PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AFFIRMATIVE (JV & V Only)Principl… · Web viewSummary. 2. Glossary. 3. Precautionary Principle 1AC. 4-19. GREEN DEMOCRACY ADVANTAGE (JV & V Only) Green

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

PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AFFIRMATIVE (JV & V Only)

Summary..........................................................................................................................................................2Glossary...........................................................................................................................................................3

Precautionary Principle 1AC......................................................................................................................4-19

GREEN DEMOCRACY ADVANTAGE (JV & V Only)Green Democracy Advantage ...................................................................................................................21-3Answers to: You can’t change the government.............................................................................................20Answers to: Democracy hurts the environment.............................................................................................21Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed.....................................................................................................22-23

OCEANS ADVANTAGEAnswers to: Oceans are resilient..............................................................................................................24-25Answers to: Land Based Problems................................................................................................................26Human/Nature Divide....................................................................................................................................27

DECISION MAKING ADVANTAGEAnswers to: Precautionary Principle is a bad ethic.......................................................................................28Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic................................................................................29-30Answers to Perfect is the Enemy of the Good...............................................................................................31

SOLVENCYAnswers to: Policy Paralysis....................................................................................................................32-33Answers to: Regulatory Overload.................................................................................................................34Answers to: Innovation..................................................................................................................................35

ANSWERS TO DISADVANTAGESAnswers to: The disadvantage is more important than the ocean.................................................................36Answers to: Precautionary Principle prevents development.........................................................................37Answers to Genetically Modified Crops prevent starvation..........................................................................38Answers to: Food Security Impact................................................................................................................39Answers to: Poverty Impact...........................................................................................................................40

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-141AC

Glossary

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

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

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

Estuaries- an arm or inlet of the sea at the lower end of a river.

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

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

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

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

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Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (1/6) Contention 1- Humans are destroying the earth’s oceans, based on an incorrect notion that the sea can be used without end, which leads to human choices polluting our oceans every day.

Wilder, Tenger, and Dayton, Researcher at the Marine Science Institute, Research marine biologist, and Professor of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, 1999(Robert, Mia and Paul, “Saving Marine Biodiversity”, Issues, 15:3, November 27, http://issues.org/15-3/wilder/)

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

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

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

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http://issues.org/15-3/wilder/


Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (2/6) Contention 2 - Healthy oceans filled with a diverse array of species are essential to supporting life on the planet.

Craig, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs @ Florida State University, 2003(Robin Kundis, “ARTICLE: Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review, Winter 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)

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

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

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

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

5

http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/lnacui2api/frame.do?reloadEntirePage=true&rand=1348077471187&returnToKey=20_T15565363878&parent=docview&target=results_DocumentContent&tokenKey=rsh-20.167770.63840861383#n861





Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (3/6) In order to remedy these issues my partner and I offer the following plan to support this year’s resolution.

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

6


Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (4/6) Contention 3 is better decision making.

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

Ewald, Director of Reasarch and Strategy, Federation Francaise des Societesd'Assurances., 2000[Francois, “Risk in contemporary society”, Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, 6 Conn. Ins. L.J. 47, 1999/2000, Hein Online]

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

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

7


Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (5/6)B. Using the Precautionary Principle to protect the oceans places the burden of proof on those planning development or exploration of the ocean to prove they will do no harm.

Ocean Classrooms, online educational resource on oceans, 2013(“Precautionary Principle“, Current Publishing Corporation, https://www.oceanclassrooms.com/ms101_u5_c2_sa_2)-

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

The Precautionary Principle:

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

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

8


Precautionary Principle 1AC (Short Version) (6/6) C. The precautionary principle provides the platform to change societal and governmental attitudes that privilege economic growth and cost benefit analysis to one that values and respects the long term health of the planet and its communities.

Jordan and O’Riordan, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, East Anglia University, 1999(Andrew and Timothy, “THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN CONTEMPORARYENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND POLITICS", Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle. Ed. Raffensperger and Tickner, Island Press, Google Books)

The precautionary principle is vague enough to be acknowledged by all governments regardless of how well they protect the environment. But the politics of precaution are also powerful and progressive, since they offer a profound critique of many of the ways in which the environmental policy is currently determined . Wrapped up in the debate about precaution are forceful new ideas which point the way to a more preventative, source-based, integrated and biocentric basis for policy. The point about the precautionary principle is that it swims against the economic, scientific and democratic tides. It requires 'sacrifice' of anyone who cannot see the justification of taking careful avoidance. As we have repeatedly stressed, the strength of the precautionary principle lies in beliefs about social or environmental resilience, and in the capacity of social groups or political systems to respond to crises. Therefore those who support the notion of resilience and accommodation/adaptation would require precautionary 'sacrifice' as a higher level of cost than those who are more ecocentric on such matters. The emphasis which governments continue to place on 'sound science' and careful cost-benefit analysis, suggest a deep seated suspicion of the threat which it appears to hold to economic growth and 'rational' policy making. Precaution will not explode on to the environmental stage, sweeping away all forms of risk or cost benefit assessment, careful scientific analysis and existing legal norms relating to the relative power of polluters and victims. Rather, it will seep through the pores of decision making institutions and the political consciousness of humanity by stealth. It will do this when, and if, it has the tide of the times behind it.

9


Precautionary Principle 1AC (1/10)Contention 1- Humans are destroying the earth’s oceans, based on an incorrect notion that the sea can be used without end, which leads to human choices polluting our oceans every day.


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

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

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

10



Precautionary Principle 1AC (2/10)Contention 2 - Healthy oceans filled with a diverse array of species are essential to supporting life on the planet.

