The November topic for public forum debate:

Resolved- When in conflict, the United Nations should prioritize global poverty over environmental protection.

While all topics are undoubtedly controversial and leave room for more than enough clash for a judge to evaluate after the round, this topic has definitely got judges holding their head by the time the round is over. The topic stages a question about humanity. Do we rescue simply the people living in poverty or all of civilization being diminished by threatening environmental situations such as global warming?

In most cases, a judge will lean towards solving for global poverty due to the emotional aspects of the case, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t care about our environment. Poverty has so many impacts on society that go unnoticed, but the question that remains at the end of the round is whether the UN should help everyone and not just the poor.

This leads to the environmental protection part of the debate. The con team arguing the other side of the resolution will present to the judge a laundry list of impacts that come from allowing greenhouse gas emissions to remain in the atmosphere. Aside from the impacts, the con team will prove through legitimate statistics and scenarios of how global warming causes poverty, and to conclude their argument they will state how the UN is superior to individual countries attempting to solve a global environmental problem.

As one can see, both pro and con have a fair chance at winning, but the ultimate decision lies in the hands of the judge. This will be an  interesting month in the world of public forum debating, but remember your morals should stay true to you regardless of any debate.