JAN 2014 LD Topic : Developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource ex

At this time, I shall present my case. I shall use the subsequent rounds for rebuttals. Thanks to my opponent for instigating this round. I apologize in advance for any formatting errors due to the C/Ping from Word.I negate.I Value Life, defined as not only the state of being alive, but also the quality found therein. It is the primary object of any good government to ensure that its citizens are physically safe and have access to basic needs sufficient for them to pursue happiness.The Criterion that we can look to then is Utility. Prof. Gary Woller explains why an ends-based standard is needed when referencing governmental actors: “Appeals to a priori moral principles…often fail to acknowledge that public policies inevitably entail trade-offs among competing values. Thus since policymakers cannot justify inherent value conflicts to the public in any philosophical sense…the policymakers' duty to the public interest requires them to demonstrate that…their policies are somehow to the overall advantage of society.”Contention One: Resource extraction is key for poverty reduction.Sub-point A: Poverty kills millions.Prof. James Gilligan asserts, “The 14 to 18 million deaths a year caused by [poverty] compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths…to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II [where] an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those caused by genocide--or about eight million per year, [occurred]…In other words...every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed” in WWII.Sub-point B: Extraction reduces poverty.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that industries like “mining can contribute to economic development in several ways: …direct investment (DI), employment, government revenues, foreign exchange earnings, innovation and development of related sectors. Minerals’ supply is essential to modern economies and minerals exploitation represents the major part of DI flows in many developing countries, often dwarfing aid flows.” Additionally, The World Bank states, “natural resource extraction is capital-intensive, with annual global investments approaching $1 trillion, hence offering the potential for rapid infrastructure development and structural transformation in developing economies. Riches from the sector promise to be massive, with resource rents…estimated at about $4 trillion annually.” The World Bank, after a meta-analysis of more than 50 nations, concludes that “poorest and least-poor quartiles obtain about 18 percent of their income from [extraction], while middle-income groups obtain more. Across all income quartiles, dependence on resources is much lower in resource-scarce areas than in resource-rich areas.” Thus, downplaying resource extraction would deprive the impoverished with a key source of income.Contention Two: Resource extraction reduces conflict.Sub-point A: War is decentivized via extraction policies.Harvard Hegre of the International Peace Institute holds that “the incentives for states to choose between the trading world and the military-political one change with economic development…development has made the trading world increasingly more attractive to states…development alters four variables that are crucial to the calculations of the leader of a state: it increases the potential gains from trade, the economic costs of war, and the political costs of war, as well as decreasing the utility of occupying territories relative to the pursuit of trade policies.” Prof. Michael Mousseau furthers, asserting, “economic development affects the costs associated with interstate violence. War waged on territory with the vast investments in plants equipment and infrastructure associated with development is apt to be costly in absolute terms, and it is likely to destroy a larger fraction of a state’s productive resources than war fought on less developed territory.” Sub-point B: Extraction reduces ethnic cleansing.Michael Armacost of the Brookings Institute claims, “culture wars…are markedly less lethal in prosperous societies than in poor ones. It is easier for rival cultures to share power when they are not competing over basic resources. Economic growth has dampened ethnic violence in places like Quebec and Ireland—just as economic decline has aggravated it in countries like Indonesia and Yugoslavia.” When wealth is abundant, in other words, there is less for groups to clash over, and societies are better able to coexist. Contention Three: Resource extraction ensures people have access to basic needs like food and medicine.Sub-point A: Extraction reduces famine.Consider, the World Bank estimates that every 3.6 seconds someone dies from hunger, and 90% of those going hungry are in Africa, Southeast Asia, and India. According to Indur Goklany, “economic development reduces the level of undernourishment. Cross-country data show that both crop yield and per capita food supply…both increase with income. Crop yields increase because richer countries are better able to afford yield- and productivity-enhancing technologies, such as fertilizers, pesticides, better seeds, and tractors. But even if a country has poor yields or insufficient production, if it is rich it can import its food needs. Hence…the richer the country, the greater its available food supplies.” Sub-point B: Extraction reduces disease proliferation.Prof. Bjorn Lomborg insists, firstly “rising standards of living…afford better food, clothing and housing and consequently higher disease resistance…Second, improved public hygiene, better water supplies and sewers, hygiene education and quarantine measures…help suppress infections. Finally, better medical…provided a vast array of new technologies to combat illness.” As development has progressed, therefore, “we have consequently experienced a substantial decline in death rates and an increase in life expectancy.”Thus, because resource extraction saves millions of lives, I negate.