Here is a link to the web site for the series:
http://www.design-e2.com/

The most recent episode was on China. One of the comments was that China expects to build 400,000,000 units of housing in the next decade as people move from the country-side to the cities. The impact on raw material use (concrete in particular), energy, roads and transport is unprecedented.

It would see that if a good percentage of this comes to pass the efforts of the US and the EU to conserve will have slight global impact no matter how aggressive they may be.

The irreducible issue is overpopulation and there is no current solution to this. Apologists like to point out that the birth rate is falling (rapidly in some places), but they miss the point that the population as a whole is still growing.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape