- Statement of Significance:
- The United States has made minimal progress on environmental preservation, and as such the issue most certainly warrants ongoing attention. A healthy environment is the precondition to anything we do-so policymakers have an enormous obligation to dedicate attention to initiatives that reduce pollution and halt environmentally unsound practices and production. Despite its importance, our environment is in a state of perpetual destruction caused by human's lack of understanding and concern. Almost without dispute from the vast field of literature, the US is leading the catastrophic demolition of the environment. This issue alone justifies significance for the proposed topic.
- The topic is interesting, provocative, and challenging because:
- The environment is affected by so many internal and external variables that the ground for debate has both depth and breadth. This type of research challenge provides a year-long learning experience. The topic is challenging because there is a clear debate on both sides, supported by quality literature from the past 2-3 decades.
- The topic is educational:
- Too often, discourse about the environment is neglected as higher policy directives are emphasized. As a debate community, it is time to step back and analyze the true impact of our policy agenda. As we continue to pass environmentally destructive policies, little attention/concern is devoted to the environment. It is definitely educational to step back and evaluate what should be done to solve a problem that is caused, for the most part, by our past decisions. After a year of research, debaters will gain a more legitimate and holistic knowledge-base about the environment. This knowledge can lead to increased advocacy in the status quo-extending the benefits of the debate into the real world.
- Sample resolutions:
- Resolved that the United States should significantly alter its policy to increase environmental protection.
- Resolved that the United States should significantly alter its policy to minimize environmental destruction.
- Possible case areas:
- Emissions trading
- Carbon sinks
- Endangered/extinct species
- Logging
- Kyoto
- Clean water
- Clean air
- Waste management
- Toxic chemical disposal
- Oil spills
- Global warming
- Ecoterror
- Pesticides
- Alternative Energy
- Selected Readings:
- Public Policies for Environmental Protection (2nd edition). Paul R. Portney and Robert N. Stavins, editors | August 2000
- Wilson, Edward Osborne. The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
- Shutkin, William A. The Land That Could Be: Environmentalism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Foreword by David Ross Brower. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
- Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, Paul Hawken, 1994.
- This is a good book to reference in the inevitable debate about the economy versus environment.
- Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. (a classic-but essential to understanding the urgency of the topic.)
Western Kentucky University