Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet
NOPP Affirmative and Negative
Topic – Resolved: The United States federal government
should substantially increase its non-military exploration
and/or development of the Earth’s oceans.
More at atlantadebate.org
2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
2/44
Table of Contents
2014 Topic -- Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its
non-military exploration and/or development of the Earth’s oceans.
Debating the NOPP Affirmative ................................................................................................................3
***Sample NOPP 1AC*** ........................................................................................................................4
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative .............................................................................................................5
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative .............................................................................................................6
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative .............................................................................................................7
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative .............................................................................................................8
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative .............................................................................................................9
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative ...........................................................................................................10
Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative ........................................................................................................... 11
Sample 1NC – Case Answer ....................................................................................................................12
***NOPP Affirmative*** ........................................................................................................................13
Affirmative Plan Text ...............................................................................................................................14
Affirmative Article: “The Greatest Unexplored Frontier” .......................................................................15
Affirmative Article: “Oceans and Human Health” ..................................................................................17
Affirmative Article: “The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance” .......................................................................19
Affirmative Article: “Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future” ................................................................21
Affirmative Article: “Scientists Release First Plan for National Ocean Exploration Program” ..............23
Affirmative Article: “Testimony of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative to the U.S. House of
Representatives”.......................................................................................................................................25
Affirmative Article: “STEM Education: Bolstering Future American Competitiveness” .......................26
Affirmative Article: “Recommendations for an Updated National Ocean Policy” .................................28
***NOPP Negative*** ............................................................................................................................29
Negative Article: “Falling Behind?” ........................................................................................................30
Negative Article: “STEMing the Teacher Shortage Tide” .......................................................................32
Negative Article: “Tracing Germs Through The Aisles” .........................................................................33
Negative Article: “The Antibiotic Arms Race Has a Capitalism Problem” .............................................35
Negative Article: “Obama Pushes For Needed Boost In Ocean Funding” ..............................................37
***NOPP Environment DA Updates*** .................................................................................................39
Negative Article: “Environmental Regulation of Bioprospecting and Marine Scientific Research” ......40
Affirmative Article: “Why We Know More About the Dark Side of the Moon than the Depths of the
Ocean” ......................................................................................................................................................41
***Glossary*** .......................................................................................................................................43
Glossary ...................................................................................................................................................44
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Debating the NOPP Affirmative
The National Oceanographic Partnership Program, or NOPP, is a federal government program that
coordinates ocean-related federal agencies to engage in oceanic research and exploration. Currently,
NOPP is underfunded, and very little ocean exploration and research is taking place. The affirmative
attempts to increase exploration by increasing funding for NOPP.
There are two possible advantages to the affirmative: antibiotic resistance and STEM education. The
first advantage, which is part of the sample 1AC, argues that current antibiotics are losing effectiveness
as a result of bacterial genetic mutations. Antibiotic resistance threatens to collapse modern medicine,
since many modern medical procedures cause infections and rely on antibiotics to contain these
infections. Routine surgeries, for instance, may become dangerous to perform in a world of antibiotic
resistance. The affirmative argues that ocean research can lead to the development of new, oceanderived antibiotics that can defeat antibiotic resistance.
The second advantage, which is included in the articles but not the sample 1AC, is STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and math) education. The affirmative argues that student interest in these
fields is currently relatively low, and won't result in enough future STEM graduates to fill the jobs that
will be available. These jobs, in turn, are crucial to the economy. The affirmative argues that a massive
ocean exploration project would increase student interest in STEM by giving students a reason to get
involved in scientific and technical fields.
The negative has a number of resources to answer the NOPP affirmative. First, the NASA
disadvantage, environment disadvantage, and economy disadvantage all apply to this affirmative. The
NASA disadvantage argues that the plan spends money on ocean exploration, which trades off with
NASA funding; the environment disadvantage argues that attempts to use the ocean for medical
resources (“bioprospecting”) will harm the ocean environment; and the economy disadvantage argues
that the affirmative hurts the economy by spending money. The negative also has access to several
articles that dispute various aspects of the affirmative's advantages and solvency.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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***Sample NOPP 1AC***
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
Contention 1 is Inherency Only 5% of the ocean has been explored, but funding for ocean exploration is basically nonexistent in the status quo
Miller, 14 (Robert Miller, reporter for the Connecticut Post, interviewing ocean explorer and filmaker Fabian Cousteau. Published October 6, 2014, in
the Connecticut Post. Available at http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Robert-Miller-The-greatest-unexplored-frontier-5803212.php)
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 307 crashed into the Indian Ocean this spring -- never to be heard from since -- TV commentators full of feigned incredulity
asked ocean explorer Fabian Cousteau questions like "How could we not know about this area of the world?''
The answer, Cousteau said, is simple, although unsatisfying as a sound bite. We don't know.
"It happened in an area we know nothing about,'' Cousteau said,
speaking at the Ridgefield Library last week. "We've only
explored 5 percent of our oceans. We've explored virtually nothing.''
Cousteau -- the grandson of the water-parting oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and the keeper of the family flame -- spoke at the library during the annual
meeting of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.
At the meeting, he pointed out that our wet, brook-and-stream-laced state is filled with the capillaries of water that empty into Long Island Sound and the
It's a wet planet and everything we have and are is tied to that water.
"Whatever happens to the oceans happens to us,'' Cousteau said. "It is our life-support system.''
It's one we continue to be profoundly drawn to. And yet, humans don't really want to pay for studying it
conscientiously.
Cousteau is, he said, a total supporter of exploring space. But he said federal funding for exploring the frontiers on our planet
are small, and getting smaller.
"We spend 100 times more on space exploration that we do on ocean exploration,'' he said.
In some ways, he said, that ignorance allows us not to know how terribly we treat the world's seas.
Humans add a million pounds of plastic to the ocean every hour of every day, Cousteau said. With
pollution, including nutrient-heavy fertilizers, ecosystems are dying. The dead zone of oxygen-poor water in Long Island
Atlantic Ocean.
Sound is dwarfed by those in other places.
"The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River grows a mile in circumference every year,'' Cousteau said.
Over-fishing adds to those woes.
"We've lost 50 percent of the world's fish stocks in total,'' he said.
Last spring Cousteau and a team of research scientists set up shop in Aquarius, the underwater research
laboratory off the Florida Keys now owned by Florida International University. In an expedition named Mission 31, Cousteau lived in the
lab for 31 days, besting his grandfather's longest underwater stay by a day.
"It was magical,'' Cousteau said of his time in the school-bus sized lab. "It was like being in a log cabin on the edge of the frontier.''
Because the laboratory allowed team members to spend long periods of time each day studying the life of the Florida Keys reefs -- rather that traveling
back and forth to the surface -- they accomplished a lot.
"In 31 days, we did a year's worth of research,'' Cousteau said.
The event was also a huge success in terms of spreading the message of life's wonders.
Cousteau said news of Mission 31 traveled around the world and reached 20 billion people by traditional sources of media alone. There were also liveaction video blogs, Tweets and Skype conferences to classrooms extending the mission's reach even further.
But Aquarius is now the only laboratory of its kind in the world. Other sites in the Mediterranean and
other seas -- including Jacques Cousteau's Conshelf II undersea station in the Red Sea -- have been
abandoned, for lack of funding.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
Contention 2 is our first advantage – antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is a growing crisis and threatens to collapse modern medicine – we are
rapidly running out of effective antibiotics and there are no new drugs to take their place
New York Times, 14 (From the New York Times editorial board. Published May 10, 2014. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-antibiotic-resistance.html)
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world
— the first such survey it has ever conducted — and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last
month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and
parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens
the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common
infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real
possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no
longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is
increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged.
All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit
their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic
resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major
resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used
routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed.
Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to
work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia,
bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhea has been
confirmed in 10 countries,
including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada,
France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is
widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global
campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the
United States, the Food and Drug Administration has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop
indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency,
shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth
unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those
that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for
stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the
financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments,
antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to
existing drugs.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
23,000 people a year already die as a result of anti-biotic resistant infection, and the problem is
accelerating. Growing resistance will render all current drugs obsolete and make it impossible to
perform most medical procedures
McKenna, 13 (Maryn, Senior Fellow of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and a research affiliate at MIT.
Published November 20, 2013. Available at https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77)
Twenty-three thousand people die each year as a result of anti-biotic resistant infections. With antibiotics
losing usefulness so quickly — and thus not making back the estimated $1 billion per drug it costs to create them — the pharmaceutical industry lost
enthusiasm for making more.
