Renewable Energy Debate

Both sides in the renewable energy debate seemed like they were very well prepared, and they seemed to anticipate some of the other side's potential arguments and made steps to refute them. However, I thought that the pro renewable energy side made more convincing use of evidence, and overall did a better job in the debate. Both sides made good economic arguments, but the pro side also took into account social costs, which the con side never actually addressed. The con side made an argument that renewable energy is not as environmentally friendly as many people would have us believe. This was an effective argument, but it felt as if they were trying to overstate the harm caused by renewable energy sources. It seemed like the pro side missed a potentially very strong argument in not tearing into the harmfulness of expendable energy, which was only briefly discussed. One thing that I found interesting was that the con side made a point of admitting that the resources they were defending would eventually run out. I felt that this hurt them in the end because the closing statement for the pro side was very convincing. She pointed out the infancy of the renewable energy movement and paralleled it with the original development of fossil fuels. She argued that renewable energy was the future, which the other team had already acknowledged was true. This was one of the most convincing arguments in the debate.