It was quite different some hundred of years ago, before our industrial revolution, nuclear power, chemicals, industrial farming practices and modern medicine, etc etc. It's not the industrial revolution that is at fault here though, just the way we used, and use, it.
And that goes probably for most all of us, one reason why you see those constant positive spins, stuck in into every new alarming study. I call it defending, and 'defenders' and mean that it's natural. Education is a way out of it, but so is empathy and some understanding, of yourself and of others.