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Yeah I remember the smog layer in the 80's, actually kind of nostalgic when the wildfires keep us inside for weeks in the summer (not)

Not needing car repairs every 2000 miles.

All right, but apart from TVs, long distance phone calls, bicycle shifting and clipless pedals, tires, outdoor clothing, dishwashers, digital cameras, computers, home construction, dentistry, and electric vehicles, what have the Romans ever done for us?

The air in Denver is vastly better than 40 years ago, well maybe not today due to wildfire smoke, but overall it’s better. We still get high ozone days (worse due to altitude), but now the infamous brown cloud is nothing like the 70s and 80s when you couldn’t see downtown from the foothills.

Unfortunately air quality improvement and food improvement (water too) were driven by policy choices (clean water act/air act) that were made when both parties were actually interested in governing. It gets a lot more difficult to sustain that with the GOP being a nihilistic band of grifters.

Exactly. We should be celebrating the success of international CFC bans every 5 years, with updates on the ozone layer's replenishment, and estimates of lives saved.

Almost everything is better now than it was 40 years ago. If anything, you always want to live in the present because of medical advances alone.

Good morning from western Oregon.

How very cool! The return of the bald eagle is an amazing success story for conservation. We had a nesting pair up in a tree at the local PDQ chicken place when I lived in FL. People would stop and take photos of the chicks in the nest and it seemed so very magical.

/Superfund cleanup sites. Today, 50 years later, you can't eat fruits or vegetables grown in that soil. Now the "Aroma" is just the pulp mills on Commencement Bay, which smell vaguely unpleasant but only in that immediate area and have never caused nosebleeds (common with the smelter fumes).

Women's rights. Minority rights. Car safety. Drug safety. Availability of treatments generally. Health insurance. I can go on but the lie that things were "better back then" is still a lie.

I was going to say, I never once had to worry about air quality growing up in Pennwylvania, now it's a constant concern.