Yeah same in Philadelphia, the rivers (Delaware and Schuylkill) used to be so polluted they didn't support life, but now there are people catching 45-inch muskies in urban rivers (https://patch.com/pennsylvania/norristown/30-pound-muskie-ca...). The revival of the river has been well documented (e.g. https://whyy.org/articles/the-death-of-the-delaware-river/).

There was indeed a big mentality change. Significantly less casual pollution (Diemerzeedijk in Amsterdam North, the open chemical dump for Europe, comes to mind), and .. lots of the polluting industry outsourced to Asia, China mostly.

My personal impression is that there are way less insects than there used to be.

Edit: found an old HN comment about the relationship to Agent Orange production and Diemerzeedijk: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431741

I was actually searching an article about exploding chemical barrels now and then landing on fishing boats sailing in the area.

Re: Salmon

Unfortunately gains in some parts of the world are not seen everywhere.

Sockeye Salmon populations in British Columbia (basically the world HQ for "wild" salmon) are plummeting: https://twitter.com/raffertybaker/status/1293318721574801408...

Same here. Everything is much cleaner than 40 years back. Less garbage everywhere, cleaner water you can actually eat the fish out of or swim in.

There has been lots of progress.

However, isn't a lot of the improvement you see in clean air and water in Europe thanks to the fact that a lot of the manufacturing that used to happen in Europe has now relocated to China after its efforts to open up its economy that started in the 80s.

The net result may be a win for the environment in developed Western nations, but considering how polluted China now is, I wonder if it's still a net negative for the world as a whole.

No, the improvements started in the 70's and 80's already due to more strict regulations for companies. Although maybe this helped the industry in Asia get a competitive advantage. Also a lot of the water pollution was due to washing powder that used to contain phosphates. Those were forbidden in the 80's.