Freemarket capitalism is both unsustainable and environmentally unsound.

I shall save my rebuttals for the 3rd Round, out of fairness to my opponent. Unfortunately i am running short on time, so this shall be a breif opening statement. There are some government policies that lead to more eco-friendly business practices. The cap-and-trade system, which is ran by the government-sponsored EPA, is one such practice. Under this system, manufacturers are able to purchase tickets which allow them to pollute, within a pre-determined limit. This is one way to force companies to internalize costs. The Tragedy of the Commons, which is mentioned by author J. Brennan in the book Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know, explains the results of allowing companies to externalize costs. I propose taking this one step further and allowing companies to purchase the land on which they pollute, with a yearly renewable of the caps, whereby a company must purchase enough caps to contain the emissions measured on their property currently, as well as what will come in the future. Eventually, this will become an extremely high cost. Let's take a very small scale, representative example:This terminology, and the prices, are unrealistic, but will display the possible results of my proposed system. Caps cost $15 to emit 100 pollution units. XYZ Co purchases 10 caps (Total of $150) for Year 1, and uses all of them to emit 1000 pollution units. In Year 2, XYZ Co must purchase those 10 caps, PLUS an additional sum, let's say 5. Total: $200. And so it goes, until the costs become high enough that the company faces two choices: shut down, or cut down on pollution units. This may seem like an unrealistic, and somewhat futile solution, however, it is better than the simple cap-and-trade system that is currently in place. Under the current system, companies can purchase, and sell, the caps, but do not have any internalize costs beyond this. This proposal also takes into account abuse, and overexploitation of resources. If a company must own the land that they forest, as was once the case in New Zealand, said company has an incentive to ensure that their use of that resource does not deplete it. For example, when J. Brennan mentions the Tragedy of the Commons, he mentions a solution proposed by another libertarian, known as a catch-share system, to the problem of over-fishing. Under this system, companies have a set percent of fish that they can catch within any given area. Companies then have an incentive to ensure that the lake, pond, ocean has as many fish as possible, as this will increase the amount of fish the company brings in. Under both of these systems, the company internalizes costs. The reason i suggest LESS government laws and regulation, in regards to business, is that it makes more sense to treat corporations as individuals, who are held to the same standard as any other individual. It is unrealistic to suggest that a company not pollute, as any manufacturing, by anyone, will contain at least some pollution. If we take littering as a small scale form of pollution, we will notice that littering carries a certain number of fines. If one person's pollution extends outside of their personal property, they face a fine. Even if litter is confined to their property, there are still places wherein littering still brings about fines. The end result is that some people, perhaps a control agency, will come in and request that the homeowner clean their land. Under the system i proposed, this request is always in place. Under any circumstance, the only way to reduce the abuse of resources is to force the user to own whatever resource they are depleting. This is similar to the oil mining industry; the oil deposits found can be easily depleted, or even disupted, if extra care is not taken. It is thus most beneficial to check such an issue at the door, and simply ask the same of companies that which is expected of individuals, as there is no such entity as a "corporation" in a truly free-market system. One other thing i would like to mention is the costs of innovation within such an industry. My opponent states that non-eco-friendly methods are more cost-effective than eco-friendly methods. I shall concede this point. However, under the system that i propose, this issue would be remedied over the long-run, on top of that, companies would face much more risk if they should disrupt the ecosystem, and be sued by a group of individuals. Rather than a people vs corporation case, it would become a people vs people case. This means that, after a certain number of law suits, a company could lose such a large amount of customer satisfaction that their revenue decreases, and they lose even more money. All of this is speculative, however, i see this as reason enough to believe that the sustainability of the ecosystem is based less upon the lack of desire of companies to be eco-friendly, and more to do with government trying to differentiate corporations from their owners, and imposing regulations and laws that could be implemented differently, or not at all, that would change the amount of pollution experienced in the ecosystem.