BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Contraction/Convergence equalizes per capita emissions, burdens wealthy

Contraction and Convergence is a good proposal for addressing the imbalance between per capital emissions around the world. It holds developed countries responsible for cutting their per capita emissions (contraction) and meeting developing countries in the middle (convergence). Developing countries are fairly allowed to continue to develop and increase per capita emissions to a level equal to developed countries "in the middle". The obligation, in this case, falls more heavily on developed nations to reduce their emissions.
Going "green" in developed nations is not burden, but opportunity.

While it may be the case that developed countries are "obligated" to take the lead on global warming, this should not be considered a "burden". Increasing energy efficiency and establishing technical and capital dominance in the emerging global green industry is a potentially game changing opportunity for developed nations. Developed nations should, in this manner, rejoice in any perspective taken by developing countries such as China and India that the developed world is somehow "burdened" by taking the lead in this new massive "green" industry. It would give them a head start in establishing their economic dominance in the industry. At a minimum, developed nations should not be concerned about any economic costs associated with their "higher obligation" to combat global warming; it's a good investment in a promising industry.
Developed states emit more; their steps have higher impact

"UN: Rich Nations Must Lead Fight Against Global Warming". eNews. November 27th 2007 - "The [UN] report criticized Washington for not imposing nationwide mandatory cuts on industrial emissions. [...] Stating the fact that the world's richest countries are also the biggest carbon emitters, the report said the US has to take the lead by cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 in addition to contributing to a new 86-billion-dollar annual global fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change. [...] The report said the 19 million inhabitants in New York state have a higher carbon footprint than 766 million people living in 50 least developed countries." Therefore, developed countries are more obligated to cut emissions because such cuts will have such a higher bang for buck in solving climate change.
Developing country exemptions negate developed country leadership

Kyoto Protocol exempted developing countries such as China from meeting certain key emissions standards. The problem is that the new emissions from China would offset all emissions cuts from developed nations. As a result, the world, under Kyoto Protocol, would/will emit roughly the same amount and make little progress to cutting emissions overall. This is unacceptable. Developed countries cannot be expected to lead on climate change under such circumstances. They are forced into a situation in which they must ask, "what's the point?", for which there is no reply.
"Obligations"/"equality" distract from solving climate change

The idea that some countries are more responsible than others to cut emissions and fight global warming misses the point - global warming is a collective, global problem that can only be successfully combated if every country puts its wits and resources fully behind resolving the crisis. Developed and developing countries are equally responsible to resolve the crisis. Developing nations should swallow their legitimate frustrations with developed nations for causing global warming, and focus their attention on helping form a collective solution.
Developed state demand drives emissions in developing states

It is true that China is a manufacturing behemoth, and emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases as a result. But, who is consuming the majority of the goods made in the factories in China that is causing their huge carbon footprint? Developed countries are the chief consumers and drivers of this manufacturing and emissions. They have, therefore, a certain responsibility for the manufacturing and emissions that are occurring in China and India. This is where exemptions for parts of their emissions help compensate for the fact they they alone are not responsible for this manufacturing and emissions - the world is responsible.
Seeking equality of emissions fails to cut overall emissions.

If developed nations are forced to cut emissions and developing nations allowed to increase per capita emissions - with both meeting in the middle - the ultimate result is that developing-country-increases cancel out developed-country-reductions. Overall emissions would be kept constant and not reduced. In fact, because developing nations have larger populations, meeting in the middle on per capita emissions could result in even higher overall emissions. Contraction and Convergence, while it might be "fair", would not help solve the principal issue involved - global warming.
Developed outsource manufacturing/emissions to developed.

Developed countries frequently outsource manufacturing/emissions to developing countries. For this reason, developed countries should not be treated on equal terms, and developing countries should be given exemptions for the dirty outsourcing for foreign countries. China has complained, on this point, that it is "the place where the US effectively outsources much of its pollution." It has called for joint international responsibility for at least part of China's emissions, and has made public, in Jan 2008, 130 violations of Chinese environmental law committed by multinationals in China. Other developing countries have a similar problem, in which they are accused of polluting too much, when they are merely the manufacturing engine of developed countries that outsource to them.
Financial reform constrains executive compensation

"Jim Webb: The case for financial reform." August Free Press (Virginia). May 12, 2010: "Executive compensation. I introduced my Taxpayer Fairness Act as an amendment to the bill. My amendment would give American taxpayers an upside in the recovery of our economic system, which became possible only because their tax dollars saved it. It puts a one-time windfall tax on bonuses paid in 2010 to executives of the thirteen financial institutions that received $5 billion or more of taxpayer support under TARP or the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). This one-time, 50 percent excise tax on bonuses above $400,000 would raise, at a minimum, an estimated $3.5 billion. Nothing is more fair or appropriate than to make American taxpayers whole after they infused our financial system with capital necessary for its recovery."
2010 banking reform perpetuates "too big to fail" policies

