America, Europe and the Western lifestyle in general are deeply ecologically unsustainable. No one can question that those living in deep poverty, such as China's population historically, want and deserve to better their lives. But clearly by aspiring to the wasteful decadent consumption patterns of the West, the Earth will be exhausted, and ultimately poverty and despair will be increased. The globally sustainable lifestyle to which we all can aspire can be found somewhere between that of an American and Chinese citizen - I have heard it stated that we could all live at the economic standards of the average European. The point is that there are likely to always be some relatively more rich and some morepoor, but equity and the rich living more simply so the poor can simply live is not only a matter of social justice but also of global ecological sustainability. Their Earth will not survive in the face of either widepread poverty or overconsumption.

China's voracious growth threatens environment: Greenpeace

China's economic growth is happening at a price - it is fast turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced... nearly five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China - more than to any other destination... had already overtaken the US as the world's leading consumer of four out of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain, meat, oil, coal and steel... China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines.