Precautionary Principle Affirmative
NAUDL 2013-14
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AFFIRMATIVE
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Glossary......................................................................................................................................... 3
Precautionary Principle 1AC ..................................................................................................... 4-10
GREEN DEMOCRACY ADVANTAGE
Green Democracy Advantage .................................................................................................. 10-3
Answers to: You can’t change the government ............................................................................ 13
Answers to: Democracy hurts the environment ........................................................................... 14
Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed ...................................................................................... 15-7
OCEANS ADVANTAGE
Answers to: Oceans are resilient .............................................................................................. 17-9
Answers to: Land Based Problems .............................................................................................. 19
Human/Nature Divide................................................................................................................... 20
DECISION MAKING ADVANTAGE
Answers to: Precautionary Principle is a bad ethic ...................................................................... 21
Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic .................................................................. 22-4
Answers to Perfect is the Enemy of the Good ............................................................................. 24
SOLVENCY
Answers to: Policy Paralysis ..................................................................................................... 25-7
Answers to: Regulatory Overload ................................................................................................ 27
Answers to: Innovation................................................................................................................. 28
ANSWERS TO DISADVANTAGES
Answers to: The disadvantage is more important than the ocean ............................................... 29
Answers to: Precautionary Principle prevents development ........................................................ 30
Answers to Genetically Modified Crops prevent starvation .......................................................... 31
Answers to: Food Security Impact ............................................................................................... 32
Answers to: Poverty Impact ......................................................................................................... 33
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
NAUDL 2013-14
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.
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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1AC
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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- an arm or inlet of the sea at the lower end of a river.
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.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
1AC
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
Contention 1- Humans are destroying the earth’s oceans.
Our belief that the sea can be used without end leads to human choices polluting our oceans
every day. Unfortunately, this pollution kills sea life and destroys marine ecosystems,
fisheries, and coastal communities.
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/153/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.
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1AC
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
Healthy oceans filled with a diverse array of species are essential to supporting life on the
planet, the alternative is extinction.
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.
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
Contention 2 is better decision making.
Modern technology has reversed human’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?
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.
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
Contention 3 is the Precautionary Principle works.
Using the Precautionary Principle to protect the oceans would place the burden of proof on
those planning a development or exploration of the ocean to prove they will do no harm. This
is the method recommended by the scientific community to help protect the oceans from
further harm by human actions.
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.
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
Putting the precautionary principle into law is necessary. Legal protections of communities,
who are not present when decisions are made, are necessary to solve environmental
exploitation.
Eckersley, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004
(Robyn, The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty, The MIT Press, p. 134-5)
In cases of scientific uncertainty and conflict between environment and development
interests, the democratic state cannot be neutral. It can either support the status quo, which
favors property holders and risk generators, or create new rights and new presumptions that turn the
tables in favor of environmental victims. The requirements of environmental justice that are
embedded in the ambit claim for ecological democracy demand rights and decision rules that
positively favor the disadvantaged and communicatively incompetent over well-resourced and
strategically oriented economic actors in cases of uncertainty and political intractability.
One such mechanism for shifting the presumption in favor of potential environmental victims
is the precautionary principle. The Rio Declaration formulation of the precautionary principle
provides that “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific
certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
environmental degradation” (principle 15). Adding the words “to present and future human and
nonhuman communities” after the words “irreversible damage” would head off narrow,
anthropocentric interpretations of this decision rule, which provides a presumption against
decisions carrying serious or irreversible environmental risks (e.g., species extinction, climate
change, nuclear fallout, and so-called genetic pollution from the release of genetically modified
organisms into the environment). The decision rule also serves as an evidentiary rule in placing
the onus of proof on the proponent to prove the absence of such risks for human and
nonhuman communities, now and in the future.
Of course, the precautionary principle would need to be interpreted and applied discursively in
particular cases. However, participants in the dialogue should not be free to ignore it. One way of
ensuring this is to constitutionally entrench the precautionary principle in the same way that basic
democratic rights are constitutionally entrenched. Such entrenchment would not place the
precautionary principle beyond the reach of democratic debate, since the appropriateness of
its application to particular circumstances would always need to be debated on a case by case
basis. In any event, the justification for entrenchment is itself a democratic one: to ensure
that the interests of those at risk who cannot be present are nonetheless systematically
considered by those who are present. Mandating such consideration is not the same as
mandating particular outcomes.
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Precautionary Principle 1AC
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.
The emphasis which governments continue to place on 'sound science' and careful costbenefit analysis, suggest a deep seated suspicion of the threat which it appears to hold to
economic growth and 'rational' policy making. Precaution will not explode on to the
environmental stage, sweeping away all forms of risk or cost benefit assessment, careful
scientific analysis and existing legal norms relating to the relative power of polluters and
victims. Rather, it will seep through the pores of decision making institutions and the political
consciousness of humanity by stealth. It will do this when, and if, it has the tide of the times
behind it.
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Green Democracy Advantage 1 of 3
Enacting the precautionary principle injects democracy into environmental decision making.