In 2004, there were only five new antibiotics in development, compared to more than 500
chronic-disease drugs for which resistance is not an issue — and which, unlike antibiotics, are taken for years, not days. Since then, resistant bugs
have grown more numerous and by sharing DNA with each other, have become even tougher to treat
with the few drugs that remain. In 2009, and again this year, researchers in Europe and the United States sounded the alarm over an
ominous form of resistance known as CRE, for which only one antibiotic still works.
Health authorities have struggled to convince the public that this is a crisis. In September, Dr. Thomas
Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a blunt warning: “If
we’re not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era. For some patients and some microbes, we
are already there.” The chief medical officer of the United Kingdom, Dame Sally Davies — who calls
antibiotic resistance as serious a threat as terrorism — recently published a book in which she imagines what might come next.
She sketches a world where infection is so dangerous that anyone with even minor symptoms would be
locked in confinement until they recover or die. It is a dark vision, meant to disturb. But it may actually
underplay what the loss of antibiotics would mean.
In 2009, three New York physicians cared for a sixty-seven-year-old man who had major surgery and then picked up a hospital
infection that was “pan-resistant” — that is, responsive to no antibiotics at all. He died fourteen days later. When
his doctors related his case in a medical journal months afterward, they still sounded stunned. “It is a rarity for a physician in the developed world to
have a patient die of an overwhelming infection for which there are no therapeutic options,” they said, calling the man’s death “the first
instance in our clinical experience in which we had no effective treatment to offer.”
They are not the only doctors to endure that lack of options. Dr. Brad Spellberg of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine became so enraged by the
ineffectiveness of antibiotics that he wrote a book about it.
As grim as they are, in-hospital deaths from resistant infections are easy to rationalize: perhaps these people were just old, already ill, different somehow
from the rest of us. But deaths like this are changing medicine. To protect their own facilities, hospitals already flag incoming patients who might carry
untreatable bacteria. Most of those patients come from nursing homes and “long-term acute care” (an intensive-care alternative where someone who needs
a ventilator for weeks or months might stay). So many patients in those institutions carry highly resistant bacteria that hospital workers isolate them when
they arrive, and fret about the danger they pose to others. As infections become yet more dangerous, the healthcare industry will be even less willing to
take such risks.
Those calculations of risk extend far beyond admitting possibly contaminated patients from a nursing home. Without
the protection offered
by antibiotics, entire categories of medical practice would be rethought.
Many treatments require suppressing the immune system, to help destroy cancer or to keep a
transplanted organ viable. That suppression makes people unusually vulnerable to infection. Antibiotics
reduce the threat; without them, chemotherapy or radiation treatment would be as dangerous as the cancers
they seek to cure. Dr. Michael Bell, who leads an infection-prevention division at the CDC, told me: “We deal with that risk now by loading
people up with broad-spectrum antibiotics, sometimes for weeks at a stretch. But if you can’t do that, the decision to treat somebody takes on a different
ethical tone.
Similarly with transplantation. And severe burns are hugely susceptible to infection. Burn
units would have a very, very difficult task keeping people alive.”
[McKenna continues....]
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
[McKenna continues....]
Doctors routinely perform procedures that carry an extraordinary infection risk unless antibiotics are
used. Chief among them: any treatment that requires the construction of portals into the bloodstream and gives bacteria a direct route to the heart or
brain. That rules out intensive-care medicine, with its ventilators, catheters, and ports—but also something as prosaic as kidney dialysis, which
mechanically filters the blood.
Next to go: surgery, especially on sites that harbor large populations of bacteria such as the intestines and the urinary tract. Those bacteria are
benign in their regular homes in the body, but introduce them into the blood, as surgery can, and infections are practically guaranteed. And then
implantable devices, because bacteria can form sticky films of infection on the devices’ surfaces that can
be broken down only by antibiotics
Dr. Donald Fry, a member of the American College of Surgeons who finished medical school in 1972, says: “In my professional life, it has been
breathtaking to watch what can be done with synthetic prosthetic materials: joints, vessels, heart valves. But in these operations, infection is a catastrophe.”
British health economists with similar concerns recently calculated the costs of antibiotic resistance. To examine how it would affect surgery, they picked
hip replacements, a common procedure in once-athletic Baby Boomers. They estimated that
without antibiotics, one out of every six
recipients of new hip joints would die.
Antibiotics are administered prophylactically before operations as major as open-heart surgery and as routine as Caesarean sections and prostate biopsies.
Without the drugs, the risks posed by those operations, and the likelihood that physicians would perform them, will change.
“In our current malpractice environment, is a doctor going to want to do a bone marrow transplant,
knowing there’s a very high rate of infection that you won’t be able to treat?” asks Dr. Louis Rice, chair of the
department of medicine at Brown University’s medical school. “Plus, right now healthcare is a reasonably free-market, fee-for-service system; people are
interested in doing procedures because they make money. But five or ten years from now, we’ll probably be in an environment where we get a flat sum of
money to take care of patients. And we may decide that some of these procedures aren’t worth the risk.”
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Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
Oceans exploration is our best hope for new antibiotics – marine life holds enormous potential
The National Academies, 07 (A group of scientific non-profits that closely collaborate with the federal government and other institutions.
Published in 2007. Available at http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/osb/miscellaneous/Oceans-Human-Health.pdf)
New antibiotics, in addition to new drugs for fighting cancer, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases (which often cannot be
treated successfully today), are greatly needed. With drug resistance nibbling away at the once-full toolbox of
antibiotics, the limited effectiveness of currently available drugs has dire consequences for public
health.
Historically, many medicines have come from nature —mostly from land-based natural organisms.
Because scientists have nearly exhausted the supply of terrestrial plants, animals, and microorganisms
that have interesting medical properties, new sources of drugs are needed.
Occupying more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is a virtually unexplored treasure
chest of new and unidentified species—one of the last frontiers for sources of new natural products.
These natural products are of special interest because of the dazzling diversity and uniqueness of the
creatures that make the sea their home.
One reason marine organisms are so interesting to scientists is because in adapting to the various ocean environments, they
have evolved fascinating repertoires of unique chemicals to help them survive. For example, anchored to the
seafloor, a sponge that protects itself from an animal trying to take over its space by killing the invader has been compared with the human immune system
trying to kill foreign cancer cells. That same sponge, bathed in seawater containing millions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, some of which could be
pathogens, has developed antibiotics to keep those pathogens under control. Those same antibiotics could be used to treat infections in humans.
Sponges, in fact, are among the most prolific sources of diverse chemical compounds. An estimated 30
percent of all potential marine-derived medications currently in the pipeline—and about 75 percent of
recently patented marine-derived anticancer compounds—come from marine sponges.
Marine-based microorganisms are another particularly rich source of new medicines. More than 120
drugs available today derive from land-based microbes. Scientists see marine-based microbes as the most promising source of
novel medicines from the sea. In all, more than 20,000 biochemical compounds have been isolated from sea creatures since the 1980s.
Because drug discovery in the marine frontier is a relatively young field, only a few marine-derived
drugs are in use today. Many others are in the pipeline. One example is Prialt, a drug developed from the venom of a fish-killing cone snail.
The cone snails produce neurotoxins to paralyze and kill prey; those neurotoxins are being developed as neuromuscular blocks for individuals with chronic
pain, stroke, or epilepsy. Other marine- derived drugs are being tested against herpes, asthma, and breast cancer.
the exploration of unique
habitats, such as deep-sea environments, and the isolation and culture of marine microorganisms offer
two underexplored opportunities for discovery of novel chemicals with therapeutic potential. The successes
The National Research Council report Marine Biotechnology in the Twenty-First Century (2002) concludes
to date, which are based upon a very limited investigation of both deep-sea organisms and marine microorganisms, suggest a high potential for continued
discovery of new drugs.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
Therefore, we propose the following plan: The United States federal government should
substantially increase its ocean exploration through the National Oceanographic Partnership
Program.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1AC – NOPP Affirmative
The NOPP is an effective mechanism for exploring the oceans – more funding is necessary to
reach its full potential
Pomponi, 04 (Testimony of Dr. Shirley A. Pomponi, Acting Managing Director, Harbor, Branch Oceanographic Institution, before the Committee
on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives. Presented May 5, 2004. Available at
http://www.floridaoceanalliance.org/documents/04_May_Pomponi_testimony.pdf)
knowledge of the oceans, their resources and their relationship to human activities is
vital to our existence. It is a fundamental challenge for the ocean science community to convey that reality both to decision makers and to the
American public. Our ability to address problems and issues in ocean and coastal research will rely in large
part on our success.
