1、This House Believes the Human Species has aBright Future to Look Forward To: Proposition*This is the prepared debate that I made for side proposition before theCOBIS (Council of British International Schools,) debate in Romania. Ihope you enjoy the read.*“ This House Believes That the Human Species
2、Has a Bright Future to LookForward To.”Honorable judges, worthy opponents, helpful teammates. The motion beforeus today is: “ This house believes the human species has a bright futureto look forward to,” and as side proposition, we strongly agree with thismotion. Today I will bring forth two points;
3、 these being:1. The positive humanitarian strides that we have made as a human species.2. The fact that the world is currently more peaceful than it has ever beenbefore.Iwill continue our case in aminute, but beforethat, there are some thingsabout the previous opposition speaker s speech that need t
4、o be addressed:*This is where I rebutted side opposition s previous speaker s points.*I will now move onto my first point, and as previously stated this is:“ as a human species we have made significant and positive humanitarianstrides.” But before I begin with the main focus of my point I would like
5、to provide some statistics that showcase some of the positive achievementsthat humanity has accomplished on a whole: By the early 90s, the average world life expectancy had increased by36% as opposed to what it was in the 1950 s. (UNICEF.ORG). (Numbers ontheir own don t mean anything unless we can c
6、ompare them effectively). On August 11, 2015, Africa celebrated its first year without any reportedpolio cases. (UNICEF.ORG). In 1960 the world literacy rate was 42%. In 2015 it was 86%. (Source:WorldInData.Org). In 1990 the poverty rate globally was 36%. In 2015? It was less than 10%.(Source: World
7、 Bank Group).The point is: I could go on and on about the world s humanitarianachievements. But I won t. It is obvious that every year, the worldcollectively has made outstanding humanitarian efforts and improvements,which have in turn improved the economic, and social living conditionsof hundreds o
8、f millions of people around the world. Through the effortsof various organizations, governments, and volunteers, we have been ableto plan for, alleviate, and even potentially completely eradicate varioushumanitarian issues, whether it be the literacy rate of a country in SubSaharan Africa or a polio
9、-endemic in Asia. While there are still manyissues that need to be addressed we must understand that change does nothappen overnight but over the time span of many years. Considering thefact that trends similar to the ones aforementioned are predicted tocontinue, we must ask side opposition why they
10、 continue to insist thatwe as a species do not have a bright future to look forward to despitebeing presented withheaps of evidence pointing to a future full of promiseand positive changes for all.I would now like to move onto my second point: “ The world is at its mostpeaceful than it has ever been
11、 before.”The number of war-related deaths has been declining ever since 1945 whenthe Second World War ended claiming approximately 70 million lives inthe process. The human species identified a need for something that couldmaintain peace and order and so they sought out and created suchorganizations
12、 that could do exactly this namely the United Nations,The World Peace Council, and NATO. As a species, we have managed todeescalate and defuse various aggressive interactions that could havepotentially stemmed into dangerous conflicts resulting in the loss oflives. In 1950 for example, for every 100
13、,000 people in the worldpopulation, there were roughly 20 deaths that stemmed from conflictsbetween states. In 2016 it was less than 0.01. (Source: Our World in Data).We are not trying to say that some kind of peacekeeping organization hasstopped multiple wars from happening, but rather that as a hu
14、man speciesthe way that we go about any issues is solved in diplomatic ways ratherthan with aggression and through the collective might of many countrieswe can discourage confrontation and rather pressure other countries tocome to civil terms.In conclusion, as a species, humans DO have a bright futu
15、re to look forwardto. As a species, we have made huge improvements all over the worldregarding humanitarian issues, which has allowed the world to achievehigher levels of economic growth and helped advance the lives of millions.If today, the judges decide to vote in favor of side opposition, then Ia
16、sk: “ What kind of example does that give future generations?” By sayingthat the human species does not have a bright future to look forward to,it s like telling future generations that they are essentially screwedand would make bringing a child into this world somewhat of a heinous act.I would like to finish speech today with a quote that I think nicely sumsup today s debate:“ We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, verybig things.” Stephen Hawking.
