Developing countries ought to prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction

For this debate I argue in affirmation of - Resolved: When in conflict, developing countries ought to prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction. I will start with a couple definitions, both from Cambridge Dictionary1. Ought: “used to say that it is necessary or desirable to perform the action expressed in the verb” Prioritize: “to arrange in order of importance so that you can deal with the most important things before the others” I will also clarify the resolution. My opponent takes it in the context of when a developing country is at war, which option they ought to prioritize (protection or extraction). However, the key conflict in this resolution isn’t warring countries, but rather the conflict between environmental protection and resource extraction. This is strengthened by the fact that under my opponent’s interpretation the heart of the issue still lies in which ought to be above the other, protection or extraction. Therefore, the phrase “when in conflict” should be seen to refer to protection vs extraction. First I will build my own case, then I will attack my opponent’s. My value in today’s debate is safety. Safety is defined as, “Relative freedom from danger, risk, or threat of harm, injury, or loss to personnel and/or property, whether caused deliberately or by accident”2. This is furthered below in the value clash. My criterion is minimizing the risk of harm. Looking back at the definition of safety, it is clear that there exists an inverse relationship between the risk of harm and the safety of an individual. By lessening the chance of harm we are increasing safety and upholding today’s value. C1: Negating the Resolution would Promote Violence a) resource extraction increases violence Resource extraction ultimately ends up being linked to violence; the reason they are linked is because armed violence is often connected to the foundation of resource extraction, as explained by the following quotation from the article Natural Resource Extraction, Armed Violence, and Environmental Degradation “The authors conclude that the natural resource base on which industrial societies stand is constructed in large part through the use and threatened use of armed violence.”3 Therefore, fueling extraction fuels violence which threatens the safety of the individuals in the country resources are extracted from. b) environmental protection lowers the likelihood of violence by decreasing environmental stress The idea of the “greenwar hypothesis” also points to the role that environmental stress plays in creating violence. Summarized by Stewart Frances as, “Environmental stress tends to make people prone to violence as they seek alternatives to desperate situations”4 (pg. 9). Prioritization of environmental protection decreases this stress because it keeps environmental resources from being degraded to the point that they are too limited. The reasoning behind this brings us to our second point. C2: Negating the Resolution Harms Environmental Sustainability The most important aspect of this point is that environmental protection serves to balance out resource extraction. Resource extraction depletes the environment, not only by how it uses up resources, but the pollution and other long-lasting effects it leaves behind5. Due to its harmful nature, prioritization ought to go to environmental protection, in order to ensure that on balance the environment is still sustainable. If place the emphasis in the other direction of this relationship, that encourages depletion of the environment, which is quite simply necessary for the protection of not only our own lives, but also those of countless other species. Clearly, we ought to prioritize protection over extraction to maintain a healthy environment. Value Clash The two values offered in today’s debate are safety (Aff) and morality (Neg). I win the value clash for the following two reasons. 1 – Safety better allows us to weigh the moral worth of actions. A value ought to help determine if an action is moral. Valuing morality as the Neg does maintains that an action is moral if it is moral, which is essentially circular reasoning. Moreover, there are many conflicting theories for determining morality, by not specifying which he upholds, my opponent’s value is too broad and inhibits interpretation of moral worth. Yet, my value of safety shows that an action is moral if it promotes safety, which better allows us to assess an action’s worth. 2 – Safety is a pre-requisite to other values. This is represented in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Often represented as a pyramid, this theory sets out to explain human’s needs; the most fundamental needs are shown on the bottom, and must be met first before one can “travel up” to the next level. The first needs are those that are physically required for us to live (i.e. food); however, after having been met the next level is safety6. That means before we can move up to satisfy any other needs we must first ensure safety. Criterion First I would like to clarify my opponent’s stance, “upholding the greatest good for the greatest number”. My opponent states this is consequentialism; however, consequentialism is any “ends justify means” morality, and while an aspect of this, what my opponent is actually using is utilitarianism, which is “good of the many outweighs the good of the few”7. Having clarified that, what needs to be seen is that my side is better fulfilling this burden because, as my case shows, negating leads to increased violence and harms sustainability. Ending Conflict in Countries As offered in my interpretation of the resolution, the focus isn’t on a country’s conflict, but rather that which exists between resource extraction and environmental protection. Also my opponent upholds that extraction is what fuels violence (the key point of my first point, subpoint a), yet then states that prioritizing extraction would mean, “each warring side would get what they need, and therefore have no need to fight”. The key here is in understanding that it is the process of extraction that fuels conflict, and increasing extraction will not have my opponent’s desired effect of decreasing conflict, but will increase it. Environmental Protection My opponent’s stance here is that environmental protection doesn’t benefit mankind, but extraction does. However, for this we simply need to look to my second point which outlines how environmental protection is used to balance out resource extraction in order to ensure that we don’t completely deplete our environment. We need to make sure that prioritization goes to protection in order to preserve our environment and ensure we have a place to live. The Good of Animals Here con states that by prioritizing environmental protection, “we would be placing the good of animals and plants over the good of humans”. The main flaw in this analysis is that it assumes these two “goods” are mutually exclusive. However, as I uphold through my case, maintaining the protection of the environment also ensures that the safety of mankind is protected, thus showing that we are not “placing one good above the other”, but rather further securing the “good of humans” through protection of the environment. Evidence My opponent stated in the opening round that as this is an LD debate evidence is not required. While it is true that evidence isn’t required, that doesn’t mean that I am in any way in the wrong for using evidence to substantiate my arguments. Rather, my use of evidence better grounds my case in how these concepts apply to the real world. Sources 1 - http://dictionary.cambridge.org... 2- http://www.businessdictionary.com... 3 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 4 - http://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk... 5 - http://tinyurl.com... 6 - http://psychology.about.com... 7 - http://plato.stanford.edu...