Evidence Packet - Atlanta Urban Debate Leagueatlantadebate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Aquaculture... · Web viewAs a result, aquaculture – or fish farming – has become increasingly

Atlanta Urban Debate League

Evidence PacketAquaculture Affirmative and Negative

Topic – Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration

and/or development of the Earth’s oceans.

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2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League 2/65Evidence Packet (Aquaculture Affirmative and Negative)

Table of Contents

2014 Topic -- Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and/or development of the Earth’s oceans.

***Sample 1AC and 1NC***....................................................................................................................4Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative....................................................................................................5Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative....................................................................................................6Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative....................................................................................................7Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative....................................................................................................8Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative....................................................................................................9Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative..................................................................................................10Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative..................................................................................................11Sample 1NC – Environment DA.............................................................................................................12Sample 1NC – Environment DA.............................................................................................................13Sample 1NC – Environment DA.............................................................................................................14Sample 1NC – Case Answer....................................................................................................................15

***Templates***.....................................................................................................................................16How To Use The Templates.....................................................................................................................171st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Template.........................................................................................181st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Template.........................................................................................191st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Template.........................................................................................201st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Template.........................................................................................211st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: Disadvantages....................................................................221st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: Disadvantages....................................................................231st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: On-Case Arguments...........................................................241st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: On-Case Arguments...........................................................25

***Affirmative and Article Summaries***.............................................................................................26Aquaculture Affirmative Summary..........................................................................................................27Environment Disadvantage Summary.....................................................................................................28Article Summaries – Affirmative.............................................................................................................29Article Summaries – Negative.................................................................................................................30

***Affirmative Articles***.....................................................................................................................31Affirmative Plan Text...............................................................................................................................32Affirmative Article 1: “The End of the Line”..........................................................................................33Affirmative Article 2: “Efficient Aquaculture Needed for Food Security, Particularly in Asia”.............34Affirmative Article 3: “The New, Innovative And More Efficient Way Of Feeding People”.................36Affirmative Article 4: “Declining Ocean Health Threatens Food Security”...........................................37Affirmative Article 5: “The New Geopolitics of Food”...........................................................................38Affirmative Article 6: “Offshore Aquaculture Fills the Supply Gap”......................................................40Affirmative Article 7: “Gaps In Federal Regulation of Offshore Aquaculture”......................................42

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Affirmative Article 8: “Aquaculture Made Safe”....................................................................................43

***Negative Articles***..........................................................................................................................44Negative Article 1: “How the US Stopped Its Fisheries From Collapsing”............................................45Negative Article 2: “The Negative Impacts of Aquaculture”...................................................................47Negative Article 3: “Aquaculture Problems: Fish Feed”.........................................................................48Negative Article 4: “The Legal Implications of Aquaculture In The United States”...............................49Negative Article 5: “Why Fish Farming is Unsustainable and Harming the Planet”..............................50Negative Article 6: “White House Could Announce World's Largest Marine Reserve Soon”................52Negative Article 7: “A Hungry World: Lots of Food, in Too Few Places”..............................................53Negative Article 8: “In Deep Water”........................................................................................................54

***Offshore Wind Environment Updates***..........................................................................................56Negative Article: “Artificial Reef Effect In Relation To Offshore Renewable Energy Conversion”......57Negative Article: “Marine Invasive Alien Species: A Threat to Global Biodiversity”............................58Affirmative Article: “Offshore Wind Farms Are Good For Wildlife”.....................................................59Affirmative Article: “Human Assault Pushes Ocean to Limit Unseen in 300 Million Years”.................60

***Glossary***.......................................................................................................................................62Glossary (1/2)...........................................................................................................................................63Glossary (2/2)...........................................................................................................................................64More Resources: Articles, Books, and Videos.........................................................................................65

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***Sample 1AC and 1NC***

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture AffirmativeContention 1 is Inherency –

Overfishing has led to catastrophic declines in fish populations – aquaculture is the only sustainable way to produce fish Walsh, 11 (Bryan, senior writer for TIME Magazine covering energy and the environment. Published July 7, 2011. Available at http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2081796,00.html)

But we may be coming to that realization too late, because it turns out that even the fathomless depths of the oceans have limits. The U.N. reports that 32% of global fish stocks are overexploited or depleted and as much as 90% of large species like tuna and marlin have been fished out in the past half-century. Once-plentiful species like Atlantic cod have been fished to near oblivion, and delicacies like bluefin tuna are on an arc toward extinction. A recent report by the

International Programme on the State of the Ocean found that the world's marine species faced threats "unprecedented in human history" — and overfishing is part of the problem. Meanwhile, the worldwide catch seems to have plateaued at about 90 million tons a year since the mid-1990s. That's a lot of fish, but even if those levels prove sustainable, it's not enough to keep up with global seafood consumptio n, which has risen from 22 lb. per person per year in the 1960s to nearly 38 lb. today. With hundreds of millions of people joining the middle class in the developing world and fish increasingly seen as a tasty and heart-healthy form of protein, that trend will continue.

The inescapable conclusion: there just isn't enough seafood in the seas. "The wild stocks are not going to keep up," says

Stephen Hall, director general of the WorldFish Center. "Something else has to fill that gap."Something else already does: aquaculture. Humans have been raising some fish in farms for almost as long as we've been fishing, beginning with Chinese fishponds 4,000 years ago. But it's only in the past 50 years that aquaculture has become a

true industry. Global aquacultural production increased from less than 1 million tons in 1950 to 52.5 million tons in 2008, and over the past few decades, aquaculture has grown faster than any other form of food production. Today about half the seafood consumed around the world comes from farms, and with the projected rise in global seafood consumption, that proportion will surely increase. Without aquaculture, the pressure to overfish the oceans would be even greater. "It's no longer a question about whether aquaculture is something we should or shouldn't embrace," says Ned Daly, senior projects adviser at the Seafood Choices Alliance. "It's here. The question is how we'll do it."

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative

Contention 2 is our advantage – Food Security

Increased aquaculture is necessary to meet growing food demand, but current production is based in countries with inefficient and environmentally costly aquaculture practices Moukaddem, 11 (Karimeh, a Brazil-based Fulbright scholar and writer for Monga Bay, an environmental news organization. Published June 17, 2011. Available at http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0617-aquaculture.html)

Aquaculture is the best way to meet future demand for seafood, which is expected to rise significantly by 2030 due to expanding middle class populations in China, India, and Southeast Asia, argues a new report.Blue Frontiers: Managing the environmental costs of aquaculture, produced by Conservation International and WorldFish, says that while aquaculture has less of an ecological impact than livestock production and wild sea-catch, gains in industry efficiency are needed to ensure both environmental quality and global food security.

"There are a number of well-founded concerns about aquaculture, in terms of its impacts on marine ecosystems and wild fisheries. But with global fisheries reaching alarming and unprecedented levels of depletion, fish cultivation versus wild fish capture has to be considered," said Dr. Sebastian Troëng, Vice-President for Marine Conservation with Conservation International, in a statement. "We believe that intensified investment in innovation and the sharing of best practices will help us meet the growing demand while not putting unacceptable strain on coastal and freshwater environments."

The report concludes that farmed seafood will provide a primary source of protein for urban populations in the developing world in coming decades. Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production sectors worldwide, with the $100 billion dollar industry already producing more than half of all seafood consumed.Sustainably farmed seafood is significantly more environmentally friendly than beef or pork, according to the

report. Per-unit weight, aquaculture is responsible for fewer emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus than beef and pork. Farming fish is also more efficient because they convert a higher percentage of their food to consumable protein than cattle or pigs.However, an ecologically sustainable aquaculture industry is needed to meet future demands for a crucial source of animal protein for millions of people.

The report found that the environmental impact of aquaculture ranges from minimal to damaging depending on the country and region of production, the aquaculture system, and the species farmed. For example, aquaculture has been a major cause behind mangrove loss worldwide, with 20 percent of the world's mangroves disappearing since 1980. Mangroves serve as important fish nurseries, store tremendous amounts of carbon, and buffer local communities from storms and rising sea levels.

China alone accounts for 64 percent of cultivated seafood worldwide, and Asia provides 91 percent of global supply. Unfortunately, cultivation of seafood with the highest environmental impact—eel, salmon, shrimp, and prawn—is least efficient in Asia, particularly in China. Aquaculture production is most efficient in Europe, Canada, and Chile in terms of acidification, greenhouse gas emissions, energy, and land use. WordFish and Conservation International urge the open exchange of best practices in the industry and the production of mussels, oysters, mollusks, and seaweed, which are at the bottom of the food chain and have the least environmental impact.

"With governments in the region looking to aquaculture to meet demand for animal protein, we need to better understand the environmental costs of expanding aquaculture. This report will be tremendously helpful in show us which species and production systems we should favor to keep environmental costs down," says Ketut Putra, Conservation International’s executive director.

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture AffirmativeSustainable aquaculture is crucial to feed the 3 billion people dependent on fishGlobal Ocean Commission, 14 (An organization that identifies ocean-related problems and researches solutions. Published May 17, 2014. Available at http://www.globaloceancommission.org/news/declining-ocean-health-threatens-food-security-2/)

With 3 billion people dependent on fish to provide at least 20% of their animal protein, protecting the health of the global ocean is critical to global food security. Overfishing is widespread and systemic, primarily affecting the poorest, for many of whom fish is an irreplaceable food source. The loss of reliable sources of fish would deprive 500 million people of their primary source of protein and cause severe health problems.“Healthy high seas are fundamental to overall ocean productivity and resilience, yet we are pushing the ocean system to the point of collapse and putting long-term food security at risk,” said Trevor Manuel, co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission. “If we want future food security, we need to act now to restore a healthy ocean.”Key threats include overfishing, adverse fishing subsidies and climate change. With Asia Pacific alone accounting for more than 70% of the world fleet and over half the annual global harvest, the impact of overfishing is likely to be significant in this region.

The ocean is also facing mounting pressure from climate change. Rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are increasing water temperatures, causing acidification, and reducing oxygen content and overall ocean resilience. Rising water temperatures are already pushing many fish stocks towards higher, cooler latitudes, which is threatening food security in tropical regions reliant on fish.“Ocean acidification and warming temperatures are hugely complex, long-term problems but overfishing is something that we can tackle right now, with tools already at our disposal”, said José María Figueres, Global Ocean Commission co-chair. “Building on successes such as the Coral Triangle Initiative is vital in strengthening the regional collaboration required.”