"McConnell: GOP has votes to stop bill". MSNBC. April 2010: "We simply cannot ask the American taxpayer to continue to subsidize this 'too big to fail' policy. We must ensure that Wall Street no longer believes or relies on Main Street to bail them out. Inaction is not an option. However, it is imperative that what we do does not worsen the current economic climate or codify the circumstances that led to the last financial crisis."
Reform gives fed reserve too much power over banks

"Dodd Financial Regulation Bill: Super Regulators Not the Answer". David C. John. The Heritage Foundation. May 2010: "Ironically, the Senate Banking bill ends up giving it even greater powers over major financial services firms than it has now (even though it does strip the Fed of its jurisdiction over small banks). Although the new council of regulators is given the power to recommend and approve Fed actions, the actual power to design and implement such actions goes to the Federal Reserve."
New reforms make regulations equally complex and vulnerable.

David C. John. "Dodd Financial Regulation Bill: Super Regulators Not the Answer". The Heritage Foundation. May 2010: "It is hard to see what if any benefits would come from this wholesale rearrangement of responsibilities. Since most major holding companies still contain subsidiaries that would be regulated by the SEC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or another regulator, the overall financial regulatory system would remain about as complex as it is now. Gaps that remain in the existing system would continue to exist, so there would be little benefit to thousands of financial institutions shifting to new regulators that may interpret existing rules differently from their existing overseers."
Capitalism is wonderful, but requires regulations

Timothy Geitner. "Financial reform with teeth." The Washington Post. April 13, 2010: "The best way to protect American families who take out a mortgage or a car loan or who save to put their kids through college is through an independent, accountable agency that can set and enforce clear rules of the road across the financial marketplace. [...] A clear lesson of this crisis is that any strategy that relies on market discipline to compensate for weak regulation and then leaves it to the government to clean up the mess is a strategy for disaster."
Banks bigger than ever; new regs won't end "too big to fail."

"Can the Senate finance bill curb Wall Street?". Kansas City Star. May 2010: "The whole ordeal that has played out over the miserable months since the collapse of Lehman will hit us again within the next decade, only this time the banks will be bigger and more systemically important than ever. The regulators and policymakers who are supposed to prevent the next crisis will be on autopilot."
2010 financial reform offers important consumer protection

"Jim Webb: The case for financial reform." August Free Press (Virginia). May 12, 2010: "Consumer protection. Abusive lending practices have proliferated in recent years, with little oversight or regulation. I am a cosponsor of two amendments that would crack down on outrageous credit card rates, by allowing states to regulate interest rates within their own borders—as they could prior to 1978—and by capping the maximum allowable rate at 15%. I also voted to preserve a strong, independent consumer protection agency that will have the ability to conduct meaningful oversight, while exempting smaller banks and other businesses from potentially onerous regulations."
Financial crises are part of free markets; govt shouldn't over-react

Ben Briscoe. "Banking reform." American Thinker. April 6, 2010: "Painful as it is, a free-market capitalist economy is going to ebb and flow. But big government has aggravated the severity of our current financial meltdown as well as contributed to the stymied recovery -- similar to what happened in the New Deal of the 1930s. This administration is following suit, and their financial reform legislation will stymie or derail a robust recovery."
Free market does not give free license to greed.

President Obama: "A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis. Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here has real consequences across our country."[1]
Banks shouldn't blame borrowers for taking risks

"Why Consumers Need Financial Reform." Money Watch. April 2010: "What angers me most about Wall Street’s shady dealing and greed is that that they like to blame the national meltdown on their customers. You’ve heard their sniffy defense: People took mortgages they couldn’t afford, lied to lenders about their incomes, and deserve whatever they got. The poor little ole mortgage bankers and investors were the innocent victims of shocking consumer misbehavior. The banks had no idea — absolutely none — that when the scheduled interest rate ratcheted up on subprime loans, borrowers might not be able to pay."
2010 reform expands "shock-absorbers" for nex financial crisis