Raffensperger, Executive Director of Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004
(CAROLYN, 9/1, No. 9, Vol. 25; Pg. 26, MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "PRECAUTIONARY
PRECEPTS")
The second mode of implementation is to reverse the burden of proof, especially for chemicals, and
other emerging and novel technologies. For so long, industry has received the benefit of the
doubt; if regulation is going to threaten business, then regulation should be sacrificed. But what that
has meant is that we have sacrificed our children's brains, our women's breasts, our men's
prostates on that alter of economic development.
The Precautionary Principle says, no, public health and the environment get the benefit of the
doubt, not the almighty dollar. And there are a lot of ways to do that. The Precautionary Principle
asserts a responsibility on the part of industry or the proponents of a technology or activity, to test
that technology or activity. So for instance, the REACH program proposed in Europe for chemicals
says, if you don't test your chemicals, you can't market in Europe. What a good idea! That's reversing
the burden of proof. It says if you haven't even tested your chemical, don't try and sell it to us, and
then, if we're injured, make us go to court and test the chemical to show it is unsafe. The REACH
program says to industry, you've got the obligation; this is your responsibility. This is a complete turn
around compared to what is typical in the United States.
The third element of the Precautionary Principle is looking for the safest alternative. If you've set a
goal to achieve some end, which alternative gets you to the goal? This approach means you're
going to find much better ways to do things; it drives innovation. Pursuit of the safest
alternative is creating whole new fields like green chemistry and green engineering. They are taking
the dirtiest chemicals, throwing them out and changing policy and industry in some really
wonderful ways. Choosing the safest alternative is in many ways the heart-beat of the
Precautionary Principle.
The final element of the Precautionary Principle is democracy. If we're faced with scientific
uncertainty, we need to set goals, and choose the safest alternative to achieve these goals.
These processes involve values and ethics; it is not something that scientists or government
bureaucrats can decide alone. We need to bring affected parties to the table. This gives us a
chance as a public to set the goals that we want to drive toward; it helps get on the table a
much wider array of options for solving problems and looking for alternatives. So democracy
is also an essential component of the Precautionary Principle.
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Green Democracy Advantage 2 of 3
[___] Advocating for the precautionary principle grows environmental movements and injects
values into policy making. Our demand can change the way that environmental policy is
formed.
Myers, Science and Environmental Health Network, 2002
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle Puts Values First”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society,
Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2002, 210-219, http://www.sehn.org/pdf/putvaluesfirst.pdf)
Activists’ and advocates’ responses to the principle and their explanations of why it has become
important and useful to them vary. Almost universally, however, they see it as an exercise in
something beyond caution, or even precaution. It is not just a matter of buying up gas masks, so
to speak, or reinforcing cockpit doors. They nearly always describe it instead in positive terms.
Activists who have become discouraged by the Sisyphean task of trying to protect the Earth
and the health of communities in the face of out-of-control technologies and damage often say
that the precautionary principle gives them hope. They say it is something positive to work for and
that it embodies common sense. Organizers and policy advocates alike express gratitude for a
unifying idea that makes sense of everything they are trying to work for and that removes
some important barriers to that work, at least in their own minds. Inevitably, values creep into
these discussions.
A typical range of responses came from a group of ecosystem scientists and advocates assembled
by SEHN in May 2001 in Leavenworth, Washington, to discuss how the principle might apply to
decisions related to ecosystems. After more than a day of discussion that went straight to the
principle’s practical implications, the group was asked, Is the precautionary principle indeed of use to
you? Some of their answers had an equally practical tone:
By using precaution you articulate uncertainties that are already there. It is better to think out
consequences. It is important science, but it is also an important public education tool. It
helps people understand what to do with uncertainty. It is an organizing principle in theory—it
takes our ideas and make sense of them—and in practice: it can galvanize a movement.
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Green Democracy Advantage 3 of 3
Green Democracy produces better decision making by allowing all options to be considered.
Myers, Science and Environmental Health Network, 2002
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle Puts Values First”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society,
Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2002, 210-219, http://www.sehn.org/pdf/putvaluesfirst.pdf)
Democracy and transparency in the decisionmaking process also represent an ethical
component: the right to know, the right to be included in decisions that affect one, the duty to
include all who are affected.
Including such ethical considerations is a statement of values. But this kind of process also has a
practical aspect. The more information gathered from varied sources, the more satisfactory a
decision is likely to be. So too is the assessment of alternatives (O’Brien, 2000). It makes
practical sense to look at alternatives, to seek better ways of doing things, to be able to
choose among different possible methods and outcomes rather than being locked into the
dictates of things as they are or some inevitable march of progress and technology. However,
deciding what is “better” depends on the values that guide the process.
The precautionary principle and the process of applying it by no means eliminate the value of
economics from the equation. Any “democratic and transparent” process must include
economic considerations. However, deliberately and consistently putting economics first
leads to a different kind of precaution, a kind that is routinely exercised at the expense of the
life and health of humans and ecosystems. This is a value judgment. It makes a difference
which values guide a decision.
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Answers to: You can’t change the government
[___]
[___] Our appeal for a more democratic decision making process for environmental issues
can make it a reality. Our appeal generates environmental accountability.