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture AffirmativeFood shortages will cause global crisis – two billion people are dependent on low food prices. Increased food production prevents global famine and political instabilityBrown, 11 (Lester, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. Published in Foreign Policy Magazine on April 25, 2011. Available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/the_new_geopolitics_of_food)

In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter : A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from the market to hand-grind into flour for chapatis costs twice as much. And the same is true with rice. If the world price of rice doubles, so does the price of rice in your neighborhood market in Jakarta. And so does the cost of the bowl of boiled rice on an Indonesian family's dinner table.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we've seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet's poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute -- and it has -- to revolutions and upheaval.Already in 2011, the U.N. Food Price Index has eclipsed its previous all-time global high; as of March it had climbed for eight consecutive months. With this year's harvest predicted to fall short, with governments in the Middle East and Africa teetering as a result of the price spikes, and with anxious markets

sustaining one shock after another, food has quickly become the hidden driver of world politics. And crises like these are going to become increasingly common. The new geopolitics of food looks a whole lot more volatile -- and a whole lot

more contentious -- than it used to. Scarcity is the new norm.Until recently, sudden price surges just didn't matter as much, as they were quickly followed by a return to the relatively low food prices that helped shape the political stability of the late 20th century across much of the globe. But now both the causes and consequences are ominously different.In many ways, this is a resumption of the 2007-2008 food crisis, which subsided not because the world somehow came together to solve its grain crunch once and for all, but because the Great Recession tempered growth in demand even as favorable weather helped farmers produce the largest grain harvest on record. Historically, price spikes tended to be almost exclusively driven by unusual weather -- a monsoon failure in India, a drought in the former Soviet

Union, a heat wave in the U.S. Midwest. Such events were always disruptive, but thankfully infrequent. Unfortunately, today's price hikes are driven by trends that are both elevating demand and making it more difficult to increase production:

among them, a rapidly expanding population, crop-withering temperature increases, and irrigation wells running dry. Each night, there are 219,000 additional people to feed at the global dinner table.More alarming still, the world is losing its ability to soften the effect of shortages. In response to previous price surges, the United States, the world's largest grain producer, was effectively able to steer the world away from potential catastrophe. From the mid-20th century until 1995, the United States had either grain surpluses or idle

cropland that could be planted to rescue countries in trouble. When the Indian monsoon failed in 1965, for example, President Lyndon Johnson's administration shipped one-fifth of the U.S. wheat crop to India, successfully staving off famine. We can't do that anymore; the safety cushion is gone.

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture Affirmative

Therefore, we propose the following plan:

The United States Federal Government should increase development of the Earth’s ocean resources by providing permits for offshore aquaculture development regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture AffirmativeContention 3 is Solvency -

Current federal aquaculture policy is uncoordinated – lack of a single agency to take charge and issue permits is the single largest barrier to aquaculture expansionJohns, 13 (Kristen, J.D. Candidate at USC Law, writing in the Southern California Law Review. Published in 2013. Available at http://lawreview.usc.edu/index.php/note-farm-fishing-holes-gaps-in-federal-regulation-of-offshore-aquaculture/)

The current regime for regulating offshore aquaculture needs to be revised. There is no lead federal agency for regulating offshore aquaculture and no comprehensive law directly addressing how it should be administered, regulated, and monitored. Multiple federal agencies are then left to assert their authority to regulate different aspects of offshore aquaculture under a variety of existing laws that were not designed for this

purpose. n92 This system can lead to both overregulation of some aspects of the industry, such as overlapping permitting requirements, as well as underregulation of other aspects, such as the effects of escaped farmed fish on natural ecosystems. Furthermore, because none of the existing laws were designed to deal specifically with aquaculture, many are left vulnerable to challenge as proper legal bases for regulatory authority.A. Administrative Overlap Creates Patchy RegulationA number of federal agencies have invoked authority to regulate aquaculture activities in federal waters under various statutory authorities: EPA under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; NOAA under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act and the Endangered Species Act; Army Corps of Engineers under the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act; U.S. Coast Guard under the Rivers and Harbors Act; the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Lacey Act; Food and Drug Administration under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; and

Department of Agriculture under the National Aquaculture Act. Under this patchy regulatory scheme, each agency imposes its own independent requirements with little interagency cooperation or collaboration - resulting in both overlapping regulatory requirements as well as gaps in the regulation of certain serious environmental risks.The most significant consequence of allowing multiple agencies to invoke regulatory authority over different aspects of offshore aquaculture is that there is currently no centralized or streamlined process for obtaining a permit to operate a farm in federal waters . As discussed in Part II.C, the permitting process is often cited as the single greatest constraint to offshore aquaculture development. Because there is no specific permitting system for offshore aquaculture, multiple agencies have invoked their authority to require permits for various aspects of the aquaculture

activities. This complex multiagency permitting system is confusing, time-consuming, and costly.

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Sample 1AC – Aquaculture AffirmativeFederal regulation is crucial to make aquaculture environmentally sustainableNaylor and Leonard, 10 (Rosamond Naylor, director of the program on food security and the environment at Stanford; and George Leonard, Director of the Aquaculture Program at the Ocean Conservancy in Santa Cruze. Published on February 14, 2010. Available at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/opinion/la-oe-naylor15-2010feb15,)

If aquaculture is to play a responsible role in the future of seafood here at home, we must ensure that the "blue revolution" in ocean fish farming does not cause harm to the oceans and the marine life they support.

In December, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) introduced in the House the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act, a bill that addresses the potential threats of poorly regulated fish farming in U.S. ocean waters. Her bill shares many of the features of a California state law, the Sustainable Oceans Act, which was written by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. That legislation regulates fish farming in state waters, which extend three miles off the California coast. At present, all aquaculture operations in California and the U.S. are located just a few miles offshore.

If the U.S. and other states follow California's lead, we may be able to reward innovation and responsibility in aquaculture and at the same time prevent the kind of boom-and-bust development that happened in Chile. Unlike previous attempts to legislate fish

farming at the national level, t he Capps bill would ensure that U.S. aquaculture in federal waters, which extend from three to 200 miles offshore, establishes as a priority the protection of wild fish and functional ecosystems. It would ensure that industry expansion occurs only under the oversight of strong, performance-based environmental, socioeconomic and liability standards.

The bill also would preempt ecologically risky, piecemeal regulation of ocean fish farming in different regions of the U.S. Indeed, regulation efforts are already underway in many states, with no consistent standards to govern the industry's environmental or social performance. If these piecemeal regional initiatives move forward, it will get much more difficult to create a sustainable national policy for open-ocean aquaculture.Previous federal bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 were fundamentally flawed -- and ultimately did not pass -- because they put the goal of aquaculture expansion far above that of environmental protection. Now, for the first time, a bill has been introduced that would demonstrably protect marine ecosystems, fishing communities and seafood consumers from the risks of poorly regulated open-ocean aquaculture.

The Obama administration is currently developing a national policy to guide the development of U.S. aquaculture. The administration would do well to embrace the vision articulated by Capps and Simitian for a science-based and precautionary approach to help ensure a responsible future for U.S. ocean fish farming.

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Sample 1NC – Environment DAA. Uniqueness – ocean ecosystems are improving now – there are global efforts to protect the ocean and prevent overfishingSpotts, 14 (Pete, staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor. Published August 20, 2014. Available at http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0820/White-House-could-announce-world-s-largest-marine-reserve-soon-video)

If all goes as planned, before the year is out as much as 700,000 square miles of the south-central Pacific Ocean could be off limits to fishing, resource exploration, and other economic activities – courtesy of the stroke of a presidential pen in Washington.

The move would turn the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, established by President George W.

Bush in 2009, into the world’s largest marine reserve. In the process it would double the area globally subject to such tight fishing restrictions.“We anticipate sometime in late summer or early fall an announcement from the White House on their decision,” said Seth Horstmeyer, a director for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program.

Well-designed and properly managed marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely seen in the conservation community as effective ways to restore vitality to overfished areas, shelter and nurture fish in the quest to develop sustainable fisheries, and act as reservoirs of biodiversity and resilience in the face of global warming and ocean acidification. “They are the most practical tool we have available to us to protect ecosystems and keep them functioning and protect habitat” from a range of human-based threats, says Tundi Agardy, a marine biologist who heads Sound Seas, a marine-policy group in Washington.

Nor is the United States alone in working to expand the area of the oceans that would represent havens for marine life and the ecosystems that support it. In late July, for instance, Scotland announced the doubling of the area of its marine reserves – including what purports to be the largest MPA in Europe.

In February, Palau announced plans to extend full protections for marine life in some 80 percent of the waters embraced by its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Kiribati has pledged to end commercial fishing by Jan. 1, 2015, in a California-size marine reserve it governs.

Meanwhile, Britain is weighing approval of a commercial-fishing-free zone around the Pitcairn Islands in the southeastern Pacific that would cover some 320,000 square miles.These moves are part of an international effort under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 10 percent of the world’s oceans by 2020 (scientists advising the International Union for the Conservation of Nature have pushed for 20 percent).

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Sample 1NC – Environment DAB. Link – aquaculture destroys marine ecosystems by increasing waste, fish escapes, diseases, and antibioticsWheeler, 13 (Garrett, a J.D. Candidate at the Golden Gate University School of Law, Published in the Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal in Spring 2013)

In the past decade, a new wave of industrial and governmental enthusiasm for ocean-based operations, particularly for offshore farms located in the 200-mile wide Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), has garnered attention as well as controversy. Proponents view open-ocean farms as playing a major role in solving the United States' $ 9 billion seafood trade deficit, while opponents warn of potentially devastating economic, social, and environmental consequences. New technologies are allowing operators to cultivate fish and other seafood in exposed, open-ocean environments that were inaccessible only twenty years

ago. However, the rise of offshore aquaculture poses significant threats to sensitive marine environments and "represents a fundamental transition in the human claim on the Earth's surface." Open-ocean aquaculture facilities operate in largely pristine areas and are intimately connected with their surrounding aquatic ecosystems. Common species cultivated in the open ocean include mostly finfish such as salmon, cod, and tuna. Large underwater cages are placed in the water, and as ocean currents flow through the cages, the spread of waste and chemical byproducts can implicate the health of the seafloor and the surrounding water column. Escaped fish also pose a threat to marine ecosystems by introducing non-indigenous species,

compromising the genetic fitness of native populations through interbreeding, and disease translocation. Disease and parasites may also spread to nearby native populations, and attempts by operators to apply drugs and chemicals to contain those threats can damage the surrounding ecosystem. Predatory fish and marine mammals are also drawn to cages full of captive fish, leading to injury, death, and harassment by operators trying to protect their stocks. Finally, operational failures are all but inevitable: in at least one instance, an entire fish cage broke free from a tow vessel and was sent floating adrift in the open ocean, endangering marine species as well as any ocean-going vessels unfortunate enough to cross its path.

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Sample 1NC – Environment DAC. Impact – ocean ecosystems are critical to the global economy, drug innovation, slowing global warming, and preventing natural disastersThe Economist, 14 (Published February 22, 2014. Available at http://www.economist.com/news/international/21596990-humans-are-damaging-high-seas-now-oceans-are-doing-harm-back-deep-water)

About 3 billion people live within 100 miles (160km) of the sea, a number that could double in the next decade as humans flock to coastal cities like gulls.

