This is a demonstrably false statement.
Radical changes did take place and the environment is much cleaner today than it was in the 1970s.
In some areas, the emissions out of a modern cars tailpipe than the air going in the intake.
In the 1970s, smog was so bad in LA you could not see the mountains and your eyes burned if you were not adapted.
These days the air is clean and visibility is unlimited.
Same with Europe and Japan.
China, on the other hand, is a disaster.
Who is responsible for the massive clean up?
The same industrial and business groups the Pope is demonizing and trying to undermine.
Not only is the Pope wrong in his analysis, his hatred of capitalism and business is clouding his judgment on how to properly prevent new pollution and how to clean up existing solution in the environment.
Only a prosperous and technologically advanced society has both the tools and the surplus wealth to provide for an environmentally clean society.
This is not an encyclical, it’s an elderly leftist’s vanity manifesto.
In Pittsburgh in the 1940’s we had many days where it was dark at noontime, due to all of the coal smoke.
In the 1960’s we were dumping raw sewage from five cities directly into Lake Erie.
THAT is what I regard as sinfully bad stewardship. We do not do things like that anymore.