Eckersley, Senior Lecturer - Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004
[ROBYN, THE GREEN STATE: RETHINKING DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY, APRIL, p14-5]
The overall argument that I offer is that it is too hasty to assume that the social structures of
international anarchy, global capitalism, and the liberal democratic state are necessarily antiecological and mutually reinforcing, or that they foreclose the possibility of any progressive
transformation of states as governance structures. The key to such transformation lies in
deepening the democratic accountability and responsiveness of states to their citizens’
environmental concerns while also extending democratic accountability to the environmental
concerns of transnational civil society, intergovernmental organizations and the society of states
in general. By these means, the anti-ecological behavioral dynamics that are generated by the
social structures of international anarchy, global capitalism and administrative hierarchy can be
reversed.
One does not have to search very far to find historical examples of how environmentally
destructive dynamics can be qualified, restrained, or otherwise moderated by state and
nonstate agents “acting back” upon social structures. Here I single out three mutually informing
developments that have served to moderate and, in some cases, transform the respective “logics” of
international anarchy, capitalism, and administrative hierarchy:
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Answers to: Democracy hurts the environment
[___]
[___] A green democracy is the only way to ensure government works to protect the
environment.
ECKERSLEY, Senior Lecturer - Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004
[ROBYN, THE GREEN STATE: RETHINKING DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY, APRIL, 117-9]
In the terms of the double challenge of ecological democracy, then, deliberative democracy, prima
facie, appears promising. Not only is it likely to generate a risk-averse orientation, it is also likely to
guard against unfair displacement of risks onto innocent third parties. Such an orientation provides a
welcome move away from the utilitarian framework of trading-off (which permits the sacrifice of
the interests of minorities, those lacking preferences, and the discounted future in favor of
present majorities) toward a more inclusive orientation that at least strives to find ways of
mutually accommodating (rather than trading off) the needs of the present and the future, the
human and the nonhuman.
In short, a case can be made that deliberative democracy is especially suited to making
collective decisions about long-range, generalizable interests, such as environmental
protection and sustainable development. It thus provides a fair process that is likely to move
societies toward more reflexive ecological modernization of the kind discussed in chapter 3.
Moreover, because it does not confine its moral horizons to the citizens and territory of a particular
polity, it may be understood as a transnational form of democracy that is able to cope with fluid
boundaries.10 It also has the capacity to accommodate the complexities and uncertainties
associated with ecological problems, include and evaluate both expert scientific and
vernacular understandings of ecological problems, and identify and evaluate risks in socially
and ecologically inclusive ways.
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Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed
[___]
[___] The Precautionary Principle is pro-science:
a) it encourages more research to minimize uncertainty
b) waiting for scientific certainty is a dangerous standard that uses the environment
as a laboratory
c) Risk assessment is a failed standard and must be replaced
Myers, communications director for the Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle: Answering the Critics”, Multinational Monitor, September 4,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04corp1.html)
1) Those who advocate precaution urge action on the basis of vague fears, regardless of
whether there is scientific evidence to support their fears.
Most statements of the Precautionary Principle say it applies when there is reason to believe
serious or irreversible harm may occur. Those reasons are based on scientific evidence of
various kinds: studies, observations, precedents, experience, professional judgment. They are based
on what we know about how processes work and might be affected by a technology.
However, precautionary decisions also take into account what we know we do not know. The
more we know, scientifically, the greater will be our ability to prevent disasters based on
ignorance. But we must be much more cautious than we have been in the past about moving
forward in ignorance.
2) Taking action in advance of scientific certainty undermines science.
Scientific standards of certainty are high in experimental science or for accepting or refuting a
hypothesis, and well they should be. Waiting to take action before a substance or technology is
proven harmful, or even until plausible cause-and-effect relationships can be established, may
mean allowing irreversible harm to occur -- deaths, extinctions, poisoning, and the like.
Humans and the environment become the unwitting testing grounds for these technologies.
This is no longer acceptable. Moreover, science should serve society, not vice versa. Any decision
to take action -- before or after scientific proof -- is a decision of society, not science.
3) Quantitative risk assessment is more scientific than other kinds of evaluation.
Risk assessment is only one evaluation method and provides only partial answers. It does not
take into account many unknowns and seldom accounts for complex interactions -- nor does
it raise our sights to better alternatives.
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Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed
[___]
[___] Science must be understood within a system of values that society holds otherwise we
cannot know what actions to take with the information that science reveals to us. Form
Myers, Science and Environmental Health Network, 2002
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle Puts Values First”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society,
Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2002, 210-219, http://www.sehn.org/pdf/putvaluesfirst.pdf)
What is the significance of this impulse to talk about values, and what does the precautionary
principle have to do with it? Talking openly about values is a relatively recent development in the
established environmental movement, which has long been accustomed to “leaving values at
the door,” often under explicit instruction from agency officials and industry representatives,
and confining discussions to “the facts” or “science” or “sound science.”
One of the scientists at the Leavenworth gathering said that although the precautionary principle is
seen by some as antiscience, in his view, it is not about science at all. “The judgments we make
are value laden. It gives us a framework in which to interpret science.” This response is similar
to a refrain that has appeared in some recent writing on science and advocacy: State your values up
front, because decisions and developments in science and technology are based first of all on
values and only secondarily on scientific and technological fact and process per se.
