In retrospect, those environmental issues you mentioned, how big a threat do they appear to be now, when compared to the ‘solution’?
Our Founding Fathers knew the answer to that question more than 200 years ago.
Not nearly so bad as the so-called solution but we did have some major water polluters. I have stood and watched as thousands of dead fish floated by in the Great Pee Dee river. Some business owners seemed to have no conscience whatsoever. I remember as a small child being amazed by what was being done to some of our streams in South Carolina, sometimes the water would be dyed some strange color and “Sugar Creek” in North Carolina smelled like an open sewer.