One of the most significant conclusions of the new report is that the patchwork of agencies and processes that have evolved
over the past three decades to oversee the nation's ocean interests is simply not up to the challenge of
fixing the problems identified. To remedy the situation, the report recommends substantial restructuring
at the federal level, including mechanisms for making ocean policy decisions through a high-level
interagency governance structure.
Focusing specifically on ocean and coastal science, more than a dozen federal agencies currently fund research or
education activities. Consequently, interagency coordination is essential to avoid duplication and strengthen the
scientific basis for ocean management. The Commission proposes to build on the model created under the National
Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) in 1997. NOPP promotes national goals of assuring national security, advancing
It is a powerful reality that
economic development, protecting quality of life, and strengthening science education and communication through improved knowledge of the ocean. It
creates a higher level of coordinated effort and synergy across the broad oceanographic community by establishing partners hips on two fronts. First,
NOPP relies on collaboration among fifteen federal agencies, calling on the top official of each
participating agency to serve on an interagency council that provides program oversight. Second,
NOPP increases the visibility for ocean issues on the national agenda by facilitating projects among
federal agencies , academia, industry, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations.
While investment in the program to date has been relatively modest, it has proven to be an effective
mechanism for building and coordinating federal ocean science partnerships. Consequently, the oceanographic
community generally supports the Commission’s recommendations to use NOPP as a model for coordinating expanded interagency ocean science
investments.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Sample 1NC – Case Answer
Ocean research is well-funded – the most recent budget allocates enough money
Woglom, 14 (Emily Woglom, Vice President, Conservation Policy and Programs, for Ocean Conservancy. Published March 4 2014. Available at
http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2014/03/04/obama-pushes-for-needed-boost-in-ocean-funding/)
The White House released President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2015 today. The proposal
appears to be good news for the ocean and a great first step toward strong funding for ocean-health
programs next year.
Of course, the budget documents that the administration released today are only part of the picture. They detail the big-picture, top-level budget numbers
with only a small number of details, and individual program budgets won’t be released until later.
So what can we tell from what has been released so far? Last year, we focused on some key questions to help decide how the ocean is faring in the federal
budget process. In particular, we asked whether the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) top-line budget number is sufficient, and
whether there was appropriate balance between NOAA’s “wet” ocean and “dry” non-ocean missions.
When it comes to NOAA’s overall budget numbers, things look pretty good. Regarding the balance between wet and
dry missions, the single biggest increase goes to the satellite line office, but the National Ocean Service and
the National Marine Fisheries Service both see healthy increases as well. We will not know details until additional
numbers are released, but we do not see any red flags to suggest that things are way out of balance.
Here are some key takeaways based on what we know today:
White House demonstrated support for increased funding at NOAA.
NOAA programs lead cutting-edge research on ocean health and support smart ocean management.
Overall NOAA Funding Looks Strong: The
NOAA is also the central agency tasked with ending overfishing. While NOAA’s FY 2014 funding level is an improvement over FY 2013’s abysmal
sequestration level, the proposal from the White House shows how far we still have to go: It
calls for a $174 million increase over FY
2014, recommending $5.5 billion in funding for NOAA in FY 2015.
Ocean Acidification Research Funding Sees a Big Increase: Notably, the president’s budget would
provide a much-needed $15 million for ocean acidification research, an increase of $9 million. As the ocean
absorbs the carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide is changing the chemistry of the ocean and adversely
impacting marine life. This is already having serious economic effects on shellfish growers and others who make their living from the sea. This money
would help us better understand the problem and devise solutions that protect coastal economies.
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***NOPP Affirmative***
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Affirmative Plan Text
Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its ocean exploration
through the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.
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Affirmative Article: “The Greatest Unexplored Frontier”
By Robert Miller, reporter for the Connecticut Post, interviewing ocean explorer and filmaker Fabian Cousteau.
Published October 6, 2014, in the Connecticut Post. Available at http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/RobertMiller-The-greatest-unexplored-frontier-5803212.php
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 307 crashed into the Indian Ocean this spring -- never to be heard from
since -- TV commentators full of feigned incredulity asked ocean explorer Fabian Cousteau questions
like "How could we not know about this area of the world?''
The answer, Cousteau said, is simple, although unsatisfying as a sound bite. We don't know.
"It happened in an area we know nothing about,'' Cousteau said, speaking at the Ridgefield Library last
week. "We've only explored 5 percent of our oceans. We've explored virtually nothing.''
Cousteau -- the grandson of the water-parting oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and the keeper of the
family flame -- spoke at the library during the annual meeting of the Connecticut Fund for the
Environment.
At the meeting, he pointed out that our wet, brook-and-stream-laced state is filled with the capillaries of
water that empty into Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. It's a wet planet and everything we
have and are is tied to that water.
"Whatever happens to the oceans happens to us,'' Cousteau said. "It is our life-support system.''
It's one we continue to be profoundly drawn to. And yet, humans don't really want to pay for studying it
conscientiously.
Cousteau is, he said, a total supporter of exploring space. But he said federal funding for exploring the
frontiers on our planet are small, and getting smaller.
"We spend 100 times more on space exploration that we do on ocean exploration,'' he said.
In some ways, he said, that ignorance allows us not to know how terribly we treat the world's seas.
Humans add a million pounds of plastic to the ocean every hour of every day, Cousteau said. With
pollution, including nutrient-heavy fertilizers, ecosystems are dying. The dead zone of oxygen-poor
water in Long Island Sound is dwarfed by those in other places.
"The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River grows a mile in
circumference every year,'' Cousteau said.
Over-fishing adds to those woes.
"We've lost 50 percent of the world's fish stocks in total,'' he said.
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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League
Varsity Evidence Packet (NOPP Affirmative and Negative)
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Last spring Cousteau and a team of research scientists set up shop in Aquarius, the underwater research
laboratory off the Florida Keys now owned by Florida International University. In an expedition named
Mission 31, Cousteau lived in the lab for 31 days, besting his grandfather's longest underwater stay by
a day.
"It was magical,'' Cousteau said of his time in the school-bus sized lab. "It was like being in a log cabin
on the edge of the frontier.''
Because the laboratory allowed team members to spend long periods of time each day studying the life
of the Florida Keys reefs -- rather that traveling back and forth to the surface -- they accomplished a lot.
"In 31 days, we did a year's worth of research,'' Cousteau said.
The event was also a huge success in terms of spreading the message of life's wonders.
Cousteau said news of Mission 31 traveled around the world and reached 20 billion people by
traditional sources of media alone. There were also live-action video blogs, Tweets and Skype
conferences to classrooms extending the mission's reach even further.
But Aquarius is now the only laboratory of its kind in the world. Other sites in the Mediterranean and
other seas -- including Jacques Cousteau's Conshelf II undersea station in the Red Sea -- have been
abandoned, for lack of funding.
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Affirmative Article: “Oceans and Human Health”
From the National Academies, a group of scientific non-profits that closely collaborate with the federal
government and other institutions. Published in 2007. Available at http://dels.nas.edu/resources/staticassets/osb/miscellaneous/Oceans-Human-Health.pdf
New antibiotics, in addition to new drugs for fighting cancer, inflammatory diseases, and
neurodegenerative diseases (which often cannot be treated successfully today), are greatly needed. With
drug resistance nibbling away at the once-full toolbox of antibiotics, the limited effectiveness of
currently available drugs has dire consequences for public health.
Historically, many medicines have come from nature —mostly from land-based natural organisms.
Because scientists have nearly exhausted the supply of terrestrial plants, animals, and microorganisms
that have interesting medical properties, new sources of drugs are needed.
Occupying more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is a virtually unexplored treasure
chest of new and unidentified species—one of the last frontiers for sources of new natural products.
These natural products are of special interest because of the dazzling diversity and uniqueness of the
creatures that make the sea their home.
One reason marine organisms are so interesting to scientists is because in adapting to the various ocean
environments, they have evolved fascinating repertoires of unique chemicals to help them survive. For
example, anchored to the seafloor, a sponge that protects itself from an animal trying to take over its
space by killing the invader has been compared with the human immune system trying to kill foreign
cancer cells. That same sponge, bathed in seawater containing millions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi,
some of which could be pathogens, has developed antibiotics to keep those pathogens under control.
Those same antibiotics could be used to treat infections in humans.
Sponges, in fact, are among the most prolific sources of diverse chemical compounds. An estimated 30
percent of all potential marine-derived medications currently in the pipeline—and about 75 percent of
recently patented marine-derived anticancer compounds—come from marine sponges.
Marine-based microorganisms are another particularly rich source of new medicines. More than 120
drugs available today derive from land-based microbes. Scientists see marine-based microbes as the
most promising source of novel medicines from the sea. In all, more than 20,000 biochemical
compounds have been isolated from sea creatures since the 1980s.
Because drug discovery in the marine frontier is a relatively young field, only a few marine-derived
drugs are in use today. Many others are in the pipeline. One example is Prialt, a drug developed from
the venom of a fish-killing cone snail. The cone snails produce neurotoxins to paralyze and kill prey;
those neurotoxins are being developed as neuromuscular blocks for individuals with chronic pain,
stroke, or epilepsy. Other marine- derived drugs are being tested against herpes, asthma, and breast
cancer.
The National Research Council report Marine Biotechnology in the Twenty-First Century (2002)
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concludes the exploration of unique habitats, such as deep-sea environments, and the isolation and
culture of marine microorganisms offer two underexplored opportunities for discovery of novel
chemicals with therapeutic potential. The successes to date, which are based upon a very limited
investigation of both deep-sea organisms and marine microorganisms, suggest a high potential for
continued discovery of new drugs.
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Affirmative Article: “The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance”
From the New York Times editorial board. Published May 10, 2014. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-antibiotic-resistance.html
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world
— the first such survey it has ever conducted — and come up with disturbing findings. In a report
issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus
of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world.
“A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said.
“A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an
apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no
longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is
increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged.
All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the
scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so).
Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic
resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used
routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed.
Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused
by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some
countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia,
bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of
a last-resort treatment for gonorrhea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced
health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of
antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in
some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering
report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug
resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which
accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration
has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop
indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug
companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order
requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote
growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those
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that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in
Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has
been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics
are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments,
antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly
and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs.
Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now,
rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threatens to undermine their effectiveness.
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Affirmative Article: “Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future”
By Maryn McKenna, Senior Fellow of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University
and a research affiliate at MIT. Published November 20, 2013. Available at
https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77
Twenty-three thousand people die each year as a result of anti-biotic resistant infections. With
antibiotics losing usefulness so quickly — and thus not making back the estimated $1 billion per drug it
costs to create them — the pharmaceutical industry lost enthusiasm for making more. In 2004, there
were only five new antibiotics in development, compared to more than 500 chronic-disease drugs for
which resistance is not an issue — and which, unlike antibiotics, are taken for years, not days. Since
then, resistant bugs have grown more numerous and by sharing DNA with each other, have become
even tougher to treat with the few drugs that remain. In 2009, and again this year, researchers in Europe
and the United States sounded the alarm over an ominous form of resistance known as CRE, for which
only one antibiotic still works.
Health authorities have struggled to convince the public that this is a crisis. In September, Dr. Thomas
Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a blunt warning: “If
we’re not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era. For some patients and some microbes, we
are already there.” The chief medical officer of the United Kingdom, Dame Sally Davies — who calls
antibiotic resistance as serious a threat as terrorism — recently published a book in which she imagines
what might come next. She sketches a world where infection is so dangerous that anyone with even
minor symptoms would be locked in confinement until they recover or die. It is a dark vision, meant to
disturb. But it may actually underplay what the loss of antibiotics would mean.
In 2009, three New York physicians cared for a sixty-seven-year-old man who had major surgery and
then picked up a hospital infection that was “pan-resistant” — that is, responsive to no antibiotics at all.
He died fourteen days later. When his doctors related his case in a medical journal months afterward,
they still sounded stunned. “It is a rarity for a physician in the developed world to have a patient die of
an overwhelming infection for which there are no therapeutic options,” they said, calling the man’s
death “the first instance in our clinical experience in which we had no effective treatment to offer.”
They are not the only doctors to endure that lack of options. Dr. Brad Spellberg of UCLA’s David
Geffen School of Medicine became so enraged by the ineffectiveness of antibiotics that he wrote a
book about it.
As grim as they are, in-hospital deaths from resistant infections are easy to rationalize: perhaps these
people were just old, already ill, different somehow from the rest of us. But deaths like this are
changing medicine. To protect their own facilities, hospitals already flag incoming patients who might
carry untreatable bacteria. Most of those patients come from nursing homes and “long-term acute care”
(an intensive-care alternative where someone who needs a ventilator for weeks or months might stay).
So many patients in those institutions carry highly resistant bacteria that hospital workers isolate them
when they arrive, and fret about the danger they pose to others. As infections become yet more
dangerous, the healthcare industry will be even less willing to take such risks.
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Those calculations of risk extend far beyond admitting possibly contaminated patients from a nursing
home. Without the protection offered by antibiotics, entire categories of medical practice would be
rethought.
Many treatments require suppressing the immune system, to help destroy cancer or to keep a
transplanted organ viable. That suppression makes people unusually vulnerable to infection. Antibiotics
reduce the threat; without them, chemotherapy or radiation treatment would be as dangerous as the
cancers they seek to cure. Dr. Michael Bell, who leads an infection-prevention division at the CDC,
told me: “We deal with that risk now by loading people up with broad-spectrum antibiotics, sometimes
for weeks at a stretch. But if you can’t do that, the decision to treat somebody takes on a different
ethical tone. Similarly with transplantation. And severe burns are hugely susceptible to infection. Burn
units would have a very, very difficult task keeping people alive.”
Doctors routinely perform procedures that carry an extraordinary infection risk unless antibiotics are
used. Chief among them: any treatment that requires the construction of portals into the bloodstream
and gives bacteria a direct route to the heart or brain. That rules out intensive-care medicine, with its
ventilators, catheters, and ports—but also something as prosaic as kidney dialysis, which mechanically
filters the blood.
Next to go: surgery, especially on sites that harbor large populations of bacteria such as the intestines
and the urinary tract. Those bacteria are benign in their regular homes in the body, but introduce them
into the blood, as surgery can, and infections are practically guaranteed. And then implantable devices,
because bacteria can form sticky films of infection on the devices’ surfaces that can be broken down
only by antibiotics
Dr. Donald Fry, a member of the American College of Surgeons who finished medical school in 1972,
says: “In my professional life, it has been breathtaking to watch what can be done with synthetic
prosthetic materials: joints, vessels, heart valves. But in these operations, infection is a catastrophe.”
British health economists with similar concerns recently calculated the costs of antibiotic resistance. To
examine how it would affect surgery, they picked hip replacements, a common procedure in onceathletic Baby Boomers. They estimated that without antibiotics, one out of every six recipients of new
hip joints would die.
Antibiotics are administered prophylactically before operations as major as open-heart surgery and as
routine as Caesarean sections and prostate biopsies. Without the drugs, the risks posed by those
operations, and the likelihood that physicians would perform them, will change.
“In our current malpractice environment, is a doctor going to want to do a bone marrow transplant,
knowing there’s a very high rate of infection that you won’t be able to treat?” asks Dr. Louis Rice, chair
of the department of medicine at Brown University’s medical school. “Plus, right now healthcare is a
reasonably free-market, fee-for-service system; people are interested in doing procedures because they
make money. But five or ten years from now, we’ll probably be in an environment where we get a flat
sum of money to take care of patients. And we may decide that some of these procedures aren’t worth
the risk.”
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Affirmative Article: “Scientists Release First Plan for National Ocean
Exploration Program”
By Allie Bidwell, education reporter for U.S. News & World Report. Published September 25, 2013. Available at
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/25/scientists-release-first-plan-for-national-ocean-explorationprogram
More than three-quarters of what lies beneath the surface of the ocean is unknown, even to trained
scientists and researchers. Taking steps toward discovering what resources and information the seas
hold, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Aquarium of the Pacific released
on Wednesday a report that details plans to create the nation's first ocean exploration program by the
year 2020.
The report stems from a national convening of more than 100 federal agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, nonprofit organizations and private companies to discuss what components should make
up a national ocean exploration program and what will be needed to create it.
"This is the first time the explorers themselves came together and said, 'this is the kind of program we
want and this is what it's going to take,'" says Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the Aquarium of the
Pacific, located in Long Beach, Calif. "That's very important, particularly when you put it in the
context that the world ocean is the largest single component of Earth's living infrastructure ... and less
than 10 percent of it has ever been explored."
