Developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction.

I accept this challenge, good luck. As a brief roadmap, I'll be going over my own case then addressing my opponents. "If we boost productivity, we can improve economic growth." Stated by Tony Abbot and supporting the negation of todays resolution. It shows that in order to truly have economic prosperity we have to have productivity, which requires resources. I value Social Development which is achieved better on the negative side. Resource extraction brings economic development which also brings education, foreign trade, and less poverty in a country as a general rule. This economic progress is necessary for the people in the country. While protecting the environment is important, when someone does not have anything to eat they simply should not be forced to starve and die for the future environment. Keeping the environment safe should not be put above the education, safety, and growth of the humans especially in the case of poverty. This leads me to my criterion Utilitarianism. Which is having the greatest good for the greatest number of people therefore we must look to the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Social progress is achieved on the negative side because the only way we can continue to develop technologies and educate the people for the greater benefit is by having the resources available to do so. A sacrifice of some kind has to be made for the future generations, we have to sacrifice minor problems to the environment to have economic growth and continue developing. Contention 1: Pollution decelerates over decades of economic growth. Resource extraction and economic growth must be prioritized because economic growth will lead the best environmental protection over the long-term. The existing scarce long-term data suggest not only non-proportionality of pollution with respect to economic growth, but also non-linearity and concavity. This research is confirmed in other studies as well. While the factors which drive the relation are complex and debated among scholars, the empirical data generally confirms the idea. It is said, in keeping with the philosophy of Malthus, the poor have little concern for the environment when they are thinking about their next meal. So, societies which can meet their basic needs will undertake higher-order projects to improve their lives. The relationship between national wealth and environmental impact is described as the Environmental Kuznets' Curve resembling an inverted U-shape curve. Levinson: Some forms of pollution appear first to worsen and later to improve as countries" incomes grow. The world"s poorest and richest countries have relatively clean environments, while middle-income countries are the most polluted. Because of its resemblance to the pattern of inequality and income described by Simon Kuznets (1955), this pattern of pollution and income has been labelled an "environmental Kuznets curve" (EKC). To date, the practical lessons from this theoretical literature are limited. Most of the models are designed to yield inverse-U-shaped pollution-income paths, and succeed using a variety of assumptions and mechanisms. Hence, any number of forces may be behind the empirical observation that pollution increases and then decreases with income. Moreover, that pattern cannot be interpreted causally, and is consistent with either efficient or inefficient growth paths. Perhaps the most important insight is in Grossman and Krueger"s original paper: "We find no evidence that economic growth does unavoidable harm to the natural habitat" (1995, p. 370). Economists have long argued that environmental degradation is not an inevitable consequence of economic growth. The EKC literature provides empirical support for that claim. Based on the empiric of the EKC we can conclude that one mechanism for solvency of environmental impacts exists in increasing the wealth of nations. Especially those nations which are the source of the world's resources. Contention 2: Poverty increases without the jobs and wealth that comes from resource extraction. resource extraction improves economic development opportunities for poor countries and reduces poverty. Naazneen H. Barma, a spokeswoman from DNSA (Assistant Professor. Department of National Security Affairs) Natural resource endowments such as oil, gas, and minerals can serve as potent drivers of development. Global demand for scarce natural resources is mounting rapidly. Industry experts argue that we are in the midst of a "super cycle" of commodity prices, driven by demand from fast-growing emerging economies. Natural resource extraction is capital-intensive, with annual global investments approaching $1 trillion, hence offering the potential for rapid infrastructure development and structural transformation in developing economies. Riches from the sector promise to be massive, with resource rents, that is, the difference between revenues and extraction cost, estimated at about $4 trillion annually, or 7 percent of global GDP. While the proportion of the world"s poor living in towns and cities is gradually rising, most of the world"s poor will continue to live in rural areas for many decades to come. Poor people"s livelihoods will remain heavily dependent on natural resources: soil, water, forests and fisheries underpin commercial and subsistence activities and of ten provide a safety net for the poor in times of crisis. Strategies for rural poverty reduction, including pro-poor natural resource management, should remain at centre stage for poverty reduction. This shows that strong overall growth rates are essential to reducing poverty and cannot be achieved through the prioritization of environmental protection in developing countries.. Now I'll be addressing my opponents case and I accept my opponents definitions. ============================================================================================= My opponents value is quality of life with a criteria of teleology which is a theory defined as making the ends more important than the means. There is something we have to recognize about the value. The value of quality of life is in fact better upheld on the negative side because the extra income that is made from this resource extraction indirectly goes to the people. Infrastructure provided for the people and the ability for the government to tend to its citizens completely hinges on the income they receive from these resources. What we can see is if the government has a more abundance of resources development will increase and therefore more jobs, infrastructure and the ability for the government to protect its citizens will increase, therefore increasing quality of life as a whole. For the criteria of teleology if the ends are more important than the means my question is to my opponent, would sacrificing many human lives for the sake of our future be moral under this theory? Addressing the first contention, it talks about how environmental stability can only be achieved with environmental protection. For this statement we have to look at my first contention. I have in fact proved that over decades of economic growth pollution decelerates with new technology advancements. The goal here for a developing country is to receive the income to actually develop and focus on these environmental issues once they have the tools necessary to do so. Only through advancements of technology can we sufficiently protect the environment from the inefficient ways of our past technology. What we have seen on this inverse curve chart is that during the industrialization period pollution is at an all time high, but as we advance we are able to sufficiently deal with these problems. This is crucial to remember in todays round. The second contention talks about a countrys standard of living. This is backed up by problems of the environment, but my opponent fails to bring up the issue of increasing poverty that will occur in the lack of these resources either being regulated or taken out completely. What we have to see is that this resource extraction brings jobs to the people and reduces overall poverty in a country, ESPECIALLY a developing country. Even regulation on this income could severely hurt the people of this country because this indirectly takes away from THEIR income. While the environment is important, we cannot put the environment of the future above the lives of the present. This is another crucial point to remember in the round as well. My opponent also talks about the resource curse but it"s important to recognize that the idea of the "resource curse" is still heavily contested in academic circles. For one, there is a noticeable lack of agreement on the exact cause of this curse. Most agree, however, that resource management is the blame (i.e. a sudden boon is resources creates a shortsightedness in policymakers) instead of resource extraction. Can policymakers do better? Of course, but prioritizing environmental protection won"t fix issues with resource management. Now moving on to the third contention, this is blaming resource mismanagement as a reason for having environmental protection. If we think about this contention logically we can see that this mismanagement will still exist whether or not we are protecting the environment. This whole contention hinders on the fact that the "resource curse" causes the economy to revolve around the industry and the income gained from resources is too blame. What we have to see here as well is that this income is largely beneficial to a country and putting regulations or removing it entirely will not change the mismanagement of resources. Until my opponent can give an example of ONE single country that has developed without resources or resources severely regulated this contention completely falls in todays debate. I urge a vote in the negative