Thank you El Cid!
My response of "Maybe 'on average' ..." was clearly to the statement, "We were all born in a less polluted world then the current state."
When I read "in a less polluted world" I read it it two ways: 1) the 'world' immediately around the birth [definitely people born near Love Canal 60 and 70 years ago were born in a more polluted 'world' than people born there today] and 2) the Earth's surface ecosystem (oil pollution in coastal Nigeria is much worse now than it was back in the day, etc., etc., etc. [India, Russia, SE Asia, Ecuador...] over balancing the places where it is less polluted).
If Rodius objected to my "maybe", I'll accept the objection, as there is no maybe about the ecosystem's average, but the stated objection seems to have been to everything I wrote which doesn't make any sense since two of my three (serious) examples were of "more polluted," and my one "less polluted" item was conditional.
"On average" doesn't tell the story well enough.
I don't think we are better off on average on a global level than 50 years ago and I am not sure one would even measure that.
Some terrible things are better and other areas are mush worse. I have no idea how to quantify that.
What matters more isn't the average, it is the totals.
For example... it doesn't matter if we made petrol cars 50% more efficient if the growth rate is 500%.. the problem is still worse. (Neither of those numbers are actual, I made them up as an example of how I view the situation overall)
It doesn't matter if the EU and US are cleaning up their acts if they are sending the production of their goods overseas to places like Africa, India, China etc.
The EU might have more trees, but are they native, untouched, and wild or is it forestry?
Birds and insects are still dying in large numbers everywhere, surely that is a sign that something terrible is happening to the ecosystems?
Walrus plonks a link showing how oil spills are better.. which is good to know, but one tiny clean up doesn't translate to a global clean up.
In the end, if what we are doing is growing our production we are screwed.
We already use 1.7 Earths worth of resources... how do we double that in 25 years? And even if it isn't double and we maintain the current resource use, we are still screwed.
My main point is we are not doing well at all on almost every front, it is worse than 50 years ago, and it increasing in how bad it is despite the clean ups we are doing.
The only answer is to reduce the size of the economy, reduce production as fast as possible, and for wealthy countries to reduce living standards a lot so those without can improve their lot.
It is possible to reduce production and improve the average living standards of humans while improving out waste management and return as much land to the wild as possible. But I don't see people in the EU, US, Australia and other wealthy countries reducing their living standards for the sake of the planet.
Waste will increase, we will suck up the resources, and one day we will find ourselves in a deep hole we cant get out of that cant be ignored or talked away by lawyer type thinkers.
It might not happen in 25 years but I wouldn't bet against it.
Much like I wouldn't bet against the Great Barrier Reef being mostly dead within 10 years, or the Arctic ice disappearing in summer within 30 years, or the Amazon transitioning to savannah within 50 years.
All of those will happen because we arent going to adapt until it is too late, and part of the reason we collapse as a global civilization includes increased waste that we try to trick ourselves into thinking it is getting better.
Go ask the insect population what they think.