In order to create a comprehensive exploration program, Schubel says it will become increasingly
important that federal and state agencies form partnerships with other organizations, as it is unlikely
that government funding for ocean exploration will increase in the next few years.
Additionally, Schubel says there was a consensus among those explorers and stakeholders who
gathered in July that participating organizations need to take advantage of technologies that are
available and place a greater emphasis on public engagement and citizen exploration – utilizing the
data that naturalists and nonscientists collect on their own.
"In coastal areas at least, given some of these new low-cost robots that are available, they could
actually produce data that would help us understand the nation's coastal environment," Schubel says.
Expanding the nation's ocean exploration program could lead to more jobs, he adds, and could also
serve as an opportunity to engage children and adults in careers in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics, or STEM.
"I think what we need to do as a nation is make STEM fields be seen by young people as exciting
career trajectories," Schubel says. "We need to reestablish the excitement of science and engineering,
and I think ocean exploration gives us a way to do that."
Schubel says science centers, museums and aquariums can serve as training grounds to give children
and adults the opportunity to learn more about the ocean and what opportunities exist in STEM fields.
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"One thing that we can contribute more than anything else is to let kids and families come to our
institutions and play, explore, make mistakes, and ask silly questions without being burdened down by
the kinds of standards that our formal K-12 and K-14 schools have to live up to," Schubel says.
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Affirmative Article: “Testimony of the Joint Ocean Commission
Initiative to the U.S. House of Representatives”
From the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, an advocacy organization for ocean policy reform, testifying to the
U.S. House of Representatives. Presented March 31, 2014. Available at
http://www.jointoceancommission.org/resource-center/4-Testimony/2014-0331_Testimony_to_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives_Committee_on_Appropriations,_Subcommittee_on_Com
merce,_Justice,_Science,_and_Related_Agencies.pdf
The Joint Initiative is deeply alarmed by the major restructuring in the Administration's proposal that
would consolidate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, including the
elimination of funding for ocean education programs in NOAA. We appreciate your thoughtful
response to the STEM consolidation proposal noting in your FY 2014 Omnibus Appropriations report
that the proposal “ failed to sufficiently recognize or support a number of proven, successful
programs.” We believe NOAA education programs — specifically the NOAA Competitive Education
Grants Program , Ocean Exploration and Research education , and Sea Grant STEM education
activities including all state Sea Grant Program STEM activities — fall into this category.
By eliminating key ocean education programs at NOAA , we are concerned that ocean science content
may be lost in the proposed consolidation, as it is not traditionally viewed as a “core science.” In
addition, removing education programs from mission - driven agencies such as NOAA , where research
is sponsored and conducted , will isolate scientific research and its result s from ocean education
efforts.
Educating and cultivating current and future ocean stewards is critical, especially given the tremendous
growth in careers that require ocean - related education and knowledge . A recent report by the
statutorily - created Ocean Research Advisory Panel (ORAP) forecast a need for approximately one
million more college graduates than currently estimated in STEM fields over the next decade. This
report underscores the need for a STEM literate, and ocean literate, workforce t o fill positions in
commerce, energy, transportation, energy, food production, national security, and recreation , and
tourism.
ORAP also generally agrees with the notion of a Federal education portfolio that is effectively
assembled, managed, and leveraged to meet national needs and goals. “To develop such a portfolio,
effective STEM programs should be retained, while others that lack evidence of effectiveness should be
eliminated or changed to provide evidence of success.” ORAP is concerned that the proposed
consolidation of STEM education programs will lead to further agency “stove piping” and a lack of
national coordination.
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Affirmative Article: “STEM Education: Bolstering Future American
Competitiveness”
by the Council of State Governments, a non-partisan and non-profit organization that serves state governments.
Published September 2008. Available at http://www.csg.org/knowledgecenter/docs/TIA_STEM%20education.pdf
The United States isn’t number one anymore. We’re not even number two. In fact, the U.S. doesn’t
even make the top 10 list in science or math literacy among 15-year-olds worldwide, according to the
most recent Program for International Student Assessment scores. Rather, the U.S. is ranked 21st in
science literacy among the survey’s 30 participating countries that are a part of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development—the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nations
in the world. And the U.S. fares even worse in math literacy, ranking 25th in the same group of
countries.
Somewhere between fourth grade and high school, American students fall behind in math and science,
according to Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study results – study that provides data
used by the U.S. Department of Education on math and science achievements of U.S. students
compared to other countries. U.S. students hold their own against their international counterparts in
fourth grade, but begin to fall behind in middle school. And by the time U.S. students finish high
school, less than 15 percent of graduates have a strong enough math or science foundation to pursue
science or technology degrees in college, according to the American Society for Engineering
Education.
But why does it matter? Why are science, technology, engineering and math – commonly referred to as
STEM education – so important?
In the mid-1950s, economists began to realize that economic growth cannot be solely explained as a
function of increased capital investment. One economist, Robert Solow – later a Nobel Prize recipient
for his seminal work on the subject – discovered that more than 50 percent of economic growth can be
explained by technological innovation. This means every period of economic growth in the United
States is directly related to the amount of technological innovation occurring during the same period. In
layman’s terms: As innovation goes, so goes the economy.
The United States is currently experiencing a period of slow innovation and a sluggish economy. While
Asian countries continue to produce more scientists and engineers, the U.S. is facing job market
demand for technically-trained employees that is far outpacing supply, according to the Council on
Competitiveness— a nonprofit organization comprised of corporate CEOs, university presidents and
labor leaders.
Even beyond economic concerns, STEM education is critical to providing the U.S. with new engineers
to repair the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, new scientists to solve increasing energy concerns and a
better educated public that understands and supports national scientific goals. As a recent Stanford
Institute for Economic Policy Research report explains, more innovation and faster economic growth
will not occur “if the education system does not provide sufficient supply of scientists and engineers.”
The National Science Foundation put it even more bluntly in a letter to the President’s Council of Advi
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sors on Science and Technology: “Civilization is on the brink of a new industrial order. The big
winners in the increasingly fierce global scramble for supremacy will not be those who simply make
commodities faster and cheaper than the competition. They will be those who develop talent,
techniques and tools so advanced that there is no competition.”
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Affirmative Article: “Recommendations for an Updated National Ocean
Policy”
Testimony of Dr. Shirley A. Pomponi, Acting Managing Director, Harbor, Branch Oceanographic Institution,
before the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives. Presented May 5, 2004. Available at
http://www.floridaoceanalliance.org/documents/04_May_Pomponi_testimony.pdf
It is a powerful reality that knowledge of the oceans, their resources and their relationship to human
activities is vital to our existence. It is a fundamental challenge for the ocean science community to
convey that reality both to decision makers and to the American public. Our ability to address problems
and issues in ocean and coastal research will rely in large part on our success.
One of the most significant conclusions of the new report is that the patchwork of agencies and
processes that have evolved over the past three decades to oversee the nation's ocean interests is simply
not up to the challenge of fixing the problems identified. To remedy the situation, the report
recommends substantial restructuring at the federal level, including mechanisms for making ocean
policy decisions through a high-level interagency governance structure.
Focusing specifically on ocean and coastal science, more than a dozen federal agencies currently fund
research or education activities. Consequently, interagency coordination is essential to avoid
duplication and strengthen the scientific basis for ocean management. The Commission proposes to
build on the model created under the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) in 1997.
NOPP promotes national goals of assuring national security, advancing economic development,
protecting quality of life, and strengthening science education and communication through improved
knowledge of the ocean. It creates a higher level of coordinated effort and synergy across the broad
oceanographic community by establishing partners hips on two fronts. First, NOPP relies on
collaboration among fifteen federal agencies, calling on the top official of each participating agency to
serve on an interagency council that provides program oversight. Second, NOPP increases the visibility
for ocean issues on the national agenda by facilitating projects among federal agencies , academia,
industry, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations. While investment in the
program to date has been relatively modest, it has proven to be an effective mechanism for building and
coordinating federal ocean science partnerships. Consequently, the oceanographic community generally
supports the Commission’s recommendations to use NOPP as a model for coordinating expanded
interagency ocean science investments.
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***NOPP Negative***
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Negative Article: “Falling Behind?”
By Elizabeth Redden, correspondent at Inside Higher Ed covering the internationalization of higher education.
Citing work by Michael Teitelbaum, Senior Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard
Law School. Published May 23, 2014. Available at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/23/new-bookstem-workforce-needs-and-international-competitiveness-finds-no-evidence
The U.S. isn’t producing enough highly skilled graduates in the science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) fields to meet the country’s workforce needs. To remain competitive in an
increasingly globalized world the U.S. needs to step up its own production of STEM graduates and
amend its immigration policies to better recruit the best and the brightest from abroad.
