Sachs, Ch. 1 & 2

I don't know about you guys, but I found these first couple of chapters hard to read. I love the concepts about ending global poverty and sharing the wealth, I just couldn't get into his style of writing. Maybe it was the lack of sleep...
That being said, I still found some things that stood out to me. It was interesting how optimistic Sachs is about stopping the overpopulation of the world. At 6.6 billion in 2007, his suggestion to stabilize the world's population at 8 billion by 2050 seemed like a stretch. The concept of governments mandating the number of children parents are allowed to have seems like a civil rights law suit ready to happen. I mean, I know we have to regulate the world's population somehow, but where do we draw the line on what can be regulated and what can not?
Because I have a love for literature, quotes stick out to me. I really liked it when Sachs included an excerpt from John Kennedy's Peace Address of 1963. "So let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to means by which those differences can be resolved," Kennedy had said. "And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal," he concluded his speech. I felt this was a very poignant call to world peace. I think this speech also touches on why we need to help out our fellow brothers and sisters who are in poverty. We may not know them, we might never meet them, but we should feel the need to help them out just because it's the right thing to do. We strive to elevate their living conditions not because we might get something in return. We may may never get a reward for what we do. No, instead we help them out because they, like us, are human, and need help from time to time.