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

I apologize for not posting a round 2 arguement. My computer got a virus and I was unable to get on it until today. I'll just post my case in this round and then you'll just have an extra round to attack my case I suppose. Not much else we can do. Sorry again. Think for a moment about how much money you spend every day. You spend it on food, clothes, and many other various necessities. Almost half the world-over three billion people-live on less than $2.50 a day. Could you survive on just $2.50 a day? If your answer to that question was no, then you're on the same boat as most of those three billion people. They simply cannot survive this way. This is why my I stand in firm affirmation of the resolution which states "Resolved: When in conflict, the United Nations should prioritize global poverty reduction over environmental protection." I will prove my stance through the following three main points: 1. The number of people living and dying in poverty is too great to ignore. 2. Prioritizing poverty reduction will actually help the environment as well in the long run. 3. The United Nations has a moral obligation to protect its people and prioritize poverty reduction Now for my first main point: The number of people living and dying in poverty is too great to ignore. According to "globalissues.org", 25,000 children alone die from poverty every day and over 50,000 people die of poverty every day. Also from Jack M. Hollander of Energy and Resources & Berkeley and Anup Shah of globalissues.org, people living in poverty are subject to primitive technological status, lack of educational and employment opportunities and poor sanitation as approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished. And as Dr. James Gilligan notes: "Every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending thermonuclear war on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world." The environment could wait; people are dying and suffering right now as we speak. It's as simple as that. My second main point is that prioritizing poverty reduction will actually help the environment as well in the long run. According to David Vogel of the University of California-Berkeley, "as a nation's living standard improves, so does its willingness to devote additional resources to protecting its environment and improving the health of its citizens. Although it is true that in the short run, industrial development exacerbates a number of environmental problems – contemporary China is a good example – in the long run it leads to better environmental quality. Witness the recent strengthening of standards in high-growth export-oriented nations such as Taiwan, Korea, Mexico, and Israel. "What this is saying is that once poverty reduction is prioritized and a nation becomes industrialized, in the long run it will help the economy and the environment as well because countries will have more resources to devote to environmental protection. This is only true however, if poverty reduction becomes the priority. From 1981 to 2005, China's poverty rates fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 660 million people. They are also now able to help the environment and have the ability to improve environmental quality, all because poverty reduction was prioritized. My third main point states that the United Nations has a moral obligation to protect its people and prioritize poverty reduction. The United Nations has made public pledges to do their best to reduce poverty such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is a pledge world leaders made to try to slash poverty, hunger, preventable illness and a host of other socio-economic ills by 2015. In addition, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that "the idea that we can address climate-change matters successfully at the expense of economic growth is not only unrealistic but also unacceptable". The United Nations has a moral obligation to help reduce poverty and by creating the Millennium Development Goals, they have already shown that they are prioritizing poverty reduction and thus the outcome of this debate should have already been decided for us. In conclusion, I have spoken to you about the following three main points: 1. the number of people living and dying in poverty is too great to ignore. 2. Prioritizing poverty reduction will actually help the environment as well in the long run. 3. The United Nations has a moral obligation to protect its people and prioritize poverty reduction. Poverty kills, viciously and mercilessly, and to say that letting that many people die is for the better of people is absurd and offensive. 25,000 children die each day due to this crisis; the United Nations should not sit back and let this happen. For these reasons I ask you for a pro ballot.