Such is the conventional wisdom in the halls of Congress and many corners of higher education. But
what if it’s wrong?
Michael S. Teitelbaum’s recent book Falling Behind?: Boom, Bust & the Global Race for Scientific
Talent (Princeton University Press) calls into question the conventional notion that the U.S. is falling
behind in the production of talented STEM graduates. Teitelbaum argues that the recurrent calls of a
generalized shortage of STEM workers are 1) “inconsistent with nearly all available evidence” and 2)
self-serving, promoted as they are by technology industry employers and their lobbyists invested in
expanding the H1-B guest worker visa program and their access to larger and therefore cheaper pools
of labor.
“Over the past two decades, lobbying and public relations efforts to convince U.S. political elites that
the country faces damaging and widespread shortages in its critical science and engineering workforce
can only be described as stunning successes,” writes Teitelbaum, a demographer and senior research
associate at the Labor and Work Life program at Harvard Law School.
“It is conventional now to hear seemingly sincere pronouncements about the dangers of such shortages
from politicians of all ideological persuasions and from much of the mass media. This apparently broad
consensus prevails notwithstanding almost universal inability by objective labor market analysts to find
any convincing empirical evidence to confirm the existence of such generalized shortages.”
Teitelbaum is far from alone in making this counter-conventional argument. In his book he cites a wide
array of scholars who make arguments about stagnating wages for science and engineering Ph.D.s
compared to professionals with similarly advanced levels of education – J.D.s, M.D.s, and M.B.A.s –
and who find no evidence of generalized workforce shortages. (Teitelbaum is careful to note that there
may well be shortages at any given time in particular subfields or in particular geographic regions, but
that those aren’t the same as generalized, nationwide shortages in the science and engineering fields.)
An article in Issues in Science and Technology from last summer by Hal Salzman, a professor at
Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, summarizes some of the
main points of evidence for the anti-shortage argument, including data showing that the nation
produces more than twice the number of STEM graduates each year than the number who find STEM
jobs, and that wages for jobs in information technology and other STEM fields haven’t increased as
one might expect if there were indeed ongoing talent shortages. In an interview, Salzman noted a
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contrast, the subfield of petroleum engineering, in which there does indeed seem to be a shortage – and
wages went up, as did the number of graduates with degrees in the field. “When we can see a
documented shortage, and salaries respond, so do students,” he said. "We’ve never seen any evidence
that the labor market is not responsive to labor market signals of wages."
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Negative Article: “STEMing the Teacher Shortage Tide”
by Dr. George Ann Rice, Program Consultant, Northern Kentucky University, and Dr. Martha Young, Professor,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Published November 2009. Available at
http://www.uschamberfoundation.org/sites/default/files/publication/edu/STEMing%20the%20Teacher%20Shorta
ge%20Tide_FINAL.pdf
The current need for qualified math and science teachers is reflected in the following statistics: 29%
of our nation’s fourth grade students, 29% of eighth grade students, and 18% of 12th grade students
perform at or above the proficient level in science.4 A preponderance of evidence has been gathered
over the past 15 years that indicates our educational system has been sliding. Just 23% of 12th grade
students scored at or above the proficient level in math on the 2005 National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP).5 Reasons for these bleak achievement statistics are related to several
factors. One issue relates to the point that in 2002, about 70% of high-minority middle school
mathematics classes were taught by teachers who had not majored or minored in mathematics.6
This challenge is compounded by the fact that “low-income students are assigned out-of-field
teachers in mathematics at more than twice the rate of their more affluent peers.”7
Numerous studies suggest that the problem of effective and qualified teachers exists, in part, in our
inability to provide sufficient numbers of applicants whose backgrounds are strong in STEM fields.
Over the past 30 years, schools have struggled in the face of a changing society, changing career
aspirations (especially for women), and a changing economic and social climate. These changes have
overshadowed our ability to provide a continuously solid teacher workforce.
Additional evidence exists to support this point. “For example, each year public and private
universities in North Carolina produce 4,000 new teachers, yet each year 9,000 teachers across the
state leave the classroom.”9 Furthermore “in a period of four years, the sixteen-campus University of
North Carolina system produced only three high school physics teachers.”10 This profile is mirrored
in many states across the nation, especially in those where school districts have seen population
increases while also experiencing decreases in STEM teacher candidates.
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Negative Article: “Tracing Germs Through The Aisles”
By Sabrina Tavernise, reporter with the New York Times. Published July 29, 2013. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/health/tracing-germs-through-the-aisles.html?pagewanted=all
There is broad consensus that overuse of antibiotics has caused growing resistance to the medicines.
Many scientists say evidence is mounting that heavy use of antibiotics to promote faster growth in farm
animals is a major culprit, creating a reservoir of drug resistant bugs that are finding their way into
communities. More than 70 percent of all the antibiotics used in the United States are given to animals.
Agribusiness groups disagree and say the main problem is overuse of antibiotic treatments for people.
Bugs rarely migrate from animals to people, and even when they do, the risk they pose to human health
is negligible, the industry contends.
Scientists say genetic sequencing will bring greater certainty to the debate. They will be able to trace
germs in people to their origins, be it from a farm animal or other patients in a hospital. Representative
Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from New York who has pushed for legislation to control antibiotic use
on farms, said such evidence would be the “smoking gun” that would settle the issue.
Professor Price is seeking to quantify how extensively drug-resistant bugs in animals are infecting
people. He is trying to do that by analyzing the full genetic makeup of germs collected from both
grocery store meat and people in Flagstaff last year. The plummeting cost of genomic sequencing has
made his research possible.
He is comparing the genetic sequences of E. coli germs resistant to multiple antibiotics found in the
meat samples to the ones that have caused urinary tract infections in people (mostly women).
Urinary infections were chosen because they are so common. American women get more than eight
million of them a year. In rare cases the infections enter the bloodstream and are fatal.
Resistant bacteria in meat are believed to cause only a fraction of such infections, but even that would
account for infections in several hundred thousand people annually. The E. coli germ that Professor
Price has chosen can be deadly, and is made even more dangerous by its tendency to resist antibiotics.
The infection happens when meat containing the germ is eaten, grows in the gut, and then is introduced
into the urethra. Dr. Price said the germ could cause infection in other ways, such as through a cut
while slicing raw meat. The bugs are promiscuous, so once they get into people, they can mutate and
travel more easily among people. A new strain of the antibiotic-resistant bug MRSA, for example, was
first detected in people in Holland in 2003, and now represents 40 percent of the MRSA infections in
humans in that country, according to Jan Kluytmans, a Dutch researcher. That same strain was common
in pigs on farms before it was found in people, scientists say. Dr. Price, 44, began his career testing
anthrax for resistance to the Cipro antibiotic for biodefense research in the 1990s. His interest in public
health led him to antibiotic resistance in the early 2000s. It seemed like a less theoretical threat.
First line antibiotics were no longer curing basic infections, and doctors were concerned. “I thought,
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‘Wow this is so obviously crazy, I have to do something about this,’ ” he said. He has done his research
on antibiotics at a nonprofit founded in 2002, the Translational Genomics Research Institute, in
Phoenix. His lab in Flagstaff, an affiliate, is financed mostly by federal sources, including the National
Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.
Dr. Price, trained in epidemiology and microbiology, has been sounding the alarm about antibiotic
resistance for a number of years. He recently told a Congressional committee that evidence of the ill
effects of antibiotics in farming was overwhelming.
He thinks the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to limit antibiotic use on farms have been weak.
In 1977, the F.D.A. said it would begin to ban some agricultural uses of antibiotics. But the House and
Senate appropriations committees — dominated by agricultural interests — passed resolutions against
the ban, and the agency retreated. More recently, the agency has limited the use of two important
classes of antibiotics in animals. But advocates say it needs to go further and ban use of all antibiotics
for growth promotion. Sweden and Denmark have already done so.
Ms. Slaughter said aggressive lobbying by agribusiness interests has played a major role in blocking
passage of legislation. According to her staff, of the 225 lobbying disclosure reports filed during the
last Congress on a bill she wrote on antibiotic use, nearly nine out of ten were filed by organizations
opposed to the legislation.
But the economics of food presents perhaps the biggest obstacle. On large industrial farms, animals are
raised in close contact with one another and with big concentrations of bacteria-laden feces and urine.
Antibiotics keep infections at bay but also create drug resistance. Those same farms raise large volumes
of cheap meat that Americans have become accustomed to.
Governments have begun to acknowledge the danger. The United States recently promised $40 million
to a major drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, to help it develop medications to combat antibiotic
resistance. But Dr. Price says that new drugs are only a partial solution.
“A lot of people say, ‘let’s innovate our way out of this,’ ” he said. “But if we don’t get a handle on the
way we abuse antibiotics, we are just delaying the inevitable.”
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Negative Article: “The Antibiotic Arms Race Has a Capitalism Problem”
By Michael Byrne, editor at Motherboard, an online magazine associated with VICE. Published October 11,
2014. Available at http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-antibiotic-arms-race-has-another-problem
We'd like to think that as the antibiotic crisis worsens and the corresponding death toll rises, drug
research is going full-steam ahead. Supply and demand, right? If only.
Setting aside a certain high-mortality viral infection, antibiotic resistance might rank at or very near the
top of the popular imagination's disease doomsdays. In the very near future, the doomsaying goes, our
antibiotics will stop working and civilization will be abruptly returned to the bacterial dark ages.
A cut or scrape in this regressed world could mean a death sentence, as any bacterial infection might
now find itself unimpeded, like a match in a pile of dry leaves. Sepsis here is always just a minor
accident away.
But even a complete loss of antimicrobal capabilities wouldn't really look like that; the impact of
antibiotics, while enormous, is usually overstated. Yet the fear is real and pervasive. So we might
expect that drug companies are working overtime to ensure that we're never actually confronted with a
return to the pre-antibiotic days. Supply and demand, right?
Unfortunately, supply and demand as it pertains to the pharmaceutical industry isn't what it may seem.
According to a new report in Drug Discovery Today, courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis
professor Michael Kinch, the general trend is for drug companies to withdraw from the antibiotic
market completely, a situation that's poised to exacerbate the whole antibiotic crash in potentially very
dangerous ways.
As it stands today, antibiotics are leaving the marketplace at a rate twice that of new drugs entering it.
"Obsolescence and resistance has eliminated one-third of these drugs," Kinch writes in the current
study. "Consequently, the arsenal of antibiotics peaked in 2000 and is declining. Likewise, the number
of organizations awarded at least one [new molecular entity] (NME) for a bacterial indication has
declined to a level not seen in more than a half century."
The antibiotic arsenal circa 2000 consisted of 113 drugs, and it's since fallen to just 96, a trend poised
to continue on into the future.
Antibiotics are usually withdrawn, according to Kinch, because they've stopped working, are too toxic,
or because they've been replaced by a newer version of the same drug (a popular Big Pharma practice
in which a compound is tweaked in some mostly insignificant way so it can get re-patented).
Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant responsible for 40 of the 155 antibiotics ever sold in the United States,
has exited the market completely, joining other big names like Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and BristolMyers Squibb. As much as many of us love to hate Big Pharma, that exit is bad news.
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In the wake of these giants, we have pharmaceutical startups, like Cubist, that exist specifically to
attack the antibiotic resistance problem. The resources aren't quite the same, however: Cubist, for
example, just released its second new drug in 20 years.
Pharma-spotters won't be terribly surprised by this market abandonment. This is an old and
fundamental problem with how drug research is conducted, generally.
Drug companies, after all, aren't altruists because they're drug companies, e.g. entities that exist to
make money. And the big bucks aren't in antibiotics, at least compared to highly marketable (read:
marketable as in direct-to-consumer, "ask your doctor about ...") drugs for quitting smoking,
unsatisfactory erections, and most anything that can be directed at the captive, high-value market of
retired baby boomers.
In part, Kinch sees it as a problem arising from patent law, though he doesn't seem to outright blame
patent law. Developing and testing a new drug takes an average of 11 years, he says, while the drug's
patent expires after 20, leaving just nine years for the drug manufacturer to recoup its investment and
turn a satisfactory profit. Because of increasing drug resistance, new antibiotics in particular are often
held in reserve by doctors and used only as a drug of last resort.
So, it's something of a catch-22. A company produces a drug designed to surpass the current level of
antibiotic resistance and then can't sell much of it because doctors are justifiably concerned about that
resistance. By the time said drug becomes a first-line treatment, it might as well be generic. We'd all
love for that to not matter and have our drug-makers be in it for the greater good, but such is the weird,
unsavory drug development system we've created and allowed to perpetuate.
“When you hold a drug in reserve,” Kinch said in a WUSTL statement, “you’re eating into the patent
time a company has to recoup its development costs. If you’ve got this vancomycin-like situation,
where the drug is sitting on a shelf—quite literally sitting on a shelf—how is a company going to make
its money back? It can’t price the drug at $10,000 a dose.”
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Negative Article: “Obama Pushes For Needed Boost In Ocean Funding”
By Emily Woglom, Vice President, Conservation Policy and Programs, for Ocean Conservancy. Published March
4 2014. Available at http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2014/03/04/obama-pushes-for-needed-boost-in-oceanfunding/
The White House released President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2015 today. The proposal
appears to be good news for the ocean and a great first step toward strong funding for ocean-health
programs next year.
Of course, the budget documents that the administration released today are only part of the picture.
They detail the big-picture, top-level budget numbers with only a small number of details, and
individual program budgets won’t be released until later.
So what can we tell from what has been released so far? Last year, we focused on some key questions
to help decide how the ocean is faring in the federal budget process. In particular, we asked whether the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) top-line budget number is sufficient, and
whether there was appropriate balance between NOAA’s “wet” ocean and “dry” non-ocean missions.
When it comes to NOAA’s overall budget numbers, things look pretty good. Regarding the balance
between wet and dry missions, the single biggest increase goes to the satellite line office, but the
National Ocean Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service both see healthy increases as well.
We will not know details until additional numbers are released, but we do not see any red flags to
suggest that things are way out of balance.
Here are some key takeaways based on what we know today:
Overall NOAA Funding Looks Strong: The White House demonstrated support for increased funding at
NOAA. NOAA programs lead cutting-edge research on ocean health and support smart ocean
management. NOAA is also the central agency tasked with ending overfishing. While NOAA’s FY
2014 funding level is an improvement over FY 2013’s abysmal sequestration level, the proposal from
the White House shows how far we still have to go: It calls for a $174 million increase over FY 2014,
recommending $5.5 billion in funding for NOAA in FY 2015.
Ocean Acidification Research Funding Sees a Big Increase: Notably, the president’s budget would
provide a much-needed $15 million for ocean acidification research, an increase of $9 million. As the
ocean absorbs the carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, the carbon
dioxide is changing the chemistry of the ocean and adversely impacting marine life. This is already
having serious economic effects on shellfish growers and others who make their living from the sea.
This money would help us better understand the problem and devise solutions that protect coastal
economies.
Administration-Wide Attention to Climate Change: The new budget also establishes a Climate
Resilience Fund. While we have yet to see specific details on how this fund will be distributed, it is
designed to help states and citizens adapt. NOAA should have a critical role to play here. NOAA
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provides the services coastal communities need to be storm-ready and prepared for changing ocean
conditions as well as changing economics. NOAA should be at the frontline of the Administration’s
resilience efforts. We hope to see resources from the Climate Resilience Fund support NOAA
initiatives and partnerships.
Gulf of Mexico Restoration: This is also the first budget that reflects money coming into NOAA under
the RESTORE Act, which directs certain fines and penalties from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil
disaster to restoration and science in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA will manage 2.5 percent of overall
RESTORE funding for science, monitoring and technology needs, consistent with the Science Plan
Framework just released in December 2013. NOAA, along with other federal agencies and the Gulf
states, is steadily making headway toward implementing the RESTORE Act. This work will provide a
solid foundation as restoration of the Gulf under RESTORE moves forward.
It may be a few weeks before we know more about the president’s proposals for specific ocean
programs, from fisheries stock assessments to grants for Regional Ocean Partnerships. But considering
the top-line NOAA funding proposal, we feel confident that ocean priorities will be strongly supported
in the coming year.
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***NOPP Environment DA Updates***
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Negative Article: “Environmental Regulation of Bioprospecting and
Marine Scientific Research”
By Robin Warner, Associate Professor at Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security.