With regard to decisions about public issues, expertise in terms of skill, knowledge, or
experience is often less important than basic questions of values. Is abortion wrong? Is it moral
to deny medical care to a child whose parents have no health insurance? Should murderers be put to
death? Is it acceptable to perform medical experiments on human beings without their consent?
There are no scientific answers to these questions, or thousands more like them. They can only be
answered by asking ourselves what we believe and what we value. In addressing these questions,
finding knowledgeable experts is actually less important than finding experts who share our
values. (Rampton & Stauber, 2001, p. 297-8)
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Answers to: Oceans are resilient
[___]
[___] Oceans are uniquely vulnerable and human actions can result in horrible outcomes.
Coyne and Hoekstra, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at University of
Chicago, and Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
at Harvard, 2007
(Jerry and Hopi, “The Greatest Dying”, The New Republic, September 24,
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/environment-energy/the-greatest-dying)
In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of all. As overfishing eliminates major
predators, while polluted and warming waters kill off phytoplankton, the intricate aquatic food
web could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which so many humans depend, will be a fond
memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide
and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by phytoplankton, with the rest coming
from land plants.) Species extinction is also imperiling coral reefs - a major problem since these
reefs have far more than recreat ional value: They provide tremendous amounts of food for
human populations and buffer coastlines against erosion.
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Oceans Advantage
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Answers to: Oceans are resilient
[___]
[___] The end of an entire species cannot be taken lightly. We cannot know when a species
disappearing will be the tipping point for a larger collapse in an ecosystem so we must err
towards precaution to preserve species diversity.
Parenteau, Director, Environmental Law Center, Vermont Law School, 1998
(Patrick, “Rearranging The Deck Chairs: Endangered Species Act Reforms in an Era of Mass
Extinction,” , William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review Spring 22 Wm. & Mary Envtl.
L. & Pol'y Rev. 227,
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1276&context=wmelpr)
To summarize Part I, the biodiversity crisis is real, and the stakes are high. Extinction estimates
may vary by a wide margin, but they all agree on the central point that the current rate is far
beyond any definition of "normal," and it is increasing. n127 Each extinction, no matter how
inconsequential it may appear in isolation, represents another strand removed from the fabric
of life, another rivet popped from the wing of the airplane. n128 Neo-classical economics tells us
almost nothing about the dollar value of individual species, let alone the cumulative value of the
services that healthy ecosystems provide. n129 The emerging field of ecological economics is
beginning to get a handle on these values, and the numbers being generated, though soft, are huge.
n130 Yet in the end it is not what we know but what we do not know that may provide the most
cogent argument for exercising the "precautionary principle," for trying to save "every cog
and wheel," not just for ourselves but for the next seven generations to come. n131 All well
and good, you may be thinking, but isn't habitat loss and even extinction simply the inevitable, albeit
unfortunate, price we must pay for "progress?" A look at the roots of the biodiversity crisis might shed
some light on this question.
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Oceans Advantage
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Answers to: Land Based Problems
[___]
[___] Even if it cannot remove all harms to the ocean, establishing the precautionary principle
for ocean management would protect marine biodiversity by preventing the most damaging
forms of development.
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/153/wilder/)
The precautionary principle
The United States needs a new policy that regards marine biodiversity as a resource worth
saving. The fundamental pillar of this policy must be the precautionary principle: conserving
marine resources and preventing damage before it occurs. The precautionary principle stands
in sharp contrast to the traditional marine policy framework: take as much as can be taken
and pollute as much as can be polluted until a problem arises. Rather than wait for the
environment to cry for help, the precautionary principle places the burden on fishermen, oil
drillers, industry, farmers whose fields run to rivers or shores, and whomever else would
exploit the sea, intentionally or not, to avoid harming this precious resource in the first place.
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Human/Nature Divide
[___] The precautionary principle is the single most powerful mechanism for challenging the
separation between human and non-human interests and prevent environmental destruction.
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)
Intrinsic value and legitimate status: The stronger formulations of the precautionary principle are
consistent with what philosophers term a 'bioethic'. This states that vulnerable, or critical
natural systems, namely those close to thresholds, or whose existence is vital for natural
regeneration, should be protected as a matter of moral right. This in turn places a strain both on
the application of cost-benefit analysis generally, including the proportionality rule, and the normal
practice of considering all options as comparators for decision making. Thus, precaution goes to
the heart of the philosophical and political debate on the proper relationship between humans
and the non-human ('natural') world. In promoting a more humble and less rapacious attitude
to the environment, the precautionary principle presents a profound challenge to some of the
unstated assumptions of 'modern' (and particularly western) societies: material growth, the
power and efficacy of scientific reason and the pre-eminence of human interests over those of
other entities. The human race is a colonising species without an institutional or intellectual
capacity for equilibrium, and notions of 'care', 'precaution' and 'restraint' strike at the
veryheart of its common purpose (Jordan and O'Riordan, 1993). The precautionary principle lends
strength to the notion that natural systems have intrinsic rights and a non-instrumental value that
should be accounted for in decision making.
