The industrial revolution was pretty repulsive if you actually take a close look at worker safety, pay levels, environmental practices, resource utilization. Frankly, we learned the hard way. And it would be, frankly, colossally stupid for China and India to build their respective industrial bases on a dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, just from the persepctive of their own future ability to make money.

Also, I'm all for curbing population growt, if only the damn church would get their noses out of it and stop telling people birth control is evil we might actually get somewhere in this area.

Suburban sprawl (subsidised by the taxes paid by city-dwellers), subsidies to dinosaur industries like coal and steel in the US, disgustingly unnecessary use of cars and poor transport infrastructure within cities, all these things should be tackled individually just to improve people's quality of life, with the environmental benefit being a side bonus, really.