Hervé Kempf denies he is trying to turn the global ecological discussion from green to red.

"I'm not a Marxist," he says, "and I never have been one, because that ideology does not respect human rights. But Marxists do not have a monopoly on social discussion, and you can't just close your eyes to phenomena that are documented, calculated, right before your eyes. I see that there are two crises, one ecological, the other social. And I see that they are acting in synergy. And I see that a minority is benefiting from them. And I draw conclusions."

"We must," he writes, "get out of this hiatus. We need to understand that the ecological crisis and the social crisis are two facets of the same disaster. And that this disaster is being created by a system of power that no longer has any end except the maintenance of the ruling class's privileges."

If he does not address in his book the impact on the planet's decline of run-away demographics on "biological services," Hervé Kempf acknowledges at once that this factor has certainly had an impact that is globally larger than all the hyperconsumption of the oligarchy, made up of a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires who control the main part of the revenues and financial resources. But, he explains, it's this oligarchy that is creating a model that is unsustainable for the planet, one whose indirect impact on other social groups goes far beyond its direct consumption. "And," he says without smiling, "all humans do not have the same impact on the planet at their birth: a Westerner weighs much more on the fate of the planet than a baby in Niger or India."

It's to put an end to this race for ostentatious consumption that he recommends radical controls on wealth by means of a "maximum ceiling for salaries and the accumulation of the world's wealth," a sort of accompaniment to a minimum salary, but from the top down.