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Good evening ladies, gentlemen, and fellow debaters. Today we are gathered here to debate the topic “That Australia should aim for zero population growth.”
I as the first speaker will be exploring the consequences of population growth in relation to the environment and resources that Australia provides.
Our second speaker will be detailing the social and economic damage associated with population inflation.
Firstly I would like to expand on the issue of the environment, and the dire consequences of the world’s rapidly skyrocketing population. While several years ago the reality of global warming was still in debate, in 2007, it is widely accepted that the effects of greenhouse gases are quite real indeed. The basic science of global warming is that there is a thin layer of gases in the atmosphere surrounding the earth. Heat waves from the sun penetrate this shield, and then reflect off the Earths surface. However, some of this heat is trapped, keeping the Earth warm. The Earth is gradually increasing in temperature. The result of this? Well, it’s far more serious than it might appear. The world’s oceans are continually rising in heat, and this is causing vast fragments of ice to slowly crackle from the tethers of larger structures, and then slowly melt. This is affecting weather patterns. Storms and hurricanes are fiercer, certain animal species are finding it difficult to adapt to a warmer climate, and coastal areas of society are soon going to be faced with a crisis; sea levels are rising. How is this relevant to Australia you might ask? Consider where our society is situated. As the middle of this nation is largely parched, arid, uninhabitable wasteland, Australians live by the sea. The penalties of the abovementioned event are disastrous indeed. The real issue is nonetheless, how all this relates to population growth. Well as global warming is a man-made crisis, every single person on the face of the planet is contributing to the...