The U.S should slowly ban gas powered cars and invest in hydrogen powered cars.

I thank you for accepting my position on this. I have debated this issue many times, I was a former president of the United Nations Association at the University of Central Florida and one of the top members of their Model UN team. This was always a hot (not pun intended) topic for us and I was often on the opposing side of the argument compared to that of most members. I do look forward to this debate and seeing how it plays out. The primary source of my argument is going to reside on disproving the merit of my opponent's call for a complete ban on fossil fuel cars. This disapproval will be based upon, scientific, economic, and political reasons. In addition I will offer alternative methods of potential CO2 reduction that would both be more beneficial and less of a burden on our current system. #1 We are not drowning in stool, that is an issue that was resolved with modern sanitation and when we stopped dropping our waste out holes in the floor into the river below or beside our houses. Moving on though....#2 I'm not going to refute my opponent's claims that we're putting record amounts of CO2 into the air in the past 20 million years. In fact, I'm not going to refute that we're putting record amounts of CO2 into the air in the past 20 years. My opponent mentioned the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels as a double edged sword and speaks of it in the past tense. Sure, enough it may have been, however, is that industrial revolution revolution over? The developing world, especially China which has had a major economic and industrial boom in the past few decades, has become more of a problem than the United States. Why is that? Because they're now going through the same phases of development that we did a century ago. In 1900 there were approximately 48 countries (49 with Australia in 1901), the rest of the world was largely colonized or undeveloped while the major powers went through their industrial booms. Now, here we are 100 years later, those empires crumbled and 196 countries are here now, 193 recognized by the UN. All those new countries are now subject to go through their own industrial revolutions at the same time. So now with 196 countries each independently producing and emitting CO2, we have a much higher rate of CO2 emission, rather than when we controlled all that territory and localized our industrial complexes and the rest of the world was mainly agriculture. #3Now for some critiquing of my opponent. My first point I would like to raise is that my opponent is misquoting his own sources. While it is accurate on the 80 meter increase if the entirety of Greenland, all of Antarctica, and all ice sheets globally were to melt, he does state that Greenland alone would cause a 10m increase, whereas his own source (http://pubs.usgs.gov...) states Greenland would cause 6.55m. While still significant, that's a 33% difference in his argument vs. his data, do not let my opponent use false data in his text in hopes that the readers will not check his sources. I also ask my opponent to not revert to these tactics as it is very disrespectful. Now, onto the rest of this area. As I stated, I am coming from a standpoint that this is a problem that needs to be addressed, however, acceptance of this debate was not reliant on my accepting the urgency of this problem. From my opponent's sources, I gathered the information that:1. In the past 20 years the total rise in sea levels has been a total of 11mm. By that calculation, of 11mm in 20 years to the USGS estimate that 10m rise would displace 25% of the American population, that would take a total of 2000 years, and to reach the total of 80 meters that the total melting would cause would be over 16000 years. Of course, they state it is accelerating but it is far from the 200 year high estimate that my opponent proposed and extremely far from the 60 year estimate. At that rate after 200 years the total rise would be 1.1m. At 60 years, 33mm. Seeing as the US has remained nearly stable in it's emissions rate in the past 20 years (http://mdgs.un.org...=), with a small surge in 1993 but remaining fairly stable since then fluctuating but not increasing or decreasing by any significant amount, I see no reason why within the next 200 years (as it took 100 for the US) much less 2000 years, the rest of the world can't stabilize themselves as well. 2. This data is created based off of satellite analysis started in the past 20 years and as stated in the article (http://www.dw.de...), "20 years is a very short time-scale to draw conclusions about climate change. "We are just beginning an observational record for ice," said co-author of the study Ian Joughlin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington. "This creates a new long-term data set that will increase as new measurements are made." Therefore, by their own admission, this is what may be called a "best guess" as they state themselves that it is a relatively short time to make these estimations. #4 I love the idealism my opponent has in this next section, however impractical it may be. The truth is we can't just stop using fossil fuels on a dime. Too much relies on it. Now, moving on from that. My opponent states that the US and China are the largest contributors to CO2 emissions and that a slow ban on fossil fuel cars in the US would influence the world and slow things down. Well, let my explain a few things. 1. Fossil fuel cars account for 15% of global emissions2. The developed world (OECD) accounts for 2/3 of fossil fuel car emissions(http://www.wri.org...)While that seems like a lot, lets go by my opponent's suggestion and do the math on this. There are 34 member nations of the OECD, total make up 42.99% of the global emissions rate. So the US, makes up 42% of that 42.99%, so if the OECD countries make up 10% of the car fossil fuel emissions, and the US makes up 42 of that, that's 4.2% of the global emissions rate. However, by eliminating fossil fuels the most logical alternative, especially on a short time scale is electricity. Problem is, they are much more polluting to the environment than fossil fuels. China uses 90% of it's electricity derived from fossil fuels, the US uses 71%. According to an article in Time, (http://healthland.time.com...) this makes electric cars in China 3.6 times worse for the environment per KM. Equate that to the US 71% and that's 2.8 times worse (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Therefore, by transferring to electricity we would in turn make that 4.2% or 380mil Metric tonnes into a new 1.064 billion metric tonnes. #5You mention hydrogen powered cars, problem is, they're expensive and they're not made yet, and the rate of production is quite low. Hyundai stated they are planning to make them as of 2015, (http://edition.cnn.com...), but only 1000 the first year and only 10K per year after. In addition there is the issue with refueling stations, which according to the same article can cost over $1mil to build. Being as many fueling stations are privately owned franchises, especially in middle America, that isn't going to be very viable. The article states that by 2025 hybrids will be the choice alternative, those have similar problems to the electric ones as I stated. Fuel cells will take decades and huge infrastructure changes. #6I can see the benefits of the transfer to different forms of transportation. However, a ban on fossil fuel cars anytime in the near future would create massive problems. The current economy is not prepared to handle that shift, people can't afford new vehicles and the government can't afford to subsidize it. I will address alternatives and economic issues in my next round.