BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Access to Antarctica should be restricted to those with a serious scientific purpose. Perhaps 27000...

Access to Antarctica should be restricted to those with a serious scientific purpose. Perhaps 27000 tourists are expected in 2004, mostly on cruise ships which call at Antarctic sites for just a few days, but this number is rising rapidly and some visitors are now undertaking adventurous activities such as ski-hiking, scuba-diving, snowboarding and mountaineering. Unchecked, this influx of people is greatly increasing the problems of waste management and their activities are having a negative impact on the coastal environment and its wildlife. Adventurous tourists will also need to be rescued by the authorities, diverting resources from science. The more vessels visiting the continent, the greater the chance of catastrophic oil spills or for rogue operators to neglect proper waste management (both already problems in the Alaskan cruise industry). Overall, tourism will create a precedent for economic exploitation that may make it harder to defend the unique status of the continent in the future.
Antarctica is a pristine and unspoilt continent of great scientific value. In particular, it has a ...

Antarctica is huge and almost completely unpopulated - only the coastal fringes have any animals or plants. Well-regulated economic exploitation of its resources need not ruin it and could provide valuable raw materials and a boost to the world economy. \ In any case, by far the greatest impacts on the Antarctic are external, e.g. the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer over the south pole, global warming, the effects of whaling and pollution on the marine environment. Compared to these global influences, limited exploitation of Antarctic resources under strict environmental regulation will not make a significant difference.\
Antarctica presents an alternative to a world dominated by political disputes, economic exploitatio...

There is a danger in allowing a scientific elite to set the global agenda, without regard to either economic logic or democratic accountability. If the Antarctic can help to provide additional resources for a rapidly growing world population, then we should be able to have an intelligent debate about the costs and benefits involved. In any case, scientific research does leave a footprint in Antarctica, for example the ice road the Americans are planning to blast and bulldoze through the continent to the bases at the South Pole, or the waste products of the many scientific bases on the continent.
There are many reasons why oil and gas exploration should not be allowed in the Antarctic. Firstly,...

Oil and gas exploration should be allowed, both on the Antarctic continent and in the southern ocean surrounding it. Although current technology would not enable exploitation of any reserves at economic prices, future technological advances and rises in the price of fossil fuels may change this equation. Once, deep water extraction from the hostile North Sea or Arctic Oceans seemed impossible, but now these are taken for granted. Our prosperity depends upon cheap energy from fossil fuels, and it would be wrong to risk this by an arbitrary decision to declare the Antarctic off-limits to exploration, especially given the continuing scepticism of many about claims of global warming.
Antarctica must be protected from mineral exploitation and the 1991 Protocol upheld. There are no k...

The Antarctic Protocol of 1991 should be amended to allow for the possibility of mineral prospecting. The failed CRAMRA Convention of the late 1980s would have allowed for this possibility subject to strict regulation and the agreement of all treaty nations; reasonable conditions which were rejected by environmental purists. Geological analogies with other continents suggest that several very valuable minerals may be present in Antarctica. If multinational companies are prepared to pay high prices to treaty governments for concessions, why should we turn down this source of revenue? Almost all mining activity would be underground, so it would be little affected by the harsh environment and likely to have little adverse impact upon it.
Fishing is at present allowed under the 1991 Protocol, and has been increasing in recent years as ov...

Fishing provides a crucial source of protein, especially for the relatively poor, and the Antarctic oceans are underexploited compared to all other fisheries. Quotas for different species are set very low by scientists sticking to very conservative precautionary principles, and could in most cases be greatly expanded without risk of overfishing. Indeed, increased catch limits would remove much of the incentive for illegal fishing, and might reduce the pressure on other, less well-protected fisheries elsewhere. If fish stocks are found to be under pressure, then quotas can be reduced once again.
Access to Antarctica should be restricted to those with a serious scientific purpose. Perhaps 27000...

Tourism should be greatly expanded to allow as many people as possible to visit this unique environment. Antarctica should be for all of humanity, not just for an elite few scientists who seek to deny others access while simultaneously demanding huge sums of money for their research projects. Revenues from tourism could in any case be taxed in order to offset the cost of scientific research. Tourism could also promote environmental aims, as it would educate visitors about the importance of Antarctica and so help to influence environmental policy in many countries around the world. The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators operates a strict code of practice to prevent damage to the environment.
Antarctica is a pristine and unspoilt continent of great scientific value. In particular, it has a ...

