Round 1. TLomon v jitombe: Global Warming

The topic for this debate is "Global Warming is a significant threat to human kind".

TLomon will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
jitombe will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.


There are no limits on the length of posts, but you may only use 1 post per turn.

Editing is strictly forbidden. This means any editing, for any reason. Any edited posts will be completely deleted. This prevents cheating. A debate moderator must be contacted to request any necessary edits. Check your spelling and use the preview post function- editing will be minimal.


Opening and closing statements must not contain any images and must have no more than 3 references. Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only two images and no more than 5 references can be included for each post. No post shall contain more than 10 sentences quoted from a reference. Links to multiple pages within a single domain count as 1 reference. There is a maximum of 3 individual links per reference, then further links from that domain count as a new reference. Excess quotes and excess links will be removed.

The Socratic Debate Rule is in effect. Each debater may ask up to 5 questions in each post, except for in closing statements- no questions are permitted in closing statements. These questions should be clearly labeled as "Question 1, Question 2, etc.
When asked a question, a debater must give a straight forward answer in his next post. Explanations and qualifications to an answer are acceptable, but must be preceeded by a direct answer.

Responses should be made within 24 hours, if people are late with their replies, they run the risk of forfeiting their reply and possibly the debate. Limited grace periods may be allowed if I am notified in advance.


Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.

My name is Turlo Lomon, and I will be arguing the pro side of "Global Warming is a significant threat to human kind". First, my apologies for the delay on starting off. I will be keeping to the timeline extensively during the remainder of the debate.

Global warming, also referred to as climate change, is responsible for several significant factors of the existance of human kind. The increase of "natural disasters" affecting food production, water supplies, economic well being, and the spread of disease are just a few of the factors that will harm us, and I will gladly show each of the effects these will have.

Although food production may increase in places like Siberia, the gain from new areas for farming would be far outweighed by the areas lost due to flooding or drought. Water supplies will be contaminated by rising sea levels or simply dry up entirely. With the collapse of agriculture, economies will go haywire. Food shortages will result in riots, deaths, famine. Millions, if not billions, will die in short order.

Rare tropical diseases, once thought to be restricted to jungle environments, will become commonplace. Epidemics will spread at incredible rates. More death. We simply don't have cures for these. The black plague, which killed 75 million people, will seem the common cold compared to other diseases that will become commonplace.

The inactions of governments and corporations in preparing for the future calamities for the sake of profit has led the populace to be placant, accepting what we are given as the best we can do. Medicines and vaccines are not being produced in necessary quantities as recent years have proven. Farmers are compensated to not grow food, yet when food shortages arrive, it will be too late. People will die to disease and famine before they will be willing to help, and by then it will be too late.

Like many species that thrived on our planet in the past, human kind has reached the end of its dominance, as Mother Nature is a force already proven to be unstoppable. We are in danger. It is time we all realized that.

jitombe is late and will forfeit his first post. TLomon may continue his argument.

During the Permian-Triassic period, approximately 251 million years ago, there was a mass extinction event resulting in the death of 96% of marine life, and 70% of terrestrial life. This particular mass extinction took significantly longer for Earth to recover from then others. How is this relevant to what we are talking about now? It is believed that a significant contribution to this event was global warming, possibly due to mass volcanism. BBC produced the show The Day the Earth Nearly Died explaining the effects.

Frozen methane pockets, specifically methane hydrate, would be released into the air with an increase of just 5 degrees Celsius. Methane is one of the most potent green house gases, and this would have triggered a chain reaction triggering even higher global temperatures, causing other events to happen. At the end of the cycle, over 95% of the species on Earth died out. This would amount to billions of deaths if you equate the numbers to human kind.

How exactly would this affect us, the "superior" species on the planet? First, take into account the increased sea levels caused by melting polar ice. We will experience stronger tropical storms affecting farther inland, an acidic ocean affecting our major oxygen producing plants, not to mention the fish. This has all been detailed for those wishing to read the full report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change entitled The Future Oceans - Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour.

Let's review each of these in turns.

The shear devastation that a tropical storm can dish out was seen in New Orleans and India. Now, compound that globally, with a steady increase of the percentage of populations living within the danger zone of coastlines. It is estimated that by the year 2030, 50% of the world's population could potentially be hit by this. What is scary is how many people are currently living below what the new sea level would rise to.

It isn't just the increased sea levels, but rather the storm surges that would come with them. The amount of land affected by this is significantly more then most people realize. The report I linked above has some photos showing the areas affected. People live in these areas... in very crowded situations. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York... gone.

To make matters worse, rivers and streams would become salinized, contaminating water supplies. The ground would absorb sea water, killing off plant life farther in coast then where the water levels hit, as it would take thousands of years for the coast lines to reach a harmonic level with the new sea level. Remember, this is dirt we are talking about, not the sandy beaches we normally see boardering us from the toxic plant poison known as salt water.

Scared yet? Wait, there is more. The coastline areas will be useless for growing food, due to the salinization of the ground soil. What about further inland? Well, due to global warming, droughts inland will be commonplace. No water means no plants which means no food. Cattle farms will be ruined. Agriculture will be nullified. In addition, the fish in the seas would be dying due to the acidic nature caused by the absorbtion of carbon dioxide in the sea water (creating carbonic acid).

Food shortages will be commonplace. Flooding will be commonplace. So what is next? Disease. Taking Katrina as an example, look at the spread of disease in such a short time period. Sanitation will be a problem, due to the lack of shelters needed to house millions (if not billions) of people in areas that are not prepared. That many people in close proximity will cause any virus or bacteria to spread like wildfire, infecting a great deal of people before a problem is even identified. And where there is people, there are rats... As cases of Bubonic Plague resurface in the US as well as abroad, will we return to the Dark Ages? Think I'm joking? Then take a look here, here, or here. These are just a few recent examples.

People will be refugees from their own homes, yet the foodstuffs needed to survive will not be available. How do you distribute medicine to billions when they can't produce enough for local populations? How exactly do you relocate billions of people? You can't. They will die off (relatively) quickly, while the rest of us will die off a bit slower as food runs out.

At this time, I have not seen what my opponent's stance is, so I withhold any questions.

Jitombe is disqualified. For lack of alternates, and in the interest of making sure the tournament proceeds, TLomon will advance to round 2.