When he saw the man fall onto the subway tracks, Wesley Autry didnt hesitate. With the lights of the oncoming train visible, Autry, a construction worker, jumped down to the tracks and pushed the man down into a drainage trench between the rails, covering him with his own body. The train passed over them, leaving a trail of grease on Autrys cap. Autry, later invited to the State of the Union Address and praised by the president for his bravery, downplayed his actions:
I dont feel like I did something spectacular. I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right.
What if I told you that you, too, can save a life, even many lives? Do you have a bottle of water or a can of soda on the table beside you as you read this book? If you are paying for something to drink when safe drinking water comes out of the tap, you have money to spend on things you dont really need.
Around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than you paid for that drink. Because they cant afford even the most basic health care for their families, their children may die from simple, easily treatable diseases like diarrhea. You can help them, and you dont have to risk getting hit by an oncoming train to do it.
We live in a unique moment. The proportion of people unable to meet their basic physical needs is smaller today than it has been at any time in recent history, and perhaps at any time since humans first came into existence. At the same time, the proportion of people with far more than they need is also unprecedented. Most important, rich and poor are now linked in ways they never were before. Moving images, in real time, of people on the edge of survival are beamed into our living rooms. Not only do we know a lot about the desperately poor, but also we have much more to offer them in terms of better health care, improved seeds and agricultural techniques, and new technologies for generating electricity. More amazing, through instant communications and open access to a wealth of information that surpasses the greatest libraries of the pre-Internet age, we can enable them to join the worldwide communityif only we can help them to get far enough out of poverty to seize the opportunity.
The economist Jeffrey Sachs has argued convincingly that extreme poverty can be virtually eliminated by the middle of this century. We are already making progress. In 1960, according to UNICEF, the United Nations Childrens Fund, 20 million children died before their fifth birthday because of poverty. In 2007, UNICEF announced that, for the first time since record-keeping began, the number of deaths of young children has fallen below 10 million a year. Public health campaigns against smallpox, measles, and malaria have contributed to the drop in child mortality, as has economic progress in several countries. The drop is even more impressive because the worlds population has more than doubled since 1960. Yet we cant become complacent: 9.7 million children under five still die; this is an immense tragedy, not to mention a moral stain on a world as rich as this one. And the sharp rise in food prices
that occurred in 2008 could still reverse the downward trend in poverty-related deaths.
We can liken our situation to an attempt to reach the summit of an immense mountain. For all the eons of human existence, we have been climbing up through dense cloud. We havent known how far we have to go, nor whether it is even possible to get to the top. Now at last we have emerged from
the mist and can see a route up the remaining steep slopes and onto the summit ridge. The peak still lies some distance ahead. There are sections of the route that will challenge our abilities to the utmost, but we can see that the ascent is feasible. We can, each of us, do our part in this epoch-making
climb. In recent years theres been a good deal of coverage of some among the very rich who have taken on this challenge in a bold and public way. Warren Buffett has pledged to give $31 billion, and Bill and Melinda Gates have given $29 billion and are planning to give more. Immense as these sums are they are only a small fraction of what people in rich nations could easily give, without a significant reduction in their standard of living.
We wont reach our goal unless many more contribute to the effort. Thats why this is the right time to ask yourself: What ought I be doing to help?
I should say up front that I believe you should be giving more than 5 percent, and that I hope that youll ultimately move in that direction. But thats not easy to hear and not easy to do. I recognize that most people arent likely to be moved merely by philosophical argument to make drastic changes in the way they live, and, further, that one cannot make such drastic changes overnight.
Im hoping that you will look at the larger picture and think about what it takes to live ethically in a world in which 18 million people are dying unnec essarily each year. Thats a higher annual death rate than in World War II. In the past twenty years alone, it adds up to more deaths than were caused by all the civil and international wars and government repression of the entire twentieth century, the century of Hitler and Stalin. How much would we give to prevent those horrors? Yet how little are we doing to prevent todays even larger toll, and all the misery that it involves? I believe that if we look honestly and carefully at our situation, assessing both the facts and the ethical arguments, you will agree that we must act.
From Peter Singers Book The life you can save.
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