2015 Tournament: The international community should endorse unilateral climate engineering projects to prevent global warming

Judge: whiteflame    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: nzlockie
Reasoning:
Have to admit... I'm confused by how this debate progressed. It didn't go as I expected, and I think that's in part due to some interesting choices of emphasis in the debate, some misconceptions, and some odd choices.

I figure the best way to go about this RFD is to do it one round at a time.

Pro R1:

The definitions are... wonky, and the fact that Con doesn't actually attack them seems incredibly problematic to me. I'll look at two of them here.

“Endorse - support, encourage and ultimately sign off on.”

This seems to be moving beyond the scope of the resolution. I agree with support and encourage, but signing off on an action assumes that the international community a) should equate endorsement with regulation, and b) has some form of control over that action. When I see endorse, I see a term that simply signals a encouragement for an activity. Which becomes all the more important when we consider the other definition issue.

“Unilateral - in this context, projects brought to fruition without outside aid.”

I can't find this definition in any dictionary. Pro seemed to be equating unilateral with autonomous. Unilateral means acting without agreement. I understand, based on Pro's definition of endorse, why he would want to have this definition for unilateral – it's a whole lot easier to support actions taking place without outside help than it is to support actions taking place entirely independent of other countries and their views.

But these are the definitions I'm presented with, and as I said, they're left untouched by Con. Maybe that's due to lack of time or analysis on his part, but I'm loathe to punish Pro for something Con didn't spend any time on.

The structure for the case runs into some similar problems. I agree with Pro's analysis that those affected by an issue should be able to act in order to ensure that said issue is resolved. This argument actually would have worked for the real unilateral definition, though with Pro's definition, it actually seems less applicable. If I buy this point, I'm under the perception that there should be no limitations on what, say, third world nations can do to ensure that global warming doesn't affect them. Since that's what you seem to be arguing against, this could have been used to turn your case.

Both sides accept that global warming is a problem, so I grant that point. However, much of the applicable analysis comes up in R2, and I'll address it there, since Pro's analysis in this round simply invites the response of “treat the cause, not the symptoms.”

The case proper just confuses me, all the more so after it becomes clear in R2, so I'll address it there. I don't think it's at all clear in R1, as I don't know what the international community is doing to endorse projects, how it's making those determinations, or any examples of projects that are coming up or exist that should be endorsed.

Con R1:

Con's case ends up being confused as well. He presents a number of disadvantages in R1, but only makes it clear what his actual positive case is in R2. I'll get to it there.

I'll go through it point by point.

1. Chaos

Part of the reason Pro so casually dismisses this point is that it's not well fleshed out. Yes, nature is complicated. It's not enough to say it's complicated, and therefore that most things we do through climate engineering are likely to be bad.

I need examples.

The examples I get aren't particularly relevant. The fact that we've tried intervening in nature before is somewhat relevant, but since it's not a climate engineering project, it's difficult to draw conclusions from this that show that implementing climate engineering is likely to produce similarly harmful results. I don't doubt that the Matthews study has a lot of good cases to draw upon, but since none are mentioned, I can't use them.

2. Moral Hazard

The title's misleading. The argument should be under either the heading “masking” or “opportunity costs.” It's important to clarify which of these two arguments applies here, since throughout the debate, I alternately see both arguments.

The masking point is pretty decent, though it's not well explained. As Pro points out, there's no reason we can't address both the symptoms and the cause at the same time. Really, how a masking argument like this should be built is more along these lines:

A) Society is currently driven to deal with global warming.
B) The reason for that drive is that it's talked about a lot in the media, and it's made out as something huge that will affect everyone.
C) If there exists a method that is broadly used that is supposed to deal with a great deal of present problems, the sensationalism disappears, and it's talked about less in society.
D) That reduced discussion results in fewer people backing projects that reduce CO2 output, less pressures to stop deforestation, etc.
E) As a result, the problem is masked, and even a partial masking is a huge problem when funding is necessary to produce results in the prevention sphere.

I don't see that line of logic. I see pieces of it here and there, but no unifying picture.