Timothy Geitner. "Financial reform with teeth." The Washington Post. April 13, 2010: "Ending 'too big to fail' also requires building stronger shock absorbers throughout the system so it can better withstand the next financial storm. To do that, the Senate bill closes loopholes and opportunities for arbitrage, and it brings key markets, such as those for derivatives, out of the shadows. [...] Transparency will lower costs for users of derivatives, such as industrial or agriculture companies, allowing them to more effectively manage their risk. It will enable regulators to more effectively monitor risks of all significant derivatives players and financial institutions, and prevent fraud, manipulation and abuse. And by bringing standardized derivatives into central clearing houses and trading facilities, the Senate bill would reduce the risk that the derivatives market will again threaten the entire financial system."
2010 US financial reform ends "too big to fail"

"Obama: Derivatives Require Strong Federal Oversight". The Huffington Post. April 2010: Economist Austan Goolsbee: "Bailouts are forbidden. There will only be wipeouts. They (the banks) will clean up the messes. If somebody fails, they're done – they're toast. The management is fired. They're broken up or sold off or liquidated."
Free market constrains risk-taking by letting banks fail

" Senate Financial Reform Bill: More Bailouts & Fed Power". The New American. May 2010 "The primary argument for the American Financial Stability Act of 2010 has been that government should stop excessive risk-taking by financial firms. In a free market, firms that take lots of foolish risks go bankrupt and are removed from the economy (thus ending the threat). The threat of bankruptcy offers a strong incentive for prudent business practices."
2010 reforms enable orderly dismantling of failing banks

Timothy Geitner. "Financial reform with teeth." The Washington Post. April 13, 2010: "if a major firm does mismanage itself into failure, the Senate bill gives the government the authority to wind down the firm with no exposure to the taxpayer. No more bailouts. Instead, we will have a bankruptcy-like regime where equity holders will be wiped out and the assets will be sold."
2010 financial reform exposes sensitive information

"Big Brother loves 'financial reform'" Washington Times. April 30th, 2010: "The legislation, sponsored by Senate banking committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, would create the innocuously named Office of Financial Research as a central repository for transaction-related records held by financial companies. According to proponents, "decision-makers" like Mr. Geithner need up-to-the-minute information to act in order to prevent what they refer to as another Wall Street meltdown. The proposed agency would also provide statistical analysis and research, purportedly to monitor systemic risk to the financial system. [...] the details of the proposal show that this new agency's mission is not meant to be limited to improving the quality of financial data. Mr. Dodd's legislation would grant the agency director the coercive power of subpoena to obtain records and rulemaking authority to force private-sector firms to maintain their internal financial records in a format acceptable to the government. The legislation also grants sweeping authority to maintain a data center that would collect and maintain 'all data necessary' to carry out the director's wishes. Needless to say, the government's history of losing hard drives and laptops filled with sensitive information suggests entrusting more to a federal agency is not a smart idea."
2010 reforms limit size of banks and risks of failures

"The Hard Work on Financial Reform." The New York Times Editorial. May 4, 2010: "TOO BIG TO FAIL Senators said Tuesday that they had reached an agreement on how to pay for seizing and dismantling big banks whose imminent failure could destabilize the system, but that doesn’t confront the more difficult issue of how to cut big banks down to a less threatening size. The Senate bill calls on regulators to impose higher capital requirements on riskier institutions. The aim is to make size and complexity so expensive that banks opt to restrict their size, but the new rules are unlikely to be enough."
Financial reform will make derivatives market transparent

"GOP Concerns Over Bailouts 'Almost Laughable,' Pelosi Says". The Wall Street Journal. April 2010 President Obama: "I am confident that...we have a strong mechanism to regulate derivatives, something that we have not had, a derivatives market that is in the shadow economy but is enormously powerful, enormously risky—we want to get that into daylight so that regulators and ordinary Americans know what's going on when it comes to this huge segment of the financial system."
2010 financial reform increases transparency

"Jim Webb: The case for financial reform." August Free Press (Virginia). May 12, 2010: "Transparency. The American people deserve to know where their tax money goes. The TARP program was only the most visible of the taxpayer-financed bailouts of the financial industry; the Federal Reserve also provided hundreds of billions of dollars in other assistance as well. I am a cosponsor of an amendment that would require an audit of the Federal Reserve, in order to determine the extent of the taxpayer assistance that was provided to these private companies."
Studies show rehabilitation programs are effective.

If we could find a medicine that would ‘cure’ some offenders so they would never offend again, would we really not want it? Even if it only worked for some people, is that not still worthwhile? It is no different with rehabilitative programs – we should certainly support them if they can be shown to work. And indeed, the most recent studies show that they do. Such programs include cognitive-behavioral programs (say, trying to get a violent offender to think and react differently to potential ‘trigger’ situations), pro-social modeling programs, and some sex-offender treatment programs. The most credible research (done by a technique called meta-analysis) demonstrates that the net effect of treatment is, on average, a positive reduction of overall recidivism (re-offending) rates of between 10% and 12%, which would promote a reduction in crime.
Rehabilition programs are not reliable enough.