Antarctica is a pristine and unspoilt continent of great scientific value. In particular, it has a critical impact on the world's environment and ocean systems. This means that it must be left undisturbed, in order to allow further study of such critical international issues as climate change, ozone depletion, long-range weather forecasting and the operation of marine eco-systems (crucial to sustainable fishing). It is also essential to ensure that a polluted Antarctica does not undergo changes (e.g. melting of its ice caps, a break-up of its ice sheets) with a potentially disastrous global impact.
Bankruptcy law should protect those who cannot protect themselves. Opponents of Chapter 11-style pr...

Bankruptcy law should protect those who cannot protect themselves. Opponents of Chapter 11-style provisions often argue that they do not provide sufficient protection to creditors, who provide important risk capital to businesses. However, this ignores the reality that creditors are often well able to protect their own interests and so do not need much if any additional protection through the bankruptcy regime. They are often sophisticated financial institutions or trade creditors, who have deep pockets and an ability to diversify their portfolio of loans easily and so reduce or hedge their risk. By contrast, other stakeholders are less sophisticated and cannot control their risk as easily through diversification. For example, a company winding up may harm an employee who earns £10,000 annually much more than a bank which has lent the business £100,000.
Bankruptcy is a special sort of business process and so is not as well thought through by many busin...

Bankruptcy is a special sort of business process and so is not as well thought through by many businesses as other processes would be. Bankruptcy effectively reflects a failure on the part of the business and therefore often on the part of the management. They are therefore less willing to spend time in advance planning for it and making the most suitable arrangements for it. This is just as many people who die unexpectedly young in accidents have not ordered their estates in effective ways. It is therefore appropriate that the law takes a more proactive approach to bankruptcy and acts to counterbalance the lack of thought which many companies have put into how they would deal with it.
Chapter 11 provisions encourage risk taking by entrepreneurs, ensuring that the penalties for failur...

Chapter 11 provisions encourage risk taking by entrepreneurs, ensuring that the penalties for failure are not so terrible as to deter people from ever wanting to start up their own business. Outside America (e.g. in Europe) the legal consequences of business failure and bankruptcy are often so bad (e.g. liquidation rather than reorganisation is the norm, barring those involved from being company directors, taking all their personal assets including their home, making it hard to ever borrow money again for any purpose) that many men and women who have bright ideas are afraid to pursue them. Not coincidentally, the USA has a much more dynamic economy than other developed countries without Chapter 11-style provisions, creating many more new businesses and therefore more jobs.
Chapter 11-style provisions allow a business to reorganise. Often a good business can be crippled by...

Reorganisation serves to prop up bad businesses. When a company is approaching insolvency, it reflects the fact that it is basically a bad business or has been badly run. Reorganising it so that it can continue will in many cases simply delay the inevitable by helping the company to struggle on for a bit longer. However, this comes at the expense of creditors. It also serves unfairly to penalise well-run companies against which the firm competes, since these well-run companies need to meet their debts as they continue in solvent trading.
Chapter 11-style provisions encourage sensible corporate planning. Chapter 11 is discretionary and t...

The chance of Chapter 11 reorganisation discourages the correct level of risk aversion and creates a moral hazard. Risk taking can be important in business and it may be a worthwhile policy objective to encourage it. But there is a danger in making it too easy for businessmen to take risks if they do not have not have to shoulder the burden of so doing. Chapter 11-style provisions provide an example of this. Businessmen know that there is a chance that their businesses will be bailed out if they run into trouble and factor this fact into their decision-making. This therefore motivates them to approach their business in a more reckless fashion than they otherwise would, or than would be rewarded in the open market.
Reorganisation can help to protect the interests of employees and other stakeholders. Forcing a com...

Shareholders’ interests are poorly protected if at all in Chapter 11-style bankruptcies. Usually, such a process will substantially reduce or even wipe out altogether the shareholders’ interest in the company (in which case they typically pass to the creditors). This is a court-backed removal of their property rights. It is not fair that the interests of the creditors or other parties should be put ahead of the interests of the shareholders in this way, especially because the shareholders like the creditors perform an important role in providing the risk capital which is necessary for businesses to function and grow.
Bankruptcy law should protect those who cannot protect themselves. Opponents of Chapter 11-style pr...