Published in 2008. Available at http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1178&context=lawpapers
Exploration activities related to deep seabed ecosystems are described in a 2005 United Nations
University/Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) report on “Bioprospecting of Genetic Resources
in the Deep Seabed: Scientific, Legal and Policy Aspects” as “scattered, small scale, independent
research activities and programmes ongoing in many universities and research institutions in the
world” which while not directly commercially oriented represent the backbone of any commercial
application of deep seabed genetic resources as they generate the necessary scientific information for
bioprospecting. The report contains several examples of joint public and private ventures involved in
deep seabed exploration which operate at the interface of research and development, linking research
activities with the development of products and processes.28 The majority of research cruises to the
deep sea are conducted by state sponsored operators but there are now numerous examples of the
results of such cruises being shared by state research institutions with commercial enterprises under
joint venture agreements.29 The list of patents involving genetic resources from the deep seabed is
steadily growing and reveals increasing potential for sustained commercial interest and investment in
this use of the deep seabed which has already eclipsed current commercial interest in mining for deep
seabed minerals.30
Bioprospecting, while not as invasive as deep seabed mineral exploration, does entail physical
disturbance, alteration and introduction of alien elements to deep sea habitats.31 Current deep sea
research projects, principally on hydrothermal vent sites, have progressed beyond simple observation of
the benthic fauna from manned or remotely controlled submersible vessels to actual sampling of the
fauna and faunal infrastructure and installation of scientific instruments in the deep seabed
environment to record experimental observations on a regular basis.32 As well as disturbing the
physical habitat, research vessels and scientific equipment also introduce light and different noise
patterns into the fragile deep sea environment and may discharge marine pollutants and alien
biological material into the previously pristine environment of the deep seabed.33 The negative impact
of frequent research expeditions on particular deep seabed sites and the potential for conflicting or
incompatible research activities which duplicate adverse effects on fragile deep sea sites has also been
noted by scientists and other commentators.34 The absence of compulsory environmental protection
measures such as environmental baseline data collection, ongoing environmental impact assessment of
sampling sites and impact reference zones could result in research have developed some voluntary
protocols to reduce the negative impacts of their research on the deep seabed environment including
requests to the global scientific community to consider certain deep seabed sites as scientific reserves
and voluntary codes of conduct which seek to minimise adverse effects on the environment and to
coordinate deep seabed research to reduce the occurrence of simultaneous expeditions to deep seabed
sites and conflicting use of these sites.36 As bioprospecting activities are currently intermingled with
marine scientific research, these initiatives have the dual purpose of reducing the adverse effects of
both bioprospecting and marine scientific research activities on the deep sea environment.
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Affirmative Article: “Why We Know More About the Dark Side of the
Moon than the Depths of the Ocean”
The misconceptions that drove spending on space were mirrored in our lack of knowledge about the
ocean's importance. Our ambivalence about the ocean is reflected in the vast disparity in research
funding. Today, however, we are beginning to understand how dependent we are on the ocean, and how
the impact of human-induced climate change, pollution, and overfishing on the ocean are far more
threatening to our survival than whether we “control the heavens."
The ocean, which cover's 71% of Earth's surface, produces at least half the oxygen we breath and filters
deadly carbon dioxide.86 It is a crucial regular of global climate and weather, but one we do not
understand.
Since 1950 there has been a dramatic increase in extreme weather, requiring billions of dollars spent
globally towards repair and response efforts.
Moreover, eight of the world's top ten largest cities are located on the seacoast. The ocean they adjoin is
profoundly changing in complex ways we do not understand. Marine species are disappearing before
we know of their existence. These species are not only matters of curiosity, but can hold secrets to
understanding life and medicine, and are integral to the health of marine ecosystems. The oceans have
become 26% more acidic since the start of the Industrial Revolution and continue to acidify at an
unprecedented rate.88 Acidification affects marine ecosystems; it especially harms shelled creatures
such as oysters and muscles that filter water,89 but can benefit sea grass and other invasive plants that
will overwhelm ecosystems and accelerate the extinction of marine animal species.90
At the same time acidification from climate change is threatening entire ecosystems, industrial and
agricultural pollution, plus increasing volumes of human trash are threatening to overwhelm the ocean's
ability to regenerate. The National Academy of Science estimated that in 1975 more than 750 tons of
garbage was dumped into the ocean every hour.91 Fortunately, in 1987 the US ratified Marpol Annex
V, an international treaty that made it illegal to throw non-biodegradable trash overboard from ships in
the waters of signatory countries. While this is progress, the MARPOL law is difficult to enforce.
Governments do not know where or when dumping happens because there is no infrastructure for
monitoring or policing the vast oceans. Sadly, Nature magazine reported that during the 1990s debris in
the waters near Britain doubled, and debris in the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica increased one
hundred fold.92
Today we do not know how much trash is in the ocean. Author Donovan Hohn noted in 2008, “Not
even oceanographers can tell us exactly how much floating scruff is out there; oceanographic research
is simply too expensive and the ocean too varied and vast."93 But the number is not good. Stranded
whales and other marine life with trash filling their bellies serve as a powerful harbinger for what is to
come (Figure 11), and more oceanographic research is needed.
Along with pollution and climate change, overfishing is among the greatest threats facing our ocean
and human wellbeing. A study in Science projected that all commercial fish and seafood species will
collapse by 2048.94 Already, populations of large fish, including tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut,
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skates, ounder, and others, have reduced by 90% since 1950, according to a 2003 study in Nature.95
A world without seafood will harm developing nations the most. More than 3.5 billion people globally
depend on the ocean for their primary source of food, and most of those people are in fast-growing
developing regions of Asia and Africa.96 In 20 years, the number could double to 7 billion.97
Fortunately, according to a pivotal paper published in Science in 2006, overfishing is proven to be a
reversible problem, but only if humans act effectively within the next decade.98 Otherwise, global
malnutrition and famine is on the horizon as so far aquaculture has not been able to keep up with the
dramatic losses of wild catch.
“Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the oceans species together, as working
ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood," marine ecologist Steve Palumbi
warned.99 NOAA has made substantial progress in regulating US fisheries, although that fact must be
taken with a grain of salt because the US imports 91% of its seafood.100 Moreover, the most
catastrophic overfishing is occurring in international waters where traditional industrial fishing nations
continue to resist stronger efforts at global regulation.
Realizing the ocean's importance to humankind, President Kennedy became a staunch advocate for
ocean research shortly before he died. Exactly a month before his assassination, he asked Congress to
double the nation's ocean research budget and greatly expand ocean research for the sake of worldwide
security and health. He called for a global ocean research initiative:
The ocean, the atmosphere, outer space, belong not to one nation or one ideology, but to all mankind,
and as science carries out its tasks in the years ahead, it must enlist all its own disciplines, all nations
prepared for the scientific quest, and all men capable of sympathizing with the scientific impulse.
He had no chance to see his plans through, however, and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, was focused
on space as the “high ground" and “control of the heavens" for perceived military and geo-political
reasons.
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***Glossary***
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Glossary
Antibiotic resistance
Current antibiotics are losing effectiveness as a result of bacterial genetic mutations. Antibiotic
resistance threatens to collapse modern medicine, since many modern medical procedures cause
infections and rely on antibiotics to contain these infections. Routine surgeries, for instance, may
become dangerous to perform in a world of antibiotic resistance.
Development of new antibiotics is one strategy to deal with this problem, although there are several
other strategies. One possible weakness of developing new antibiotics is that, absent other changes in
the ways that antibiotics are used, these new (oceanic) antibiotics will eventually produce the same
resistance as our current antibiotics. In that sense, they may postpone the problem rather than solving it
altogether.
There are also some questions as to why new antibiotics aren't currently being developed. Some people
argue that, since pharmaceutical companies make less money on drugs that cure people than drugs that
have to be continually used over the course of a lifetime (for example, antihypertension drugs, or in
some cases antidepressants), they have no incentive to develop new antibiotics regardless of whether
this is technically possible.
Bioprospecting
Bioprospecting is a process of looking for new products in ecosystems. In the context of the ocean, this
largely refers to efforts to use marine plants and animals to develop new medicines. While
bioprospecting may give us access to new antibiotics, it also potentially threatens the marine
environment.
STEM
This refers to science, technology, engineering, and math education. The affirmative argues that student
interest in these fields is currently relatively low, and won't result in enough future STEM graduates to
fill the jobs that will be available. These jobs, in turn, are crucial to the economy. The affirmative
argues that a massive ocean exploration project would increase student interest in STEM by giving
students a reason to get involved in scientific and technical fields.
Some people argue that the shortage in STEM education is overstated – this is the argument made in
the negative article “Falling Behind?”
Benthic
This just refers to the seafloor, the bottom of the ocean – pretty straightforward.
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