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Nations should work to prepare for climate change instead of preventing it.

To consider this resolution and evaluate both possible solutions a few things must be established. Firstly, the main value that both sides are defending is the value of human life. The common goal is saving the most possible humans. The pro side will be arguing that preparation is fundamental and necessary to achieve this while the con should be arguing that reducing the damage to the environment is enough. Before I lay out my arguments I would like to make one clarification: the pro side is not arguing that prevention is the ultimate solution. Instead, we will prove that it should be the immediate and necessary action. These are our reasons: 1. We will suffer the consequences of climate change. (It will rise above 2 C). The vast majority of scientists agree that a rise in the average temperature of the world above 2 degrees Celsius from before industrial levels will be extremely catastrophic to the human population. This is a very alarming fact because we have already risen 1 degree above these industrial levels, and from the current course we have set our industries on, it is virtually impossible to prevent going above 2 C. This means we WILL deal with the catastrophic damage of climate change! Now the question is what is the best solution to deal with these consequences such as extreme droughts, flooding, harsh storms, etc.? The solution proposed by the the opposition is completely inviable since switching to green energy or any other measure will not save the lives of the people whose house was washed away by floods or who do not have water to drink. I"m from Brazil and recently we have had the worst drought in 50 years. This made a many people realize the importance of the environment and start taking actions to help it, yet that did not solve the immediate problem. People still did not have water to live! Preparation was necessary and would have remediated the issue. This same logic can be applied to the rest of the world. We need to be prepared to face what is coming, and that is why it should be our main goal. 2. Not all nations will agree on preventing climate change; therefore, nations that do not prepare for its effects will be harmed. One example of this is China, one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases, which has recently stated that it would not maintain its emission control pledges. As a result of that, it is inevitable that significant damage will occur due to climate change. It is nearly impossible to force countries like this to comply with climate change prevention measures; therefore, it would be more beneficial for the other nations to prepare themselves to the effects of climate change rather than spending trillions on trying to prevent it in vain. How can you ask a small country like the Maldives to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions when the sea is rising and destroying their cities? Even if they did agree to take these measures, because other countries like China don"t, the seas will continue to rise. Their main concern currently should be to prepare with the effects of this rise. 3. It would be illogical for a few countries to make the change to green technology because of the magnitude of capital investment in the oil & gas industry. The oil & gas industry is a billion dollar industry. Only in the time period 2009-13 more than 3000 billion dollars were invested in the oil & gas industry. It is needless to point out the huge negative effects the adoption of green technology would mean for the world economy. The results would be catastrophic and there would be no turning back. Thousands of people would lose their jobs and years of technological developments in the industry would be wasted. It would cost 44 trillion dollars to switch from fossil fuels to green energy. The cost of this is unviable. There are no investors willing to spend that much money on green technology. Logically, the costs would be split. However, given the profits the oil industry brings only a crazy person would spend on green technology. This once again demonstrates how prevention is completely impossible in our world and preparation is the best immediate solution. 4. If climate change prevention does not work, then mankind would have wasted all of its resources into something futile, and we would not be able to survive the effects of climate change. In order to change the ways of mankind now, we would have to change so many habits that have been ingrained in our society for decades, since the discovery of oil. How we run our factories, how we trade, change all of the packaging on foods, beauty products, even clothing. It is impossible to impede the productions of these items, since nowadays fossil fuels are present all around us. The keyboard you are typing on is made of plastic for example, the case around your phone is plastic as well. It is incoherent to assume that we can slow this process now, so instead of spending trillions on prevention methods that we are not certain can work (they haven"t until now), we must start thinking about the future, and preparing for the worst that can come. One of the largest mistakes that humanity makes is to begin something and not look deep enough into the future to know how to control that something. This is not a fatalistic view, it is a cautious one. For all these reasons, we are arguing that the preparation to deal with climate change should currently be valued above preventing the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Arguing that suddenly changing the path we are on will happen and is viable is thinking of a utopian world. It is a completely inviable solution. The main goal of nations should be to prepare, and later, when the mentality concerning climate change starts to shift, prevention can be discussed.