As Asian economies close the gap on western living standards, an awkward question lurks beneath their seemingly spectacular progress. Can Asians enjoy western standards of living without destroying the planet?

Chandran Nair, author of Consumptionomics, a book that questions the sustainability of the imported western growth model, argues that they cannot. His views are controversial. To suggest that Asians must refrain from a western lifestyle would be regarded by many as an affront to perfectly legitimate and long-delayed aspirations.

But Mr Nair, a Malaysian, says this is denial. How can everyone in China or India eat sushi like the Japanese or drive cars like Americans, he asks, without draining the seas of fish and the deserts of oil? Western capitalism, he says, built its high living standards on abundant resources, partly supplied by colonialism. The US had few people and seemingly limitless resources, the opposite of what is now true in Asia.