The opportunity cost point really doesn't appear. I don't see why pursuing climate engineering somehow reduces the amount of effort put into methods to prevent global warming. This sounds like the masking point, but really, this would have to be a question of why one set of efforts precludes another. If there's a funding issue that's not likely to be dealt with, that would be an opportunity cost argument. If one company picking up climate engineering projects restricts their capacity to engage in other research, that's an opportunity cost. Those could have been points made here, but I don't see them.

As it stands, this is just a mitigating point, showing that these methods aren't wholly effective and therefore cannot be used alone. That's not really the point Pro was going for, so it's not a big deal here.

3. Weaponisation

Yes, the technology can be weaponized, and I think it's is a problem inherent to a world in which climate engineering projects are pursued more doggedly/employed more often. I think those links really needed to be established here. Pro doesn't really challenge the basic logic here that climate engineering projects can create weapons, it's really just a question of why Pro's case ensures that either a) more climate engineering projects are explored, or b) the ones that are pursued are more easily weaponized. Thus, the link to the case is brittle at best, and thus the actual likelihood of this impact is very low.

Pro R2:

First, because I want to get this out of the way, the case.

I shouldn't be needing the kind of clarity I'm getting in this round for what Pro's case is, yet I'm getting quite a bit. This actually would have been a reasonable place to argue that Pro was being overly vague, making it impossible to spend any of the first round attacking the case at all. But I don't see that from Con, so, while I'm personally against doing so, I accept the case specifications given here.

Part of those specifications is that the international community now MUST sign off in order for a solution to be implemented. I didn't see that in the opening round. If Con had argued the definition of unilateral, this might have been a winning point by itself, since I would have bought that now, for certain, the case would have defied the actual definition of unilateral. However, since I'm forced to buy Pro's definition, I accept that this specification is topical, if not altogether kosher.

There's also now specifics about how the international community approves and somewhat regarding who it will see. I don't know who would have to sit on the panel for it to be representative, but that's still more detail, as is the argument that solutions can “be submitted by literally anyone” and evaluated in this panel. This certainly leaves me with some concerns about how they can possibly manage to evaluate what is likely to be thousands of possible projects, and moreover, why it would matter that they do if they can't also enforce or subsidize implementation (which, as far as I can tell, are not part of the policy), effectively making most of these evaluations pointless since the only ones that matter are those coming from countries themselves, but, again, I'm not seeing these responses in the debate.

The Schelling point is another case addition in this round. I'm not sure how this would be enforced by the international community, or how a monitoring system would be put in place, so it's difficult to say what this would really do and who would be left out. I buy that it's happening in status quo, and therefore that weaponization happens regardless, and, as I pointed out above, that there's a limited, weak link to your case, but I'm not sure the Schelling point does anything for you without the key details. The international community is pretty notorious for allowing countries to gain access to very dangerous weapons without response, so I'm not sure why their involvement here dramatically changes things. It just seems like the problem persists, at perhaps a small increased level, though that's difficult to evaluate.

I see yet another extension of the case in the Open Source point, and I'm not really sure why you included this. Again, maybe if the justice point had been present, this would have benefited your case since you're presenting an equal playing field worldwide regardless, but without it, this just seems like yet another unnecessary piece to tack onto your case. Worse yet, it seems you're just flaunting the “unilateral” definition in the boldest way possible, since an Open Source system is literally the opposite of a unilateral actor. Worst of all, this invites two turns:

A) A forced open Open Source system (which would probably be required to make this equal) would ensure that most individuals and companies would never have any financial incentive, which is a problem given that that's the major incentive by which they pursue these things, and many country wouldn't have incentive for developing technologies that they would automatically have to share, thus destroying any advantage they might gain from development.

B) An Open Source system could be viewed as actually less equal. It's the forced sharing of ideas, not resources. As such, countries with tremendous resources will suddenly have access to every idea being produced across the planet and be able to pick and choose based on what they are willing to do, while other countries will be forced to hope for collaborations.

Either of these turns could have been deadly by themselves, though neither is attempted.

1) How should we proceed?

