Klaus Toepfer, the head of the U.N. Environment Program, argues that China's plans to quadruple their GDP threatens the consumption habits of the developed nations, or "so-called developed countries", as these Guardian reporters call them. But as the Washington Times argues,

the sort of developmental stasis envisioned by Mr. Toepfer is the last thing that the environment can truly sustain...The debate comes down to a fundamental disagreement in perspective: Mr. Toepfer and those with like minds see the size of the world's pie of resources as static, reduced each time any entity (individual or state) takes a slice. Conservationists are in many ways far more progressive. They expect that tomorrow's innovation will make taller pie (and so allow for greater environmental protection) from today's trash as it has innumerable times in the past.

They mention Michael Shermer's The Ignoble Savage: Science reveals humanity's heart of darkness, who explains that "Ignoble savages were nasty to one another as well as to their environments."