The oceans produce $3 trillion of goods and services each year and untold value for the Earth’s ecology. Life could not exist without these vast water reserves—and, if anything, they are becoming even more important to humans than before.Mining is about to begin under the seabed in the high seas—the regions outside the exclusive economic zones administered by coastal and island nations, which stretch 200 nautical miles (370km) offshore. Nineteen exploratory licences have been issued. New summer shipping lanes are opening across the

Arctic Ocean. The genetic resources of marine life promise a pharmaceutical bonanza: the number of patents has been rising at 12% a year. One study found that genetic material from the seas is a hundred times more likely to have anti-cancer properties than that from terrestrial life.But these developments are minor compared with vaster forces reshaping the Earth, both on land and at sea. It has long been clear that people are damaging

the oceans—witness the melting of the Arctic ice in summer, the spread of oxygen-starved dead zones and the death of coral reefs. Now, the consequences of that damage are starting to be felt onshore.Thailand provides a vivid example. In the 1990s it cleared coastal mangrove swamps to set up shrimp farms. Ocean storm surges in 2011, no longer cushioned by the mangroves, rushed in to flood the country’s industrial heartland, causing billions of dollars of damage.More serious is the global mismanagement of fish stocks. About 3 billion people get a fifth of their protein from fish, making it a more important protein source than beef. But a vicious cycle has developed as fish stocks decline and fishermen race to grab what they can of the remainder. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a third of fish stocks in the oceans are over-exploited; some estimates say the proportion is more than half (see chart). One study suggested that stocks of big predatory species—such as tuna, swordfish and marlin—may have fallen by as much as 90% since the 1950s. People could be eating much better, were fishing stocks properly managed.

The forests are often called the lungs of the Earth, but the description better fits the oceans. They produce half the world’s supply of oxygen, mostly through photosynthesis by aquatic algae and other organisms. But according to a forthcoming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; the group of scientists who advise

governments on global warming), concentrations of chlorophyll (which helps makes oxygen) have fallen by 9-12% in 1998-2010 in the North Pacific, Indian and North Atlantic Oceans.Climate change may be the reason. At the moment, the oceans are moderating the impact of global warming—though that may not last (see article). Warm water rises, so an increase in sea temperatures tends to separate cold and warm water into more distinct layers, with shallower mixed layers in between.

That seems to lower the quantity of nutrients available for aquatic algae, and to lead to decreased chlorophyll concentrations. Changes in the ocean s , therefore, may mean less oxygen will be produced. This cannot be good news, though scientists are still debating the likely consequences. The world is not about to suffocate. But the result could be lower oxygen concentrations in the oceans and changes to the climate because the counterpart of less oxygen is more carbon—adding to the build-up of greenhouse gases. In short, the decades of damage wreaked on the oceans are now damaging the terrestrial environment.

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Sample 1NC – Case AnswerFood shortages are a distribution problem, not a production problem – the affirmative doesn't solveKoba, 13 (Mark, senior editor at CNBC.com. Published July 22, 2013. Available at http://www.cnbc.com/id/100893540#.)

Of the roughly 7 billion people in the world, an estimated 870 million suffer each day from hunger.That's hunger from malnutrition or not eating even the lowest amount of daily recommended calories—1,800—while often enduring food insecurity, or not knowing where the next meal is coming from.

The consistently massive population of hungry people—along with variables like severe weather and economic downturns—

sometimes spark warnings that the planet faces impending food shortages.And yet more people in the world—1.7 billion—are considered obese or overweight from a daily caloric intake that in some cases is at least six to seven times the minimum.

This paradox is nothing new, experts say. It just shows the problem isn't that we have too little food, it's what we do with the food we have."We have two or three times the amount of food right now that is needed to feed the number of people in the world," said Joshua Muldavin, a geography professor at Sarah Lawrence College who focuses on food and agricultural instruction. "A lot of people aren't analyzing the situation correctly. We can deal with short-term food shortages after a disaster, but fixing long term hunger gets ignored," he said.

"We don't have food shortage problem," said Emelie Peine, a professor of international politics and economy at the University of Puget Sound."What we have is a distribution problem and an income problem," Peine said. "People aren't getting the food, ... and even if [they] did, they don't have enough money to buy it."If there is enough food, a major problem causing scarcity is what we do with it, said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, an advocacy group for U.S. farmers.

"Something in the area of up to half of all that's produced is wasted," said Johnson, who runs his own farm in North Dakota.

"In the undeveloped world, the waste happens before the food gets to people, from lack of roads and proper storage facilities, and the food rots," Johnson said. "In the developed world, it's the staggering amount of food that's thrown out after it gets to our plates."

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***Templates***

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How To Use The TemplatesWhen writing your own speeches, the templates are one way to organize the 1AC or 1NC in a way that's likely to be understandable and persuasive to your judge.

The 1AC, for example, contains a few basic parts:

1. The attention-getter: some statistic, fact, story, or other introduction that gets the judges' attention and starts to persuade them that what you're talking about is important.

2. The problem – a general outline of a problem that needs to be solved.

3. The need to act – one or two reasons why it's very important to address the problem.

4. The plan – the plan of action you're proposing, in this case offshore wind.

5. Solvency – the reason why the plan of action will successfully deal with the problem.

For each part, the text in italics represent directions for types of arguments you might want to include: you shouldn't read them out loud, but you can use them to structure your argument and make sure you're including evidence from the articles that support what you're saying. For example, if your affirmative was about pizza at AUDL tournaments, you might fill out part of your 1AC template to look like:

We begin with our First Contention – What is going on now? What is the problem?

(Short explanation) Right now, there's not nearly enough pizza for all of the students at the tournament. According to (author and qualifications) Derrick Rose, a high school debater (source and date) at an AUDL tournament in 2014, (direct quote from article) “I don't even think there's enough pizza for each of us to have one slice. This is probably the worst pizza shortage I've ever seen at a tournament.” This shows that (briefly explain in your own words why this point is important) the food shortage at this tournament has reached desperate proportions.

For more information on using the template and the articles, check out the offshore wind packet.

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1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Template

Attention Getter (a surprising statistic, interesting quotation, or useful story): __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We begin with our First Contention – What is going on now? What is the problem?

(Short explanation)___________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

According to (author and qualifications) __________________________________________ in (source and date) ______________________________ , (direct quote from article) _______________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This shows that (explain in your own words why this point is important) __________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) TemplateOur second contention is the need to act. We have two reasons why we must act to solve this problem:

First,



This shows that (explain in your own words why this point is important) __________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) TemplateSecond,




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1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) TemplateAs a result, we propose the following plan: The United States Federal Government should increase development of the Earth’s ocean resources by providing permits for offshore aquaculture development regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Our final contention is Solvency – the reason why the plan will be successful




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1st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: DisadvantagesA. What's happening now - right now, things are okay because

(short explanation)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

According to (author and qualifications) __________________________________________ in (source and date) ______________________________ , (direct quote from article) _______________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________This shows that (explain in your own words why this point is important) _________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

B. However, the affirmative's plan will change this situation because


According to (author and qualifications) __________________________________________ in (source and date) ______________________________ , (direct quote from article) _______________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This shows that (explain in your own words why this point is important) _________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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1st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: DisadvantagesC. These changes would be disastrous and we must avoid them because


According to (author and qualifications) __________________________________________ in (source and date) ______________________________ , (direct quote from article) _______________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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1st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: On-Case ArgumentsThe problems the affirmative talks about are overstated because:

1. (short explanation)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




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1st Negative Constructive (1NC) Template: On-Case ArgumentsBut even if those problems did exist, the affirmative's plan can't solve them because





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***Affirmative and Article Summaries***

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Aquaculture Affirmative SummaryThere are two primary ways that fish get from the ocean to your table: through fisheries, and through aquaculture. Fisheries, which until recently have been the more popular option, collect large amounts of wild fish in their natural ocean habitat. One common fish-collection method for fisheries is “trawling,” where boats drag large nets through the water in order to capture as many fish as possible.

Over the past few decades, trawling has contributed to overfishing and led some experts to predict a catastrophic decline in fish populations. As a result, aquaculture – or fish farming – has become increasingly popular. Aquaculture works similarly to livestock farming on land: fish farms are built in a limited space, and every aspect of the fishs' lives is managed by the farm operator. Aquaculture is often considered to be a solution to overfishing because farm operators have a strong incentive to ensure that fish populations remain stable.

The advantage to the affirmative is food security: the ability of people around the world to access reliable food that meets their nutritional needs. Billions of people currently rely on fish as a primary source of animal protein, and even more people are likely to demand seafood as the global population grows. The affirmative argues that the United States should promote aquaculture in order to prevent overfishing and promote food security around the world.

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Environment Disadvantage SummaryProduction of food, both on land and in the water, has historically shifted more and more towards large-scale, or “industrial,” farming. Industrial farming is able to produce food on a large scale, but often causes negative environmental consequences as well. The environment disadvantage argues that, by extending industrial-scale farming to the oceans, aquaculture poses unique threats to the ocean requirements.

There are many reasons why some experts argue that aquaculture would harm the surrounding environment. These include high concentrations of fish waste, the risk that fish might escape and harm surrounding ecosystems, and the fact that farmed fish are often fed other, smaller fish, which depletes fish populations in other parts of the world. There are several negative articles which talk about each of these issues in detail, as well as several affirmative articles which speak to aquaculture's possible environmental benefits.

The impact to the disadvantage is ocean ecosystems. The Economist article, “In Deep Water,” argues that a healthy ocean has a number of important effects on human welfare. Healthy ocean ecosystems are also important to sustain the same fish populations that the affirmative argues are crucial for global food security.

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Article Summaries – AffirmativeAffirmative Article 1

Overfishing has depleted fish populations around the world, threatening food security for billions of people. Aquaculture can prevent overfishing.

Affirmative Article 2

Well-regulated aquaculture is more environmentally sustainable and resource efficient than either land agriculture or fisheries. A lot of current aquaculture, however, is based in countries with poor environmental regulation.


40% of the Earth's land is currently used for agriculture, but most agriculture is extremely resource-intensive and inefficient. Aquaculture is a more sustainable alternative.


Three billion people are dependent on fish for 20% of their protein, fish are the primary source of protein for another 500 million people. Preventing overfishing is necessary to ensure food security.


The world's poorest two billion people spend 50-70% of their income on food and are strongly impacted by increases in food prices. Without increasing food production, food prices will rise, risking famines and wars around the world.


Aquaculture is increasing around the world, but so far the U.S. hasn't followed this trend. Federal government regulation through the NOAA would encourage U.S. aquaculture development and lead to economic benefits.


Aquaculture is currently regulated by many different agencies, which causes confusion and discourages private companies from investing in aquaculture. Issuing permits under a single federal agency would promote aquaculture development.


Federal regulation would encourage aquaculture to be developed in an environmentally sustainable way, and overrules state regulation that harms the environment.

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Article Summaries – NegativeNegative Article 1

Fisheries are currently becoming more sustainable due to federal and state regulation. Many fish populations that had been at risk fifteen years ago have now been completely rebuilt.

Negative Article 2

Aquaculture fails to increase food security because the most popular fish products are luxury foods intended for consumers in rich countries. Additionally, large aquaculture operations hurt small fishermen by increasing the supply of fish and pushing down their market price.

Negative Article 3

Aquaculture increases overfishing because the most common farmed fish eat other fish. As a result, overfishing occurs in other parts of the world in order to support aquaculture.

Negative Article 4

Aquaculture has many negative effects on marine ecosystems, including increased waste, fish escapes, increased risk of diseases, and use of antibiotics.

Negative Article 5

Many farmed fish are fed with soy that's grown on land. Soy farming has a number of negative effects, including deforestation, pollution of oceans, and displacement of indigenous people in South America.

Negative Article 6

Many countries, including the United States, are currently working to reduce overfishing and preserve ocean ecosystems by designating parts of the ocean as marine protected areas.

Negative Article 7

Food insecurity is caused by poor food distribution, not lack of food production. More than enough food is produced to feed the world's population, but a lot of that food is wasted, and many people don't have enough money to afford it.

Negative Article 8

Ocean ecosystems are important for several reasons: ocean species have uses as food or medicine, some ocean plants protect coastlines from natural disasters, and ocean chlorophyll helps to regulate the effects of climate change.

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***Affirmative Articles***

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Affirmative Plan TextPlan: The United States Federal Government should increase development of the Earth’s ocean resources by providing permits for offshore aquaculture development regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Affirmative Article 1: “The End of the Line”By Bryan Walsh, senior writer for TIME Magazine covering energy and the environment. Published July 7, 2011. Available at http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2081796,00.html

Since human beings first took up the plow about 10,000 years ago, most of our food has come from the farmer's hand. We grew fruits, vegetables and grains to feed ourselves and support those domesticated animals we relied on for meat and dairy products. But there was an exception. When humans fished, we still went out into the wild, braved the elements and brought back decidedly undomesticated animals for dinner. There was a romance to fishing that was inseparable from the romance of the sea, a way of life — for all its peril and terror — suffused with a freedom that the farmer and rancher would never know. Though the fishermen who roved the Sea of Galilee in Jesus' time and the factory trawlers that scrape the ocean floor today couldn't be more different, they share a common link to our hunter-gatherer past. "Fish are the last wild food," says Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish, one of the best books on the state of seafood. "And we're just realizing it."

But we may be coming to that realization too late, because it turns out that even the fathomless depths of the oceans have limits. The U.N. reports that 32% of global fish stocks are overexploited or depleted and as much as 90% of large species like tuna and marlin have been fished out in the past half-century. Once-plentiful species like Atlantic cod have been fished to near oblivion, and delicacies like bluefin tuna are on an arc toward extinction. A recent report by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean found that the world's marine species faced threats "unprecedented in human history" — and overfishing is part of the problem.

Meanwhile, the worldwide catch seems to have plateaued at about 90 million tons a year since the mid-1990s. That's a lot of fish, but even if those levels prove sustainable, it's not enough to keep up with global seafood consumption, which has risen from 22 lb. per person per year in the 1960s to nearly 38 lb. today. With hundreds of millions of people joining the middle class in the developing world and fish increasingly seen as a tasty and heart-healthy form of protein, that trend will continue. The inescapable conclusion: there just isn't enough seafood in the seas. "The wild stocks are not going to keep up," says Stephen Hall, director general of the WorldFish Center. "Something else has to fill that gap."

Something else already does: aquaculture. Humans have been raising some fish in farms for almost as long as we've been fishing, beginning with Chinese fishponds 4,000 years ago. But it's only in the past 50 years that aquaculture has become a true industry. Global aquacultural production increased from less than 1 million tons in 1950 to 52.5 million tons in 2008, and over the past few decades, aquaculture has grown faster than any other form of food production. Today about half the seafood consumed around the world comes from farms, and with the projected rise in global seafood consumption, that proportion will surely increase. Without aquaculture, the pressure to overfish the oceans would be even greater. "It's no longer a question about whether aquaculture is something we should or shouldn't embrace," says Ned Daly, senior projects adviser at the Seafood Choices Alliance. "It's here. The question is how we'll do it."

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Affirmative Article 2: “Efficient Aquaculture Needed for Food Security, Particularly in Asia”

by Karimeh Moukaddem, a Brazil-based Fulbright scholar and writer for Monga Bay, an environmental news organization. Published June 17, 2011. Available at http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0617-aquaculture.html

Aquaculture is the best way to meet future demand for seafood, which is expected to rise significantly by 2030 due to expanding middle class populations in China, India, and Southeast Asia, argues a new report.

Blue Frontiers: Managing the environmental costs of aquaculture, produced by Conservation International and WorldFish, says that while aquaculture has less of an ecological impact than livestock production and wild sea-catch, gains in industry efficiency are needed to ensure both environmental quality and global food security.

"There are a number of well-founded concerns about aquaculture, in terms of its impacts on marine ecosystems and wild fisheries. But with global fisheries reaching alarming and unprecedented levels of depletion, fish cultivation versus wild fish capture has to be considered," said Dr. Sebastian Troëng, Vice-President for Marine Conservation with Conservation International, in a statement. "We believe that intensified investment in innovation and the sharing of best practices will help us meet the growing demand while not putting unacceptable strain on coastal and freshwater environments."

The report concludes that farmed seafood will provide a primary source of protein for urban populations in the developing world in coming decades. Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production sectors worldwide, with the $100 billion dollar industry already producing more than half of all seafood consumed.

Sustainably farmed seafood is significantly more environmentally friendly than beef or pork, according to the report. Per-unit weight, aquaculture is responsible for fewer emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus than beef and pork. Farming fish is also more efficient because they convert a higher percentage of their food to consumable protein than cattle or pigs.

However, an ecologically sustainable aquaculture industry is needed to meet future demands for a crucial source of animal protein for millions of people. The report found that the environmental impact of aquaculture ranges from minimal to damaging depending on the country and region of production, the aquaculture system, and the species farmed. For example, aquaculture has been a major cause behind mangrove loss worldwide, with 20 percent of the world's mangroves disappearing since 1980. Mangroves serve as important fish nurseries, store tremendous amounts of carbon, and buffer local communities from storms and rising sea levels.

China alone accounts for 64 percent of cultivated seafood worldwide, and Asia provides 91 percent of global supply. Unfortunately, cultivation of seafood with the highest environmental impact—eel, salmon, shrimp, and prawn—is least efficient in Asia, particularly in China. Aquaculture production is most efficient in Europe, Canada, and Chile in terms of acidification, greenhouse gas emissions, energy, and land use. WordFish and Conservation International urge the open exchange of best practices in the industry and the production of mussels, oysters, mollusks, and seaweed, which are at the bottom of the food chain and have the least environmental impact.

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"With governments in the region looking to aquaculture to meet demand for animal protein, we need to better understand the environmental costs of expanding aquaculture. This report will be tremendously helpful in show us which species and production systems we should favor to keep environmental costs down," says Ketut Putra, Conservation International’s executive director.

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Affirmative Article 3: “The New, Innovative And More Efficient Way Of Feeding People”

by Annie Rose-Strasser, Senior Editor at ThinkProgress. Published on April 21, 2014. Available at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/21/3422486/big-ag-takes-to-the-ocean/

Spend just a few minutes reading news about agriculture and climate change these days, and you’ll understand what’s driving people to consider scaling up aquaculture: The latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us we’re headed toward a “breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes.” Studies come out every week, practically, that say drought threatens our supply of key grains like wheat, corn, and rice. The warming globe is even slowing down cows’ production of milk.

And not only is our food on the fritz, but it’s causing a lot of the problems that seem to be leading to its own demise. Cows, a growing source of protein here in the United States, are major emitters of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Meat production is also a serious drain on other resources: A quarter pound of hamburger meat uses up 6.7 pounds of grains and 52.8 gallons of water. We’re paying a high price to get our protein, and all the while our population is growing at a breakneck speed. There are a lot of hungry mouths to feed. The United Nations has urged “a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products” altogether. But aquaculture might be a good stepping stone.

“Overall, if we’re going to continue to consume the amount of seafood we consume — or put more apocalyptically, if we’re going to adequately nourish the increasing number of billions of people on this planet,” Michael Conathan, Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress, told ThinkProgress, “more and more protein is going to have to come from aquaculture.”

Experts say there are myriad reasons why the world can and should shift toward getting more of its sustenance from aquaculture. For one thing, it can be much more efficient than the status quo.

“The thing about aquaculture is that from a resource efficiency perspective it’s one of the most resource-efficient ways to produce protein in terms of the amount of food and the amount of space it takes,” says NOAA’s Rubino. “Far more than land animals. You’re not using fresh water [to grow crops to feed land animals], and the feed conversion of fish is roughly one to one — one pound of food for one pound of flesh — as opposed to pork or beef where it’s seven or ten to one … So from an environmental footprint perspective, it’s very efficient. You can also grow a lot of fish in a very small space. They don’t need a lot of space whether it’s a pond or a tank, as opposed to grazing land or all the corn or soybeans that it takes to feed animals.”

As it stands now, 40 percent of the non-water surface of earth is used for agriculture. A whopping 30 percent of land that’s not covered in ice is being used not to feed us directly, but to feed the things that feed us, namely chickens, cows, and pigs. One of the effects of this is that agriculture is driving massive deforestation.

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Affirmative Article 4: “Declining Ocean Health Threatens Food Security”

By the Global Ocean Commission, an organization that identifies ocean-related problems and researches solutions. Published May 17, 2014. Available at http://www.globaloceancommission.org/news/declining-ocean-health-threatens-food-security-2/

With 3 billion people dependent on fish to provide at least 20% of their animal protein, protecting the health of the global ocean is critical to global food security. Overfishing is widespread and systemic, primarily affecting the poorest, for many of whom fish is an irreplaceable food source. The loss of reliable sources of fish would deprive 500 million people of their primary source of protein and cause severe health problems.

“Healthy high seas are fundamental to overall ocean productivity and resilience, yet we are pushing the ocean system to the point of collapse and putting long-term food security at risk,” said Trevor Manuel, co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission. “If we want future food security, we need to act now to restore a healthy ocean.”

Key threats include overfishing, adverse fishing subsidies and climate change. With Asia Pacific alone accounting for more than 70% of the world fleet and over half the annual global harvest, the impact of overfishing is likely to be significant in this region.

The ocean is also facing mounting pressure from climate change. Rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are increasing water temperatures, causing acidification, and reducing oxygen content and overall ocean resilience. Rising water temperatures are already pushing many fish stocks towards higher, cooler latitudes, which is threatening food security in tropical regions reliant on fish.

“Ocean acidification and warming temperatures are hugely complex, long-term problems but overfishing is something that we can tackle right now, with tools already at our disposal”, said José María Figueres, Global Ocean Commission co-chair. “Building on successes such as the Coral Triangle Initiative is vital in strengthening the regional collaboration required.”

The Global Ocean Commission believes it’s important to support countries in building their capabilities in the management of our shared global resources. This week in Hong Kong the Commissioners agreed a detailed package of proposals for ocean restoration and governance reform that will be made public and presented to the United Nations in June this year. Priorities requiring action include overfishing; illegal fishing; fishing subsidies; ocean acidification; oil and gas; plastic pollution; and ocean governance and protection.