While some rehabilitative programs work with some offenders (those who would probably change by themselves anyway), most do not. Many programs cannot overcome, or even appreciably reduce, the powerful tendency for offenders to continue in criminal behavior. They simply do not work. ‘Rehabilitation’ is therefore a false promise – and the danger with such an illusory and impossible goal is that it is used as a front to justify keeping offenders locked up for longer than they deserve and sometimes even indefinitely (‘if we keep him here longer maybe he might change’). We cannot justify passing any heavier or more onerous a sentence on a person in the name of “rehabilitation” if “rehabilitation” does not work.
Rehabilitation is the more humanizing and dignified objective.

It is the most valuable ideological justification for punishment, for it alone promotes the humanizing belief in the notion that offenders can be saved and not simply punished. The rehabilitative ideal alone conveys the message that the state has an obligation to help those who fall short of the standards of behavior it has set. These people are often those with the greatest social disadvantages that have constrained them to a life in crime in the first place.
Crime is not a product of circumstances; punishment fosters accountability.

Crime is not pathology, it is not the product of circumstance, and it is certainly not the product of coincidence. It is the result of choices made by the individual, and therefore the justice system must condemn those choices when they violate society’s rules. To say otherwise (i.e. to say that criminals are merely the product of their unfortunate circumstances) would be an insult to ideas of free will, human autonomy and individual choice – it would be to deny the possibility of human actors making good decisions in the face of hardship. Retribution alone best recognizes the offender’s status as a moral agent, by asking that he take responsibility for what he has done, rather than to make excuses for it. It appeals to an inherent sense of right and wrong, and in this way is the most respectful to humanity because it recognizes that persons are indeed fundamentally capable of moral deliberation, no matter what their personal circumstances are.
Prison as punishment does not effectively deter criminals.

Stuart Henry, Ph.D.., Professor and Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University. "On the Effectiveness of Prison as Punishment". Paper presented at the Conference: Incarceration Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor. October 24, 2003: "One might conclude that those incarcerated are less likely to be rational, cost-benefit calculators. Indeed, a look at incarcerated offenders criminal history supports exactly this point. Data shows that the national re-arrest rate is 63%, although can be as high as 84% for juveniles, but that 76% of the state prison population has a previous criminal history of prior convictions. The data for 1997 shows that almost half of those with prior convictions are for violent offenses. Importantly, 59% of recidivists have more than two previous convictions and 43% have more than 3 convictions. Clearly, the threat of prison as punishment did not work for the majority of these offenders. This picture of the deterrence effect of prison as punishment is further undermined when examining the kinds of crimes that those in state prison have committed."
Punishment signals clearly that certain conduct is wrong.

The purpose of punishment is to show disapproval for the offender’s wrongdoing, and to clearly condemn his criminal actions. This is why we punish; we punish to censure (retribution), we do not punish merely to help a person change for the better (rehabilitation). We still have to punish a robber or a murderer, even if he is truly sorry and even if he would really, really never offend again and even if we could somehow tell that for certain. This is because justice, and not rehabilitation, makes sense as the justification for punishment. Why is justice and censure (‘retribution’) so important? Because unless the criminal justice system responds to persons who have violated society’s rules by communicating, through punishment, the censure of that offending conduct, the system will fail to show society that it takes its own rules (and the breach of them) seriously.
Rehabilitation acknowledges the reality of social inequity.

To say that some offenders need help to be rehabilitated is to accept the idea that circumstances can constrain, if not compel, and lead to criminality; it admits that we can help unfortunate persons who have been overcome by their circumstance. It rejects the idea that individuals, regardless of their position in the social order, exercise equal freedom in deciding whether to commit a crime, and should be punished equally according to their offense, irrespective of their social backgrounds. Policies that ignore these realities foster hardships that will fall primarily and disproportionately on the already disadvantaged, and deepen the resentment that many inmates find difficult to suppress upon their release back into such a society.
Deep-bore tunnel draws funds away from other infrastructure.

Cary Moon. "Why I continue to oppose the deep-bore tunnel." CrossCut. June 17th, 2010: "The state is putting nearly all its money in the bored tunnel project, and NOT funding the I-5 improvements, the promised transit, nor any street improvements in Seattle (besides the waterfront street replacement). This was never what we (the greener, more progressive signers of that joint letter) asked for, and never what we supported."