Creditors deserve protection in bankruptcy. It is untrue that creditors are necessarily better able to protect themselves than other parties. Many of them may not be sophisticated, because for example they are small trade partners (e.g. unpaid suppliers, or customers who have prepaid for goods which never arrive) with little choice to be creditors, or family or friends lending money, or else because sophistication would be unduly expensive in terms of research and monitoring costs. In addition, they may not easily be able to control their risks through diversifying their portfolio. Even if they can, the law should not discriminate against creditors just because they protect themselves better than other parties.
Bankruptcy is a special sort of business process and so is not as well thought through by many busin...

Chapter 11-style provisions represent an unwelcome interference in private ordering. All of the parties involved in a company, including employees, shareholders and creditors, voluntarily opt into their involvement with the company. They have the opportunity to weigh up the risks and possible benefits, decide whether they want to be involved and take such steps as they can or desire to control risks. For the courts to intervene in an unpredictable way after the event is an unjustifiable intrusion into the private ordering which the parties have agreed between themselves. This is an intrusion upon important personal liberties and also helps to undermine the certainty and personal autonomy which underpins an environment favourable to business.
Chapter 11 provisions encourage risk taking by entrepreneurs, ensuring that the penalties for failur...

The only people who really profit from Chapter 11 provisions are the lawyers. By the time a company has emerged from Chapter 11 protection, a big chunk of its remaining assets - which could have been distributed to its creditors - have been consumed in legal fees, often running into tens of millions of dollars. As for the idea that Chapter 11 promotes a dynamic economy, the way in which US airlines have moved in and out of bankruptcy protection over the past fifteen years suggests that they are being sustained artificially and therefore inefficiently.
Chapter 11-style provisions allow a business to reorganise. Often a good business can be crippled by...

Chapter 11-style provisions allow a business to reorganise. Often a good business can be crippled by its previously incurred debts. For example, bad management, high interest rates or high research and development costs may mean that a company which otherwise produces positive cash flow ends up saddled with debt obligations which it cannot meet. It seems to be a waste to force the company to stop trading just because of the debt, especially if this does not make it much more likely that the debt will be repaid in any case. A Chapter-11 style approach would allow the company to keep on trading by releasing it from some of its historically incurred obligations.
Chapter 11-style provisions encourage sensible corporate planning. Chapter 11 is discretionary and t...

Chapter 11-style provisions encourage sensible corporate planning. Chapter 11 is discretionary and the courts will not look favourably on bad management. An “all or nothing” approach encourages corporate management to act recklessly and reinforce their previous mistakes. If they are headed towards insolvency, they have little or no disincentive from taking extreme risks even where the chance of these turning the company’s finances around is very small. However, the option of reorganisation can discipline the management into being more honest and deliberative, calling in help sooner rather than when it is already too late, and forming an approach which is based on maximising the business potential rather than simply juggling immediate debt payments. This should mean that the business is in a better position to succeed over the medium to long term.
Reorganisation can help to protect the interests of employees and other stakeholders. Forcing a com...

Reorganisation can help to protect the interests of employees and other stakeholders. Forcing a company into liquidation prioritises the interests of a company’s creditors over the interests of all other persons who may have an interest in the fortunes of the company or be affected by it (“stakeholders” such as employees, pensioners, suppliers, customers and shareholders). This is so even where the extra amount which is gained for creditors by putting the company into liquidation is very small or zero. The process of reorganisation, by contrast, allows other interests to be taken into account. It may therefore be possible, for example, to protect employees’ interests through continued employment in a restructured company.
It is hard to apportion blame

There would be ways to apportion blame in many cases. The real question would be 'could it be decided on' or 'could it be implemented'. The developed world accepts that it is responsible for most of the world's emissions and might be willing to accept some formule where by they pay in proportion to the amount of CO2 they have put into the atmosphere. There would however be arguments about when the start date should be, what gases to count if developing countries should have to chip in (in proportion of course so very little), if there could be some kind of offset system by reducing emissions now (so punishing those whose emissions continue to increase) etc...
it cannot be measured in fiscal ways

Scientists are still questioning whether global warming is actually occurring or whether it is part of our world’s cycle. The rate of climate change is also of debate. With all this in debate how can we measure, in fiscal terms, and assess the damage caused in this area? How can we measure the cost of melting glaciers to the dwindling numbers of a national species? Even if we set up a UN court that regulated the international law in this area, it would be impossible to measure each case. Then there would be claims that the UN court is inherently bias towards certain kinds of pollution and climate change than others. Or failed to recognise something as a part of climate change, the whole subject is subjective. Numerous scientists would be needed and their research will all show different causes if the pollution and they will all show different extents. There is no way this could be regulated in a fair and equal manner.
It is hard to apportion blame