Unfortunately, the precautionary principle does not state how much environmental quality should be
sacrificed for material growth, nor does it determine how a 'non-instrumental' respect for nature
should be incorporated into decision making. However, it does offer a strong presumption in
favour of high environmental protection and a justification for treating certain environmental
functions or features as inviolable. This is a prospect that usually causes alarm amongst those
who believe that such a concept is an excuse for deep ecology to ride roughshod over 'sensible'
forms of development or impose 'limits' to material growth. The US lawyer Christopher Stone (1987)
has sought to allay these fears by indicating that a creative partnership in law can be established
to allow nature rights of existence that are not absolute, but require careful deliberation before
being set aside.
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Answers to: Precautionary Principle is a bad ethic
[___]
[___] The negative relies on a utilitarian decision making style that will trap the Earth in a
system which makes planetary destruction inevitable.
Plumwood, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, 2002
[Valerie, Environmental Culture: The ecological crisis of reason, PG. 150-51]
Singer's Minimalism is also a political position urging minimal departure from prevailing liberal,
Humanistic and Enlightenment assumptions and from the present system of economic rationality. 14
But surely an ecological society will require more than minimal departures from these systems,
none of which have been innocent bystanders in the development of the rational machinery
which is bringing the stripping of the planet for the benefit of a small elite of humans to a high
point of rational refinement. Singer's Utilitarianism reproduces many elements of rationalism
including the adoption of universal, abstract mathematically-expressible formulae for
decision, in the best universalist/ impersonalist tradition. Also in the rationalist tradition is the content
of the Utilitarian formula, with its maximisations (always damaging), illusory precision, its
intellectualist reduction of ethics to a matter of rational calculation and quantification, and its
corresponding reduction of the important dimensions of decision to aspects of life supposedly
susceptible to these rational manipulations. And as we have seen, awareness, the chief ground of
ethical consideration, is one, but only one, possible variation on reason or mind, although one that
modernism can tie to preferences and hence to agency and property ownership. The most serious
objection to my mind however is that any ecological or animal ethics based on Singer's
Utilitarianism is committed to a massive program of ranking, quantification and comparison
between beings and species — a program which, as I argue in the next chapter, is unworkable,
ethically repugnant, and built on a problematic reading of equality. Theoretically, ranking
comparisons and tradeoffs between beings are insisted upon by Utilitarianism at virtually
every level his emphasis on ranking does not encourage the kind of thinking that aims for
mutual, negotiated outcomes, but rather ones that sanction a sacrificial order determined on
the basis of greater approximations to the human.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
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Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic
[___]
[___] The Precautionary Principle provides representation for the environment in the legal
system, providing a voice for those that cannot be present.
Van Dyke, Professor of Law at University of Hawaii, 2004
[Jon M., "The Evolution and International Acceptance of the Precautionary Principle", in Bringing New
Law to Ocean Waters, http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf]
It is easy and commonplace for commentators to criticize the precautionary principle as an
aspiration without content, or as a feel-good “‘sound bite’ rather than a principle rooted in
law.”123 But these criticisms fail to recognize the important shift in perspective that the
precautionary principle exemplifies. It was not long ago that environmentalists were on the
outside looking in, trying to warn governments and international organizations of the dangers
facing our fragile ecosystems. But now these warnings—and the caution required to protect
our depleted natural resources—are incorporated in international and national
decisionmaking at the outset. How exactly these cautions translate into action varies with each
problem, and we are still experimenting with the assessments and evaluations needed to
ensure that changes are introduced with the required prudence. But it is still highly significant that in
less than two decades, the perspective of our global community has changed from allowing
developments to proceed automatically to requiring careful evaluation before the green light is given.
At its core, the precautionary principle means that decisionmakers “must take precautionary
measures (or avoid certain conduct and projects) when there is an expectation
that a relevant activity may create adverse environmental interference, even in
the absence of conclusive evidence displaying a relationship between cause and alleged effects.”124
It requires “an anticipatory response . . . in situations of uncertainty
where a violation has not yet occurred and no harm has been done, but where a strong risk of such a
violation exists.”125 With time and experience, the details of the precautionary principle will come into
clearer focus. But already it has transformed the process of decisionmaking, by recognizing the
validity of environmental concerns and by requiring some level of clarity and certainty before
risky activities are begun.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
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Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic
[___]
[___] The precautionary principle allows values to be injected into the decision making
process. Without making our values explicit the oceans will continue to be less important
than short term economic gains.
Myers, Science and Environmental Health Network, 2002
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle Puts Values First”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society,
Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2002, 210-219, http://www.sehn.org/pdf/putvaluesfirst.pdf)
In the preface to Pandora’s Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, Joe
Thornton (2000) made this declaration: No analyst of policy can be truly objective, because the
process of weighing options for social action always filters the findings of science through a
set of political and ethical assumptions and values. With that in mind, I have tried to do two
things: to make explicit the ethical and political views that undergird my own evaluation of the science
and to be as fair as possible in my presentation of the scientific evidence.
