Resolved: The United States of America should create coral reefs along its coastlines(Policy debate)

Thanks to Pro for an intriguing debate. I'm going to alter the debate structure. Policy vs. Formal Policy 1) Pro's can clarify his case, but can't add rules after I've accepted the debate based on the rules in R1. 2/3) Pro keeps asserting how obvious things were in R1, that there were "context clues", and yet he felt the need to include new rules in R2. If it was so clear, why clarify? 4) Pro asked for the status of my CP. Responding to a request doesn't mean I acquiesce to his format. It's a courtesy. 5) Pro gives no reason why formal policy is more fair or educational, whereas I showed previously that it makes voter engagement more difficult. 6) We can still compare policies (the CP and plan) and not be constrained to the rules Pro has laid out. However, both of us have followed basic policy structure, so this only matters with regards to the perm. If his arguments here fail, then the perm fails. If they succeed, you're only considering it. The CP: All Pro has argued on solvency is that current efforts have been ineffective. I agree. I've argued that conservation efforts have been stymied by a lack of investment on the part of countries (i.e. continued harmful behavior, lack of funds and effort, a lack of understanding). I solve for all 3 of these. Pro hasn't shown how that solvency is insufficient. My case can even utilize biorock, as I've shown, so it must have at least SOME solvency, otherwise neither does Pro's case. Pro's attacks on the status quo are not attacks on my CP, thus he drops my CP's solvency. On the perm, I've shown that engaging in one task that seeks to restore natural reefs while damaging them is contradictory. As long as damage to marine life or degradation is even decently likely, mutual exclusion is established. The clear policy barrier to engaging in my conservation efforts following the enaction of plan also establishes mutual exclusion. Either of these reasons suffices to dismiss the perm. Pro presents new points on fiat. Both Pro and I are fiating governmental action - that's all we're able to fiat. My case (and only my case) can change established mindsets by altering how much power scientists are given in decision-making, but I'm not fiating an altered mindset. Pro does appear to be trying to expand his fiat. He can fiat the passage of a bill, but he cannot fiat that that passage alters established mindsets, nor can he fiat how people perceive the passage of said bill. None of Pro's policy changes address any of the misconceptions he's presented. Passing a bill by fiat doesn't change how the passage of that bill affects political will, which I showed would be markedly reduced. Note that all of Pro's fiat points should be ignored since they're new responses to old points. But let's say you're buying the perm. That means is that you're defaulting me back to status quo. I can win on that, too. Hurricanes: Pro really wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants you to agree with Beck on wave attenuation, but ignore his opinion that we should not start building artificial reefs in new locations (otherwise known as Pro's case). He wants you to focus on the meaning of the word "restoration" and ignore the meaning of the word "global". Adding 50,000 miles of reefs around the U.S. doesn't solve Goreau's clearly stated problem of global reef loss, which only my plan addresses. Pro gives no evidence that biorock has ever attenuated waves, while claiming that my sources aren't specific enough to his case. He drops the differences between biorock and natural reef compositions. I clearly showed that erosion is essential to the formation and maintenance of reef crests.[20, 21] Pro's assertions to the contrary are ineffective. And yes, toughness affects erosion rates. Remember, reef crests are essential to wave attenuation, so a failure to form them destroys his solvency.[4] Pro drops that 20 centimeters isn't enough, meaning 3 years isn't enough to see this benefit. He asserts that 30 centimeters (the maximum potential growth in 4.5 years) has a huge attenuating impact on waves that are over 35 times taller without any support or reasoning. This is like stating that a high speed monster truck would be practically stopped by a speed bump. He's persistently ignored the factor of depth and its effects on attenuation, which will reduce attenuation even further. That, compounded with the complicating factors I've presented, make it clear that most of this biorock will form extremely slowly, if at all, and that any beneficial effect is extremely distant. He wants you to believe that all of this will be magically solved by contractors who have never done work on this scale, aren't required to engage in surveillance, and could not possibly account for every single complicating factor. Skepticism is warranted. Pharmaceuticals: I explained why the need for new potential therapeutics need is not only non-existent, but why