Don't Point Fingers!

This post is inspired by something I read on Sheki's blog. (link) It isn't closely related, I just thought I'd share the origins of this post. (To dispel the myth that I was abducted and brainwashed by aliens) I'd also like to thank Sheki, for jump-starting my writing instincts. (You now know who's responsible for the horror below :D)
Have you ever met an NRI who comes back to India and then complains about everything and anything? Most of their criticism is valid but some of it gets under my skin. Statements like "Indian politicians are corrupt", "Indians drive rashly" etc. are all perfectly valid and make sense. What does not make sense, however, are statements related to ecological conservation and awareness. Statements like "Indians don't know how to recycle" or "Indians aren't educated enough to care about the environment". What? Excuse me, but I don't think someone staying in a country (US) that consumes and pollutes the most (by far - almost SIX times, if you check on a per-capita basis) has any right to teach us how to recycle. My issue is not with one country, but with the developed world in general. On my previous visit to Germany, I noticed something peculiar. To recycle a plastic bottle, they had these fancy machines at the supermarket. The idea was to automatically segregate the waste. Good idea, but I wonder if it makes any difference. The reason I say this is because of the way the machine works. You feed in a bottle. The entire thing lights up, much like a Christmas tree, multiple laser beams scan the bottle (looking for what, I can't imagine), two or three flaps open, close and open again, and then finally a compartment opens up, and the bottle is sucked in. Yay! They have just sorted a single plastic bottle, not realising the amount of time and electricity wasted in the process.
In India, we have a very unfortunate, yet efficient waste management system - the local rag-picker. In India, we've been recycling out of economic necessity for decades. All the while, the developed world has wasted resources in ever-increasing quantities. Using huge, gas guzzling SUVs for a drive round the corner, using paper to clean everything - and I mean everything, keeping the lights and ACs on - even when there is no one at the office - the list is endless.
When the Nano was launched, there was long discussion (on a website forum) about the harmful ecological effects of adding cheap cars to the roads. One of the readers had slammed Tata motors, saying that the ecological cost of have having so many cars was simply too much. Another reader, a professor, replied to the effect that the the first world had far too many inefficient vehicles to be preaching, and after all "The industrialised world has already ruined the environment through development, why can't India be allowed to do the same?".
While I do not advocate that kind of wasteful development, my point is simple. The G7/G8 (whatever they choose to call themselves) and their citizens have no right to criticise India for polluting as a side effect of development. India's duty is to her 800 million poor people, not to cutting down CO2 emissions and being efficient when no one else really cares.