I cover what I believe to be the most important information relevant to the case I am making and
evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, but I do not claim balance or objectivity, because these are
neither appropriate nor possible in this kind of effort. (p. ix) Hugo Alroe and Erik Kristensen (in press)
described the need for scientists to recognize the value system within which they work and to observe
and describe it as objectively as, and alongside, the research itself:
An overall distinction between the system and its environment needs to be made— the system has to
be identified as an object of observation. This first movement also involves the determination, or at
least presumption, of certain goals and values upon which the choices and delimitations that need to
be made in planning and initiating research, can be made. The ensuing observations are thus based
on these value-laden choices. The precautionary principle has many practical uses and applications.
But both its instinctive appeal and the sharp criticism it evokes have less to do with practicalities and
more to do with the fact that it brings values to the forefront of discussion. Invoking the
precautionary principle is an acknowledgement that policy choices are value laden, and it is
an explicit endorsement of certain values. The precautionary principle embodies certain
values; it exposes the contradictory values that currently govern decision-making processes;
it can be effective only if certain values are allowed to enter into the decision-making process.
Moreover, the principle may be most effective if specific values, in the form of goals, are
allowed
23
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Answers to Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
[___]
[___] The principle is the best framework for decision-making- balancing interests of growth
and the environment ensures the best outcome.
Van Dyke, Professor of Law at University of Hawaii, 2004
[Jon M., "The Evolution and International Acceptance of the Precautionary Principle", in Bringing New
Law to Ocean Waters, http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf]
V. Is the Precautionary Principle a Rejection of the Scientific Method and a Formula for Doing
Nothing?
No . The precautionary principle does not reject science, but it does rest on the recognition
that the physical sciences do not always provide all the answers, that social sciences and
even the humanities are also valid sources of information and decisionmaking, and that
concerns based on common fears are also relevant. Proportionality is always relevant, but grave
harm—“the worst-case scenario”—must be considered, even if the likelihood of its
occurrence seems relatively remote. Adherence to the precautionary principle does, in a
sense, bias decisionmaking against innovation by slowing down the process of introducing
new technologies, but this go-slow approach is justified by the realization that new
development does not always deliver all that it promises and that change is frequently
irreversible. If new technologies and new activities will, in fact, offer benefits, they can be
introduced after meeting the burdens of proof required by the precautionary principle.
Utilization of the precautionary principle will alter the “factual trigger” that requires precautions to be
taken.121 Without this principle, those challenging a food additive, for instance, would have to prove
that it is toxic, those challenging a new fishing activity would have to prove that it would have a
negative impact on a species or ecosystem, and those challenging a shipment of a hazardous cargo
or the construction of a nuclear power plant would have to prove that it is likely to cause actual
pollution to the environment. But when the precautionary principle is utilized, the fears that
affected human populations have about such activities become sufficient to induce caution
and to require those wishing to undertake these initiatives to establish that the activities are
safe, or, in appropriate cases, that the benefits outweigh the risks. Science is not ignored, but
its role has changed, and the burden of persuasion is shifted.122 In fact, the precautionary
principle promotes more science, because it requires continuous monitoring as well as
research into less-polluting alternatives. Some have said that the precautionary principle
masks irrational fears of technology. But if the fears are irrational, then good science
disseminated by those who are developing the technology can calm those fears and persuade
the public that the project is sound.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
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Answers to: Policy Paralysis
[____]
[____] The Precautionary Principle allows decisions to be made in the context of uncertainty
and the inability to know. This creates a new way of looking at the world that allows for the
acceptance of doubt and fear, but does not paralyze us with inaction.
Ewald, Director of Research 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)
Precaution starts when the decision (necessary) must be made by reason of and in the
context of a scientific uncertainty. Decisions are therefore made not in a context of certainty,
nor even of available knowledge, but of doubt, suspicion, premonition, foreboding, defiance,
mistrust, fear, and anxiety. There is to some extent a risk beyond risk, of which we do not
have, nor cannot have, the knowledge or the measure. The hypothesis of the risk of
development is found within the limit of this new figure of prudence. We have seen, in fact,
that, once we are aware of the existence of the risk of development, we can no longer plead for
the industry to put in circulation a product offering total quality, since, by hypothesis, the notion affirms
that this is not possible. Precaution finds its condition of possibility in a sort of hiatus and timeshift between the requirements of action and the certainty of knowledge. It enters into a new
modality of the relationship between knowledge and power. The age of precaution is an age
which reformulates the Cartesian demand for the necessity of a methodical doubt. Precaution
results from an ethic of the necessary decision in a context of uncertainty. The appearance of
the precautionary principle is one of the signs of the profound philosophical and sociological
transformations which characterize this end of century.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
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Answers to: Policy Paralysis
[___]
[___] Implementing the precautionary principle just changes the risk calculation for making a
decision. The principle allows for choices that minimize risk, eliminating risk is not
neccesary.
Myers, communications director for the Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle: Answering the Critics”, Multinational Monitor, September 4,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04corp1.html)
"Precaution calls for zero risk, which is impossible to achieve."
Response: Any debate over the possibility of "zero risk" is pointless. Our real goal must be to
impose far less risk and harm on the environment and on human health than we have in the past.
