Provoking Thoughts

I have chosen my two quotes based on what I think makes people think about the environment and current issues the most.

This quote in Hope's Edge by Frances Moore Lappe' and Anna Lappe':

"Choosing hope means conscious risk; it means looking at the ideas that govern us. while it is easy to condemn terrorists who justify the destruction of themselves and others, a much greater challenge is to ask: Do we, too, hold ideas that end up placing others values before life? What belief systems allow people to tolerate day in and day out, for example, the devastation of nature and other species as well as the starvation and early deaths of millions of innocent people, and allow them even to benefit- in cheap food, fuel, and finery- from the poverty that so stunts and shortens those other's lives?"

This forces us to question and be uncomfortable in more ways than one. This is not simply implicating environmental problems, but it is wrapped into the social, economical, political, and ethical questions surrounding it all.

This quote is by Garrett Hardin in Lifeboat Ethics:

"If we divide the world crudely into rich nations ad poor nations, two thirds of them are desperately poor, and only one third comparatively rich, with the United States the wealthiest of all. Metaphorically each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth. What should the lifeboat passengers do?"

This quote also forces people to think and become uncomfortable. I believe that only when we are uncomfortable with what has already been said or though do we come up with new ideas and solutions. This really puts things into a comical but serious perspective. How will we handle these issues? Should we deal with these issues? I think this represents most the thoughts and feeling of Americans today regarding environmental and social problems. When do ethics become involved?