“We’ve agreed an ocean rescue package,” said David Miliband, Global Ocean Commission co-chair. “Now we need governments, business and civil society to join us in implementing it. We know what needs to be done but we can’t do it alone.”

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Affirmative Article 5: “The New Geopolitics of Food”by Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. Published in Foreign Policy Magazine on April 25, 2011. Available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/the_new_geopolitics_of_food

In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from the market to hand-grind into flour for chapatis costs twice as much. And the same is true with rice. If the world price of rice doubles, so does the price of rice in your neighborhood market in Jakarta. And so does the cost of the bowl of boiled rice on an Indonesian family's dinner table.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we've seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet's poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute -- and it has -- to revolutions and upheaval.

Already in 2011, the U.N. Food Price Index has eclipsed its previous all-time global high; as of March it had climbed for eight consecutive months. With this year's harvest predicted to fall short, with governments in the Middle East and Africa teetering as a result of the price spikes, and with anxious markets sustaining one shock after another, food has quickly become the hidden driver of world politics. And crises like these are going to become increasingly common. The new geopolitics of food looks a whole lot more volatile -- and a whole lot more contentious -- than it used to. Scarcity is the new norm.

Until recently, sudden price surges just didn't matter as much, as they were quickly followed by a return to the relatively low food prices that helped shape the political stability of the late 20th century across much of the globe. But now both the causes and consequences are ominously different.

In many ways, this is a resumption of the 2007-2008 food crisis, which subsided not because the world somehow came together to solve its grain crunch once and for all, but because the Great Recession tempered growth in demand even as favorable weather helped farmers produce the largest grain harvest on record. Historically, price spikes tended to be almost exclusively driven by unusual weather -- a monsoon failure in India, a drought in the former Soviet Union, a heat wave in the U.S. Midwest. Such events were always disruptive, but thankfully infrequent. Unfortunately, today's price hikes are driven by trends that are both elevating demand and making it more difficult to increase production: among them, a rapidly expanding population, crop-withering temperature increases, and irrigation wells running dry. Each night, there are 219,000 additional people to feed at the global dinner table.

More alarming still, the world is losing its ability to soften the effect of shortages. In response to

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previous price surges, the United States, the world's largest grain producer, was effectively able to steer the world away from potential catastrophe. From the mid-20th century until 1995, the United States had either grain surpluses or idle cropland that could be planted to rescue countries in trouble. When the Indian monsoon failed in 1965, for example, President Lyndon Johnson's administration shipped one-fifth of the U.S. wheat crop to India, successfully staving off famine. We can't do that anymore; the safety cushion is gone.

That's why the food crisis of 2011 is for real, and why it may bring with it yet more bread riots cum political revolutions. What if the upheavals that greeted dictators Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya (a country that imports 90 percent of its grain) are not the end of the story, but the beginning of it? Get ready, farmers and foreign ministers alike, for a new era in which world food scarcity increasingly shapes global politics.

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Affirmative Article 6: “Offshore Aquaculture Fills the Supply Gap”By William T. Hogarth, Director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography at the University of South Florida. Published in September 2007 in Seafood Business magazine. Available at https://www.kingsseafood.com/Seafood%20Business%20Editorial.pdf

When it comes to seafood production, the United States is at a crossroads. Study after study confirms the health benefits of eating seafood, and consumers in America and abroad have gotten the message. Meanwhile, wild catch levels worldwide have remained relatively stable over the last 20 years. Because wild harvests can no longer keep up with growing demand, increases in the seafood supply will come from aquaculture.

We’ve done a good job managing America’s marine resources, but even the best-managed wild fisheries can’t meet the growing demand for seafood. Aquaculture must fill the gap — the only question is, where will it come from?

Aquaculture is a $70 billion annual enterprise worldwide; almost half of the seafood consumed is farmed. However, U.S. aquaculture accounts for just 1.5 percent of the global aquaculture production. Experts say we’ll need another 40 million tons of seafood annually by 2030 to meet current consumption rates.

In this large and growing market, the United States remains a net importer of seafood — more than 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the Unit ed States is imported, of which 40 percent is farmed. Marine aquaculture therefore presents tremendous opportunities for the United States.

Enactment of the National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007 will allow the United States to become more self-sufficient in the production of healthy seafood by growing more at home.

By laying the foundation for aquaculture expansion, the bill will help create jobs in coastal communities and help reduce our $8 billion seafood trade deficit. The United States must develop aquaculture as a complement to commercial fishing or it will be forced to import increasing amounts of farm-raised seafood.

Food safety is another issue. U.S. consumers want to know that their seafood was produced in a safe and sustainable way, and many turn to local products when given a choice. Producing seafood locally allows us to test and develop new technologies, equipment and alternative feeds. This makes us more competitive in the global market and allows us to lead by example — our sustainable production will encourage our trading partners to adopt best management practices, thereby improving the quality of all seafood reaching U.S. consumers.

For some time, many coastal communities have suffered from overcapitalization and limited harvests in the commercial fishing industry. With a robust domestic aquaculture industry, fishing boats could also service aquaculture operations and seafood-industry infrastructure could process and distribute both cultured and wild seafood products.

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Domestic aquaculture could provide a steady source of product and, in some locations, prevent processing facilities from closing down due to insufficient wild harvests.

Preliminary production estimates indicate that domestic aquaculture production of all species (both marine and freshwater) could increase from about 500,000 tons today to more than 1.5 million tons per year by 2025. The additional production could include 760,000 tons of seafood from finfish aquaculture and 245,000 tons from mollusk production.

In addition to creating new job opportunities at hatcheries and grow-out facilities, environmentally sound aquaculture expansion will have a ripple effect on other aspects of the economy since aquaculture relies on other producers and manufacturers for goods and services, including soybean and grain producers; equipment and technology providers; cold storage, transport, marketing and foodservice providers; and veterinarians. In turn, these activities will strengthen the coastal communities in which the businesses operate and provide healthy seafood to consumers.

Successes to date of aquaculture-related businesses demonstrate direct economic benefits from an increase in domestic aquaculture production, including offshore aquaculture. More and more communities and fishermen are recognizing that environmentally sound aquaculture can present development opportunities for areas hit hard by job losses, natural disasters and other challenges. As interest grows, these communities are beginning to integrate aquaculture into their economies. Stock enhancement of commercial and recreational fisheries adds to the economic benefits accruing from U.S. investment in marine aquaculture.

The bill strikes the proper balance between aquaculture development and environmental protection and will allow for timely permit decisions and adaptive management approaches. It also includes provisions for R&D to support all types of marine aquaculture, not just off-shore technologies.

Marine aquaculture has the potential to contribute greatly to our seafood supply and to the economy. But this potential will be realized only if we can provide the regulatory certainty for businesses to make sound investment decisions. The National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007 will give NOAA the authority it needs to provide that regulatory certainty.

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Affirmative Article 7: “Gaps In Federal Regulation of Offshore Aquaculture”

By Kristen Johns, J.D. Candidate at USC Law, writing in the Southern California Law Review. Published in 2013. Available at http://lawreview.usc.edu/index.php/note-farm-fishing-holes-gaps-in-federal-regulation-of-offshore-aquaculture/

The current regime for regulating offshore aquaculture needs to be revised. There is no lead federal agency for regulating offshore aquaculture and no comprehensive law directly addressing how it should be administered, regulated, and monitored. Multiple federal agencies are then left to assert their authority to regulate different aspects of offshore aquaculture under a variety of existing laws that were not designed for this purpose. n92 This system can lead to both overregulation of some aspects of the industry, such as overlapping permitting requirements, as well as underregulation of other aspects, such as the effects of escaped farmed fish on natural ecosystems. Furthermore, because none of the existing laws were designed to deal specifically with aquaculture, many are left vulnerable to challenge as proper legal bases for regulatory authority.

A. Administrative Overlap Creates Patchy Regulation

A number of federal agencies have invoked authority to regulate aquaculture activities in federal waters under various statutory authorities: EPA under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; NOAA under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act and the Endangered Species Act; Army Corps of Engineers under the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act; U.S. Coast Guard under the Rivers and Harbors Act; the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Lacey Act; Food and Drug Administration under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; and Department of Agriculture under the National Aquaculture Act. Under this patchy regulatory scheme, each agency imposes its own independent requirements with little interagency cooperation or collaboration - resulting in both overlapping regulatory requirements as well as gaps in the regulation of certain serious environmental risks.

The most significant consequence of allowing multiple agencies to invoke regulatory authority over different aspects of offshore aquaculture is that there is currently no centralized or streamlined process for obtaining a permit to operate a farm in federal waters. n93 As discussed in Part II.C, the permitting process is often cited as the single greatest constraint to offshore aquaculture development. Because there is no specific permitting system for offshore aquaculture, multiple agencies have invoked their authority to require permits for various aspects of the aquaculture activities. This complex multiagency permitting system is confusing, time-consuming, and costly.

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Affirmative Article 8: “Aquaculture Made Safe”By Rosamond Naylor, director of the program on food security and the environment at Stanford; and George Leonard, Director of the Aquaculture Program at the Ocean Conservancy in Santa Cruze. Published on February 14, 2010. Available at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/opinion/la-oe-naylor15-2010feb15,

If aquaculture is to play a responsible role in the future of seafood here at home, we must ensure that the "blue revolution" in ocean fish farming does not cause harm to the oceans and the marine life they support.

In December, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) introduced in the House the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act, a bill that addresses the potential threats of poorly regulated fish farming in U.S. ocean waters. Her bill shares many of the features of a California state law, the Sustainable Oceans Act, which was written by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. That legislation regulates fish farming in state waters, which extend three miles off the California coast. At present, all aquaculture operations in California and the U.S. are located just a few miles offshore.

If the U.S. and other states follow California's lead, we may be able to reward innovation and responsibility in aquaculture and at the same time prevent the kind of boom-and-bust development that happened in Chile. Unlike previous attempts to legislate fish farming at the national level, the Capps bill would ensure that U.S. aquaculture in federal waters, which extend from three to 200 miles offshore, establishes as a priority the protection of wild fish and functional ecosystems. It would ensure that industry expansion occurs only under the oversight of strong, performance-based environmental, socioeconomic and liability standards.

The bill also would preempt ecologically risky, piecemeal regulation of ocean fish farming in different regions of the U.S. Indeed, regulation efforts are already underway in many states, with no consistent standards to govern the industry's environmental or social performance. If these piecemeal regional initiatives move forward, it will get much more difficult to create a sustainable national policy for open-ocean aquaculture.

Previous federal bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 were fundamentally flawed -- and ultimately did not pass -- because they put the goal of aquaculture expansion far above that of environmental protection. Now, for the first time, a bill has been introduced that would demonstrably protect marine ecosystems, fishing communities and seafood consumers from the risks of poorly regulated open-ocean aquaculture.

The Obama administration is currently developing a national policy to guide the development of U.S. aquaculture. The administration would do well to embrace the vision articulated by Capps and Simitian for a science-based and precautionary approach to help ensure a responsible future for U.S. ocean fish farming.

