Liberals' DDO Tournament R1: Poverty and the Enviroment

I accept these definitions. However I would like to define that legislation that puts poverty reduction as a path to environmental protection as prioritizing poverty reduction and vice versa. Okay I would like to start with a variety of points, that show how, not human life, but all life must be cared for first, how by prioritizing environmental protection we can eliminate poverty (or at least the dangers of poverty), and how much of a problem the environment is. I would also like to posit, if I have room in this round, how specifically we can write legislation that will reduce our ecological impact. A. The ocean and our waters. 1. For years overfishing has been a major problem in the world. We have hunted whales to near extinction in the 1800's, and began overfishing for food in the 1900's. Over the years we have turned once prevalent species into endangered ones, and it is predicted that by 2048, many of the fish that are widely eaten will be all gone, or at such low numbers, and only then at captive breeding facilities. [1][2] Without fish, many more people will be thrown into poverty, due to lost jobs and food sources. To save lives, we must stop overfishing, and often illegal fishing of waters and the destruction of breeding grounds and other habitats. 2. Clean drinking water is a barrier to progress, and endangers the livelihoods of many. 11% of people are without clean water, which is often due to manmade contaminants, or poor disposal of wastes. Fresh water, once heated is good to drink, however pollutants are not able to be removed this easily. Instead of spending money on just cleaning the water for direct human consumption and use, we should stop the problem at its source. If we clean the waters, people can have clean and plentiful fish to supplement their meager amount of food. They can also have reliable clean water, ready for use after boiling.[3] B. Human populations are way too high. I am sure everyone has seen these numbers before, but the human population is growing exponentially. [4] With this massive population it is no wonder that we do not have the recourses to properly care for everyone. We need to start encouraging ways of population control. I am not for the killing of people, as that will not curb the population, it will merely delay it. I believe that we should distribute more contraceptives, make vasectomies more available, and encourage people to adopt, especially from overseas, instead of having children. The people of the US are having fewer children per adult than before. The same is true for most western countries. However, in poorer areas, they are having more and more children. We should encourage abandoned children in these areas to be adopted by Westerners, instead of Westerners having their own children, thus reducing amount of people, which would chiefly benefit the environment, with a slight curb to the population in poverty. C. The quality of poverty is something that can be debated. A poor person in the city, may be below the poverty line, receive no help, and no clean water or medical attention. However, if someone was to be in a subsistence farm, even without medical care, if clean water and air and ground were present, as well as good fisheries, the quality of the latter"s life of poverty is much better than the first. To achieve the second we would not have to remove poverty, we would only have to clean up our environment. People can and have successfully lived off the land as subsistence farmers. If the environment is clean then they can do so in a healthy manner, living a decent lifestyle, even if below the poverty line. [1] http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com... [2] http://www.oceansentry.org... [3] https://www.un.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org...