Is economic growth the cause of all environmental crises?

(LR: Patricia Antonio, Kristopper Japlos, Jean Samsin, Bea Abalajon, Juan Ongchangco, Mariel Sison)

16 May 2008. The debate was on the question of whether economic growth was the cause of all environmental crises.

Government’s strategy was to argue based on a working definition. Government (Samsin, Japlos, and Antonio) defined an “environmental crisis” as a serious incident that caused death and injury to people. They argued that the presence of people was associated--even synonymous-- with economic growth. The presence of people in a place that experienced any form of disaster would, by definition, turn a “natural hazard”—a serious incident that may cause death and injury but not involving people--into an “environmental crisis” by the mere fact of involving people--who, of course, would be there because of economic growth.

Opposition (Abalajon, Sison, Ongchangco) did not contest the definition of environmental crisis, but they pointed out that environmental crises may be caused by natural disasters that had nothing to do with economic growth. Furthermore, they argued that actual environmental crises in the world were not caused by economic growth but by the failure to implement laws.

The audience gave this debate to Government for the following reasons.

First, the opposition failed to detect and then attack the Government’s argument that the mere fact of having people present was always the result of economic growth, and that it was the presence of people that turned a natural hazard into an environmental crisis. Government’s strategy, which was entirely based on a definition, was quite weak, but Opposition failed to capitalize. Furthermore, Opposition’s argument that weak implementation of laws was the problem rather than economic growth was contradicted by one of their own speakers who said that “economic imperatives overtook the implementation of these laws”, thereby saying that economic growth was an indirect cause of environmental crises.

Government’s strategy of using a definition to favor its side was very risky. Its success depended entirely on Opposition detecting the flaw. Fortunately for them, Opposition did not do this.

However, it was pointed out during deliberation that this definition of the Government was defective. Furthermore, the practice of making definitions that prove one’s point—especially if it ignored contrary positions—was not fair. It is precisely the function of debate to make such faults apparent.