Ecologia e conflitos entre classes sociais

«Conversely, failures to solve perceived problems [ambientais] because of conflicts of interest between the elite and the masses are much less likely in societies where the elite cannot insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions. [...] the high environmental awareness of the Dutch (including their politicians) goes back to the fact that much of the population – both the politicians and the masses – lives on land lying below sea level, where only dykes stand between them and drowning, so that foolish land planning by politicians would be at their own personal peril.[...]»

«That acknowledged interdependence of all segments of Dutch society contrasts with current trends in the United States, where wealthy people increasingly seek to insulate themselves from the rest of society, aspire to create their own separate virtual polders, use their own money to buy services for themselves privately, and vote against taxes that would extend those amenities as public service to everyone else. Those private amenities include living inside gated walled communities, relying on private security guards rather than on the police, sending one's children to well funded private schools with small classes rather than to the underfunded crowded public schools , purchasing private health insurance or medical care, drinking bottled water instead of municipal water, [...] . Underlying such privatization is a misguided belief that the elite can remain unaffected by the problems of society around them: the attitude of those Greenland Norse chiefs who found that they had merely bought themselves the privilege of being the last to starve.»

«Actually, the rich are not immune to environmental problems. CEO's of big First World companies eat food, drink water, breathe air, and have (or try to conceive) children, like the rest of us. While they can usually avoid problems of water quality by drinking bottled water, they find it much more difficult to avoid being exposed to the same problems of food and air quality as the rest of us. Living disproportionately high on the food chain, at levels at which toxic substances become concentrated, they are at more rather than less risk of reproductive impairment due to ingestion of or exposure to toxic materials, possibly contributing to their higher infertility rates [...]»

in "Collapse" de Jared Diamond