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***Negative Articles***

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Negative Article 1: “How the US Stopped Its Fisheries From Collapsing”By Brad Plumer, Senior Editor for Vox. Published May 8, 2014. Available at http://www.vox.com/2014/5/8/5669120/how-the-us-stopped-its-fisheries-from-collapsing

Back in 1999, NOAA listed 98 stocks as "overfished." Today, that's down to 40. What's more, 34 previously depleted fish stocks have now been "rebuilt" — meaning that they've rebounded to a level that supports the maximum sustainable yield.

Those numbers improved again between 2012 and 2013: This rebound has been a boon to the fishing industry: US commercial fishermen caught 9.6 billion pounds of seafood in 2012, the second highest total in more than a decade (2011 was the highest year).

The rebound in US fisheries was also noted last year in a separate study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which studied 44 key fish stocks that had been seriously depleted and found that about 64 percent showed significant signs of recovery. The study did point out some glaring exceptions. A few regions were struggling to rebuild their fish stocks: New England, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South Atlantic. In New England, certain types of cod, flounder, and white hake simply weren't recovering. (More on this below.)

There are also a bunch of unknowns here: NOAA only assesses about 230 of the 478 types of fish that are under regulation. Steve Murawski, a former scientist at the National Marine Fisheries Service, told me in an interview last year that assessments are complicated and expensive — so NOAA has to "triage" by focusing on the most economically important species.

Still, most experts struck a note of guarded optimism on the state of US fisheries. "There are still a lot of areas where we'd like to see progress, especially in New England," Ted Morton, director of the US oceans program at the Pew Charitable Trusts told me. "But overall we're on the right track."

So how did this all happen? Many scientists and conservation groups point to efforts by Congress to tighten the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs fisheries management in federal waters.

That law was originally written back in 1976 to help promote the US fishing industry. But it worked so well that many fisheries were fished hard in the ensuing decades — leading to a decline in the overall number of fish being caught by the early 1990s:

So, in 1996, lawmakers added strict conservation measures to the law, requiring that overfished stocks be rebuilt within 10 years. Then, in 2006, Congress made this requirement even more concrete — individual regions had to impose hard catch limits on areas that were being overfished, starting in 2010.

"Prior to that, fisheries managers would often use softer techniques to try and prevent overfishing," says Seth Atkinson of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They would try to limit the number of days that fishermen could spend at sea, or limit the number of boats that could go out. But there wasn't much hard accountability, and you saw a lot of managers still permitting overfishing. And that's not a personal criticism of them. These are difficult decisions to make and often require short-term sacrifice."

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Different regions in the United States now employ a variety of policies to regulate overfishing. Alaska, for instance, uses a "catch share" system, in which fisherman are granted a fixed percentage of the overall haul each year. This system gives the industry a stake in ensuring that the overall fishery remains healthy — and studies have found that catch shares are effective at preventing fisheries collapse.

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Negative Article 2: “The Negative Impacts of Aquaculture”By the Third World Network, a non-profit international network of organisations involved in issues relating to development, developing countries and North-South affairs. Last updated in 2012. Available at http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/pact-ch.htm

One of the basic tenets of aquaculture is to increase food production. The important question is, for whom? Aquaculture, which has been hailed as THE answer to cheap production food for the millions in the poor Third World countries has instead been utilised to produce luxury delicacies such as fat prawns for the consumption of the already over-fed, affluent and wasteful societies in developed countries such as Japan and US.

It has also brought a huge amount of profits to industrialists and investors who deal with high-technology gadgetry in pellet fishfood and vaccine research and production, ice production, processing, transport, etc.

Meanwhile, the small-time fishermen and fish farmers lose out and the diet of local people gets impoverished. In Malaysia, tiger prawn is sold for about 32 ringgit (US$13) per kg, double the cost of a kg of beef, out of reach for the general local population.

It is ironic then, that most of the world's top suppliers and exporters of shrimps and fish are countries where most of its own people are undernourished: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and India.

Volatile prices

What is worrying is that, like any commodity, when the supply exceeds the demand, the price will drop drastically. Already, experts are forecasting that real prices could drop as much as 6-10% annually over the next few years, making shrimp farming not as lucrative as they were, and even resulting in great losses to small fish farmers who could not cope with the low price but high expense aquaculture activities. The biggest losers would be the locals who would have lost in terms of mangrove destruction, river pollution, loss of livelihoods, etc.

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Negative Article 3: “Aquaculture Problems: Fish Feed”By the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental conservation organization. Available at http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/aquaculture/fish_feed/

Aquaculture is contributing to overfishing through the use of wild-caught fish as feed for farmed fish.

Most farmed marine fish and shrimp species are carnivorous. They are either fed whole fish (mainly in the case of tuna) or pellets made of, amongst other things, fishmeal and fish oil. In both cases, the fish used as feed are caught from the wild.

The amount of feed needed for farmed fish and shrimp is staggering. For example:

up to 22kg of wild-caught fish is needed to produce just 1kg of farmed tuna 4kg of wild-caught fish is needed to produce 1kg of farmed salmon up to 2kg of wild-caught fish is needed to produce 1kg of farmed marine shrimp

This means that the aquaculture industry is using a large proportion of the fish caught in the world’s oceans each year.

Many of the fish stocks used as feed - mostly anchovies, pilchards, mackerel, herring, and whiting - are already fished at, or over, their safe biological limit. So instead of relieving pressure on the marine environment, aquaculture is actually contributing to the overfishing crisis that plagues the world's fisheries.

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Negative Article 4: “The Legal Implications of Aquaculture In The United States”

By Garrett Wheeler, a J.D. Candidate at the Golden Gate University School of Law, Published in the Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal in Spring 2013.

III. ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH AQUACULTURE

In the past decade, a new wave of industrial and governmental enthusiasm for ocean-based operations, particularly for offshore farms located in the 200-mile wide Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), has garnered attention as well as controversy. Proponents view open-ocean farms as playing a major role in solving the United States' $ 9 billion seafood trade deficit, while opponents warn of potentially devastating economic, social, and environmental consequences.

New technologies are allowing operators to cultivate fish and other seafood in exposed, open-ocean environments that were inaccessible only twenty years ago. However, the rise of offshore aquaculture poses significant threats to sensitive marine environments and "represents a fundamental transition in the human claim on the Earth's surface."

Open-ocean aquaculture facilities operate in largely pristine areas and are intimately connected with their surrounding aquatic ecosystems. Common species cultivated in the open ocean include mostly finfish such as salmon, cod, and tuna. Large underwater cages are placed in the water, and as ocean currents flow through the cages, the spread of waste and chemical byproducts can implicate the health of the seafloor and the surrounding water column. Escaped fish also pose a threat to marine ecosystems by introducing non-indigenous species, compromising the genetic fitness of native populations through interbreeding, and disease translocation. Disease and parasites may also spread to nearby native populations, and attempts by operators to apply drugs and chemicals to contain those threats can damage the surrounding ecosystem. Predatory fish and marine mammals are also drawn to cages full of captive fish, leading to injury, death, and harassment by operators trying to protect their stocks. Finally, operational failures are all but inevitable: in at least one instance, an entire fish cage broke free from a tow vessel and was sent floating adrift in the open ocean, endangering marine species as well as any ocean-going vessels unfortunate enough to cross its path.

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Negative Article 5: “Why Fish Farming is Unsustainable and Harming the Planet”

By Zion Lights, Contributing Editor with JUNO magazine, regular writer with The Huffington Post UK. Published July 19, 2012. Available at http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/why-fish-farming-is-unsustainable-and-harming-the-planet/

There’s something fishy going on between the soy industry and new fish farming methods, and there is little news coverage of this growing relationship. A report titled Factory-Fed Fish: How the Soy Industry is Expanding Into the Sea by Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe highlights some of the potential dangers created by the unexpected relationship between soy and fish, and looks at the harm that is being caused to the global environment by this unnatural coupling.

What’s The Problem?

As with many foods people consume, there are hidden costs to consuming fish, even fish from supposedly ‘sustainable’ sources. Roughly half of the seafood people consume is produced using aquaculture, or ‘factory’ fish farming, methods, and it’s no accident that the former term has been adopted by the bodies involved. The term ‘aquaculture’ suggests a natural approach to producing fish, while the term ‘fish farming’ indicates exploitation, and is an apt term since fish farms involve cages on huge scales in order to maximize profit. Some fish farms use small, overcrowded cages akin to battery hen method, which ‘open ocean’ or ‘offshore aquaculture’ involves growing fish in isolated large cages in the ocean, far from the coastline.

The Environmental & Animal Impacts

Both of these methods of fish farming create problems for the planet. Farmed fish escape and contaminate other sea life, spreading diseases and parasites to wild fish and marine life. Farmed fish also breed with wild fish, which contaminates non-farmed sources of fish and leads to decreased genetic pools. Farmed fish also out-compete wild fish in some cases, leading to population decline of healthy, natural fish.

There’s a less obvious problem to do with the relationship between fish and soy. The farmed fish are being fed soy, which they would never encounter in their natural environments and is likely causing them long-term damage. Soy is nutritionally poor compared to the variety of smaller fish and other sea creatures that an average fish would consume, but it’s a very cheap option for the fish farmers, who require cheap food to feed over 200 million fish in offshore cages each year. The soy industry insists that soy is ‘sustainable’, which may be true in comparison to feeding fish their natural diets, which would require more than the world’s fish and other sea life as fish feed, however the other impacts of soy-fed fish have not been explored, and the method cannot be dubbed as sustainable until more is known about the impact feeding soy to fish has on the environment long-term.

Farmed soy-fed fish also produce more waste than wild fish, which leads to an increase in oceanic pollution and again raises contamination risks of other sea life species.

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Soy farming on the scale required to feed the number of fish kept on underwater farms also requires mass deforestation. In several U.S. states, underground drainage pipes are required to dry out land needed to grow soybean crops, and the water collected by the pipes, which contains nitrogen fertilizers, and end up in the Gulf of Mexico. The nitrogen fertilizer carried by the drainage pipes is a major source of nutrient pollution in the Gulf. The fertilizer-contaminated water creates pockets of oxygen-depleted areas known as ‘dead zones’, which cause marine animals to suffocate and die.

In addition, the soy that is being fed to farmed fish is predominantly from genetically modified sources. Sources indicate that 94 percent of the soy grown in the United States is genetically modified, and 98 percent of soybeans grown in the United States is used to feed livestock, again demonstrating that farming methods in general are unsustainable and environmentally damaging practices.

There is also evidence that consuming soybeans seriously harms fish. Soy can be indigestible for some fish and consuming it harms their digestive systems over time, and in some cases leads to an inflammation of the lower intestine. The further implications of this are not yet known. Another study found that when a group of eels was fed on soy, 11 times more eels became females than in the control group.

The Human Impact

Mass soy farming in Argentina means that an estimated 300,000 peasant and indigenous families have been displaced front heir natural habitats, in the last decade alone. Soy farming pollutes the land people need to live on and thereby destroys local communities. Local activist groups including La Via Campesina and the National Indigenous Campesino Movement of Argentina are attempting to regain control and attain rights over their homelands.