adding more potential proteins to the heaps of R&D that these companies are already doing is actually net detrimental, further paralyzing a system that is not able to properly process them all. That is supported by my [25], which Pro should have continued reading: "the sequencing of the human genome... provided thousands of potential targets for new drugs that researchers must sift through. The flood of information has caused a kind of 'paralysis by novelty'". In other words, the reason the pipelines are drying up isn't a lack of new leads, but rather an overabundance of leads and targets that leads to delayed selection. Pro then throws out baffling assertions. Pro's stated $10 cost is absurd. The $802 million is the average amount of money necessary to bring a drug from discovery to market. This is the cost necessary for any of these therapeutics to make an impact. Pro ignores the realities of resource and time consumption, barriers that reduce their sale and impact on public health, and the resulting extremely low likelihood of their success. He also states that "industries are expanding rapidly and know what they are looking for." Another unwarranted, unsourced statement. Pharmaceutical companies have been increasing spending on R&D for decades without seeing an increase in NMEs.[25] They're hardly so directed as Pro asserts, but even if that was true, they still have a 1-in-5000 chance of success, and that's after they find something promising. Pro continues to assert that "Corals will only give higher quality yields", and even his "evidence" (Caron) provides no extra support for this, merely repeating his numbers without reasoning. His 2 examples, acquired over 56 years,[28] also aren't evidence of this virtual treasure trove. Biodiversity: This argument occupied several turns on Pro's case, and it's key to the debate, whether or not Pro considers it a disad. His continued failure to address the draw off of marine life and subsequent degradation of natural reefs is enough to vote on by itself. The only response Pro provides is an assertion that I'm conflating all other artificial reefs with biorock reefs, yet I've shown that they aren't specific to any type of artificial reef, and that they apply directly to biorock. Pro has simply ignored those links, and the sources that support them [my 8-12]. He only challenges [9] and [12], providing no reasons why the analytics are wrong and ignoring the evidence in those links. Pro drops the specific [20, 21] and general [8, 9] changes to marine life. Both of these points, as well as the toughness of the reefs, showcase how biorock is different from a natural reef, and why communities will develop differently. His argument that biorock has "a chance to save and heal the fish population" is yet another new assertion without reason. Pro is providing a set of hot spots (50,000 miles of ocean is still much less than the whole ocean) and, contrary to his assertions that marine life will be fine, providing publicized, heavily concentrated fishing sites close to shore locations makes hauls much larger and more rapid. Pro is ignoring and exacerbating current concerns with depletion of fish populations.[29] It's baffling that Pro would be willing to risk the very biodiversity that makes pharmaceutical finds possible for the sake of finding more. Any harm to biodiversity turns Pro's solvency on pharmaceuticals. This turn applies whether or not you buy the perm, since status quo doesn't incur it. So if Pro's advantage 2 garners any benefit, that is a reason to vote Con. Moreover, since biodiversity stands as a harm separate from indirect harms to humans, it is by far the strongest point in this debate. Conclusions: Pro's case only risks solvency. He requires that: the placement of his reefs is the correct distance from shore, that it sits at the right depth, the conditions are conditions are optimal, his reefs aren't going to require any monitoring, they'll all grow rapidly, the contractors are all expert and reliable, and they function exactly like natural reefs. These minimize Pro's solvency. My CP, on the other hand, garners both of these advantages globally with far more certainty. Voters can pick me up right here. Those boosts to solvency are enough by themselves, and it doesn't bite the biodiversity harms. You could also vote on those. My biodiversity points are more potent and certain than anything Pro's presented, and buying any one of these points is enough. Pro hasn't presented any reason why his case would improve biodiversity or even increase population size, so his best case scenario is that shifted marine populations cause no harm directly, though fishing and mass harvesting would still reduce their size. Worst case, Pro's dramatically harming these populations, leading the degradation of marine resources. Both of these scenarios turn Pro's advantage 2 and exhibit larger harms. Whether you're buying the perm or not, this is reason enough to vote Con. 28. http://bit.ly... 29. http://wapo.st...