If we were to have an international law court set up in order for developing countries to claim compensation, who would pay the compensation? How can individual countries take the blame for certain areas of pollution? Would scientists once again have to scrabble over what sort of pollution caused the harm for which compensation is claimed for? Would we even blame individual countries or would the compensation be made out of the percentages of how much pollution each country causes. The system is far too uncertain to regulate officially. For this reason, countries should not be able to claim pollution compensation.
It does not solve the problem

The people of Bolivia are complaining that their glaciers are melting. But this cannot be solved by money. It is into a financial issue. No amount of money could reverse the damage that has been done. Richer countries would still continue to produce the same amount of pollution; they will just hike up the taxes to cover the compensation they incur. But that compensation is not going to put water back onto the Andean mountains. This will not help the environment and it will not help the developing countries either. What use is money when you have no water to survive?
Developing countries would use the money to become more industrious themselves.

The idea behind imposing the compensation onto developed countries is to make them clean up their practices so that they cause less pollution. They will have fiscal incentive to impose greener practice and invest in environmentally friendly technology. The problem with this idea of compensation though is that the money would be used by the developing countries to make their lives easier. As we have seen in the Western world, it is this that leads to pollution. Tractors, cars, disposable products, machinery; they do not help the environment even if they help the people. In fact, compensating the countries will only result in more pollution in the long run as wealth is dispersed.
Developed countries pollute the earth more

Developed countries cause 80% of the world’s pollution[[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/18/bolivia-climate-change-talks-cochabamba]]. Meanwhile, the poorer countries, which often have larger populations, produce very little pollution. Despite this, the poorer countries do suffer from the adverse effects of climate change. Whilst we may complain about air pollution and the like, poorer countries are facing much more adverse damage such as acidic rain and melting glaciers. Given that they cause so little and the developed countries cause so much surely it is not fair that the poorer countries suffer more. To swing the balance and make this situation fair compensation should be given.
COP15 was a disaster.

The richest 15 countries came together to discuss climate change. You would think there would be some action, some spark. But as it availed there was none. All the politicians walked away with were vague figures which were mere goals and targets. How can such written targets motivate and reverse the pollution we have caused to our planet? What we need is an approach which grabs the Government; taking their money. If the climate change meant they lost out on their cash, then surely they would put into effect greener policies immediately.
We all owe the earth a duty of care

In the law of tort, if you owe someone a duty of care and you break that duty of care and it leads to the harm of someone else, you do not get criminal punishment but a fiscal punishment. Why should this be any different from climate change? We owe a duty of care to the earth. It is the planet we live on. It provides us with everything we need for survival. Surely this is on the proviso that we do not make all our endeavours to destroy the earth, instead we should seek to cultivate it. Developed countries cause most of the pollution. Pollution is a breach of the duty of care that we owe to the earth. That breach hinders the earth and other people living on it. It is the other people who suffer due to our breach. In tort this would result in compensation, so why should it be any different in this case?
Eliminate expensive administrative costs

Most social welfare programs are paternalistically administrated by an army of public servants. Most programs have strict eligibility requirements and rules on spending welfare money - to ensure that public dollars are not wasted. Every dollar of benefit has to be accounted for to ensure that they are wisely spent on individuals' needs, rather than more sinister ways. While this is a noble objective, greater accountability requirements demand greater administrative resources. More social workers need to be hired to look over the shoulder of benefactors; more administrators are needed to ensure eligibility requirements are met; and more administrators are needed to administer the additional public servants. This adds layers after layers of bureaucracy and layers after layers of costs. In some countries, 40 per cent of government spending is on the wages and salaries of public servants. A negative income tax system would eliminate the unnecessary administrative burden, allowing governments to spend additional money on welfare or on other priorities. While this would inevitably invite corrupt spending of taxpayers money, certain studies have said that the benefit (greater resources from the eliminated bureaucracy to be reprioritized) outweighs the cost (the money that is unwisely wasted by certain individuals on, for example, drugs and alcohol).
Income is not necessarily proportional to 'hard work'

Higher salary does not equals harder work. Some of the hardest jobs implicate lower salary. Most of the high payed persons in the companies are having easy working places that beside good position often gives additional benefits and bonuses. Capitalism is a system where "hard work" is not in proportion with "high salary" and therefore the negative income tax-model will not penalize the hard working persons, but under contrary it will put balance between hard-working people with lower salary, and persons who are receiving their income on "easy" way, trough company profits, shares and other benefits.