We must harness human ingenuity to reduce the harmful effects of our activities.
The real question is who or what gets the benefit of the doubt. The Precautionary Principle is
based on the assumption that people have the right to know as much as possible about risks
they are taking on, in exchange for what benefits, and to make choices accordingly. With food
and other products, such choices are often played out in the marketplace. Increasingly,
manufacturers are choosing to reduce risk themselves by substituting safer alternatives in response
to consumer uneasiness, the threat of liability and market pressures.
A key to making those choices is transparency -- about what products contain, and about the
testing and monitoring of those ingredients. Another is support, by government and industry, for
the exploration of -- and rigorous research on -- alternatives.
Market and voluntary action is not enough, especially on issues that go beyond individual and
corporate choice. It is the responsibility of communities, governments, and international
bodies to make far-reaching decisions that greatly reduce the risks we now impose on the
earth and all its inhabitants.
26
Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
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Answers to: Regulatory Overload
[___]
[___] Departments face overload now, working against each other and overlapping on
jurisdiction. Only creating a unified national ocean policy under the precautionary principle
can resolve these issues and create enforceable environmental regulations.
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/153/wilder/)
This myth is accompanied by another: that policymakers can do little to safeguard the sea. Actually,
a variety of governmental agencies provide opportunities for action. State fish and game
commissions typically have jurisdiction from shorelines to 3 miles offshore. The Commerce
Department regulates commerce in and through waters from 3 to 12 miles offshore and has
authority over resources from there to the 200-mile line that delineates this country’s exclusive
economic zone. The Interior Department oversees oil drilling; the Navy presides over waters
hosting submarines; and the states, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Coast
Guard regulate pollution. The problem is that these entities do little to protect marine
biodiversity and they rarely work together.
At fault is the decades-old framework that the state and federal powers use to regulate the
sea. It consists of fragmented, isolated policies that operate at confused cross-purposes. The
United States must develop a new integrated framework-a comprehensive strategy-for
protecting marine biodiversity. The framework should embrace all categories of ecosystems,
species, human uses, and threats; link land and sea; and apply the “precautionary principle”
of first seeking to prevent harm to the oceans rather than attempting to repair harm after it has
been done. Once we have defined the framework, we can then enact specific initiatives that
effectively solve problems.
27
Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
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Answers to: Innovation
[___]
[___] The precautionary principle will trigger innovations for cleaner technology.
Myers, communications director for the Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle: Answering the Critics”, Multinational Monitor, September 4,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04corp1.html)
"If precaution applies to everything, it would stop all technology in its tracks."
Response: Precautionary action usually means adopting safer alternatives. A broad
precautionary approach will encourage the development of better technologies. Using this
approach, society will say "yes" to some technologies while it says "no" to others. Making
uncertainty explicit, considering alternatives, and increasing transparency and the
responsibility of proponents and manufacturers to demonstrate safety should lead to cleaner
products and production methods. It can also mean imposing a moratorium while further research is
conducted, calling for monitoring of technologies and products already in use, and so forth.
[___] Research funded by efforts to comply with the precautionary principle will lead to many
new innovations.
Myers, communications director for the Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004
(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle: Answering the Critics”, Multinational Monitor, September 4,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04corp1.html)
"Precaution itself is risky: it will prevent us from adopting technologies that are actually safer."
Response: This is not true. Precaution suggests two approaches to new technology:
Greater vigilance about possible harmful side effects of all innovations. Alternatives to harmful
technologies (such as genetic modification to reduce pesticide use) must be scrutinized as carefully
as the technologies they replace. It does not make sense to replace one set of harms with
another. Brand-new technologies must receive much greater scrutiny than they have in the past.
Redirection of research and ingenuity toward inherently safer, more harmonious, more
sustainable technologies, products, and processes.
28
Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
NAUDL 2013-14
Answers to: The disadvantage is more important than the ocean
[___]
[___] The disadvantage asks you to put off the problems of the ocean for another day and
focus on more immediate issues. However, this is the poor decision making model that
allowed us to bring the oceans to the brink of destruction in the first place. Only employing
the precautionary principle can allow us to prioritize the health of the oceans and preserve it
for the future.
Craig and Hughes, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs, Florida State University
College of Law and Professor at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral
Reef Studies, 2012
(Robin K. and Terry, Marine Protected Areas, Marine Spatial Planning, and the Resilience of Marine
Ecosystems (August 16, 2012). RESILIENCE AND THE LAW, Forthcoming; FSU College of Law,
Public Law Research Paper No. 550. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1917696)
The oceans, therefore, maintain world-spanning, interconnected physical, chemical and
biological processes that seem far too large and complex for mere humans to damage. Indeed,
in terms of both effective governance and scientific research, “marine systems have been
relatively neglected because they are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ to most people, including most
scientists” (Ray & Grassle 1991: 453). Until recently, a “paradigm of inexhaustibility” prevailed, a
mindset that human managers did not need to worry about ocean health because marine
ecosystems would always be resilient enough to absorb and recover from the multiple and
interactive stresses—overfishing, pollution and now climate change—that humans impose on
them (Craig 2005; Ogden 2001; Connor 1999).
