It’s also as old as the dawn of technological civilization: there is always an imminent, existential crisis, and the only solution proposed by the least imaginative and most cynical of us is to give up on progress and start rolling back our modern lifestyle and all of its gifts, such as health, longevity, and less scarcity on nearly all fronts.

And yet, every single time, now for hundreds of years, the crisis is solved not through a culture change but through a mixture of regulation and technological progress.

Civilization is equally about regulating behavior that hurts others. Traffic lights, food labeling, laws against murder and theft, building codes, and so on all constrain us. You can punch the air as much as you want. My idea of civilization constrains you from punching someone in the face and you probably value the constraint on others to punch you in the face or steal your stuff.

Pollution hurts other people. Do you want no constraints on dioxin, PCBs, and mercury emissions?