Craig, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs @ Florida State University, 2003(Robin Kundis, “ARTICLE: Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review, Winter 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155)

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

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

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

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

11






Precautionary Principle 1AC (3/10) In order to remedy these issues my partner and I offer the following plan to support this year’s resolution.

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

12


Precautionary Principle 1AC (4/10)Contention 3 is better decision making.

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

Ewald, Director of Reasarch and Strategy, Federation Francaise des Societesd'Assurances., 2000[Francois, “Risk in contemporary society”, Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, 6 Conn. Ins. L.J. 47, 1999/2000, Hein Online]

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

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

13


Precautionary Principle 1AC (5/10)B. Using the Precautionary Principle to protect the oceans places the burden of proof on those planning development or exploration of the ocean to prove they will do no harm.

Ocean Classrooms, online educational resource on oceans, 2013(“Precautionary Principle“, Current Publishing Corporation, https://www.oceanclassrooms.com/ms101_u5_c2_sa_2)-

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

The Precautionary Principle:

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

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

14


Precautionary Principle 1AC (6/10)C. Putting the precautionary principle into law is necessary.

Eckersley, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004(Robyn, The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty, The MIT Press, p. 134-5)

In cases of scientific uncertainty and conflict between environment and development interests, the democratic state cannot be neutral. It can either support the status quo, which favors property holders and risk generators, or create new rights and new presumptions that turn the tables in favor of environmental victims. The requirements of environmental justice that are embedded in the ambit claim for ecological democracy demand rights and decision rules that positively favor the disadvantaged and communicatively incompetent over well-resourced and strategically oriented economic actors in cases of uncertainty and political intractability.

One such mechanism for shifting the presumption in favor of potential environmental victims is the precautionary principle. The Rio Declaration formulation of the precautionary principle provides that “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation” (principle 15). Adding the words “to present and future human and nonhuman communities” after the words “irreversible damage” would head off narrow, anthropocentric interpretations of this decision rule, which provides a presumption against decisions carrying serious or irreversible environmental risks (e.g., species extinction, climate change, nuclear fallout, and so-called genetic pollution from the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment). The decision rule also serves as an evidentiary rule in placing the onus of proof on the proponent to prove the absence of such risks for human and nonhuman communities, now and in the future.

Of course, the precautionary principle would need to be interpreted and applied discursively in particular cases. However, participants in the dialogue should not be free to ignore it. One way of ensuring this is to constitutionally entrench the precautionary principle in the same way that basic democratic rights are constitutionally entrenched. Such entrenchment would not place the precautionary principle beyond the reach of democratic debate, since the appropriateness of its application to particular circumstances would always need to be debated on a case by case basis. In any event, the justification for entrenchment is itself a democratic one: to ensure that the interests of those at risk who cannot be present are nonetheless systematically considered by those who are present. Mandating such consideration is not the same as mandating particular outcomes.

15


Precautionary Principle 1AC (7/10)D. The precautionary principle provides the platform to change societal and governmental attitudes that privilege economic growth and cost benefit analysis to one that values and respects the long term health of the planet and its communities.

Jordan and O’Riordan, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, East Anglia University, 1999(Andrew and Timothy, “THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN CONTEMPORARYENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND POLITICS", Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle. Ed. Raffensperger and Tickner, Island Press, Google Books)

The precautionary principle is vague enough to be acknowledged by all governments regardless of how well they protect the environment. But the politics of precaution are also powerful and progressive, since they offer a profound critique of many of the ways in which the environmental policy is currently determined . Wrapped up in the debate about precaution are forceful new ideas which point the way to a more preventative, source-based, integrated and biocentric basis for policy. The point about the precautionary principle is that it swims against the economic, scientific and democratic tides. It requires 'sacrifice' of anyone who cannot see the justification of taking careful avoidance. As we have repeatedly stressed, the strength of the precautionary principle lies in beliefs about social or environmental resilience, and in the capacity of social groups or political systems to respond to crises. Therefore those who support the notion of resilience and accommodation/adaptation would require precautionary 'sacrifice' as a higher level of cost than those who are more ecocentric on such matters. The emphasis which governments continue to place on 'sound science' and careful cost-benefit analysis, suggest a deep seated suspicion of the threat which it appears to hold to economic growth and 'rational' policy making. Precaution will not explode on to the environmental stage, sweeping away all forms of risk or cost benefit assessment, careful scientific analysis and existing legal norms relating to the relative power of polluters and victims. Rather, it will seep through the pores of decision making institutions and the political consciousness of humanity by stealth. It will do this when, and if, it has the tide of the times behind it.

16

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

Precautionary Principle 1AC (8/10)Advantage 1: Green Democracy Advantage

A. Advocating for the precautionary principle grows environmental movements and injects values into policy making. Our demand can change the way that environmental policy is formed.

Myers, Science and Environmental Health Network, 2002(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle Puts Values First”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2002, 210-219, http://www.sehn.org/pdf/putvaluesfirst.pdf)

Activists’ and advocates’ responses to the principle and their explanations of why it has become important and useful to them vary. Almost universally, however, they see it as an exercise in something beyond caution, or even precaution. It is not just a matter of buying up gas masks, so to speak, or reinforcing cockpit doors. They nearly always describe it instead in positive terms. Activists who have become discouraged by the Sisyphean task of trying to protect the Earth and the health of communities in the face of out-of-control technologies and damage often say that the precautionary principle gives them hope. They say it is something positive to work for and that it embodies common sense. Organizers and policy advocates alike express gratitude for a unifying idea that makes sense of everything they are trying to work for and that removes some important barriers to that work, at least in their own minds. Inevitably, values creep into these discussions.

A typical range of responses came from a group of ecosystem scientists and advocates assembled by SEHN in May 2001 in Leavenworth, Washington, to discuss how the principle might apply to decisions related to ecosystems. After more than a day of discussion that went straight to the principle’s practical implications, the group was asked, Is the precautionary principle indeed of use to you? Some of their answers had an equally practical tone:

By using precaution you articulate uncertainties that are already there. It is better to think out consequences. It is important science, but it is also an important public education tool. It helps people understand what to do with uncertainty. It is an organizing principle in theory—it takes our ideas and make sense of them—and in practice: it can galvanize a movement.

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Precautionary Principle 1AC (9/10)B. Enacting the precautionary principle injects democracy into environmental decision making.

Raffensperger, Executive Director of Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004(CAROLYN, 9/1, No. 9, Vol. 25; Pg. 26, MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "PRECAUTIONARYPRECEPTS")

The second mode of implementation is to reverse the burden of proof, especially for chemicals, and other emerging and novel technologies. For so long, industry has received the benefit of the doubt; if regulation is going to threaten business, then regulation should be sacrificed. But what that has meant is that we have sacrificed our children's brains, our women's breasts, our men's prostates on that alter of economic development.

The Precautionary Principle says, no, public health and the environment get the benefit of the doubt, not the almighty dollar. And there are a lot of ways to do that. The Precautionary Principle asserts a responsibility on the part of industry or the proponents of a technology or activity, to test that technology or activity. So for instance, the REACH program proposed in Europe for chemicals says, if you don't test your chemicals, you can't market in Europe. What a good idea! That's reversing the burden of proof. It says if you haven't even tested your chemical, don't try and sell it to us, and then, if we're injured, make us go to court and test the chemical to show it is unsafe. The REACH program says to industry, you've got the obligation; this is your responsibility. This is a complete turn around compared to what is typical in the United States.

The third element of the Precautionary Principle is looking for the safest alternative. If you've set a goal to achieve some end, which alternative gets you to the goal? This approach means you're going to find much better ways to do things; it drives innovation. Pursuit of the safest alternative is creating whole new fields like green chemistry and green engineering. They are taking the dirtiest chemicals, throwing them out and changing policy and industry in some really wonderful ways. Choosing the safest alternative is in many ways the heart-beat of the Precautionary Principle.

The final element of the Precautionary Principle is democracy. If we're faced with scientific uncertainty, we need to set goals, and choose the safest alternative to achieve these goals. These processes involve values and ethics; it is not something that scientists or government bureaucrats can decide alone. We need to bring affected parties to the table. This gives us a chance as a public to set the goals that we want to drive toward; it helps get on the table a much wider array of options for solving problems and looking for alternatives. So democracy is also an essential component of the Precautionary Principle.

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Precautionary Principle 1AC (10/10)

C. Green Democracy produces better decision making by allowing all options to be considered.


Democracy and transparency in the decisionmaking process also represent an ethical component: the right to know, the right to be included in decisions that affect one, the duty to include all who are affected.

Including such ethical considerations is a statement of values. But th is kind of process also has a practical aspect. The more information gathered from varied sources, the more satisfactory a decision is likely to be. So too is the assessment of alternatives (O’Brien, 2000). It makes practical sense to look at alternatives, to seek better ways of doing things, to be able to choose among different possible methods and outcomes rather than being locked into the dictates of things as they are or some inevitable march of progress and technology. However, deciding what is “better” depends on the values that guide the process.

The precautionary principle and the process of applying it by no means eliminate the value of economics from the equation. Any “democratic and transparent” process must include economic considerations. However, deliberately and consistently putting economics first leads to a different kind of precaution, a kind that is routinely exercised at the expense of the life and health of humans and ecosystems. This is a value judgment. It makes a difference which values guide a decision.

19


Green Democ Adv Ext - Answers to: You can’t change the government[___]

[___] Our appeal for a more democratic decision making process for environmental issues can make it a reality. Our appeal generates environmental accountability.

Eckersley, Senior Lecturer - Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004[ROBYN, THE GREEN STATE: RETHINKING DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY, APRIL, p14-5]

The overall argument that I offer is that it is too hasty to assume that the social structures of international anarchy, global capitalism, and the liberal democratic state are necessarily anti-ecological and mutually reinforcing, or that they foreclose the possibility of any progressivetransformation of states as governance structures. The key to such transformation lies in deepening the democratic accountability and responsiveness of states to their citizens’ environmental concerns while also extending democratic accountability to the environmental concerns of transnational civil society, intergovernmental organizations and the society of states in general. By these means, the anti-ecological behavioral dynamics that are generated by the social structures of international anarchy, global capitalism and administrative hierarchy can be reversed.

One does not have to search very far to find historical examples of how environmentally destructive dynamics can be qualified, restrained, or otherwise moderated by state and nonstate agents “acting back” upon social structures. Here I single out three mutually informing developments that have served to moderate and, in some cases, transform the respective “logics” of international anarchy, capitalism, and administrative hierarchy:

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Green Democ Adv Ext - Answers to: Democracy hurts the environment [___]

[___] A green democracy is the only way to ensure government works to protect the environment.

ECKERSLEY, Senior Lecturer - Political Science at the University of Melbourne, 2004[ROBYN, THE GREEN STATE: RETHINKING DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY, APRIL, 117-9]

In the terms of the double challenge of ecological democracy, then, deliberative democracy, prima facie, appears promising. Not only is it likely to generate a risk-averse orientation, it is also likely to guard against unfair displacement of risks onto innocent third parties. Such an orientation provides a welcome move away from the utilitarian framework of trading-off (which permits the sacrifice of the interests of minorities, those lacking preferences, and the discounted future in favor ofpresent majorities) toward a more inclusive orientation that at least strives to find ways of mutually accommodating (rather than trading off) the needs of the present and the future, the human and the nonhuman.

In short, a case can be made that deliberative democracy is especially suited to making collective decisions about long-range, generalizable interests, such as environmental protection and sustainable development. It thus provides a fair process that is likely to move societies toward more reflexive ecological modernization of the kind discussed in chapter 3. Moreover, because it does not confine its moral horizons to the citizens and territory of a particular polity, it may be understood as a transnational form of democracy that is able to cope with fluid boundaries.10 It also has the capacity to accommodate the complexities and uncertainties associated with ecological problems, include and evaluate both expert scientific and vernacular understandings of ecological problems, and identify and evaluate risks in socially and ecologically inclusive ways.

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Green Democ Adv Ext - Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed [___]

[___] The Precautionary Principle is pro-science:a) it encourages more research to minimize uncertaintyb) waiting for scientific certainty is a dangerous standard that uses the environment as a

laboratoryc) Risk assessment is a failed standard and must be replaced

Myers, communications director for the Science and Environmental Health Network, 2004(Nancy, “The Precautionary Principle: Answering the Critics”, Multinational Monitor, September 4, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04corp1.html)

1) Those who advocate precaution urge action on the basis of vague fears, regardless of whether there is scientific evidence to support their fears.Most statements of the Precautionary Principle say it applies when there is reason to believe serious or irreversible harm may occur. Those reasons are based on scientific evidence of various kinds: studies, observations, precedents, experience, professional judgment. They are based on what we know about how processes work and might be affected by a technology.

However, precautionary decisions also take into account what we know we do not know. The more we know, scientifically, the greater will be our ability to prevent disasters based on ignorance. But we must be much more cautious than we have been in the past about moving forward in ignorance.

2) Taking action in advance of scientific certainty undermines science.Scientific standards of certainty are high in experimental science or for accepting or refuting a hypothesis, and well they should be. Waiting to take action before a substance or technology is proven harmful, or even until plausible cause-and-effect relationships can be established, may mean allowing irreversible harm to occur -- deaths, extinctions, poisoning, and the like. Humans and the environment become the unwitting testing grounds for these technologies. This is no longer acceptable. Moreover, science should serve society, not vice versa. Any decision to take action -- before or after scientific proof -- is a decision of society, not science.

3) Quantitative risk assessment is more scientific than other kinds of evaluation.

Risk assessment is only one evaluation method and provides only partial answers. It does not take into account many unknowns and seldom accounts for complex interactions -- nor does it raise our sights to better alternatives.

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Green Democ Adv Ext - Answers to: Scientific Debate Needed [___]

[___] Science must be understood within a system of values that society holds otherwise we cannot know what actions to take with the information that science reveals to us. Form


What is the significance of this impulse to talk about values, and what does the precautionary principle have to do with it? Talking openly about values is a relatively recent development in the established environmental movement, which has long been accustomed to “leaving values at the door,” often under explicit instruction from agency officials and industry representatives, and confining discussions to “the facts” or “science” or “sound science.”

One of the scientists at the Leavenworth gathering said that although the precautionary principle is seen by some as antiscience, in his view, it is not about science at all. “The judgments we make are value laden. It gives us a framework in which to interpret science.” This response is similar to a refrain that has appeared in some recent writing on science and advocacy: State your values up front, because decisions and developments in science and technology are based first of all on values and only secondarily on scientific and technological fact and process per se.

With regard to decisions about public issues, expertise in terms of skill, knowledge, or experience is often less important than basic questions of values. Is abortion wrong? Is it moral to deny medical care to a child whose parents have no health insurance? Should murderers be put to death? Is it acceptable to perform medical experiments on human beings without their consent? There are no scientific answers to these questions, or thousands more like them. They can only be answered by asking ourselves what we believe and what we value. In addressing these questions, finding knowledgeable experts is actually less important than finding experts who share our values. (Rampton & Stauber, 2001, p. 297-8)

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Answers to: Oceans are resilient [___]

[___] Oceans are uniquely vulnerable and human actions can result in horrible outcomes.

Coyne and Hoekstra, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at University of Chicago, and Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, 2007(Jerry and Hopi, “The Greatest Dying”, The New Republic, September 24, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/environment-energy/the-greatest-dying)

In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of all. As overfishing eliminates major predators, while polluted and warming waters kill off phytoplankton, the intricate aquatic food web could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which so many humans depend, will be a fond memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by phytoplankton, with the rest coming from land plants.) Species extinction is also imperiling coral reefs - a major problem since these reefs have far more than recreat ional value: They provide tremendous amounts of food for human populations and buffer coastlines against erosion.

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Answers to: Oceans are resilient [___]

[___] The end of an entire species cannot be taken lightly. We cannot know when a species disappearing will be the tipping point for a larger collapse in an ecosystem so we must err towards precaution to preserve species diversity.

Parenteau, Director, Environmental Law Center, Vermont Law School, 1998(Patrick, “Rearranging The Deck Chairs: Endangered Species Act Reforms in an Era of Mass Extinction,” , William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review Spring 22 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 227, http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1276&context=wmelpr)

To summarize Part I, the biodiversity crisis is real, and the stakes are high. Extinction estimates may vary by a wide margin, but they all agree on the central point that the current rate is far beyond any definition of "normal," and it is increasing. n127 Each extinction, no matter how inconsequential it may appear in isolation, represents another strand removed from the fabric of life, another rivet popped from the wing of the airplane. n128 Neo-classical economics tells us almost nothing about the dollar value of individual species, let alone the cumulative value of the services that healthy ecosystems provide. n129 The emerging field of ecological economics is beginning to get a handle on these values, and the numbers being generated, though soft, are huge. n130 Yet in the end it is not what we know but what we do not know that may provide the most cogent argument for exercising the "precautionary principle," for trying to save "every cog and wheel," not just for ourselves but for the next seven generations to come. n131 All well and good, you may be thinking, but isn't habitat loss and even extinction simply the inevitable, albeit unfortunate, price we must pay for "progress?" A look at the roots of the biodiversity crisis might shed some light on this question.

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Answers to: Land Based Problems [___]

[___] Even if it cannot remove all harms to the ocean, establishing the precautionary principle for ocean management would protect marine biodiversity by preventing the most damaging forms of development.


The precautionary principle

The United States needs a new policy that regards marine biodiversity as a resource worth saving. The fundamental pillar of this policy must be the precautionary principle: conserving marine resources and preventing damage before it occurs. The precautionary principle stands in sharp contrast to the traditional marine policy framework: take as much as can be taken and pollute as much as can be polluted until a problem arises. Rather than wait for the environment to cry for help, the precautionary principle places the burden on fishermen, oil drillers, industry, farmers whose fields run to rivers or shores, and whomever else would exploit the sea, intentionally or not, to avoid harming this precious resource in the first place.

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Human/Nature Divide [___] The precautionary principle is the single most powerful mechanism for challenging the separation between human and non-human interests and prevent environmental destruction.

Jordan and O’Riordan, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, East Anglia University ,1999(Andrew and Timothy, “THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN CONTEMPORARYENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND POLITICS", Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle. Ed. Raffensperger and Tickner, Island Press, Google Books)

Intrinsic value and legitimate status: The stronger formulations of the precautionary principle are consistent with what philosophers term a 'bioethic'. This states that vulnerable, or critical natural systems, namely those close to thresholds, or whose existence is vital for natural regeneration, should be protected as a matter of moral right. This in turn places a strain both on the application of cost-benefit analysis generally, including the proportionality rule, and the normal practice of considering all options as comparators for decision making. Thus, precaution goes to the heart of the philosophical and political debate on the proper relationship between humans and the non-human ('natural') world. In promoting a more humble and less rapacious attitude to the environment, the precautionary principle presents a profound challenge to some of the unstated assumptions of 'modern' (and particularly western) societies: material growth, the power and efficacy of scientific reason and the pre-eminence of human interests over those of other entities. The human race is a colonising species without an institutional or intellectual capacity for equilibrium, and notions of 'care', 'precaution' and 'restraint' strike at the veryheart of its common purpose (Jordan and O'Riordan, 1993). The precautionary principle lends strength to the notion that natural systems have intrinsic rights and a non-instrumental value that should be accounted for in decision making.

Unfortunately, the precautionary principle does not state how much environmental quality should be sacrificed for material growth, nor does it determine how a 'non-instrumental' respect for nature should be incorporated into decision making. However, it does offer a strong presumption in favour of high environmental protection and a justification for treating certain environmental functions or features as inviolable. This is a prospect that usually causes alarm amongst those who believe that such a concept is an excuse for deep ecology to ride roughshod over 'sensible' forms of development or impose 'limits' to material growth. The US lawyer Christopher Stone (1987) has sought to allay these fears by indicating that a creative partnership in law can be established to allow nature rights of existence that are not absolute, but require careful deliberation before being set aside.

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Precautionary Principle Affirmative (JV & V Only) SLUDL / NAUDL 2013-14Answers to: Disadvantages

Answers to: Precautionary Principle is a bad ethic [___]

[___] The negative relies on a utilitarian decision making style that will trap the Earth in a system which makes planetary destruction inevitable.

Plumwood, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, 2002[Valerie, Environmental Culture: The ecological crisis of reason, PG. 150-51]

Singer's Minimalism is also a political position urging minimal departure from prevailing liberal,Humanistic and Enlightenment assumptions and from the present system of economic rationality. 14 But surely an ecological society will require more than minimal departures from these systems, none of which have been innocent bystanders in the development of the rational machinery which is bringing the stripping of the planet for the benefit of a small elite of humans to a high point of rational refinement. Singer's Utilitarianism reproduces many elements of rationalism including the adoption of universal, abstract mathematically-expressible formulae for decision, in the best universalist/ impersonalist tradition. Also in the rationalist tradition is the content of the Utilitarian formula, with its maximisations (always damaging), illusory precision, its intellectualist reduction of ethics to a matter of rational calculation and quantification, and its corresponding reduction of the important dimensions of decision to aspects of life supposedly susceptible to these rational manipulations. And as we have seen, awareness, the chief ground of ethical consideration, is one, but only one, possible variation on reason or mind, although one that modernism can tie to preferences and hence to agency and property ownership. The most serious objection to my mind however is that any ecological or animal ethics based on Singer's Utilitarianism is committed to a massive program of ranking, quantification and comparison between beings and species — a program which, as I argue in the next chapter, is unworkable, ethically repugnant, and built on a problematic reading of equality. Theoretically, ranking comparisons and tradeoffs between beings are insisted upon by Utilitarianism at virtually every level his emphasis on ranking does not encourage the kind of thinking that aims for mutual, negotiated outcomes, but rather ones that sanction a sacrificial order determined on the basis of greater approximations to the human.

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Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic

[___]

[___] The Precautionary Principle provides representation for the environment in the legal system, providing a voice for those that cannot be present.

Van Dyke, Professor of Law at University of Hawaii, 2004[Jon M., "The Evolution and International Acceptance of the Precautionary Principle", in Bringing New Law to Ocean Waters, http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf]

It is easy and commonplace for commentators to criticize the precautionary principle as an aspiration without content, or as a feel-good “‘sound bite’ rather than a principle rooted in law.”123 But these criticisms fail to recognize the important shift in perspective that the precautionary principle exemplifies. It was not long ago that environmentalists were on the outside looking in, trying to warn governments and international organizations of the dangers facing our fragile ecosystems. But now these warnings—and the caution required to protect our depleted natural resources—are incorporated in international and nationaldecisionmaking at the outset. How exactly these cautions translate into action varies with each problem, and we are still experimenting with the assessments and evaluations needed toensure that changes are introduced with the required prudence. But it is still highly significant that in less than two decades, the perspective of our global community has changed from allowing developments to proceed automatically to requiring careful evaluation before the green light is given. At its core, the precautionary principle means that decisionmakers “must take precautionary measures (or avoid certain conduct and projects) when there is an expectationthat a relevant activity may create adverse environmental interference, even inthe absence of conclusive evidence displaying a relationship between cause and alleged effects.”124 It requires “an anticipatory response . . . in situations of uncertaintywhere a violation has not yet occurred and no harm has been done, but where a strong risk of such a violation exists.”125 With time and experience, the details of the precautionary principle will come into clearer focus. But already it has transformed the process of decisionmaking, by recognizing the validity of environmental concerns and by requiring some level of clarity and certainty before risky activities are begun.

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http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf


Answers to: Precautionary Principle is not an Ethic [___]

[___] The precautionary principle allows values to be injected into the decision making process. Without making our values explicit the oceans will continue to be less important than short term economic gains.


In the preface to Pandora’s Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, Joe Thornton (2000) made this declaration: No analyst of policy can be truly objective, because the process of weighing options for social action always filters the findings of science through a set of political and ethical assumptions and values. With that in mind, I have tried to do two things: to make explicit the ethical and political views that undergird my own evaluation of the science and to be as fair as possible in my presentation of the scientific evidence.

I cover what I believe to be the most important information relevant to the case I am making and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, but I do not claim balance or objectivity, because these are neither appropriate nor possible in this kind of effort. (p. ix) Hugo Alroe and Erik Kristensen (in press) described the need for scientists to recognize the value system within which they work and to observe and describe it as objectively as, and alongside, the research itself:

An overall distinction between the system and its environment needs to be made— the system has to be identified as an object of observation. This first movement also involves the determination, or at least presumption, of certain goals and values upon which the choices and delimitations that need to be made in planning and initiating research, can be made. The ensuing observations are thus based on these value-laden choices. The precautionary principle has many practical uses and applications. But both its instinctive appeal and the sharp criticism it evokes have less to do with practicalities and more to do with the fact that it brings values to the forefront of discussion. Invoking the precautionary principle is an acknowledgement that policy choices are value laden, and it is an explicit endorsement of certain values. The precautionary principle embodies certain values; it exposes the contradictory values that currently govern decision-making processes; it can be effective only if certain values are allowed to enter into the decision-making process. Moreover, the principle may be most effective if specific values, in the form of goals, are allowed

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Answers to Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

[___]

[___] The principle is the best framework for decision-making- balancing interests of growth and the environment ensures the best outcome.

Van Dyke, Professor of Law at University of Hawaii, 2004[Jon M., "The Evolution and International Acceptance of the Precautionary Principle", in Bringing New Law to Ocean Waters, http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf]

V. Is the Precautionary Principle a Rejection of the Scientific Method and a Formula for Doing Nothing?No . The precautionary principle does not reject science, but it does rest on the recognition that the physical sciences do not always provide all the answers, that social sciences and even the humanities are also valid sources of information and decisionmaking, and that concerns based on common fears are also relevant. Proportionality is always relevant, but grave harm—“the worst-case scenario”—must be considered, even if the likelihood of its occurrence seems relatively remote. Adherence to the precautionary principle does, in a sense, bias decisionmaking against innovation by slowing down the process of introducing new technologies, but this go-slow approach is justified by the realization that new development does not always deliver all that it promises and that change is frequently irreversible. If new technologies and new activities will, in fact, offer benefits, they can be introduced after meeting the burdens of proof required by the precautionary principle.

Utilization of the precautionary principle will alter the “factual trigger” that requires precautions to be taken.121 Without this principle, those challenging a food additive, for instance, would have to prove that it is toxic, those challenging a new fishing activity would have to prove that it would have a negative impact on a species or ecosystem, and those challenging a shipment of a hazardous cargo or the construction of a nuclear power plant would have to prove that it is likely to cause actual pollution to the environment. But when the precautionary principle is utilized, the fears that affected human populations have about such activities become sufficient to induce caution and to require those wishing to undertake these initiatives to establish that the activities are safe, or, in appropriate cases, that the benefits outweigh the risks. Science is not ignored, but its role has changed, and the burden of persuasion is shifted.122 In fact, the precautionary principle promotes more science, because it requires continuous monitoring as well as research into less-polluting alternatives. Some have said that the precautionary principle masks irrational fears of technology. But if the fears are irrational, then good science disseminated by those who are developing the technology can calm those fears and persuade the public that the project is sound.

