[skybrian]

On the other hand, by most measures, pollution in the US hit a low in the 60's and has greatly improved since then. It's even improved quite a bit since 1990 [1]. Even CO2 emissions are on the decline since 2008. (Not nearly enough, but still.)

In the Eastern US the low point for forest cover was in 1872 [2]. In the western US a major problem is too much ground cover resulting in worse forest fires. (Which is not to say that forests are healthy - the pine beetle epidemic is devastating.)

I'm not going to say things are great, but whether they're better or worse depends on where you look and what you compare against.

[1] https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2017/#air_pollution

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_...