[JoeAltmaier]

This black-and-white thinking ignores the spectrum of what constitutes non-toxic. There are those that accept nothing short of perfect purity in air, water and food, a condition which has never existed in a million years of human history. Others are less concerned about humans and more about ecology. Still others value the morals of human-animal relations above issues of nature.

So no, we are not all 'ecologists', not in the same sense anyway. And not to the same degree.

[pasabagi]

There's as wide a gulf between our enviroment[1] and 'complete purity' as there is between slavery and 'complete freedom'.

[1](complete ecosystem collapse, widespread poisoning of populations worldwide, etc)

[Apocryphon]

One assumes that air and water purity was fairly better pre-Industrial Revolution.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm not so sure. No water systems at all. Lack of covered drains. Firewood for heat in any population center. Tuberculosis and cholera. Unrefrigerated meat.

[Apocryphon]

Sure, but on the other hand no large-scale industrial by-products, no islands of plastic in the sea, the mountains of trash were less durable and closer to being biodegradable.