Public Forum, October Topic: Poverty Reduction vs. Environmental Protection

DEFINITIONS My opponent's definition of poverty fails by two related faults: (One), it fails to stimulate a specific degree in which the resolution should be considered, and (Two), it fails to provide an objective standard by which to weigh who is impoverished (and accordingly who should be given aid). Furthermore, CON's definition is backed by a significant and credible source on the topic at hand, and is clearly superior. My opponent's definition of prioritize is invalid in relation to the resolution: both issues are obviously important enough to be recognized at large by the UN and both are already given high priority. A better definition would be . http://www.ask.com... |30366&o=101760&l=dis "To arrange or deal with in order of importance. " In context of the resolution this means that the Affirmative holds the burden to show that the UN should give greater importance to policy dealing with global poverty reduction as opposed to environmental protection. ANALYSIS PRO has failed to designate any specific course of action to be taken to combat global poverty. Until alternative action is suggested by PRO, I will assume that PRO wishes to advocate poverty reduction in lieu with the actions of the UNDP, which mainly involves providing aid in the form of education outlets, food, or debt relief. The resolution specifically assigns PRO the burden of advocating prioritization of GLOBAL poverty reduction. As stated above, the UNDP, the suborganization responsible for combating poverty reduction (among the other Millennium Goals), is currently allotted a biennial 6.3 billion USD. Approximately one billion people are impoverished (. http://web.worldbank.org...) in the world today. Assuming the PRO fulfills his burden by stimulating something close to a global averaging of poverty reduction, this gives each of the impoverished people approximately six dollars EACH for TWO YEARS. How could we use these six dollars? If we use it to directly combat poverty through distribution, the two-year budget would be depleted within three days. The pooling of of these resources to fund educational programs or other community-directed aid programs still leaves any attempts at fighting poverty grossly underfunded, and this is still before the problems which we run into when we consider my contention 2B. Until PRO can demonstrate how he hopes to reduce poverty with the allotted provisions, he has failed to fulfill his burden and you have no choice but to vote CON. PRO C1 PRO has failed to cite any specific ways in which poverty reduction can help the environment. The aforementioned combating of desertification is a matter of education, this knowledge won't magically be granted to them once they are making $2.50 per day. PRO's C1 is unsubstantiated until he can expand upon this point until it holds enough water to actually be debatable: I cannot be expected to refute all of the broad and unsupported implications of PRO's unspecific language. PRO C2 This is comparing apples to oranges, as PRO is making a point of poverty reduction being prioritized in an organization that focuses on reducing poverty. He should be comparing the UNDP and the UNEP actions in order to receive a comprehensive viewpoint on the conflict. PRO must also provide evidence that global poverty is "worse" than the environmental state. Priority must be given to reversing desertification because any attempts to reduce poverty will fail if the poor's newly-found "wealth" will be pointless if there is no food to be bought. As already stated (. http://news.mongabay.com...), current rates show that by 2025, Africa will be unable to agriculturally support 75% of it's people. Unless the poor can afford to import enough to support them for two years on the $6 that the UN can provide them, there's going to be lot of hungry people in Africa under a PRO ballot. PRO C3 PRO invalidly connects poverty reduction to saving lives and fails to consider the effects of land degradation to those who are already hungry. PRO also gets way ahead of himself when he mentions taxing the impoverished, especially considering that the support provided by the UN would not be inflicted as taxes upon those being aided. Further, this argument runs into walls when we consider the significant corruption facing many developing nations as stated in my C2B. PRO must provide some sort of way in which aid can be guaranteed short of an Iraq-style invasion in the name of insignificant poverty reduction. FURTHER INVALID POINTS PRO makes a point of stating that poverty reduction is currently prioritized as the #1 objective for the Millennium Development Goals and deserves that position for a reason. This point is irrelevant on two counts: firstly, this resolution is instigated in the obligatory tense ("should be prioritized") as opposed to the present tense (is prioritized). Secondly, my opponent is unfairly comparing goals within the United Nations Development Programme, whose objective is to eradicate poverty and hunger. A valid comparison would involve both the UNDP (. http://www.undp.org...) and the United Nations Environment Programme (. http://www.unep.org...). PRO attempts to break down the conflict in the resolution to an issue between saving the lives of the impoverished and saving an endangered species of plant or animal. Unfortunately, such designation is not his duty to name as he is not constructing the Negative case. Most "conflict" as stated in the resolution refers to a simple problem: budgeting. The UN only has so much money to fund into so many programs, and the true issue is which of these "conflicting" potential money sinks would provide the greatest net benefit. So far, PRO has failed to provide any evidence, statistical or otherwise, to show that benefit should receive prioritization. He has also failed to provide any method in which the meager available funding could combat global poverty and has thus failed to fulfill his BoP.