a comparable scale with the EU, India or Russia and yet they comfortably outstrip all other countries, except the United States and China. What both countries do have in common is tropical forest that is being cut and burned with staggering swiftness. Smoke stacks visible from space climb into the sky above both countries, while satellite images capture similar destruction from the Congo basin, across the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. According to the latest audited figures from 2003, two billion tons of CO2 enters the atmosphere every year from deforestation. That destruction amounts to 50 million acres - or an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland felled annually. The remaining standing forest is calculated to contain 1,000 billion tons of carbon, or double what is already in the atmosphere. As the GCP's report concludes: " If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change."
No Solvency- You can not solve climate change without solving for deforestation first
Daniel Howden, May 14 2007, Deforestation: The Hidden Cause Of Global Warming, deputy foreign editor of The Independent, (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/deforestation-thehidden-cause-of-global-warming-448734.html) The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth's equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change . Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. "Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of climate change," said Andrew Mitchell, the head of the GCP. Scientists say one days' deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere. No new technology is needed, says the GCP, just the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives that makes the trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled. "The focus on technological fixes for the emissions of rich nations while giving no incentive to poorer nations to stop burning the standing forest means we are putting the cart before the horse," said Mr Mitchell.
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A2 Warming Warming isnt Real

Warming isnt happenrecent changes and old flawed data prove. Alexander 9 (Andrew, Columnist for Daily Mail, Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming, Daily Mail,
July 8, 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1198188/Hysteria-real-threat-global-warming.html, AD: 7-8-9) BL But, since then, the world has disobligingly stopped warming. And two years of global cooling erased nearly 30 years of recorded temperature rises. What was the worrying rise in temperature - so exciting for those whose computer models used the past to predict a grim future? Given the margin of error associated with the old-style thermometers which were, until only recently, used to record temperatures, it should be stated thus: over the past 100 years, temperature has risen by 0.7C - plus or minus 1.3 degrees! The only importance the serious scientists can attach to such a figure is that less serious people think it meaningful.
Warming isnt happeningrecent studies prove.

Alexander 9 (Andrew, Columnist for Daily Mail, Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming, Daily Mail, July 8, 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1198188/Hysteria-real-threat-global-warming.html, AD: 7-8-9) BL Those who worry about facts should look at the findings of NASA (see the website), whose upto-date and sophisticated global surveys throw such doubt on the warmists' claims. They should also read Heaven And Earth by Ian Plimer, Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide. It is the best book on science and scientists I have ever read. Piece by piece, he takes apart the work of the fanatics. Far from denying global warming, he stresses its regularity and occasional abruptness and how humans have had to adapt. A millennium ago, Greenland was warm, with a rich agriculture - not much man-made carbon gas then. Over half of the past six million years, the climate was warmer than it is now. He explains that the supposed consensus view of the IPCC is nonsense. The much-touted 2,500 scientists supposed to have backed its conclusion included many non-scientists or were even the same contributors counted twice. The finding that human activity influenced global climate involved the deletion of an original passage saying they had no evidence that greenhouse gases played a role and that the best answer was 'we do not know'.
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Gonzaga Debate Institute 2009

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LinkIncome Boosts Beef Consumption

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CNN 3 (8/21/03 Strieker, Gary http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html)

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Livestock cause climate change and destroy the environment

Food Security Scenario