Resolved: When in conflict, the United Nations should prioritize global poverty reduction over envir

Sorry about not having this argument up yesterday like I said I would. I accidentally deleted the entirety of what I had written and had to start over. The ultimate goal of both poverty reduction and environmental protection is the welfare of people. Both poverty and poor environment make life worse overall for the people they affect. First, the environment fixes itself while poverty entrenches itself. The environment in general has the ability to 'bounce back'. For countless years the earth has been plagued by natural disasters, plagues, droughts, people, etc. After all of this, the environment comes out fine. Nature adapts rather well to attacks on it and survives. On the other hand, poverty tends to create more poverty. Entire continents like Africa fell behind the rest of the community and from there look how they've ended up. Most minority communities in the United States came here with very little money. 100 and 200 years later, look where they've ended up. Poor neighborhoods and ghettos are filled disproportionately with minorities. What example can you give of a society where poverty just worked itself out? There are none. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that; when in conflict we ought to prioritize global poverty reduction over environmental protection because it is a more urgent need and will compound more quickly if not fixed. Second, much of modern environmental protection is at the expense of people. Two recent example I've heard of are these: 3 people died fighting a forest fire in California. They didn't have enough water to adequately squelch the fire because of restrictions on using a nearby river in order to save a certain species of fish. Also, we have the more recent and publicized issue of the farmers versus the smelt. Water supply to multiple farms has been cut off in order to protect a species of fish of relatively little importance. It is too often that 'protecting the environment' ends up hurting people. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that; when in conflict we ought to prioritize global poverty reduction over environmental protection because, while poverty reduction will always be to the benefit of people, protection of the environment can sometimes lead to our harm. In these cases, people are being valued below animals, which is, for obvious reasons, bad. Third, global poverty reduction can easily lead to environmental protection. Subsistence farmers in Brazil cut back the Amazon Rain Forest to make farm land. Poor Africans kill elephants for their valuable tusks. Native tribesmen of both the African and South American rainforests cut down valuable trees like teak and mahogany. Poor children burn electronics releasing toxic chemicals into the air in order to gather the precious metals inside. They do all these things for the same reasons. They have to feed themselves and their families. Every one of these groups of people mentioned is among the poorest on our planet. These environmental atrocities are commited not out of hatred, but out of desparation. If we provide relief to those in poverty, we can avoid this destruction of the environment. However, if we maintain some strict standards on environmental control, these people are going to be subjected to malnourishment and starvation because we will have taken away their only way to live. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that; when in conflict we ought to prioritize global poverty reduction over environmental protection because putting environmental protection first will lead to more global poverty, while valuing poverty reduction can lead to environmental gains.