Unfortunately, we now know that marine ecosystems often cannot in fact absorb the multitude
of anthropogenic stressors imposed upon them, even before the accelerating impacts of climate
change become more severe and add to existing drivers of change such as overfishing (Agardy 2010;
Laffoley et al. 2008). Many marine ecosystems have lost their resilience to recurrent natural and
man-made disturbances, and have undergone long-term shifts to new, degraded regimes (Hughes
et al. 2005). In coastal regions in particular, fishing has substantially altered marine
ecosystems for centuries (Jackson et al. 2001). For example, many coral reefs have undergone
regime-shift to macro-algae following the over-exploitation of herbivores and the addition of landbased nutrients. A study published in Science in 2008 concluded that no area of the world’s oceans is
completed unaffected by human impacts, and 41 percent of the oceans are strongly affected by
multiple human impacts (Halpern et al. 2008). In the face of additional climate change-induced
stresses, marine governance systems and marine managers need to find mechanisms for
increasing the resilience of ocean ecosystems. This chapter explores one set of those
mechanisms—place-based marine management, especially marine protected areas (MPAs)—and the
various legal regimes that encourage use of these tools in pursuit of increased marine ecosystem
resilience.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
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Answers to: Precautionary Principle prevents development
[___]
[___] Employing the precautionary principle does not sacrifice developing countries- it’s a
false choice driven by faulty cost-benefit analysis.
White, assistant professor of Sociology at James Madison University, 2004
(Damian, "Environmental Sociology and Its Futures", Sociology, April 1, No. 2, Vol. 38)
It is the underlying assumptions, then, of positivism, neoclassical economics and technological
determinism/optimism which ultimately provide the interpretive framework for this study. This is most
striking when cost-benefit analysis is used in concluding chapters as an 'objective' and 'non-political'
means of demonstrating that our environmental concerns are misdirected. Thus we are warned of
the danger of environmentalists convincing us to spend more public money on environmental
policy rather than on 'hospitals, child care etc.' and later Third World development. Once
again, we are drawn back to the question of 'facts' and how facts are framed. Are our options
really so fixed as to merely amount to a choicebetween clean air or kindergartens? Is the low
priority presently given to development aid by OECD nations plausibly explained by their
excessive and rampant spending on the environment? In this neatly constructed (and of
course nonpolitical) series of choices that Lomborg offers, no mention is made of OECD or US
military spending, corporate subsidies, tax breaks for the wealthy and so on. Rather odd
omissions for a self-declared 'old left wing Greenpeace member' (p. xix).
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
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Answers to Genetically Modified Crops prevent starvation
[___]
[___] Genetically modified plants are worse for crop productivity and provides diminishing
returns --- yields have been unproven in practice
Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent, 2008
(Geoffrey, “Exposed: the great GM crops myth”, The Independent, 4-20http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth812179.html?service=Print)
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study
shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed
to solve the growing world food crisis. The study – carried out over the past three years at the
University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent
less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology
that it increases yields. Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said
he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had
changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under
optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a
yield as I used to?'" He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety
in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77
bushels from the non-GM one. The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller,
Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the
modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition
it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it. The
new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another
Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent
less than the best non-GM soya available. The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at
work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are
being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture,
which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields. But the fact that GM
crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is
also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new
Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.
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Answers to: Food Security Impact
[___]
[___] Starvation is caused by poor distribution of food, not lack of production.
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM , HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE, 2006
(10 Reasons to Rethink 'Overpopulation',
popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_40.pdf)
Global food production has consistently kept pace with population growth, and today world
agriculture produces 17% more calories per person than it did 30 years ago . There is enough
food for every man, woman and child to have more than the recommended daily calorie intake.
People go hungry because they do not have the land on which to grow food or the money with
which to buy it. In Brazil, one percent of the land owners control almost half of the country's arable
land, and more land is owned by multinational corporations than all the peasants combined. Globally,
more than 1.2 billion people earn less than $1 per day, making it difficult to afford enough food to feed
a family. Many governments have failed to make food security a priority. In 2002, when at least
320 million people in India were suffering from hunger, the government tripled its rice and wheat
exports. The U.S. is the largest food producer in the world, yet more than one in ten American
households are either experiencing hunger or are at the risk of it.
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Precautionary Principle Affirmative
Answers to: Disadvantages
NAUDL 2013-14
Answers to: Poverty Impact
[___]
[___] Poverty is created by corrupt economic and political systems not the number of people
who need to be fed.
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM , HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE, 2006
(10 Reasons to Rethink 'Overpopulation',
popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_40.pdf)
A narrow focus on human numbers obscures the way different economic and political
systems operate to perpetuate poverty and inequality . It places the blame on the people with
the least amount of resources and power rather than on corrupt governments and economic
and political elites. It ignores the legacy of colonialism and the continuing unequal
relationship between rich and poor countries , including unfavorable terms of trade and the debt
burden. It says nothing about the concentration of much wealth in a few hands. In the late 1990s, the
225 people who comprise the 'ultra-rich' had a combined wealth of over US $1 trillion, equivalent to
the annual income of the poorest 47% of the world's people.
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