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http://www.mmc.govisound/internationalwrkshp/pdf/vandyke.pdf


Answers to: Policy Paralysis [____]

[____] The Precautionary Principle allows decisions to be made in the context of uncertainty and the inability to know. This creates a new way of looking at the world that allows for the acceptance of doubt and fear, but does not paralyze us with inaction.

Ewald, Director of Research and Strategy, Federation Francaise des Societesd'Assurances., 2000(Francois, “Risk in contemporary society”, Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, 6 Conn. Ins. L.J. 47, 1999/2000, Hein Online)

Precaution starts when the decision (necessary) must be made by reason of and in the context of a scientific uncertainty. Decisions are therefore made not in a context of certainty, nor even of available knowledge, but of doubt, suspicion, premonition, foreboding, defiance, mistrust, fear, and anxiety. There is to some extent a risk beyond risk, of which we do not have, nor cannot have, the knowledge or the measure. The hypothesis of the risk of development is found within the limit of this new figure of prudence. We have seen, in fact, that, once we are aware of the existence of the risk of development, we can no longer plead for the industry to put in circulation a product offering total quality, since, by hypothesis, the notion affirms that this is not possible. Precaution finds its condition of possibility in a sort of hiatus and time-shift between the requirements of action and the certainty of knowledge. It enters into a new modality of the relationship between knowledge and power. The age of precaution is an age which reformulates the Cartesian demand for the necessity of a methodical doubt. Precaution results from an ethic of the necessary decision in a context of uncertainty. The appearance of the precautionary principle is one of the signs of the profound philosophical and sociological transformations which characterize this end of century.

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Answers to: Policy Paralysis [___]

[___] Implementing the precautionary principle just changes the risk calculation for making a decision. The principle allows for choices that minimize risk, eliminating risk is not neccesary.


"Precaution calls for zero risk, which is impossible to achieve." Response: Any debate over the possibility of "zero risk" is pointless. Our real goal must be to impose far less risk and harm on the environment and on human health than we have in the past. We must harness human ingenuity to reduce the harmful effects of our activities.

The real question is who or what gets the benefit of the doubt. The Precautionary Principle is based on the assumption that people have the right to know as much as possible about risks they are taking on, in exchange for what benefits, and to make choices accordingly. With food and other products, such choices are often played out in the marketplace. Increasingly, manufacturers are choosing to reduce risk themselves by substituting safer alternatives in response to consumer uneasiness, the threat of liability and market pressures.

A key to making those choices is transparency -- about what products contain, and about the testing and monitoring of those ingredients. Another is support, by government and industry, for the exploration of -- and rigorous research on -- alternatives.

Market and voluntary action is not enough, especially on issues that go beyond individual and corporate choice. It is the responsibility of communities, governments, and international bodies to make far-reaching decisions that greatly reduce the risks we now impose on the earth and all its inhabitants.

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Answers to: Regulatory Overload [___]

[___] Departments face overload now, working against each other and overlapping on jurisdiction. Only creating a unified national ocean policy under the precautionary principle can resolve these issues and create enforceable environmental regulations.


This myth is accompanied by another: that policymakers can do little to safeguard the sea. Actually, a variety of governmental agencies provide opportunities for action. State fish and game commissions typically have jurisdiction from shorelines to 3 miles offshore. The Commerce Department regulates commerce in and through waters from 3 to 12 miles offshore and has authority over resources from there to the 200-mile line that delineates this country’s exclusive economic zone. The Interior Department oversees oil drilling; the Navy presides over waters hosting submarines; and the states, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Coast Guard regulate pollution. The problem is that these entities do little to protect marine biodiversity and they rarely work together.

At fault is the decades-old framework that the state and federal powers use to regulate the sea. It consists of fragmented, isolated policies that operate at confused cross-purposes. The United States must develop a new integrated framework-a comprehensive strategy-for protecting marine biodiversity. The framework should embrace all categories of ecosystems, species, human uses, and threats; link land and sea; and apply the “precautionary principle” of first seeking to prevent harm to the oceans rather than attempting to repair harm after it has been done. Once we have defined the framework, we can then enact specific initiatives that effectively solve problems.

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Answers to: Innovation

[___]

[___] The precautionary principle will trigger innovations for cleaner technology.


"If precaution applies to everything, it would stop all technology in its tracks." Response: Precautionary action usually means adopting safer alternatives. A broad precautionary approach will encourage the development of better technologies. Using this approach, society will say "yes" to some technologies while it says "no" to others. Making uncertainty explicit, considering alternatives, and increasing transparency and the responsibility of proponents and manufacturers to demonstrate safety should lead to cleaner products and production methods. It can also mean imposing a moratorium while further research is conducted, calling for monitoring of technologies and products already in use, and so forth.

[___] Research funded by efforts to comply with the precautionary principle will lead to many new innovations.


"Precaution itself is risky: it will prevent us from adopting technologies that are actually safer." Response: This is not true. Precaution suggests two approaches to new technology:

Greater vigilance about possible harmful side effects of all innovations. Alternatives to harmful technologies (such as genetic modification to reduce pesticide use) must be scrutinized as carefully as the technologies they replace. It does not make sense to replace one set of harms with another. Brand-new technologies must receive much greater scrutiny than they have in the past.Redirection of research and ingenuity toward inherently safer, more harmonious, more sustainable technologies, products, and processes.

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Answers to: The disadvantage is more important than the ocean [___]

[___] The disadvantage asks you to put off the problems of the ocean for another day and focus on more immediate issues. However, this is the poor decision making model that allowed us to bring the oceans to the brink of destruction in the first place. Only employing the precautionary principle can allow us to prioritize the health of the oceans and preserve it for the future.

Craig and Hughes, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs, Florida State University College of Law and Professor at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, 2012

(Robin K. and Terry, Marine Protected Areas, Marine Spatial Planning, and the Resilience of Marine Ecosystems (August 16, 2012). RESILIENCE AND THE LAW, Forthcoming; FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 550. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1917696)

The oceans, therefore, maintain world-spanning, interconnected physical, chemical andbiological processes that seem far too large and complex for mere humans to damage. Indeed, in terms of both effective governance and scientific research, “marine systems have been relatively neglected because they are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ to most people, including most scientists” (Ray & Grassle 1991: 453). Until recently, a “paradigm of inexhaustibility” prevailed, a mindset that human managers did not need to worry about ocean health because marine ecosystems would always be resilient enough to absorb and recover from the multiple and interactive stresses—overfishing, pollution and now climate change—that humans impose on them (Craig 2005; Ogden 2001; Connor 1999).

Unfortunately, we now know that marine ecosystems often cannot in fact absorb the multitude of anthropogenic stressors imposed upon them, even before the accelerating impacts of climate change become more severe and add to existing drivers of change such as overfishing (Agardy 2010; Laffoley et al. 2008). Many marine ecosystems have lost their resilience to recurrent natural and man-made disturbances, and have undergone long-term shifts to new, degraded regimes (Hughes et al. 2005). In coastal regions in particular, fishing has substantially altered marine ecosystems for centuries (Jackson et al. 2001). For example, many coral reefs have undergone regime-shift to macro-algae following the over-exploitation of herbivores and the addition of land-based nutrients. A study published in Science in 2008 concluded that no area of the world’s oceans is completed unaffected by human impacts, and 41 percent of the oceans are strongly affected by multiple human impacts (Halpern et al. 2008). In the face of additional climate change-induced stresses, marine governance systems and marine managers need to find mechanisms for increasing the resilience of ocean ecosystems. This chapter explores one set of those mechanisms—place-based marine management, especially marine protected areas (MPAs)—and the various legal regimes that encourage use of these tools in pursuit of increased marine ecosystem resilience.

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http://ssrn.com/abstract=1917696


Answers to: Precautionary Principle prevents development [___]

[___] Employing the precautionary principle does not sacrifice developing countries- it’s a false choice driven by faulty cost-benefit analysis.

White, assistant professor of Sociology at James Madison University, 2004(Damian, "Environmental Sociology and Its Futures", Sociology, April 1, No. 2, Vol. 38)

It is the underlying assumptions, then, of positivism, neoclassical economics and technological determinism/optimism which ultimately provide the interpretive framework for this study. This is moststriking when cost-benefit analysis is used in concluding chapters as an 'objective' and 'non-political' means of demonstrating that our environmental concerns are misdirected. Thus we are warned of the danger of environmentalists convincing us to spend more public money on environmental policy rather than on 'hospitals, child care etc.' and later Third World development. Once again, we are drawn back to the question of 'facts' and how facts are framed. Are our options really so fixed as to merely amount to a choicebetween clean air or kindergartens? Is the low priority presently given to development aid by OECD nations plausibly explained by their excessive and rampant spending on the environment? In this neatly constructed (and of course nonpolitical) series of choices that Lomborg offers, no mention is made of OECD or US military spending, corporate subsidies, tax breaks for the wealthy and so on. Rather odd omissions for a self-declared 'old left wing Greenpeace member' (p. xix).

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Answers to Genetically Modified Crops prevent starvation [___]

[___] Genetically modified plants are worse for crop productivity and provides diminishing returns --- yields have been unproven in practice

Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent, 2008(Geoffrey, “Exposed: the great GM crops myth”, The Independent, 4-20- http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth-812179.html?service=Print)

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis. The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields. Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'" He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one. The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it. The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available. The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields. But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.

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Answers to: Food Security Impact [___]

[___] Starvation is caused by poor distribution of food, not lack of production.

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM , HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE, 2006 (10 Reasons to Rethink 'Overpopulation', popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_40.pdf)

Global food production has consistently kept pace with population growth, and today world agriculture produces 17% more calories per person than it did 30 years ago . There is enough food for every man, woman and child to have more than the recommended daily calorie intake. People go hungry because they do not have the land on which to grow food or the money with which to buy it. In Brazil, one percent of the land owners control almost half of the country's arable land, and more land is owned by multinational corporations than all the peasants combined. Globally, more than 1.2 billion people earn less than $1 per day, making it difficult to afford enough food to feed a family. Many governments have failed to make food security a priority. In 2002, when at least 320 million people in India were suffering from hunger, the government tripled its rice and wheat exports. The U.S. is the largest food producer in the world, yet more than one in ten American households are either experiencing hunger or are at the risk of it.

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http://popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_40.pdf


Answers to: Poverty Impact [___]

[___] Poverty is created by corrupt economic and political systems not the number of people who need to be fed.

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM , HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE, 2006 (10 Reasons to Rethink 'Overpopulation', popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_40.pdf)

A narrow focus on human numbers obscures the way different economic and political systems operate to perpetuate poverty and inequality . It places the blame on the people with the least amount of resources and power rather than on corrupt governments and economic and political elites. It ignores the legacy of colonialism and the continuing unequal relationship between rich and poor countries , including unfavorable terms of trade and the debt burden. It says nothing about the concentration of much wealth in a few hands. In the late 1990s, the 225 people who comprise the 'ultra-rich' had a combined wealth of over US $1 trillion, equivalent to the annual income of the poorest 47% of the world's people.

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