Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-14

Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-14

PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AFFIRMATIVE (JV & V Only)

Summary 2

Glossary 3

Precautionary Principle 1AC 4-19

GREEN DEMOCRACY ADVANTAGE (JV & V Only)

Green Democracy Advantage 21-3

Answers to: You can’t change the government 20

Answers to: Democracy hurts the environment 21

Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed 22-23

OCEANS ADVANTAGE

Answers to: Oceans are resilient 24-25

Answers to: Land Based Problems 26

Human/Nature Divide 27

DECISION MAKING ADVANTAGE

Answers to: Precautionary Principle is a bad ethic 28

Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic 29-30

Answers to Perfect is the Enemy of the Good 31

SOLVENCY

Answers to: Policy Paralysis 32-33

Answers to: Regulatory Overload 34

Answers to: Innovation 35

ANSWERS TO DISADVANTAGES

Answers to: The disadvantage is more important than the ocean 36

Answers to: Precautionary Principle prevents development 37

Answers to Genetically Modified Crops prevent starvation 38

Answers to: Food Security Impact 39

Answers to: Poverty Impact 40

Summary

This affirmative focuses on the question of HOW we decide if we should develop and explore the Earth’s oceans before we decide WHAT we should develop or explore. The Precautionary Principle is a tool that guides decision makers, especially when concerning issues involving the environment. It would basically shift the burden of proof to the person wishing to take an action to prove that it would not be harmful to the oceans or environment. Currently, people that want to stop an oil drilling project or other event must prove that the project would be harmful. Think of making the old saying “Better safe than sorry” and legal requirement.

Shifting this burden would create a system that defers to protecting the resources of the ocean. The current system is tilted towards developers of the ocean. This case allows debaters to combine their case with an ethical stance for environmental protection. This affirmative argues that adopting the Precautionary Principle is necessary to change the way that decisions are made by government agencies and other decision makers when it comes to the ocean and spilling over to other environmental issues.

For more experienced debaters, this case could easily be turned into a critical affirmative.

The biggest problem with this case is that no direct exploration or development occurs. As such, it has serious topicality issues. Therefore, debaters need to prepare themselves to defend against such attacks. (Note: remember that “no abuse - we have a closed circuit with a list of acceptable cases” can be a very compelling response to topicality.)

The first advantage is protecting ocean life. Currently thinking is that the ocean is so large and so complex, that humans can never have a negative effect on it. However, as scientists look around the world, they see a number of manmade problems in the oceans. Oil spills, over fishing, destruction of coral reefs and oceans full of plastic trash all result from human decisions to interact with the ocean. Fixing this large variety of issues will require changing the way we think about interacting with the ocean moving forward.

The second advantage is decision making. How decisions are made have important results. Incorporating an ethical ideal into decisions about the ocean can change the policies we make moving forward. It also helps shape how we assess risk for things like disadvantages. How much current economic growth are we willing to sacrifice in order to make an ethical decision that protects future generations?

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Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-14

40

Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-14

1AC

Glossary

“Dead Zones”- an area of the ocean that is depleted of oxygen so little or no life exists there, frequently due to pollution.

Degradation- the process of reducing in amount, strength, intensity, etc.

Ecology- the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.

Estuaries- anarmorinletoftheseaatthelowerendofariver.

Ethics- a series of principles dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

Geochemical- the chemical changes in and the composition of the earth's crust.

Infinite- unlimited or unmeasurable in extent of space, duration of time

Precautionary Principle- the principle that the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted.

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (1/6)

Contention 1- Humans are destroying the earth’s oceans, based on an incorrect notion that the sea can be used without end, which leads to human choices polluting our oceans every day.

Wilder, Tenger, and Dayton, Researcher at the Marine Science Institute, Research marine biologist, and Professor of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, 1999

(Robert, Mia and Paul, “Saving Marine Biodiversity”, Issues, 15:3, November 27, http://issues.org/15-3/wilder/)

A comprehensive national strategy is crucial for reversing the rapidly accelerating decline in marine life.

For centuries, humanity has seen the sea as an infinite source of food, a boundless sink for pollutants, and a tireless sustainer of coastal habitats. It isn’t. Scientists have mounting evidence of rapidly accelerating declines in once-abundant populations of cod, haddock, flounder, and scores of other fish species, as well as mollusks, crustaceans, birds, and plants. They are alarmed at the rapid rate of destruction of coral reefs, estuaries, and wetlands and the sinister expansion of vast “dead zones” of water where life has been choked away. More and more, the harm to marine biodiversity can be traced not to natural events but to inadequate policies.

The escalating loss of marine life is bad enough as an ecological problem. But it constitutes an economic crisis as well. Marine biodiversity is crucial to sustaining commercial fisheries, and in recent years several major U.S. fisheries have “collapsed”- experienced a population decline so sharp that fishing is no longer commercially viable. One study indicates that 300,000 jobs and $8 billion in annual revenues have been lost because of overly aggressive fishing practices alone. Agricultural and urban runoff, oil spills, dredging, trawling, and coastal development have caused further losses.

