First Speech

8/8/2019 First Speech

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This House would live for the Moment – North Town opposes

Ladies and Gentlemen; Chair; Adjudicator and my most honorable opposition.

North Town strongly opposes living for the moment. We agree largely withWiseman’s definition, but will make it clear that living for the moment means

thinking only about now, and by default ignoring the future and the

consequences of your actions. It is enjoying yourself now, even at the expense

of others. It is ignoring reason and giving in to raw animalistic emotions.

I will speak about the two international disasters caused by living for the

moment. Our second speaker will explain how living for the moment can ruin

the individual . Our summator will rebut the propositions opinions, give

answers to questions from the crowd and sum up North Town’s arguments. I

will now begin my argument.

Ladies and gentlemen, living for the moment is the reason for the global

financial crisis and credit crunch. For years this idea of ‘living for the moment’

has been very fashionable, very exciting. To get products which we could not

afford now, we racked up huge bills on our credit cards. To get property which

we could not afford now, we took out mortgages which we would not be able

to repay. Banks wanted to ‘get rich quick’, so they leant money to almost

anyone. For a while everything was well, people who wanted that new TV, got

it. Credit companies boomed. People who wanted their own house, got it. The

property market boomed. Banks sold their loans on to other banks and funds,

so they boomed as well. Everyone was living for the moment, and it all seemed

too good to be true.

In the end, it was because no one thinking in the long-term, thinking about the

future. In the last two years, the consequences of our actions finally caught upwith us. We could no longer repay the bill on our credit cards, or our mortgages

or our loans. Credit and insurance companies collapsed, the property market

crashed, banks went bust, and the stock market crashed as well. Ladies and

gentlemen, how can there still be a case for a philosophy which has caused

such devastation?

A similar sequence of events caused the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and

subsequently The Great Depression. Ladies and gentlemen, we can no longer have this outlook on life.



We did not learn our lesson the first time round. We must learn it now. If we do

not plan for the future, we will suffer in the future.(3 mins)

Global warming is also caused by living for the moment. For years we have

selfishly polluted the skies, oceans and land, again not thinking about the

consequences of our actions. Again these actions are catching up with us in the

form of a disaster. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently

published a report on global warming. Its conclusions have been endorsed by

all the major industrialized nations.

It concluded that unless we change the way we live, there will be disaster for

more than one thousand years. An increase in global temperatures will cause

glacial retreat and Arctic shrinkage. A worldwide sea level rise will result in

flooding and drought. There will be increased frequency and intensity of

extreme weather events such as the hurricane which destroyed New Orleans

and the tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka. There will be increases in the spread

of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever throughout the world. And most

shockingly of all a third of all animal and plant species will become extinct in

the next 30 years.

In terms of financial numbers, we are going to cause up to 350 trillion dollars

worth of damage. This is 6 times the entire worlds GDP($65 trillion). This is

500 times the US governments bail-out package(0.7trillion). We are talking

about damage on the scale never known before to mankind.

Now, the list of destruction is almost endless, but I will stop here, because I

believe you all get the point.

Not only is living for the moment going to devastate our lives, it will also ruinthe world for future generations. We have a moral responsibility to live in a

sustainable manner. As it says on the United Nations website, “Climate change

is upon us. But it is still in our power-as individuals, as cities and governments-

to influence just how serious the problem will become” for our children.



I agree with, David Miliband, who said “that the window of opportunity to

avoid dangerous climate change is closing quickly"

I agree with Friends of the Earth, who said the world now faced a "crisis,"

I agree with Greenpeace, who called this “a screaming siren of a warning.”

I agree that we must stop living for the moment. Because it has got us into this

mess, and it is stopping, it changing, it is saying “we will not live for the

moment” that is going to get us out of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the question now is, do you agree? Do you want to be

part of the problem, or the solution? Ladies and gentlemen, this house would

not live for the moment.

(6.5mins)

First Speech

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