I think that generally, this point needed more work. I can understand that those who are directly affected by global warming in the most stark way should have some stake in finding and implementing the solution, and that their views are often subjugated to those of larger, more powerful countries that aren't as affected. However, I would have liked to see analysis on the following points:

A) Why are some countries demonstrably more affected by global warming than others? I know you got to this somewhat in this round, but I'd have liked to see a general principle and not just two examples. Moreover, why don't those countries have a voice? This is an implicit assumption in the argument, but it's never supported.
B) What is the cost of not involving more countries in the decision? Again, there seem to be several implicit assumptions here based partially on the value of justice, and the importance of having a diverse set of ideas to draw from, but in both cases, I don't get support for why they're important, just a statement that they are.
C) What is the cost of not having these countries also implementing the solution? Again, a justice argument might have worked well here, but I don't see the value of justice being debated or, for that matter, even broached anywhere. What also might have worked here is a general argument that global warming, despite its name, has a lot of local effects before it becomes truly global. We can't and shouldn't ignore those effects, and so the international community needs to endorse their actions to stop it.

2/3) Does Climate Engineering address the real problem? Shouldn't we just buy a Prius?/OK, tell me about the Water Vapour!

Good rebuttal here, and I brought up earlier how well this works. This deals a pretty solid blow to any opportunity cost argument Con might have been going for, as well as the masking point through the education argument (though that might also be moving beyond the bounds of the resolution).

The main point that matters here, as offense for you, is this argument that a greenhouse effect is already happening and needs to be stopped – that prevention alone won't solve. Since that's the brunt of Con's case (that prevention is all we need), it hits rather hard, especially as Con doesn't present a solid objection to this point. It's probably the strongest point made in this debate.

4) So have they already solved this thing then?

Both debaters are really avoiding presenting any examples in their favor, which is a disservice to this debate in general. For Pro, I can understand why you'd want to avoid presenting them because there's not many good examples out there. Nonetheless, I generally I have a problem with this argument that “we don't know yet!” Or, in other words, that we're looking for a solution and will eventually find it, and as such, will solve for global warming at some point. It seems like a fallacy to me, arguing that evidence will someday be discovered with will then support Pro's point. Admittedly, any chance of it occurring at all may be a reason to support Pro's case, but that argument isn't made clearly, and Con could have argued in response that uncertainty is in his favor since all the new tech that's come about has proven pretty damn awful for climate engineering (again, need examples for this though). I get that you're arguing for caution as well, but yours is the only case (up til this point) that's absolutely certain to pursue something eventually, and therefore the only one that's likely to invite those harms.

Nonetheless, this doesn't do any damage to you, just because I'm not given reason enough from Con to think that the risk is likely and damaging enough to favor his case.

5) Potential for Weaponisation

This point from Con probably should have fallen victim to the same fallacy, but he gives more support for it. I don't see Pro countering that support. I understand the slippery slope fallacy being used here (that its usage as a weapon is a less likely outcome), but I'm given little reason to believe that it's exceedingly unlikely through this point.

As I explained above, the Schelling point and Open Source arguments just really don't work for me.

Whew. That was a long one.

Con R2:

I understand that you were short on time here, but this round is really just too short to address Pro's case sufficiently, and I think a lot could have been done this round that ends up going dropped because of the length and breadth of this post.

Again, unpredictability isn't a powerful point unless you can show that it favors you. So far, all I've seen is that there's possible dangers, but no actual examples of climate engineering causing them. If your goal was to keep it vague, then this still requires more effort on your part. Whether that means introducing the Precautionary Principle, or talking about what it means to engage in climate experiments that can have very wide reaching effects (turning the world into a test tube), I'd need a lot of support for a point like this.

And, since I didn't do this before, here's a short list of things that I found through a short search: cloud seeding (look into silver iodide and what China tried to do), the Three Gorges Dam in China (meant to stop floods, displaced over a million people, obviously not the only example of a dam causing substantial harms), and iron fertilization (I know this was mentioned, but there's a lot of good detail about algal blooms, surges in toxic phytoplankton species, explosions of jellyfish, destruction of whale populations, and generally upsetting many ocean ecosystems in irreversible ways) are all good examples. There are good responses to these, but they should have appeared somewhere in this debate in detail.