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (2/6)

Contention 2 - Healthy oceans filled with a diverse array of species are essential to supporting life on the planet.

Craig, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs @ Florida State University, 2003

(Robin Kundis, “ARTICLE:Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review, Winter 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life.

Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity.[*265]

Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860

Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness.

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (3/6)

In order to remedy these issues my partner and I offer the following plan to support this year’s resolution.

The United States Federal Government should use the precautionary principle as the criteria for formulating and implementing non-military development and/or exploration of the Earth’s oceans.

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (4/6)

Contention 3 is better decision making.

A. Modern technology has reversed humanity’s role with nature and created the power to destroy nature and all of humanity. Adopting the Precautionary Principle is necessary to provide an ethical framework to control this new found power and protect the Earth for future generations.

Ewald, Director of Reasarch and Strategy, Federation Francaise des Societes

d'Assurances., 2000

[Francois, “Risk in contemporary society”, Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, 6 Conn. Ins. L.J. 47, 1999/2000, Hein Online]

The powers of modern man confer upon him an infinite responsibility. His nature is revealed in fear, a feeling that makes man aware of the power of his new capacities. On one hand temporality, within which is situated his action, dilates to encompass the whole history of humanity, past and future, but it must be acknowledged that his powers are such that they threaten the existence of life itself. Contemporary man is becoming aware of himself in the feeling of anguish before the possibilities of annihilation that he bears in himself: for the first time, he is discovering in himself the power to commit suicide as a species. Faced with this possibility, and in order to [*71] overcome his anguish, modern man is on a quest to find the rules of a morality that will limit his powers: the ethics of responsibility. His enormous power needs holding.

The ethics of responsibility contain the risk and uncertainty to the extent that modern man must take account in his actions, both their long term consequences and their possibility of sweeping along with them, at least in certain cases, the worst, the catastrophe. Instead of the categorical Kantian imperative, there should be substituted an imperative adapted to the new type of human action: "Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of an authentically humane life on earth." 35 For while we have the right to risk our own lives, we do not have the right to risk that of humanity. This imperative is the basis of the precautionary principle: it invites us to measure each of our actions against the principle of the worst scenario. Morality becomes a sort of negative morality: it is not so much turned towards the positive quest for the best as towards the avoidance of the worst. The uncertainty of long term prognostics confers the nature of a wager on human action, which leads to questions such as: do I have the right to endanger the interests of others in my wager?

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (5/6)

B. Using the Precautionary Principle to protect the oceans places the burden of proof on those planning development or exploration of the ocean to prove they will do no harm.

Ocean Classrooms, online educational resource on oceans, 2013

(“Precautionary Principle“, Current Publishing Corporation, https://www.oceanclassrooms.com/ms101_u5_c2_sa_2)-

Considering the declining health of many of Earth's ecosystems and the extent to which humans are to blame, a growing number of scientists advocate use of the Precautionary Principle when it comes to decisions regarding the environment.

The Precautionary Principle:

When an activity is known to threaten human health or the environment, we need to take precautions even if we don't understand all the cause-and-effect relationships scientifically. In this context, those who wish to conduct the activity, not the public, should be the ones to prove that the activity in question will not harm the environment. Applying this principle must be an open, informed, and impartial process that includes all those who may experience effects of such action. The process must also consider all reasonable choices, including the option of not allowing any activity to proceed.

In a nutshell, the Precautionary Principle says that even without all the information on a particular matter, we should not hesitate to take action to avoid potentially serious or irreversible harm to the environment. Many scientists believe that it's time to take this stance on environmental issues, especially those pertaining to the ocean.

Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (6/6)

C. The precautionary principle provides the platform to change societal and governmental attitudes that privilege economic growth and cost benefit analysis to one that values and respects the long term health of the planet and its communities.

Jordan and O’Riordan, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, East Anglia University, 1999

(Andrew and Timothy, “THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN CONTEMPORARY

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND POLITICS", Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle. Ed. Raffensperger and Tickner, Island Press, Google Books)

The precautionary principle is vague enough to be acknowledged by all governments regardless of how well they protect the environment. But the politics of precaution are also powerful and progressive, since they offer a profound critique of many of the ways in which the environmental policy is currently determined. Wrapped up in the debate about precaution are forceful new ideas which point the way to a more preventative, source-based, integrated and biocentric basis for policy. The point about the precautionary principle is that it swims against the economic, scientific and democratic tides. It requires 'sacrifice' of anyone who cannot see the justification of taking careful avoidance. As we have repeatedly stressed, the strength of the precautionary principle lies in beliefs about social or environmental resilience, and in the capacity of social groups or political systems to respond to crises. Therefore those who support the notion of resilience and accommodation/adaptation would require precautionary 'sacrifice' as a higher level of cost than those who are more ecocentric on such matters.