Karl Lagerfeld and the House of Chanel.
The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century probably at around 10 billion. Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing. But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don't consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock's words, "hiding from the truth". It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich. So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against superyachts and private jets? Where's Class War when you need it? It's time we had the guts to name the problem. It's not sex; it's money. It's not the poor; it's the rich.
"The second largest export from Iraq is scrap metal,"Prince Hassan says, "Our children are dying as we speak; from eating out of cooking pots that are uranium depleted; from climbing on climbing frames that are uranium depleted. You can say you need to take the necessary steps, but tell that to the sticky-fingered." And the sticky fingered have deemed it "economically sensible" for a university to invest in the arms trade. Last year the guardian reported arms maker BAE System delivered sharply higher profits helped, by what it called, the "high tempo of British and American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." "We have a great business plan for the next five years", the chief executive said. That is, assuming people carry on wanting to kill each other.