This new argument in this round is actually pretty confusing, mainly because it looks like we never get to the impact of the argument. Yes, people disagree on what is a good average temperature, but it's generally agreed that increasing temperatures are bad. That's not really an impediment here, as far as I can tell.

Now, there may be a good reason to bring up the difficulty getting agreement on cutting emissions and citing the issues with the Kyoto Protocol... but given the argument as written, it actually supports Pro's case. It makes me believe that dealing with emissions is an impossible venture, and that's the entire point of your case. You had to build on this, first by pointing to a means by which we can ensure that emissions are cut consistently, and second by explaining why the Kyoto Protocol is a reflection of Pro's case (i.e. that his case depends on countries abiding by some implicit or explicit international agreement, which they are unlikely to do for some reason).

I sort of get the first in the next paragraph, but this new case addition is just confounding. Who is this “small group of countries or billionaires”? How would they be selected? How many countries? How many billionaires? Would they get equal say? How would their decisions be enforced? This leaves me with more questions than answers. Maybe there's something good out of all this, but if I have no idea how it functions, I can't really weigh it against something more certain. And, as Pro points out next round, this just sounds incredibly domineering. In fact, it seems more domineering than the international community having to sign off on every single climate engineering project in order for it to be pursued. So it just ends up making your case lose any possible moral high ground it had taken.

Pro R3:

There's not much in the way of new material to cover this round as much of the rebuttal is repetitive. I'll just cover what's new.

You mention that leaving “the development and implementation of a Climate Engineering tool... to a small group of countries” is problematic, but I can't help but notice that that's what you're doing too, unless I'm mistaken. I didn't see any means by which the international community acts, but presumably not every single nation is going to vote every single time on every single project. Similarly, as I mentioned before, not every country's going to be able to implement these projects, thereby limiting involvement in that regard. Even if I discount those, I can't help but think that, even if some enforcement structure exists to ensure that only approved projects are allowed, the bigger and more powerful countries of the world are the only ones that have the capacity to ignore it, thus rendering them the sole countries capable of actual unilateral climate engineering projects. Again, none of these arguments came up, but it's hard not to see the hypocrisy in your statement that Con's case is domineering.

Nonetheless, I think the argument that the biggest polluters are likely to populate Con's voting group is a solid one. These are billionaires, and likely the most powerful countries (though I'm not sure, after reading your case, why they are less affected by climate change – I know those arguments, but I don't see them), and therefore more likely to have other interests that detract from pursuing the stated goal.

I like the way you wrapped up the debate. Reminding us of what's involved in the resolution, what's necessary to win, and what our ballots uphold in terms of real world policy actions are good ways to go, and I think they have a solid punch.

Con R3:

Again, just another very short ground that doesn't seem to get where it needs to go. If this is very high risk, I need to know what kind of harm they can cause and why I should be concerned. I don't think I ever get that message solidly. Pro gives me a much better warranted and impacted argument for why global warming is a big problem, and that at least is agreed by both sides. He also tells me why climate engineering is specifically necessary in order to ensure that it can be stopped.

Many of the assumptions about your arguments keep on trucking. I don't see a solid link between the Kyoto treaty and Pro's case, nor do I see the Kyoto treaty as a complete failure just for want of the participation of certain countries, even if that was true.

Conclusion:

Obviously, there was a lot involved in this debate. Nonetheless, the outcome is simple enough for me to assess because the case with the best structure, the most support, the best link story and the strongest impacts is Pro's. Given the vagueness of his case and his taking advantage of multiple opportunities in later rounds to expound upon it in often confusing ways, I'll admit that I am loathe to vote for Pro's case all the same, but since a) Con engages in the same behavior, albeit in a more minimal fashion, b) Con fails to point out these specifications, c) there's apparent rule against it, and d) his central case is still the most potent part of his argument, I don't have much choice but to allow it. Many of those same issues apply to Pro's definitions, which certainly seem abusive to me. Despite my perceptions of his case and definitions, I evaluate the debate as it's presented to me, so I vote Pro.

Feedback:
I've given the vast majority of my feedback in the RFD, but I'll add to it generally.

nzlockie: Make your case as clear as possible in the first round. Take the time to block off that explanation under the heading “case,” “plan” or “model.” It doesn't have to be exhaustive, but it should include the relevant details. If it requires a method for enforcement, include it. If it requires a certain panel acting a certain number of times, you've got to make it clear how that panel is composed and that it's plausible. Don't add new pieces to the case unless it's absolutely necessary, and try when you do present the pieces of your case to keep them directly relevant to the resolution. When it's a debate about endorsing projects, for example, that endorsement shouldn't become a requirement for those projects to occur.

One other thing to be aware of – you don't want too many moving pieces. Your case had at least 4 planks from my count, some of which were better explained than others, but it really doesn't matter, since so many planks gives your opponent a tremendous number of options for attacks. You don't want to be giving him more opportunities unless you garner something very important from each plank, and at most, I see two of these as important. Streamline your case whenever possible.

Also, try to be reasonable with your definitions. I know it's tempting on resolutions like this to try and give yourself the most ground you can, but there is actually a lot of good arguments that you could have presented given the actual definitions of endorse and unilateral. All Wylted really had to do was cite the actual definitions and restrict your case, and things would have gotten very bad very quickly, since he would have skewed you out of most of your arguments.

What really worked for you was the explanation for the positive feedback loop because it was the strongest delineation between yours and your opponent's cases. It's important to make that delineation clear from the first round, since it's the main link leading to your impact of reducing global warming.

Wylted:

Obviously, time was an issue here. I'm sure you had more important things taking up your time, and I understand that, but it ended up doing a lot of damage to your arguments here.

I think that you were mainly too focused on your own case here. Building an off-case argument is important, but there was a lot to work with here from your opponent, more than enough to cover half of your opening argument if you were willing. Don't let your opponent control the debate, attack him on the pieces he thinks he controls most thoroughly.

Similarly to Pro, though, when you present an alternative to the case, you should make it as clear as possible. If your case is solely that climate engineering projects should disappear so that focus can be placed solely on preventing emissions, then you need to present ways to end those projects that occur in status quo and reasons why ending those projects improves other methods. Especially if you're planning on adding a specific panel to accomplish these things, you have to make that extremely clear from the outset.

The main thing that's missing from your arguments are link stories. I need to know why it is that the Kyoto treaty was ineffective, and why those aspects apply to Pro's case. I also want to know what that means for Pro's impacts – it doesn't look like full mitigation, so what does it do to his impacts? The same is true for each of your arguments; I felt you had a lot of the pieces there, but they were missing fundamental links and warrants to improve them. If I'm missing any of those pieces, it makes them that much more difficult to understand, and you want to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

Both debaters: I think both of you were trying to build off of implicit values (Pro off of justice/equality, Con off of a general “do no harm” principle). Don't do that. If you have a value, make it explicit. I shouldn't be guessing what your values are, especially when they're essential to many of your arguments. Make it clear early and often what your value is and why it matters.

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Judge: deleted user
Win awarded to: Wylted
Reasoning:
Con's example of the negative effects of unforeseen consequences were solid, and Pro failed in rebutting it. Pro's arguments were vague and I couldn't envision exactly how his proposed solution would work.

Feedback:
Pro's arguments were to vague. Pro should have been more specific in his arguments. Pro should have also responded to better to Con's example of negative unforeseen consequences.

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Judge: 9spaceking
Win awarded to: nzlockie
Reasoning:
I believe Nzlockie showed not only sufficient evidence of Global Warming that was not refuted, but he also managed to hold up the need to protect animals on a global level, thus why unilateral climate engieering is needed. Wylted attacked less and less of Nz's arguments each round, and Nz only grew stronger and stronger with each strengthening of his arguments, and by the end, Wylted was left with a flimsy argument close to "it's not possible or plausible", which was easily refuted by Nzlockie's statistics (and facts concerning the effects of the climate on those countries). Thus, Nzlockie wins.

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Judge: ZeusYoda
Win awarded to: nzlockie
Reasoning:
I felt PRO made more sense on the resolution.. Arguments more explained and deep analysis on levels or argumentation.

Feedback:
...I encourage a lot more engagement on the debate! We dont respond to people's claims and it ends up as a parallel debate. Rebuttals, are crucial in a debate and should be given out most respect.

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