On soy plantations in Brazil, there have been documented cases of forced labor akin to slavery methods. A registry of agricultural firms undertaken by the government found that 6 soy companies were responsible for enslaving 241 workers.

Since soy plantations produce goods purely for export purposes, they also damage local economies. National food security in South America is compromised by the ‘soybean economy’, which diverts much-needed agricultural capacity to foreign lands.

There’s no doubt that fish farming has negative impacts on our planet’s land, oceans and the animals and communities that inhabit it, but as with other examples of big business, fortune favors the rich. There are no signs that fish farming methods, and feeding fish soy products, will come to an end in the near future.

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Negative Article 6: “White House Could Announce World's Largest Marine Reserve Soon”

by Pete Spotts, staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor. Published August 20, 2014. Available at http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0820/White-House-could-announce-world-s-largest-marine-reserve-soon-video

If all goes as planned, before the year is out as much as 700,000 square miles of the south-central Pacific Ocean could be off limits to fishing, resource exploration, and other economic activities – courtesy of the stroke of a presidential pen in Washington.

The move would turn the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, established by President George W. Bush in 2009, into the world’s largest marine reserve. In the process it would double the area globally subject to such tight fishing restrictions.

“We anticipate sometime in late summer or early fall an announcement from the White House on their decision,” said Seth Horstmeyer, a director for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program.

Well-designed and properly managed marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely seen in the conservation community as effective ways to restore vitality to overfished areas, shelter and nurture fish in the quest to develop sustainable fisheries, and act as reservoirs of biodiversity and resilience in the face of global warming and ocean acidification. “They are the most practical tool we have available to us to protect ecosystems and keep them functioning and protect habitat” from a range of human-based threats, says Tundi Agardy, a marine biologist who heads Sound Seas, a marine-policy group in Washington.

Nor is the United States alone in working to expand the area of the oceans that would represent havens for marine life and the ecosystems that support it. In late July, for instance, Scotland announced the doubling of the area of its marine reserves – including what purports to be the largest MPA in Europe.

In February, Palau announced plans to extend full protections for marine life in some 80 percent of the waters embraced by its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Kiribati has pledged to end commercial fishing by Jan. 1, 2015, in a California-size marine reserve it governs.

Meanwhile, Britain is weighing approval of a commercial-fishing-free zone around the Pitcairn Islands in the southeastern Pacific that would cover some 320,000 square miles.

These moves are part of an international effort under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 10 percent of the world’s oceans by 2020 (scientists advising the International Union for the Conservation of Nature have pushed for 20 percent).

2014 Atlanta Urban Debate League 53/65Evidence Packet (Affirmative and Negative)

Negative Article 7: “A Hungry World: Lots of Food, in Too Few Places”By Mark Koba, senior editor at CNBC.com. Published July 22, 2013. Available at http://www.cnbc.com/id/100893540#.

Of the roughly 7 billion people in the world, an estimated 870 million suffer each day from hunger.

That's hunger from malnutrition or not eating even the lowest amount of daily recommended calories—1,800—while often enduring food insecurity, or not knowing where the next meal is coming from.

The consistently massive population of hungry people—along with variables like severe weather and economic downturns—sometimes spark warnings that the planet faces impending food shortages.

And yet more people in the world—1.7 billion—are considered obese or overweight from a daily caloric intake that in some cases is at least six to seven times the minimum.

This paradox is nothing new, experts say. It just shows the problem isn't that we have too little food, it's what we do with the food we have.

"We have two or three times the amount of food right now that is needed to feed the number of people in the world," said Joshua Muldavin, a geography professor at Sarah Lawrence College who focuses on food and agricultural instruction.

"A lot of people aren't analyzing the situation correctly. We can deal with short-term food shortages after a disaster, but fixing long term hunger gets ignored," he said.

"We don't have food shortage problem," said Emelie Peine, a professor of international politics and economy at the University of Puget Sound.

"What we have is a distribution problem and an income problem," Peine said. "People aren't getting the food, ... and even if [they] did, they don't have enough money to buy it."

If there is enough food, a major problem causing scarcity is what we do with it, said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, an advocacy group for U.S. farmers.

"Something in the area of up to half of all that's produced is wasted," said Johnson, who runs his own farm in North Dakota.

"In the undeveloped world, the waste happens before the food gets to people, from lack of roads and proper storage facilities, and the food rots," Johnson said. "In the developed world, it's the staggering amount of food that's thrown out after it gets to our plates."

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Negative Article 8: “In Deep Water”By The Economist. Published February 22, 2014. Available at http://www.economist.com/news/international/21596990-humans-are-damaging-high-seas-now-oceans-are-doing-harm-back-deep-water

ABOUT 3 billion people live within 100 miles (160km) of the sea, a number that could double in the next decade as humans flock to coastal cities like gulls. The oceans produce $3 trillion of goods and services each year and untold value for the Earth’s ecology. Life could not exist without these vast water reserves—and, if anything, they are becoming even more important to humans than before.

Mining is about to begin under the seabed in the high seas—the regions outside the exclusive economic zones administered by coastal and island nations, which stretch 200 nautical miles (370km) offshore. Nineteen exploratory licences have been issued. New summer shipping lanes are opening across the Arctic Ocean. The genetic resources of marine life promise a pharmaceutical bonanza: the number of patents has been rising at 12% a year. One study found that genetic material from the seas is a hundred times more likely to have anti-cancer properties than that from terrestrial life.

But these developments are minor compared with vaster forces reshaping the Earth, both on land and at sea. It has long been clear that people are damaging the oceans—witness the melting of the Arctic ice in summer, the spread of oxygen-starved dead zones and the death of coral reefs. Now, the consequences of that damage are starting to be felt onshore.

Thailand provides a vivid example. In the 1990s it cleared coastal mangrove swamps to set up shrimp farms. Ocean storm surges in 2011, no longer cushioned by the mangroves, rushed in to flood the country’s industrial heartland, causing billions of dollars of damage.

More serious is the global mismanagement of fish stocks. About 3 billion people get a fifth of their protein from fish, making it a more important protein source than beef. But a vicious cycle has developed as fish stocks decline and fishermen race to grab what they can of the remainder. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a third of fish stocks in the oceans are over-exploited; some estimates say the proportion is more than half (see chart). One study suggested that stocks of big predatory species—such as tuna, swordfish and marlin—may have fallen by as much as 90% since the 1950s. People could be eating much better, were fishing stocks properly managed.

The forests are often called the lungs of the Earth, but the description better fits the oceans. They produce half the world’s supply of oxygen, mostly through photosynthesis by aquatic algae and other organisms. But according to a forthcoming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; the group of scientists who advise governments on global warming), concentrations of chlorophyll (which helps makes oxygen) have fallen by 9-12% in 1998-2010 in the North Pacific, Indian and North Atlantic Oceans.

Climate change may be the reason. At the moment, the oceans are moderating the impact of global warming—though that may not last (see article). Warm water rises, so an increase in sea temperatures tends to separate cold and warm water into more distinct layers, with shallower mixed layers in

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between. That seems to lower the quantity of nutrients available for aquatic algae, and to lead to decreased chlorophyll concentrations. Changes in the oceans, therefore, may mean less oxygen will be produced. This cannot be good news, though scientists are still debating the likely consequences. The world is not about to suffocate. But the result could be lower oxygen concentrations in the oceans and changes to the climate because the counterpart of less oxygen is more carbon—adding to the build-up of greenhouse gases. In short, the decades of damage wreaked on the oceans are now damaging the terrestrial environment.

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***Offshore Wind Environment Updates***

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Negative Article: “Artificial Reef Effect In Relation To Offshore Renewable Energy Conversion”

by Olivia Langhamer, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Published in The Scientific World Journal in 2012. Available at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2012/386713/.

One mitigating effect of offshore renewable energy on the local biodiversity may occur due to colonization by invasive species. Ever since international shipping started, marine organisms have been distributed all over the world by ballast water or as fouling on boat hulls. This introduction of alien species has dramatic ecological effects, since it can be a threat to global biodiversity and lead to local extinctions and fishery collapses. Artificial hard substrates offer habitats for a large number of invasive species normally attached to rocky reefs. In general, artificial structures do not host exactly the same species as a natural hard substrate. The installation of offshore renewable energy parks may not only introduce hard substrata in otherwise sandy-dominated bottoms, but can also provide new habitats for invasive species. Different hydrodynamics, such as more shelter due to new structures may lead to colonization of organisms very different to those on nearby hard substrates and thereby establish and spread nonindigenous species. On wind turbine constructions in the North Sea and in the Baltic Sea the presence of alien species has been recorded and may provide stepping-stones for spread, which could facilitate the establishment of the new taxa in the recipient region.

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Negative Article: “Marine Invasive Alien Species: A Threat to Global Biodiversity”

By Nicholas Bax, Professor at the University of Tasmania and expert in marine resource management. Published in July 2003 in Marine Policy, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Scientists and policy makers increasingly see the introduction of alien species as a major threat to marine biodiversity and a contributor to environmental change. As these marine introductions, intentional and accidental, can result from numerous human mediated activities, management responses need to cover a diverse range of human activity.

In this paper, we briefly describe the environmental impacts, and economic and social implications, of some of the more invasive alien marine species, then we describe the vectors responsible for moving marine species around the world, emphasizing that ballast water is only one of many vectors...

Virtually every coastal habitat in the San Francisco Bay area is now dominated by one or more alien species. Three of the six most common benthic marine species in Port Phillip Bay in 1996 were alien species, a statistic that does not include two recent and rapidly proliferating alien species, one of which—the North Pacific seastar, Asterias amurensis—has increased to over 100 million individuals covering 1500 km2 that have a greater biomass than that of all fished species in the Bay ( Fig. 1). In the 15 years since its discovery off Monaco, the invasive green algae, Caulerpa taxifolia, has come to cover 97% of available surfaces between Toulon and Genes (France, Monaco and Italy) has already been spread to the Adriatic Sea, and is projected to eventually spread over most of the Mediterranean [10]. The numerical dominance of invasive alien marine species swamps native species and alters ecosystem services. In the Black Sea, an invasive comb jelly, Mnemiopsis leidyi, has been blamed for the collapse of coastal fisheries worth many millions of dollars annually [11]. The Asian clam Potamocorbula amurensis, now reaches densities of over 10,000/m2 in San Francisco Bay, and has been blamed for the collapse of local fisheries. An invasive crab, Carcinus maenas, a European species now found in Australia, Japan, South Africa and both coasts of North America, is blamed for the collapse of bivalve fisheries on the North American east coast, and it is it feared will outcompete migratory bird populations on the west coast of North America for favoured shellfish [12].

While the majority of marine alien invasive species have been found in the tidal and subtidal zones, at least one—the New Zealand screwshell, Maoricolpus roseus, introduced to Tasmania from New Zealand in the 1920s—has spread across the continental shelf at densities of 1000 s m–2 as far north as Sydney. This 5-cm long screwshell, changes the seabed habitat, covering soft sediments with its hard shell, providing attachment points for other marine fauna (including another invasive alien marine species, Undaria pinnatifida), and once dead, its shell provides abundant homes for a particular hermit crab that can use its heavy tapered shell, thus shifting the pre-invasion food web.

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Affirmative Article: “Offshore Wind Farms Are Good For Wildlife”From The Guardian, a British newspaper. Published August 11, 2011. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/11/offshore-wind-farms-good-wildlife

It is the evidence proponents of offshore wind farms have been waiting for: a Dutch study has found that offshore wind turbines have "hardly any negative effects" on wildlife, and may even benefit animals living beneath the waves.

The researchers reached their conclusions after studying a wind farm near Windpark Egmond aan Zee, the first large-scale offshore wind farm built off the Dutch North Sea coast.

Anti-wind farm campaigners have often argued that wind farms can have a negative impact on bird populations, while some critics have voiced concerns that offshore wind farms could prove disruptive to marine life.

However, Professor Han Lindeboom from the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies at Wageningen University and Research centre, said that the new study revealed little evidence of negative effects on local wildlife.

"At most, a few bird species will avoid such a wind farm. It turns out that a wind farm also provides a new natural habitat for organisms living on the sea bed such as mussels, anemones and crabs, thereby contributing to increased biodiversity," he said.

"For fish and marine mammals, it provides an oasis of calm in a relatively busy coastal area."

The research, sponsored by NoordzeeWind, a joint venture of Nuon and Shell Wind Energy, claimed that offshore wind farms actually have a beneficial long-term effect on wildlife.

The wind farm functions as a new type of habitat, the report said, detailing how new species are attracted to the turbine foundations and surrounding rocks.

The researchers also noted that the turbines help to protect schools of cod, and that porpoises are heard more often inside than outside the wind farm.

Meanwhile, the survey concluded that sea bird species such as gannets tend to avoid the turbines, while seagulls appear unflustered and local cormorant numbers even increase.

"The number of birds that collided with the turbines was not determined but was estimated to be quite low on the basis of observations and model calculations," the researchers added in the article, published in online journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study noted that the effects of wind farms will inevitably vary depending on their position, but that offshore wind farms can contribute to a more diverse habitat and even help nature to recover from the effects of intensive fishing, pollution, oil and gas extraction, and shipping.

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Affirmative Article: “Human Assault Pushes Ocean to Limit Unseen in 300 Million Years”

By Jon Queally, staff writer at Common Dreams, citing a report by an international team of marine scientists at the International Programme on the State of the Ocean. Published October 3, 2013. Available at http://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/10/03/human-assault-pushes-ocean-limit-unseen-300-million-years

The latest audit by an international team of marine scientists at the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) found that the world's oceans and marine life are facing an unprecedented threat by combination of industrial pollution, human-driven global warming and climate change, and continued and rampant overfishing.

According to the report, The State of the Ocean 2013: Perils, Prognoses and Proposals, the degradation of the ocean ecosystem means that its role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is being seriously compromised. As a result, the authors of the report call for "urgent remedies" because the "rate, speed, and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster, and more imminent than previously thought." Driven by accumulations of carbon, the scientists found, the rate of acidification in the oceans is the highest its been in over 300 million years. Additionally, de-oxygenation--caused by both warming and industrial runoff--is stripping the ocean of its ability to support the plants and animals that live in it.

The combined stressors, according to the report, are "unprecedented in the Earth's known history. We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change, and exposing organisms to intolerable evolutionary pressure. The next mass extinction may have already begun."

Professor Alex Rogers of Somerville College, Oxford, and Scientific Director of IPSO said: “The health of the ocean is spiraling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated. The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth.”

Among the report's comprehensive findings, the panel identified the following areas as of greatest cause for concern:

• De-oxygenation: the evidence is accumulating that the oxygen inventory of the ocean is progressively declining. Predictions for ocean oxygen content suggest a decline of between 1% and 7% by 2100. This is occurring in two ways: the broad trend of decreasing oxygen levels in tropical oceans and areas of the North Pacific over the last 50 years; and the dramatic increase in coastal hypoxia (low oxygen) associated with eutrophication. The former is caused by global warming, the second by increased nutrient runoff from agriculture and sewage.

• Acidification: If current levels of CO2 release continue we can expect extremely serious consequences for ocean life, and in turn food and coastal protection; at CO2 concentrations of 450-500 ppm (projected in 2030-2050) erosion will exceed calcification in the coral reef building process, resulting in the extinction of some species and decline in biodiversity overall.

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• Warming: As made clear by the IPCC, the ocean is taking the brunt of warming in the climate system, with direct and well-documented physical and biogeochemical consequences. The impacts which continued warming is projected to have in the decades to 2050 include: reduced seasonal ice zones, including the disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice by ca. 2037; increasing stratification of ocean layers, leading to oxygen depletion; increased venting of the GHG methane from the Arctic seabed (a factor not considered by the IPCC); and increased incidence of anoxic and hypoxic (low oxygen) events.

• The ‘deadly trio’ of the above three stressors - acidification, warming and deoxygenation - is seriously effecting how productive and efficient the ocean is, as temperatures, chemistry, surface stratification, nutrient and oxygen supply are all implicated, meaning that many organisms will find themselves in unsuitable environments. These impacts will have cascading consequences for marine biology, including altered food web dynamics and the expansion of pathogens.

• Continued overfishing is serving to further undermine the resilience of ocean systems, and contrary to some claims, despite some improvements largely in developed regions, fisheries management is still failing to halt the decline of key species and damage to the ecosystems on which marine life depends. In 2012 the UN FAO determined that 70% of world fish populations are unsustainably exploited, of which 30% have biomass collapsed to less than 10% of unfished levels. A recent global assessment of compliance with Article 7 (fishery management) of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, awarded 60% of countries a “fail” grade, and saw no country identified as being overall “good”.

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***Glossary***

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Glossary (1/2)Fisheries and AquacultureThere are two primary ways that fish get from the ocean to your table: through fisheries, and through aquaculture. Fisheries, which until recently have been the more popular option, collect large amounts of wild fish in their natural ocean habitat. One common fish-collection method for fisheries is “trawling,” where boats drag large nets through the water in order to capture as many fish as possible.

Over the past few decades, trawling has contributed to overfishing and led some experts to predict a catastrophic decline in fish populations. As a result, aquaculture – or fish farming – has become increasingly popular. Aquaculture works similarly to livestock farming on land: fish farms are built in a limited space, and every aspect of the fishs' lives is managed by the farm operator. Aquaculture is often considered to be a solution to overfishing because farm operators have a strong incentive to ensure that fish populations remain stable.

EcosystemEcosystems are the sum total of plant, animal, and microbe life in a given area. The Earth's oceans, as a whole, could be said to have an ecosystem; but so could specific parts of the Earth's oceans, such as the Atlantic ocean or the ocean area off Georgia's coast. Forests, deserts, and plains could also be said to have ecosystems.

Since most ecosystems are composed of many different kinds of life, they're incredibly complex. Ecosystems can be affected in unpredictable ways by adding or subtracting plants, animals, chemicals, or climate conditions. Ecosystems are also interconnected: changing one part of an ecosystem can seriously affect other parts of an ecosystem. For instance, removing a popular edible plant from an ecosystem could deprive many animals of a food source, which would in turn cause many of those animals to die.

Human activity, including fisheries and aquaculture, have significant impacts on ecosystems.

BiodiversityBiodiversity refers to the diversity of life in a given ecosystem. Human activity has caused many animal species to become extinct, which decreases ecosystem biodiversity.

SustainabilityAlmost all human activities influence the environment, and one important question is whether this influence is sustainable or unsustainable. Sustainable practices can be continued for a long time, while unsustainable practices will run into barriers that force them to stop. One example of an unsustainable practice is using oil for energy, since oil will eventually run out; a more sustainable practice might be to use wind power, which is inexhaustible.

Historical fishery practices have led to an unsustainable decline in fish populations, but some people argue that better fishery practices could make them more sustainable in the future. Similarly, some people argue that aquaculture is sustainable, while others argue that it causes unsustainable environmental harms.

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Glossary (2/2)

Invasive speciesInvasive species are species native to one ecosystem which find their way into another ecosystem, usually through human intervention. Black rats, for example, spread from Europe to the rest of the world on European ships during the 1700s. Because black rats are very good at surviving in different types of ecosystems, they quickly grew in population. This introduction into an ecosystem caused other species to become disadvantaged, decreasing overall biodiversity.

One concern with aquaculture is that fish could escape from fish farms and become invasive species in the surrounding waters. Similarly, some people worry that offshore wind farms (particularly their “ballast” - the part of the wind turbine that's attached to the ocean floor) could provide a habitat for invasive species to spread throughout an ecosystem.

Food securityFood security refers both to the available and the nutritiousness of food. International organizations have estimated that between 870 billion people and 2 billion people do not have reliable access to nutritious food.

Factory farmingFactory farming, also known as industrial agriculture or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), are the primary way that food is produced in the United States. Factory farms are nearly universally criticized for being cruel to animals, environmentally unsustainable, and harmful to human health. Factory farms are typically extremely large operations, with thousands or tens of thousands of animals confined to small sheds, overfed, and given large amounts of antibiotics.

Many opponents of factory farming also oppose aquaculture on the grounds that aquaculture is an extension of industrial agriculture into the ocean.

Marine Protected Area (MPA)MPAs are analogous to wildlife protected areas on land: they're parts of the ocean where human activity is restricted to protect plant and animal populations. Countries around the world are increasingly considering MPAs as a strategy to improve ocean health.

NOAAThe National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration is the main federal government agency that regulates the oceans and the Earth's atmosphere. Most people who support aquaculture argue that the NOAA should be the agency in charge of regulating it.

Environmental regulationEnvironmental regulation refers to government rules that restrict what can and can't be done to the environment. Aquaculture regulations might include issuing permits that allow companies to build fish farms in certain areas, making rules about pollution and waste, and restricting what kinds of chemicals can be used.

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More Resources: Articles, Books, and VideosArticles“Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish”: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?pagewanted=all

“In Defense of Tilapia”: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/05/in-defense-of-tilapia/238859/

“Biodiversity-friendly aquaculture on the Veta la Palma Estate, Spain”: http://www.ecoagriculture.org/case_study.php?id=77

“Fish Farming Overtaking Traditional Fisheries”: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/business/global/01fish.html

“Don't Discount (Smart) Fish Farming”: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/03/03/too-few-fish-in-the-sea/dont-discount-smart-fish-farming

“Why are We Importing Our Own Fish?”: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/why-are-we-importing-our-own-fish.html

BooksBottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe (available used for $.01 on Amazon!)

American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood by Paul Greenberg

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Videos“Open-ocean fish farmer: Future of food”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBbB27698Ug

“Exploring U.S. Aquaculture”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oi9GARr-Xc

“Tiger shrimp invade Louisiana waters”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhK3AIka1XQ

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Evidence Packet - Atlanta Urban Debate Leagueatlantadebate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Aquaculture... · Web viewAs a result, aquaculture – or fish farming – has become increasingly

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